5565

This is factual, my great grandparents on my mother’s side were immigrants from Ukraine, who traveled through Ellis Island. Perogies and dancing and polka are a way of life even today.

Anyone have a link to the daily war statistics graphic of what Ukraine says they have destroyed / captured /killed? I can’t find the site where I saw the stats a few days ago.

Found it:

Also:

5566

Maps like that are always tricky, going between showing temporary advances vs. showing areas under control. You also get some shading in where little or no reporting of conflict has occurred, but it “makes sense” because it’s between two different thrusts. Still, nice to see it in video format.

5567

Take all the booty.

5568

As things get worse for Russia, Putin’s table gets longer.

image

(yes, it’s a 'shop)

5569

Source in French:

5570

Tweeter is Bloomberg European correspondent.

5571

you have to laugh about those dictators, laugh them in their stupid face.

5572

I know it’s been said by others but I want to reiterate: thanks to all for including things like this. Reporters from reputable news organizations use twitter but so do random people who don’t verify info or may or may not know what they hell they’re talking about. I don’t really care what Doug McTwitter’s Cheeto-dusted analysis of Russian troop movements is.

I’m not going to act like a thread cop and say people shouldn’t post those things, but on a personal level this sort of context helps me filter information a little better. So, thanks!

5573

This makes me quesiton everything I thought I knew about Russian SAMs. I would have assumed they would have an S500 set up in Belarus going “NOPE”. Or are the Ukrainian planes just staying low and using the curvature of the earth to avoid detection? Does that work? I don’t know any more.

(I understand supply issues, general disruption and Ukrainian ground forces could potentially render the convoys organic air-defence ineffective.)

5574

The Russian army forgot to ship USB-C chargers for their radar!

5575

I agree, in a sense that was my core point about the difference between the USSR and Putin’s Russia. Putin has played the game well and kept his position for 20+ years. But that’s been the result of a series of ad hoc maneuvers and with the support of a very narrow constituency. Putin’s Russia has no institution like the Communist Party with its millions of members who both owed their positions to the Party and were its eyes and hands in every part of the country. I continue to argue that his government is fundamentally less powerful and stable than the USSR; the USSR could afford failures and keep going. I suspect Putin can’t.

5576

So, some people think/hope that the people in power around Putin will cancel out any nuclear action (because it is wrong). This is as much likely (in my opinion) as people in the West will not retaliate with nukes. The people pressing the buttons think they are right and so they push the buttons on both sides.

I would not count on it. Do people think that Goebbles or Himmler would have prevented Hitler from nuking? This is whishful thinking… everybody stay cool, support Ukraine, the sanctions will need time.

5577

I think this is generally right about the government, that this government has less stability than governments under the USSR. But it isn’t necessarily true about Putin as head of government.

The USSR leaders — with the exception of Stalin — were essentially principals put forward by the consensus of a group. Their power derived from that group, and they could be removed by that group and still the government would continue.

With Putin, it isn’t clear to me that he serves at the pleasure of any similar group. Removing him would be vastly more difficult IMO, because there isn’t really any power behind the throne that can exercise control over the throne. So Putin is personally more powerful than Soviet leaders were (except Stalin) and harder to displace, but if he is displaced there isn’t the mechanism for government continuity that existed in the USSR.

So I guess I would say Putin is unlikely to go easily, but if/when he does go, there will be absolute chaos.

5578

China does want/need Russian energy. Even if it isn’t the cheapest available previously (and, it now is the cheapest by a wide margin), the overland pipelines are strategic in that they are not susceptible to US Navy embargo through the Indian Ocean to South China Sea route. Strategic decisions don’t need to be profitable in year one.

As far as China helping Russia - they already are by abstaining from sanctions, and my guess is probably will help in circumventing sanctions.

5579

Exactly this. Not that it was necessarily friendly, but “friends” were good to have. The official justification for ousting Kruschev was that he had amassed too much power for himself.

I haven’t gone too deep into the Brezhnev era yet, but from what I’ve heard he was wary of making the same mistake.

Is Putin vulnerable to the same thing? Who will lead the charge?

5580

And, what comes after? Even if Putin were to die in his sleep, it would produce chaos.

5581

Though like the death Ögedei Khan it will probably cause Russia’s armies to return home to and stop their westward expansion as various parties jockey for power.

5582

I’ll be very upsetti spaghetti if Zelensky doesn’t get out of this alive.

I will be equally upset if Putin gets to die of old age in a room that doesn’t have bars on the windows.

5583

There were essentially three factions to the USSR: the Party, the Red Army, and the KGB. While generally in lockstep, if there were any power struggles, any pairing of factions would crush the third. IE, see what happened to Beria.

5584

Hard to call abstaining from sanctions helping, USA didn’t sanction everything they could, this doesn’t mean that some American companies are helping. Chinese do not add their own sanctions but they abide by other sanctions. They don’t buy Russian oil and gas now as they don’t know if they will get the money. They will of course buy Russian stuff and sell to them as long as it’s profitable, but it is not the kind of help Russia has given Kazakhstan or Belarus when those regimes were on the verge of collapse.

China didn’t even vote against UN condemnation of Russian aggression. I see them making money on Russia’s downfall, not saving Russia.

Of course it may be my wishful thinking cause I want Russia cleansed ASAP.