given how the early days of this conflict have played out poorly for the Russians and prompted a wave of love-ins and celebrations of Ukrainian resistance which are quite possibly premature, I think it's important to read this sort of long-term view to stay grounded.

the article in full:

there is a good chance this might not have the Disney ending that many people are fooling themselves into thinking it will. if Lil Putie gets desperate and is willing to throw aside special consideration or restraint for a supposed brotherly people (btw the notion of slavic brotherhood is a lie, as are most nation-building myths), then Ukrainian cities could end up looking like Syrian ones where the Russians were free to conduct war crimes with impunity for years. there are already reports and accusations that they've been using indiscriminate/overkill weaponry like cluster bombs and vacuum bombs in Ukraine, albeit on a small scale for the time being.

I don't even want to get into the hot mess about how this war is being covered by the media/received by audiences wrt to its "blonde, blue-eyed" victims vs dirty brown ones. I'm sure more of an effort will be made now to get the EU's shit together on a coherent refugee policy than was made in 2014/15. or maybe they'll continue to leave it unspoken cos actually codifying race-preferential treatment is a bad look.

@usagi i don't think there's going to be any kind of disney ending to anything.  russia will get its shit together and keep forging ahead regardless of losses and how much time it takes. it sucks. it's a huge force.  some are saying the ukranian forces will turn into an insurgency once russia gets where it's going and that will be a long protracted thing that will exist for years.  this is only the beginning. even if russia topples the gov't in ukrane and puts in a puppet.. russia doesn't want to stay and be an occupying force because it's too expensive etc.

even though no one is sending troops.. ukrane is calling for foreign fighters to come help and there's stories about americans and canadians answering the call and figuring out how to get there to fight. 

  On 3/1/2022 at 4:26 PM, zero said:

I can't imagine any country being able to stomach seeing massive amounts of civilians getting killed.

i…

...can

^ had a chuckle at that as well

  On 3/1/2022 at 4:49 PM, ignatius said:

even though no one is sending troops.. ukrane is calling for foreign fighters to come help and there's stories about americans and canadians answering the call and figuring out how to get there to fight. 

like this one - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-monday-edition-1.6367495/why-a-canadian-comedian-is-heading-to-ukraine-to-fight-against-russia-1.6367623

comedians in before US mercenaries ala eric prince and ex-SF jockos

what a time...

The latest as far as I know: 10 people killed in a rocket attack in Kharkiv, and a TV tower hit in Kyiv. And that massive Russian convoy is moving closer to Kyiv as well.

I'm tempted donate aid money for Ukraine, but I want to make sure the recipients are legit. And this goes without saying, but also fuck Putin and his cronies.

  On 3/1/2022 at 5:12 PM, Alcofribas said:

i…

just some out loud wishful thinking on my part, the optimist part of my brain trying to escape from reality. I know there'll be no disney ending here. dunno how else to say I don't want a whole bunch of people to die without coming across as naive. this whole thing is one big losing affair. 

ok , sorry for emotional post but today was a complete shit . out of words , im in city of Kharkiv , just see the news . every couple days it becomes way worse , now they are striking civilian buildings , wtf . can't get out of the city , somebody mentioned that I need to get out - its more dangerous now than sitting at home . fucking miracle that almost all city have electricity and water , hope that will last. its a full on city siege . we are praying that international community will pressure russians to stop this.

  On 3/1/2022 at 5:20 PM, zero said:

like this one - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-monday-edition-1.6367495/why-a-canadian-comedian-is-heading-to-ukraine-to-fight-against-russia-1.6367623

there's some people from ireland as well. ukrainian expats too.. but groups of people are heading there. 

also, if you want some idea of understanding putin... it's a usa link so might not work w/o vpn in some places. 

  On 3/1/2022 at 5:59 PM, maxwellsq said:

im in city of Kharkiv

That's close to the russian border! I hope you have a bunch of russian flags lying around to show them you are on their side

  On 3/1/2022 at 5:59 PM, maxwellsq said:

ok , sorry for emotional post but today was a complete shit . out of words , im in city of Kharkiv , just see the news . every couple days it becomes way worse , now they are striking civilian buildings , wtf . can't get out of the city , somebody mentioned that I need to get out - its more dangerous now than sitting at home . fucking miracle that almost all city have electricity and water , hope that will last. its a full on city siege . we are praying that international community will pressure russians to stop this.

sorry to hear. hope you stay safe. if there's some way internet people can help from a distance, let us know.

