"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (8 Viewers)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

GTX said:
'General Armageddon' replaced as Ukraine war leader in sign of Russia's growing desperation
Click to expand...

From your linked article:

While the wording was deliberately both vague and optimistic, it has been seen by Russian watchers as an obvious demotion for Surovikin – and a sign of Vladimir Putin's increasing anxiety over the stalling invasion, which has been raging since February 2022.

Speaking to CNN about the reshuffle, Mark Galeotti, senior associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, said Gerasimov had been handed "the most poisoned of chalices. It's now on him, and I suspect Putin has unrealistic expectations again".

Aside from the obvious demotion of Surovkin, I believe this could also be an attempt to throw the Russian MoD under the bus for what appears to be a looming failure, in order to separate Putin from the great mistake he's made ... i.e., the blame is not in the decision, but how the MoD executed it. In short, it's insulation.

This has been a trend over the last three months at any rate, once the defeats on the eastern and southern fronts landed home. If their projected winter offensive goes bad, now it's Gerasimov himself on the hook, rather than Putin, is how I read it. It goes without saying that I could be reading it wrongly.

Gerasimov may want to avoid buildings with more than one floor for a while.
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
Time to dicht unfriendly friends. Next time could be you and they will lend no hand.
Click to expand...

The Swiss make these decisions with the luxury of knowing they're surrounded by friendly, non-aggressive countries. They know they won't be invaded. The only answer is to force them to supply themselves.

It's easy to take a hard stand when you know it's not your ass on the line.
 
I can't help but place much of the blame for the coming fall of Solodar upon the West's vacillations and timidity over sending Leopard 2 and other modern tanks to Ukraine in December 2022. If we send Ukraine these tanks now, we are demonstrably proving that the reasons given previously for withholding the tanks (mainly that the AFU does not have the ability/experience to operate nor the logistics to support modern MBTs) were bogus. What could have possibly changed in Ukraine from December when European leaders said tanks were impossible to January when the same leaders are saying tanks are essential?

This pussyfooting around on the part of the West is prolonging this war and costing Ukrainians lives. Let's give the AFU what they need.
 
Last edited:
Soledar will fall because the US in particular has been very wary of supplying Ukraine weapons such as tube and MLR delivered cluster munitions to level the playing field against Orc numbers.
High precision weapons don't do much against relentless human wave attacks, you need good old fashioned cluster munitions for that.
The US Army has millions of MLRS 155mm cluster rounds in depots that have been taken out of service. These would be ideal for turning human wave attacks into truly suicidal endeavours.
Türkiye has stepped up to fill that gap in Ukraines inventory BTW
 
WAFU said:
And as regards Solidar?

RuZZIan sources speak of 25,000 Orc casualties so far trying to take the place
Click to expand...
What's with the ZZ in your Russian? Is that a reference to the Schutzstaffel? First the Russians call the Ukrainians Nazis, and now we're supposed to call the Russians Nazis? I will do neither. To do so suggests that the Russians somehow cannot be monsters in their own right. Let's instead refer to the Russians as Stalinists, because his policies towards Ukraine including the Holodomor are just what Putin has in mind.
 
From ISW:

Key Takeaways

  • Russian forces have likely captured Soledar on January 11, but this small-scale victory is unlikely to presage an imminent encirclement of Bakhmut.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin likely seeks scapegoats for the Russian defense industry base's struggle to address equipment and technological challenges, and retains unrealistic expectations of Russian capacity to rapidly replace losses.
  • Ukrainian intelligence confirmed that senior Russian military leadership is preparing for significant military reforms in the coming year, though ISW continues to assess Russia will struggle to quickly—if at all—implement planned reforms.
  • Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
  • Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and west of Donetsk City.
  • Russian forces continued defensive operations on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River.
  • Russian officials and occupation authorities may be preparing for the mass deportation of Ukrainian citizens from occupied territories to the Russian Federation.
  • Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense Andrei Kartapolov announced that Russian military recruitment offices may increase the age of eligibility for conscription as early as this spring's conscription cycle.
  • Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, Oleg Salyukov (who was appointed as one of Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov's three "deputies" as theater commander in Ukraine), arrived in Belarus to take control of combat coordination exercises for the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV).

