| Putin did his big speech then 08:06 - Sep 21 with 7251 views | Steve_M |
He's getting desperate, fake referendums, partial mobilisation and more vague nuclear threats.
Thread here:
Russia has lost a mere 6,000 soldiers but destroyed half the Ukrainian army apparently. |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 12:46 - Sep 21 with 1071 views | Churchman |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:30 - Sep 21 by giant_stow |
The only other option I can think of for Putin is to use chemical weapons on Ukrainian Troops? |
The moment he uses stuff like that he’s done for, unless he can blame on Ukrainians.
Nuclear? The only way he will use that is if he is certain the west won’t respond. Biden needs to make it clear what the outcome will be. The west didn’t at the start of the year which is why we are hearing it again. I don’t think Putins bluster and bluff has any more credence than it did back then.
I was with somebody who knows about these things earlier in the year and asked about the state of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Two word answer - ‘it works’. Conversation over. Putin will know this. |  | | |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:57 - Sep 21 with 1046 views | nodge_blue |
| Putin did his big speech then on 09:12 - Sep 21 by Guthrum |
The real risk is if Putin believes that the Lady of Kazan, or some other icon, will miraculously protect Russia from Western missiles. So they can launch in perfect safety from retaliation.
On a more mundane level, there is a cultural belief (going back to Tsarist times) that ordinary Russians will accept more suffering than other nations, that the latter are soft and will always fold under pressure. |
I think the risk is that Putin runs these sham referendums and then declares the land as Russian and any attack on it as an attack on Russian soil.
That will be his new line of attack. Its still hard to see him using nuclear weapons, but he's a desperate man who won't back down. |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 12:57 - Sep 21 with 1046 views | giant_stow |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:46 - Sep 21 by Churchman |
The moment he uses stuff like that he’s done for, unless he can blame on Ukrainians.
Nuclear? The only way he will use that is if he is certain the west won’t respond. Biden needs to make it clear what the outcome will be. The west didn’t at the start of the year which is why we are hearing it again. I don’t think Putins bluster and bluff has any more credence than it did back then.
I was with somebody who knows about these things earlier in the year and asked about the state of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Two word answer - ‘it works’. Conversation over. Putin will know this. |
Would we actually respond in kind though? I'm not sure, as that really might be it, all over, barring some secret defenses which Stokie hoped for earlier? |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 12:58 - Sep 21 with 1039 views | hype313 |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:57 - Sep 21 by nodge_blue |
I think the risk is that Putin runs these sham referendums and then declares the land as Russian and any attack on it as an attack on Russian soil.
That will be his new line of attack. Its still hard to see him using nuclear weapons, but he's a desperate man who won't back down. |
This mobilization is a breach of Putin's unwritten contract with the Russian people: they stay away from politics and let him do whatever he wants as long as their lives are not directly affected.
So mobilization is a double edge sword that could cut down Putin faster than it could cut Ukraine. |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:02 - Sep 21 with 1006 views | itfcjoe |
Bloody NATO causing all this, when will they ever learn |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:06 - Sep 21 with 1002 views | Churchman |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:57 - Sep 21 by giant_stow |
Would we actually respond in kind though? I'm not sure, as that really might be it, all over, barring some secret defenses which Stokie hoped for earlier? |
The whole principle of mutually assured destruction is the belief your enemy would - or might. Yes. All over. Probably for life as we know it on the planet. Including Putin, his family and the idiots with big hats. Why would you go there? They didn’t in the Cold War when it really came to it - they won’t now.
If Russia attacked the U.K. with its small geographical area, give me one reason why the U.K. wouldn’t respond. It won’t happen [Post edited 21 Sep 2022 13:08]
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:08 - Sep 21 with 997 views | Guthrum |
| Putin did his big speech then on 12:43 - Sep 21 by WeWereZombies |
But they don't have to send them to the front all at once, in fact Putin may even have learnt something and go in for a more rational rotation of the front lines (good news in the short term for Ukraine as that should give them opportunities to find weak points and more territory won back.) This in turn will develop more highly trained and battle hardened troops (bad news for Ukraine in the long term, they look unlikely to ever get Crimea back) and minimise dissent in Moscow as it can be played to the tune of 'our brave boys' as infinitum.
