Ukraine-Russia War Take 2
Here is what the preliminary take on the Ukraine thread disappearing is:
The site was hit with a massive spam attack where hundreds of spam threads were created. In the case where, for example, I see a single spam thread and delete it, that is called a soft delete, and mods can still see them but forum members cannot. Those deletion can be undone.
When a massive attack hits with hundreds of threads, an admin uses a different procedure where the hundreds of spam threads are merged and then hard deleted, where the threads are gone, and no note is left behind. As I have mentioned with my own experience of just soft deleting a large number of posts, sometimes a post or thread gets checked or merged accidentally and is deleted by mistake. Dealing with hundreds of spam threads takes a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.
It appears that our Ukraine thread may have gotten caught up in that recent net of spam threads. If so, it is likely gone for good. I cant say this for sure, and am awaiting comments from admins on this issue. Yes, this sucks. And hopefully there was some other software glitch that caused the disappearance, and we may recover it in the future.
But in the meantime, I have created this new Ukraine-Russia War thread to enable the conversation to continue. Obviously continuity with earlier discussions will be lost. There is no way around that. So as best as possible, let's pick up the conversation with recent events and go from there.
If you have any questions about this, please post them in the mod thread, not here. Let's keep this thread going with posts about the war, not the disappearance of the old thread.
Thanks.
lol
According to this (1:56) US officials estimate Ukrainian forces have lost 70k with roughly 100k wounded and this was uploaded the same day Zelensky claimed 31k losses.
Channel 4 news states Ukranian military death tolls are state secrets (which makes Zelensky's admission bemusing) so the numbers can't be fact checked. Infographics also claims 22k Wagner forces killed but C4 state this claim is from a Wagner affiliated telegram channel so can't be verified.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/...
US officials already claimed 70k last August. Pentagon leak was far less, and Zelenskyy's numbers are actually in line with the Pentagon leak.
There's clearly significant playing with the numbers regardless though. Zelenskyy is likely counting all MIA as a separate stat when in reality they're mostly dead. Even with that I think he's underselling the deaths by half at least.
I wonder why he mentioned it at all though.
Can I request that the thread title is changed to "Ukraine-Russia War: Hot Takes 2"?
Given the topic some degree of heat is going to be there.
Which take do you find particularly "hot"?
US officials already claimed 70k last August. Pentagon leak was far less, and Zelenskyy's numbers are actually in line with the Pentagon leak.
There's clearly significant playing with the numbers regardless though. Zelenskyy is likely counting all MIA as a separate stat when in reality they're mostly dead. Even with that I think he's underselling the deaths by half at least.
I wonder why he mentioned it at all though.
Me too. If it was to give context as to why aid was needed, you'd think the numbers would be exaggerated somewhat. I'm surprised he gave figures at all.
Right. When Ukraine was arguing for cluster munitions they were releasing some extremely graphic footage of failed Ukrainian assaults. I would have expected something more along those lines.
I guess it's impossible to balance though since Ukraine is also getting attacked from the "to the last Ukrainian" propaganda angle.
The last Sam Harris with Peter Zeihan on it was an interesting listen with regards to this conflict. I take it with a big grain of salt. Still was interesting.
Fwiw he's predicting a Trump loss (which we don't have to wait too long to verify).
rofl
I thought you were talking specifically about the speculation on casualties.
30k dead is about as spicy as it gets. hard to reconcile that absurd number with the realities. Ukraine is kidnapping men, able-bodied or not, off the streets and shipping them to the meat grinder.
the leaks from about a year ago put it at like 130k casualties. and if anything the fighting has been more furious and brutal since then.
Deaths and casualties aren't the same thing.
The figures from the leaks with 130k casualties broke down to 15k to 18 KIA and 110k to 115k WIA, which is completely in line with what Zelenskyy is saying.
Im taking the way over on 30k
30k dead is about as spicy as it gets. hard to reconcile that absurd number with the realities. Ukraine is kidnapping men, able-bodied or not, off the streets and shipping them to the meat grinder.
the leaks from about a year ago put it at like 130k casualties. and if anything the fighting has been more furious and brutal since then.
Ok so you meant it is a lowball number.
Of course it is.
But it is still higher than palestinian causalties and Zelensky right now needs that, 31k isn't a random number, it's basically claiming "we confirm we had least had more deaths than the palestinians, so please come back giving a **** about us and don't focus only on them".
Do you have any ottoman deed for the Donbass as well?
your comparison doesnt really make sense. USA and Western powers clearly want more Gazans to die. they dont want the Ukrainians to die....er....hmm, I guess it would be more accurate to say they dont care if they die so long as they help the cause of "weakening Russia". so maybe it is apt in that hey can you guys help us to die as fast as the Gazans for your cause of Western hegemeny?
What speaks louder
Actions? Or words?
your comparison doesnt really make sense. ]USA and Western powers clearly want more Gazans to die. they dont want the Ukrainians to die....er....hmm, I guess it would be more accurate to say they dont care if they die so long as they help the cause of "weakening Russia". so maybe it is apt in that hey can you guys help us to die as fast as the Gazans for your cause of Western hegemeny?
Wow that's almost like An Axis of Evil hell bent on...Western "hegemeny", huh? Admit it vic that does sound kinda badass.
This was obvious since before you even posted. It's just funny that you'd call Zelenskyy's numbers absurd, then point to the stats which shows that his numbers are completely realistic... and you did this after I already explained that that set of numbers make his numbers realistic.
I don't think Zelenskyy was trying to "out do" Gaza.
The more I think about it the more Zelenskyy's numbers seem realistic, especially if he excluded MIA.