Institute for the Study of War

This page collects ISW and CTP's updates on the conflict in Ukraine. In late February 2022, ISW began publishing daily synthetic products covering key events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine.
www.understandingwar.org
 

Putler is a Czarist, not a Stalinist, but I get your point.
 


The RuZZians are very proud of their Z, its everywhere on display and worn now in RuZZia.
And yes, they walk like Nazis, talk like Nazis, they are the new Nazis

 
WAFU said:
The RuZZians are very proud of their Z, its everywhere on display and worn now in RuZZia.
Click to expand...
Ah. It's about the Z symbol that they paint on their vehicles and include on their propaganda. Every dictatorship needs a sharp-looking, emotion-tying banner.

As for labeling, I'll not enact Godwin's law and instead assess and refer to Russia's atrocities as their own; as demonstrations of the Russian mindset, its people and its politics. It's not Nazis that Putin is emulating, but Stalin. We must remember that Russia had it own bad guy, it's own holly terror, one that murdered as many as 60 million people, including up to 10 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor.

Inside The Shocking Number Of People Killed By Stalin During His Decades In Power

In Ukraine alone between 1932 and 1933, more than 3 million people died as a result of famine caused by Stalin's collectivization policies.
allthatsinteresting.com

By referring to Russia's latest move into Ukraine as that of Nazis we are giving Stalin, Russian history and Moscow's record of brutal atrocities a free pass. Labeling them as Nazis suggests that today's Russian leadership is somehow infected by a foreign mindset from 1930's Berlin when in fact Russians have always been this way. This latest invasion and murder of Ukrainians is a direct reflection on what Russians are, not Nazis, but instead Russia's own homebrew of nastiness. Chechnya wasn't invaded by Nazis in 1991, nor Georgia in 2008, nor Syria in 2015, but by Stalinists. Let's call them what they are.

I also find wordplay like RuZZians asinine, reducing complex issues to cute emojis or leet-speak. But I'm no mod, so you do you.
 
Last edited:
GrauGeist said:
Hmmm...so for nearly a year now, I have been referring to Putin as Vladolph Putler because his delusional war is parallel to Hitler's Ost-war playbook.
Click to expand...
But Putin's war is not delusional. He's running the Russian playbook of exactly how to bring recalcitrant and separatist-minded provinces back in line. The Romanov Tsars, followed by Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, et al used violence and intimidation to keep the Ukrainians and any other seemingly rebellious ethnic groups in check. To Putin, Ukraine is not a country but a province of Russia that needs the same firm had from Moscow that his predecessors used. Hitler wanted to enslave and then eliminate the people of the East so he could achieve his autarky. Putin wants to bring Ukraine back into Moscow's control, not erase its people. In fact demographics is one of the big reasons, IMO for Putin's move on Ukraine, since in light of Russia's rapidly declining population Putin needs Ukraine's population to add to Russia's. Why Ukraine Matters to Russia: The Demographic Factor

My point above is to use a foreign moniker to label Russia is to suggest that Putin is somehow infected by a foreign, un-Russian influence. That's entirely unnecessary though, since Russia has plenty of its own brutal history to pull from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 9 (members: 2, guests: 7)

Similar threads

M
Horizon Continues Development of Hybrid VTOL
Replies
0
Views
239
MIflyer
M
N
JF-17 are they worth it and can they hold their own?
Replies
4
Views
1K
RogerdeLluria
R
A
The coming $26 billion windfall for the Canadian Armed Forces. What to buy?
6 7 8
Replies
141
Views
17K
swampyankee
Bust The Dragons Jaw! An interesting read on the development and use of the first laser guided bombs in Vietnam.
Replies
7
Views
2K
syscom3
T
Asking help in determining year of Chinese military video
Replies
4
Views
1K
Weizenbrot
W
Menu
Log in
Register