Away from the nuclear threat it all sounds like a return to the Europe and near East of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. Maybe the best we can hope for is the emergence of another Tolstoy... |
I think that's very much the mindset of Vladimir Putin. More Tsarist, even, than Soviet.
The social effects of a larger number of young men - from a wider spread of society - being killed and wounded will be more significant than the military ones. The Great Patriotic War was manifestly being fought following the invasion of long-term Soviet territory. This war isn't, sham annexations notwithstanding. This is Putin's conflict, not one of ideology or national survival (despite the rhetoric). This move to call up even some reservists is indicative that numbers of volunteers are proving insufficient*, thus motivation is probably not that high.
* Actually, it may be nothing more than a rhetorical sop to the hardliners who have been getting on Putin's back. Having said that, if reports of the combing of prisons, the hiring of Syrians and use of Chechen fighters are true, then volunteering is not bringing in enough. [Post edited 21 Sep 2022 13:11]
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:12 - Sep 21 with 989 views | giant_stow |
| Putin did his big speech then on 13:06 - Sep 21 by Churchman |
The whole principle of mutually assured destruction is the belief your enemy would - or might. Yes. All over. Probably for life as we know it on the planet. Including Putin, his family and the idiots with big hats. Why would you go there? They didn’t in the Cold War when it really came to it - they won’t now.
If Russia attacked the U.K. with its small geographical area, give me one reason why the U.K. wouldn’t respond. It won’t happen [Post edited 21 Sep 2022 13:08]
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I was chatitng about if Russia attacks the Ukraine with nukes really, but I'd even wonder about if the UK was attacked - I don't think its guaranteed that we'd respond. There was some war game show on the beeb pulling together various experts as a kind of military command under Russian attack 0- they decided not to respond for the sake of the planet. too busy to google it now, but it stuck with me. | |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:13 - Sep 21 with 985 views | WeWereZombies |
| Putin did his big speech then on 13:06 - Sep 21 by Churchman |
The whole principle of mutually assured destruction is the belief your enemy would - or might. Yes. All over. Probably for life as we know it on the planet. Including Putin, his family and the idiots with big hats. Why would you go there? They didn’t in the Cold War when it really came to it - they won’t now.
If Russia attacked the U.K. with its small geographical area, give me one reason why the U.K. wouldn’t respond. It won’t happen [Post edited 21 Sep 2022 13:08]
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And, as we have submarines armed with nuclear weapons, an attack on our land mass may be counter productive (as it would probably leave our response capability undamaged, unless a submarine was in dock at Holy Loch.) |  |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 13:20 - Sep 21 with 963 views | hype313 |
| Putin did his big speech then on 13:12 - Sep 21 by giant_stow |
I was chatitng about if Russia attacks the Ukraine with nukes really, but I'd even wonder about if the UK was attacked - I don't think its guaranteed that we'd respond. There was some war game show on the beeb pulling together various experts as a kind of military command under Russian attack 0- they decided not to respond for the sake of the planet. too busy to google it now, but it stuck with me. |
Read this comment earlier...
I see this playing out somewhat differently. First, it misrepresents the scale of Ukraine’s success, and its repeatability. There are far too few even semi useful orc units to hold the front, and so Ukraine can move them around and target them within their internal supply lines whenever they like. Ukraine is doing and will continue to do just fine in pushing out the orcs.
Second, nuclear “risk” has always been there. I agree that there needs to be a clear consensus around what the consequences of the shrivelled twitcher’s outcomes are, but I am certain those conversations have taken place. Just because the writer and I are unaware of them, that’s no reason to conclude that NATO does not have a plan.
Third, as for getting worse, I have no idea what he means by that. Will Puta the Putato do all he can to destroy the free world, and Ukraine. Of course he will, but he has been trying that since day 1. He is running out of long range missiles - he hasn’t been holding back out of the goodness of his heart - and Ukraine’s missile defences get better and better each day. He may well have already done his worst in that respect, He can’t threaten to cut off more oil and gas than he already has, and the free world has already factored that in.
Fourth, any article that doesn’t mention atrocities - rape, children and baby attacks and sold into slavery, pillage and genocide misses the point
I appreciate the expertise of the writers and the thrust of their arguments: certainly the NFZ and UN enforced military free zones would be wonderful. But I would respectfully argue that we always wanted to reach a point at which he was desperate, because that shows that Ukraine has a chance of coming out the other side. This is the end game, and huge credit to Ukraine for getting us this far. | |
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| Putin did his big speech then on 14:29 - Sep 21 with 877 views | Steve_M |
Another interesting thread on how (badly) Russia trains its troops:
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| Putin did his big speech then on 14:40 - Sep 21 with 859 views | Mookamoo |
| Putin did his big speech then on 11:38 - Sep 21 by giant_stow |
Speaking as an ignorant, I find the mobilisation to be a red herring for the reasons you say. This must be all about the nuclear threat and now it's been made, it's hard to imagine Putin walking back from it.
The timeline suggests some kind of ultimatum coming after the results of the 'referendum' on the 25th. Maybe x many days for Ukraine to remove its forces from the Donbas? Steve's link earlier was intersting in highlighting how difficult it would be to actually target anything of military value in a 'small' nuclear strike, so I'm going for Kharkiv, as a Hiroshima-style warning to Kiev, given its status and despite being close to Russia. Then what? This is truly scary. |
The Putin playback suggests he will nuke himself first.
Mobilisation of the reservists will only work if the Russian public will continue their support. The best way to gain that us to show they themselves and The Motherland is threatened. Its what he did in 1999 and the Moscow Appertment bombings. |  | | |
| Putin did his big speech then on 16:03 - Sep 21 with 784 views | Churchman |
| Putin did his big speech then on 14:29 - Sep 21 by Steve_M |
Another interesting thread on how (badly) Russia trains its troops:
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Interesting. The point is that you can’t just slap a load of blokes into a uniform and tell them the front is that way. They’ll not only be cannon fodder, but a danger to those around them. It was always that way going all the way back.
A classic example is Kitcheners New Army (Pals battalions etc). Raised from true volunteers in 1914/15, they trained for more than a year in both the infantry and the specialist areas (machine gunners, artillery, engineers, pioneers, supply, you name it). Their first major action was 1st July 1916 - The Somme. The big concern of the generals including Haig was their inexperience and to an extent they were right. It was only after this bloody event was a truly effective new army born.
If Putin think he’s going to get very far with people that don’t want to be there, people who’ve seen 7 months and don’t necessarily want any more, convicts and the like good luck with that.
I thought the Russian army would swallow Ukraine with ease. That it was trained, kitted out, good command and control, total control of the air; basically ready. Three days I reckoned. Wrong on all counts. I suspect the animal thought much the same.
I don’t see how throwing reservists etc in, even if he could bus them there tomorrow, is going to change much. Maybe that’s what the public threats and sham elections are all about. | | | |
| Putin did his big speech then on 18:10 - Sep 21 with 704 views | Rob88 |
| Putin did his big speech then on 13:13 - Sep 21 by WeWereZombies |
And, as we have submarines armed with nuclear weapons, an attack on our land mass may be counter productive (as it would probably leave our response capability undamaged, unless a submarine was in dock at Holy Loch.) |
Continuous At Sea Deterrent (CASD) - there is always one Vanguard class submarine at sea somewhere in the world at any one time and that has been true for over 50 years. [Post edited 21 Sep 2022 18:17]
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