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.
It sure is a hot take to say that Gaza deaths are above 100k now. The paper is pretty clear even if their methodology is just take current deaths and multiply it by 4.
Manpower is definitely a key issue still. There's a lot of OSINT accounts who have been reporting on this for a long time, it's incredible how Putin has managed to speed run through so much Soviet stuff.
UK PM Keir Starmer has resisted Zelensky's request to permit Storm Shadow firings deep inside Russia.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
On the other hand, Zelensky is the first foreign leader to have the privilege of addressing the British Cabinet since Clinton.
I think UK wanted to let them and Biden said no. Really dumb.
Never disagree with the president!
Looks like Zelenskyy has begun hedging for next year, really sad stuff. Luckily a president could never make a mistake, so he should be fine either way.
You understand risk better than the president and his advisors!
You should let them know what’s up
Well I won't argue. Sullivan is far too risk averse. There's far more influential people than me arguing this.
Maybe we should run our ships somewhere else if the local people are going to shoot rockets at them
The US failure to deal with Islamist militias is turning into a big problem. It is a main reason all of our "allies" threw us out of Africa in favor of Russia/Wagner, and if our ME allies (including possibly Israel) see that allying with the US just means getting attacked repeatedly by Islamists while we pressure them not to respond at all because we dont want to escalate, something similar might happen.
No one in this part of the world (or most of the world really) cares about democracy or liberalism or human rights. It is all about power and might makes right. And we are increasingly coming off as weak and ineffectual, which means we are wrong.
It's a bit odd because the Houthis just hit a member of the shadow fleet sending oil from Russia to China.
USA is not going to deal with African dictators for access to gold and diamonds, and they are especially not going to allow soldiers to be killed to secure diamonds and gold (it's too small time, needs to be oil). Putin actively encourages it, life is cheap, and if someone like Prig can make it, and it helps Russia then it is encouraged. This is a sector that USA will not take part in, and for good reason. I'm not sure there's a good answer.
Maybe we should run our ships somewhere else if the local people are going to shoot rockets at them
Going round the Cape takes much longer, delays deliveries and increases costs. Security of sea lanes is vital and there is no reason to let a bunch of random terrorists dictate where international shipping can and cannot go. If Putin arms the Houthis with more anti-ship weapons, the Houthis are just going to have to get bombed a hell of a lot more.
Biden is hopeless, but the Allies need to maintain a united front, so we'll have to nudge the Americans into agreeing a range and a set of conditions within which Western weapons can be used, hitting Russian military targets of immediate use to the war.
russia is currently sending tanks into ukraike which havent seen play since 1948, where the **** are they going to get advanced anti ship missiles from
Going round the Cape takes much longer, delays deliveries and increases costs. Security of sea lanes is vital and there is no reason to let a bunch of random terrorists dictate where international shipping can and cannot go. If Putin arms the Houthis with more anti-ship weapons, the Houthis are just going to have to get bombed a hell of a lot more.
It’s hard to stop explosive rockets
russia is currently sending tanks into ukraike which havent seen play since 1948, where the **** are they going to get advanced anti ship missiles from
It’s hard to stop explosive boats/drones
Drones have made it so the poor man can destroy large targets. War has changed
Going round the Cape takes much longer, delays deliveries and increases costs. Security of sea lanes is vital and there is no reason to let a bunch of random terrorists dictate where international shipping can and cannot go. If Putin arms the Houthis with more anti-ship weapons, the Houthis are just going to have to get bombed a hell of a lot more.
Houthis are a complete beggar state that has no food or water (or economy to buy any), and relies completely on Western aid. If it came to it, we can just say "Western aid or Iranian bombs." Make your choice and live with it. In a sane world this would have happened decades ago.
With respect to the Houthis, the west can still win, and fairly easily. But we have to fight to win, which we haven't been willing to do in a long time.
Islamism's greatest strength is its complete indifference to the lives and well-being of the people under its rule; so basically holding its own population hostage. And the compassion and care the West has for said hostages, which gives Islamists tremendous leverage.
It very well may be the only way to defeat Islamism is to match their callousness. And if we aren't willing to do this for the survival of civilization itself; then maybe civilization just wont survive. And that is that.
russia is currently sending tanks into ukraike which havent seen play since 1948, where the **** are they going to get advanced anti ship missiles from
This is pure speculation on my part, but they might have these "in storage". Russia did start the war with advanced tech, they just blundered it away. Since the Black Sea Fleet was quickly sidelined and didn't have much to do it's possible that Russia still has these.
Selensky called Trump... Suddenly he wants to go for negotiations about peace, because he knows he's ****ed when Trump will be president.
Other than Biden and the dems, Trump's plan doesnt involve destroying bridges in between Russia and Europe to benefit his own country (while hundreds of thousands have to die)
The Telegraph is now saying that Ukraine is allowed to fire Storm Shadows into Russia.
The Telegraph is now saying that Ukraine is allowed to fire Storm Shadows into Russia.
I think we know that Storm Shadow is cleared for attacks inside Russia, since that has already happened. There does seem to be an issue as to the range and the types of targets permitted.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/07/20/u...
It may be that Ukraine would like clearance to attack any and all targets including the Kremlin (since the Russians have no inhibitions about attacking Kyiv) and the British think it might be better to hold back on that kind of thing.
I dont think they have been used inside Russia before.
It just shows how much of a technological deficit Russia has compared to the West that with conventional weapon hand me downs Ukraine could probably destroy Moscow right now, and Russia couldn't do anything about it.
