vyshka
5402
We already had one of their nutcase tv personalities saying “who needs the world if Russia isn’t in it”, and possible that Putin is that far gone.
It seems like they can ease / end the sanctions with a lot less trouble than that.
Virtually every airborne assault has failed with pretty heavy losses from all I have read.
Yeah, I can’t figure out why they keep doing it.
I can’t thank @Mark_Weston enough for explaining the Russian power structure to me earlier. That made it all fall into place for me.
It’s not 20th century logic, or even pure 19th century logic. It’s more like 18th century logic, with Putin and his siloviki as the royals, and the oligarchs as their nobility/wallets/useful idiots, and land being something that god gives you to hold until the end of time.
So they’re outraged that someone has separated them from the lands that they own by the will of god - Lenin, according to Putin - so now they’re waging war to get it back, even if that means burning everything to the ground, including most of their own treasury and their international relationships.
If I have that down right, then we are facing a secular neo-monarchist land cult, based on Soviet state mythology. With nukes.
(I wrote and deleted about 5 versions of this fucking post earlier, because I couldn’t stand how insane it was. Please refute)
Guap
5408
Can you imagine the US invading Mexico and they run out of gas and food a few miles from the border?
Get fucked, Putin. Pathetic.
Guap
5409
Yes. I think the secular thing actually works in the world’s favor, slightly. Bill Maher made a movie called “Religiousity” and at the end postulated that nuclear weapons in the hands of the religious is actually worse, as they think that they will go to heaven in the event of a nuclear exchange. That always chilled me.
But Putin, being as insecure as he is, is definately dangerous. Little man with an inferiority complex is a disaster.
If Bill Maher landed any heavier than a slight loogy after being around a campfire, you read him wrong. The driving point right now as best I can determine is around the age-old idea of “We are this, we became that and this, I must make us this again.” Putin is an old man shouting at clouds with way too much power behind him.
Yeah, the BBC and lots of twitter reported it overnight. I don’t get it. Why do you order an airbourne assault on a city? I mean, you can understand the logic of going for the airfield near Kyiv, even if it was over-ambitious. But the Kharkiv drop seemed to end up in a firefight around a military hospital. What can they have been thinking?
Canuck
5412
This has been on my mind a lot recently, although I have not been giving it serious thought. I’m sure there have been lots of other instances in the past which I’ve been blinded to due to my privilege or due to victim countries not being in the “right” part of the world, but this really feels to me like the first time since Hitler was stopped that we have a truly "just* war in which requires us to make sacrifices. Now, I’m getting up there at 42 years old but I’m in relatively good shape and do have military experience (only Reserves in my late teens, but more than a lot of volunteers are going with.) On the other hand, married with two kids. Going off to fight would be crazy. But that didn’t stop hundreds of thousands of married fathers who felt it was their duty to stop Hitler. And I’m not going to go to the trouble of finding my way to Ukraine on my own. I guess what I’m saying is that if i was single and there was an organized charter flight to Poland from Toronto then there’s a good chance I would be on it.
vyshka
5413
Putin is in a weird relationship with the hierarchy of the Russian orthodox church, and they are saying he is doing God’s work. So does the Lich King Pat Robertson.
The Red Army was obsessed with Airbourne and Airmobile formations. They had them coming out their ears. I never spent much time looking at Russian Federation Army OOBs, but I guess they inherited the obsession.
Lantz
5415
They only saw the first half of Red Dawn
Not really sure what this means exactly…take back Crimea and Donbas? Seems a little ambitious, but I like the attitude.
Guap
5417
Agreed completely. I need to know more about his inner circle now.
I think it depends entirely on his inner circle’s view on the Donbas Disagreement. Who knew Donbas was going to be the start if WW3.
And those things are some of the hardest for many sub-par militaries to master. Shooting guns at things? Easy. Being in the right place at the right time, to shoot the right targets? Much harder.
Soma
5419
wee this is moving so fast.
Anyway seeing the reports of Russian army running out of food and fuel, I’m thinking, the logistics can’t be THAT bad right? There is probably a bottleneck somewhere, and once the bottleneck is cleared they will start pushing, right? It is not as if Russia has no oil or food.
Oh yeah, they have a weird fascination with these things, even though there was always severe doubt during the Cold War about their actual utility. I mean, moving a bunch of Il-76 transports full of soldiers in a hot air defense environment, and then supporting them after the drop, was a pretty ambitious and optimistic approach to things back then. But it sounds great on paper!
Guap
5421
On CNN Anderson Cooper was just handed a Moltov cocktail by a Ukrainine local. They are nodding and Anderson Cooper is inspecting it like “Oh, this is a normal Wednesday in early March at my job, nod and smile.”
This convoy attacking is absolutely crazy. It’s Death and Destruction creeping towards them.
