The Russia is getting more evil thread

[Houngan]

I also wonder if it isn’t just a hard truth, regardless of competence, that a local force is going to be able to be more competent than an expeditionary force. Say the generals down to the troops (not suggesting that’s the case here, just postulating) are equally good, the stretched supply lines, logistics, and control/comm structure of RU might inherently knock them from an A down to a C, while Ukraine gets no debuffs, as it were.

[dtolman]

Lol, now I regret believing qt3 skeptics. Though I stand by that he”s generally reliable, though sometimes jumps on sources a bit prematurely for conclusions compared to some other osint Ukraine accounts.

He’s also gotten unfair flack for speculating on Russian advances or NBC usage. Apparently if you don’t only talk how Ukraine is doing great and how bad Russia will always do your a Russian sympathizer.

[scottagibson]

@Jack_Howitzer

I don’t follow along with all this stuff on Twitter, but it seems that osintdefender account might be a bit sketchy?

I take all the OSINT tweeters with a grain of salt.

[Dejin]

Actual article not a definitive as headlines make it out to be, but article does breakdown where things are at and explicitly says that the other German coalition partners are ready to send tanks, alas that they don’t control the Chancellor. Also discusses Britain sending tanks.

Gift Link.

Western Tanks Appear Headed to Ukraine, Breaking Another Taboo

A German defense ministry spokesman said no decision had been made by the government of Mr. Scholz, a Social Democrat. But his coalition partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, support sending the tanks, and on Thursday, a senior minister amped up the pressure.

“There is a difference between making a decision for yourself and preventing others from making a decision,” Germany’s economics minister and vice chancellor, Robert Habeck of the Greens, said in Berlin.

Britain has so far said it is considering sending as few as 10 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. Britain has about 227 Challengers, which have maintenance issues, and it would be hard-pressed to replenish its stocks.

Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister, wants to take some leadership in the war, and London and Warsaw appear to be acting in concert to put pressure on Berlin. In a closed-door session of his National Security Council on Tuesday, Mr. Sunak outlined a strategy to increase support for Ukraine, likely beginning with the tanks, to give Kyiv an edge ahead of any possible peace negotiations, according to another senior European official.

[scottagibson]

@strummer

This was my breaking point as well.

Its just clearly all gaslighting, all the time. Life is too short.

[KevinC]

In the ISW’s update that state that Russia likely controls Soledar, although there is some ongoing fighting still.

Geolocated footage posted on January 11 and 12 indicates that Russian forces likely control most if not all of Soledar, and have likely pushed Ukrainian forces out of the western outskirts of the settlement. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks against Sil in Donetsk Oblast—a settlement over a kilometer northwest of Soledar and beyond previous Ukrainian positions. The Ukrainian General Staff and other senior military sources largely did not report that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults against Soledar on January 12 as they have previously.

Russian information operations have overexaggerated the importance of Soledar, which is at best a Russian Pyrrhic tactical victory. ISW continues to assess that the capture of Soledar—a settlement smaller than 5.5 square miles—will not enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) into Bakhmut nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term. Russian forces likely captured Soledar after committing significant resources to a highly attritional tactical victory which will accelerate degraded Russian forces’ likely culmination near Bakhmut. Russian forces may decide to maintain a consistently high pace of assaults in the Bakhmut area, but Russian forces’ degraded combat power and cumulative exhaustion will prevent these assaults from producing operationally significant results.

[Ginger_Yellow]

@Dejin

Actual article not a definitive as headlines make it out to be, but article does breakdown where things are at and explicitly says that the other German coalition partners are ready to send tanks, alas that they don’t control the Chancellor

I’m hoping this is mainly Scholz taking a hard line and that he’ll be forced by the rest of the coalition and the SPD to walk back to something more reasonable, as he has in the past.

[MelesMeles]

@jpinard

Sometimes I feel like too many Germans in leadership, have been way too cozy with Russian government officials.

Yeah, I think the fact that a former German chancellor became the chair of Rosneft makes that a matter of record.

But I think it’s important to understand the broader reasons behind it (the relations, not the corruption).

You have a lot of East Germans who learned Russian in school instead of English, and to this day you can get brilliant borsch in a lot of German towns east of the Fulda Gap.

Then you have the strategy of trying to bring Russia into the fold through trade, which even though it compromised Germany’s own strategic interest, was done with noble intentions.

Russia chose war over trade. Arguably we should’ve seen that coming after 2014, but I was certainly naive and ignorant enough to support the attempt.

