24192

Putin realized his commander was getting a bad negative modifier from having too many troops under his command so had to promote him to make that negative modifier go away. I’m sure it will make all the difference this time.

24193
24194

Unfortunately, this is behind a paywall, but there are a number of fascinating excerpts in the thread following this post, including the fact that one reason the Russian Air Force has been so ineffective is that they were shooting down so many of their own planes:

See the thread.

24195

It all makes sense now. :)

24196

It was an interesting insight, as well as being tragic. 1984’s “we have always been at war with Eurasia” has never come more literally true in the real world.

24197

Coming soon to the next GOP platform.

24198

We discussed this before, and wondered how much range it would really have given the limitations the Ukrainian air force is operating under.

This twitter thread claims to have an answer. A lob from an initial altitude of 200ft can still get a range of 40km from release.

The author then suggests that the Su-24 is capable of penetrating 60km by flying low level in the gaps between Russian radar coverage, allowing him to posit the ability to launch deep strikes up to 100km behind the front line. Well maybe. I’ve seen no reports of the Ukrainian air force flying that kind of deep penetration. Still, 40km range from a low altitude approach makes it pretty useful.

24199

Inflatable HIMARS.

24200

Now, that’s pretty cool. Maybe one of the few times you actually want a bunch of hot air!

24201

China speaks, FWIW:

24202

China’s position seems to be conveniently ambiguous

24203

Ultimately, China does not want this conflict to quickly end in favor of Ukraine, because such an outcome would likely strengthen the west, and that could potentially harm an authoritarian state like China in the future. When the free world is unified, they are effectively undefeatable. The only hope that authoritarians have is to get the free nations of the world to question themselves, and lose their resolve. This has been Russia’s strategy for the better part of a year now. If that strategy fails, and the West stands together, not only will it defeat Russia, but it will strengthen that resolve for years to come. That means that if China were to attack a neighbor, there is a much stronger chance that the free nations of the world would mount a defense without hesitation. And then China will lose, badly. They might be able to put up a better fight than Russia, but make no mistake, they too would lose. And they would lose badly. So China doesn’t want Russia’s endeavors in Ukraine to fail as miserably as they seem to be failing.

Yet, at the same time, they don’t want to back Russia too obviously, because they are ultimately still dependent upon the West’s economic power to feed china’s growth.

So they will likely throw some kindling into Russia’s war machine. Not enough to turn the tide, as that would risk getting thrown into the pariah bin with Russia, but they will help drag things out, in the hope that the west will get bored and lose its resolve.

The thing is, if the west truly steeled its resolve and decided that Russia will never be allowed to win this conflict, the war would be over tomorrow.

24204

Baseball man unfamiliar with Josef Stalin and American Lend Lease.

24205

A journalist managed to get a T72 destroyed in the Battle of Kyiv shipped to Berlin and fought his way through the courts to have it placed in front of the Russian embassy as an art installation.

24206

I thought it was pretty cool when he helped save Advanced Squad Leader after Avalon Hill died, but he really has shown himself to be quite an ass with 38 studios and pretty much everything else.

24207

unwatching the thread for a couple of days to avoid the dozens of ‘year in review’ articles…

24208

Fox news doesn’t like athletes giving political opinions. Shouldn’t they be telling Schilling to shut up and pitch? Weird.

24209

More Russian political analysts for you! This time it’s Grigory Udin, sociologists who correctly predicted and described Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There is a very strong emotion prevalent in Russia today, and this is the rare case where Vladimir Putin generally finds himself in resonance with a large part of society. By no means all of society shares his delusional theories, but here he finds himself in resonance and, moreover, produces this emotion himself. This emotion is resentment, a monstrous, endless resentment. Nothing can quench this resentment. It makes it impossible to even think about establishing any kind of productive relationship with other countries.

You know, it’s like a little child who has a lot of resentment and harms those around him. This harm gets bigger and bigger, at some point it starts to seriously ruin other people’s lives and its own at the same time. But the child does not think about it, does not think that it is necessary to build relationships somehow.

In Russia, there’s a good saying: “It’s the offended who is exploited” [literal translation makes very little sense]. Someday we will realize that this resentment works against us, that because of it we hurt ourselves. But for now, too many of us want to be offended.
(…)
Much of the world has well-founded grievances against the current world order, against the United States, which has assumed responsibility, has become the hegemon and is in many ways the beneficiary of this world order. We can see that the parts of the world encompassed by this resentment tend to be more sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. It is the global South that has suffered from the great increase in inequality of recent decades and has suffered in part, at least symbolically, from the mindless foreign policy adventures into which the United States has embarked. The same is true of those parts of the population of the global North that also feel hurt and aggrieved. Almost everywhere you see this resentment, you come across a greater understanding of Vladimir Putin’s behavior.

I would not say that this understanding translates into support, simply because Putin offers nothing. He reproduces the same mistakes, but in a much creepier form. A colleague of mine once aptly put it that the basic principle of Russian foreign policy is that “if they do wrong, we can too”. It’s hard not to notice this, seeing that Putin wants to do the same things that he criticizes the U.S. for. Therefore, it is difficult to support him [from other countries], but many want to join him in this resentment.
(…)
There is a trope: “Putin has miscalculated”. Look, let’s stop treating Vladimir Putin with such disdain. Of course, we saw that there was a blitzkrieg plan for Kiev, and it failed. But what makes us think that was the only plan?

They had been preparing this war for years. It would be strange if they had prepared it with a single plan. In the case of a ruler who for a long time was not interested in anything but the preparation of this war, this is not the case. [In Putin’s logic it sounds like this:] “Yes, things have not gone according to the best scenario - but that’s okay, we’ll persevere. We’re ready to lay down all the blood we can, but they’re not. It’s ours, and at some point they’ll realize it’s not theirs - and they won’t sacrifice the resources they need.”

I’m not saying that this will work and that these tactics will succeed. Moreover, I think that Putin’s very logic dooms him to defeat, he subconsciously wants to lose. The question is how many people will die before it happens. But if we want to anticipate the situation, we have to understand the logic in which people [who are in power in Russia] act.

24210

That is hilarious!

24211

Also hilarious: