vyshka
6113
Conscripts on the ground saying they didn’t know what they were doing I can buy. Downed pilots are completely full of shit.
Am seeing really quite large numbers of abandoned Russian vehicles now. Not in the threes and fours but whole lines of them.
Useful as a check to the optimism, but apart from that it is actually a pretty crap analysis that makes a ton of poorly supported assumptions.
The truth is likely somewhere in between this take and the more optimistic takes.
What’s Israel up to? They’ve had a weird friendly relationship with Putin, especially Bibi.
Yeah, it’s hard to listen to anyone that claims this is all going to plan when there aren’t many universes where this somehow went worse for Russia.
I can see this ending up with some weird PR thing where Putin pledges to protect Ukraine’s Jewish minority.
No sympathy for Israel’s “problem” here. The only excuse for helping legitimize Putin in any way is if they can somehow pave the way for a cessation of the war.
Is there a reason we can’t “give” Ukraine a crapload of Patriot batteries? Have a few volunteers help man it until the Ukrainians are proficient?
vyshka
6123
Entertaining thread from Michael Weiss:
Russia’s Air Force doesn’t seem to have a lot of precision guided munitions, the kind that gives the USAF huge standoff range. Otherwise, you’d be seeing the Russian equivalent of a B-1 loitering at 30,000 feet and dropping guided bombs onto targets like we do.
This is forcing their fighters to make lowl-level bombing runs, like we did in Vietnam. And this is where they’re getting chewed up by MANPADs. Kinda like we were by AAA and short-range SAMs in Vietnam.
It’s not entirely weird. Israel is dedicated to protecting jews around the world. Having a decent relationship with Russia helps with that.
They could also be running some kind of backchannel for the US, although I’m not sure that would require any kind of visit. Could be a bit of both.
I read through a bunch, he has a big I AM VERY SMART contrarian vibe (although I hate to admin he could still be right, I don’t know anything about military strategy)
And in general I think this would be a very positive thing to have.
Hmm. Violating Shabbat is a big deal in Israel, especially to the ultra-Orthodox political parties that often determine a coalition government’s success or failure. Any rabbi would tell you that it can be done if it would preserve life, which trumps all. It’s an interesting point that speaks to a humanitarian mission with a reasonable chance of success (at least in Bennett’s eyes).
I believe after reading some former army peeps talk that the “we did not know and thought it was just training” and other bull is what they have been instructed to say to avoid interrogation.
RichVR
6131
Everyone knows, you don’t schlep on Shabbos.