And lastly you have the German distaste for anything related to war, which also has a pretty solid historical foundation.

I don’t think it fully explains Scholz’s position - support for Ukraine is at similar levels in Germany and France, as far as I know - and ultimately I think it’s a shame for Germany, because by taking these untenable positions, they diminish their position as leaders in Europe.

I can’t find the upside. I don’t think there’s any way Merkel would’ve taken this tack, even if she had despised the idea of arming Ukraine.

[alekseivolchok]

@MelesMeles

I don’t think it fully explains Scholz’s position - support for Ukraine is at similar levels in Germany and France, as far as I know - and ultimately I think it’s a shame for Germany, because by taking these untenable positions, they diminish their position as leaders in Europe.

[Janster]

A now-long tradition of not doing war is holding Germany back I think…
As we speak there are fierce debates in most left-wing parties on the subject of sending more arms or just helping with humanitarian aid…

Libya spooked a lot of us for the shitshow that was, however, I’m not convinced we’re wrong in sending Ukraine arms even if that will cause more death.

I’d love to see Germany help more, but there seems to be a lot of hesitation and intrinsic stuff causing delays, and no, its not m1 and their gas turbine issue, it’s definitely the prospect of escalation.

I don’t know what the doomsday clock will be set at, but were pretty close to midnight now.

[Grifman]

This is a good thread on German political culture, at least of the SPD Party:

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff

[KevinC]

@Janster

I’m not convinced we’re wrong in sending Ukraine arms even if that will cause more death

I know this isn’t your position but I literally want to throttle people who say that. It’s worse than “women shouldn’t be allowed to defend themselves, it’s just going to result in people getting hurt during the rape”.

The implication that sending arms to Ukraine is what leads to more death is that they should not resist and should submit to Russian occupation and all the torture, murder, rape, and other war crimes that comes with it. Including genocide. How very fucking high minded of them when it’s not their lives and the lives of friends and family on the line.

[alekseivolchok]

It’s unlikely that Putin will kill more than 1% of the population of any country that surrenders peacefully, but it’s likely more people will die repelling Russian human wave attacks, so it’s morally correct for every country in the world to surrender to Russia.

[schurem]

There was a double negative in that post. For us far lefties it feels very strange to want to support the military industrial complex and support building and giving arms. Still, in the case of Ukraine its obviously the right thing to do.

I think the German reluctance is not a bad thing however. This is a perfect moment in history to redefine their relationship with Russia by showing a distinct lack of agression towards them. If they can do so without betraying Ukraine, which is difficult and a hard sell to all parties, I think they win on all sides. I also think they are right in making at least a show of reluctance.

[MelesMeles]

@Grifman

This is a good thread on German political culture, at least of the SPD Party:

Great thread man!

I agree with the OP. There’s virtue in listening to the people, there’s virtue in being politically consistent, but I think the greater virtue is showing leadership and convincing people that what you’re suggesting is the most reasonable thing.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the EU blindly follow the US, and I don’t think that’s a risk. Scholz just lacks the ability.

[sillhouette]

Deep down I think Scholz has made private assurances to Putin that Germany won’t take the lead in helping Ukr and will drag their feet helping as little as possible. Russian energy is just too tasty.

[MelesMeles]

Aside from the fact that the Germans would have to be devoid of their senses to try it, I also think a deal like that would be undermined by the Russians blowing up the pipelines.

I can’t think of a clearer way of saying “No gas for you”.

[KevinC]

Exclusive: Ukrainian serviceman tells about hellish street battles in Soledar

Interview with a Ukrainian former company commander about the situation in Soledar.

It’s almost impossible to hold on there since the war is absolutely not like what we have already seen. It’s close contact combat all the time, these are street battles in built-up areas, or rather in what’s left of those built-up areas. These are battles in the ruins, battles for every house, for every basement.

It even happens that one entrance (to a building) is ours, and another one is theirs. One of my friends, for example, fought directly inside a school: one wing of the school was ours, and another wing of the school was under the control of the invaders. There was a fight both in the school’s corridors and in the gym.

What follows from this? Armored vehicles are of no use, they just don’t survive there at all. Accordingly, they don’t go there now. Because if they enter (the town), they can “live” for several minutes. This applies to both us and them.

He also mentions that doctors are treating more frostbite than wounds. Because you can’t use a stove to warm up a room in a building when a couple doors down are where the Russians are at. Crazy.

[sillhouette]

This is how it happens when warfare reverts to WW1/WW2 capability.

[anonymgeist]

Fucking this.