  On 3/1/2022 at 6:07 PM, Satans Little Helper said:

That's close to the russian border! I hope you have a bunch of russian flags lying around to show them you are on their side

thanks for advice , really really helpful , to get myself shot.  I guess you don't know what our security service thinks about all russian flags and that kind of stuff for last 8 years . haven't thought that this board have people this arrogant ...

lol

  On 2/28/2022 at 10:57 PM, Nebraska said:

wish pastor pat had told us about this divine plan before we thought it was just a war over putin's attempt to control that particular region of the world

Expand  

The best thing about this approach is that, if it doesn't come to pass as old-man brainfart says, he can just turn around and say "god's will told Putin to back out" or "God provided strength to American allies".

Luckily, old man pat doesn't have the greatest track record with predictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson#Predictions

  On 3/1/2022 at 4:40 PM, usagi said:

given how the early days of this conflict have played out poorly for the Russians and prompted a wave of love-ins and celebrations of Ukrainian resistance which are quite possibly premature, I think it's important to read this sort of long-term view to stay grounded.

the article in full:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

After a Fumbled Start, Russian Forces Hit Harder in Ukraine

After days of miscalculation about Ukraine’s resolve to fight, Russian forces are turning toward an old pattern of opening fire on cities and mounting sieges.

BRUSSELS — When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine with nearly 200,000 troops, many observers — and seemingly President Vladimir V. Putin himself — expected that the force would roll right in and the fighting would be over quickly. Instead, after five days of war, what appears to be unfolding is a Russian miscalculation about tactics and about how hard the Ukrainians would fight.

No major cities have been taken after an initial Russian push toward Kyiv, the capital, stalled. While Russia appeared to pull its punches, Ukraine marshaled and armed civilians to cover more ground, and its military has attacked Russian convoys and supply lines, leaving video evidence of scorched Russian vehicles and dead soldiers.

But the war was already changing quickly on Monday, and ultimately, it is likely to turn on just how far Russia is willing to go to subjugate Ukraine. The Russian track record in the Syrian civil war, and in its own ruthless efforts to crush separatism in the Russian region of Chechnya, suggest an increasingly brutal campaign ahead.

Signs of that appeared on Monday in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, when Russia accelerated its bombardment of a residential district where heavy civilian casualties were reported, an attack that may have included cluster munitions, which are banned by many countries, but not Russia and Ukraine.

“We’re only in the opening days of this, and Putin has a lot of cards to play,’’ said Douglas Lute, a former U.S. lieutenant general and ambassador to NATO. “It’s too early to be triumphalist, and there are a lot of Russian capabilities not employed yet.”

Russian military doctrine toward taking cities is both grimly practical and deadly, favoring heavy artillery, missiles and bombs to terrify civilians and push them to flee, while killing defenders and destroying local infrastructure and communications before advancing on the ground.

“Russia has not yet massed its military capability in an efficient way,” Mr. Lute said. “But the Russian doctrine of mass firing and no holds barred was visible in Chechnya, and there is the potential that Russia will get its act together tactically, and that will result in mass fire against population centers.’’

Russian forces advancing toward Kyiv continue to face “creative and effective” resistance, according to a senior Pentagon official who briefed reporters on Monday. But Russia’s assault is in just the fifth day, and Russian commanders will likely learn from their failures and adapt, the official said, as Russian forces also did in Syria. American officials say they fear that Russia may now escalate missile and aerial bombing of cities with major civilian casualties, the official said.

Many experts say that Mr. Putin appeared to miscalculate in assuming that a quick strike on Kyiv could dislodge the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, and that Ukrainians would stay largely indifferent. That explains, the experts suggest, why Russia went in lightly, seemingly trying to limit civilian casualties.

But the Ukrainians surprised the Russians with their defense, and an early effort to seize a Kyiv airport with a spearhead group, to allow reinforcements to fly in, failed badly.

Russia has seemed markedly restrained in its use of force and even clumsy in the early days, said Mathieu Boulègue, an expert in Russian warfare at Chatham House. “They were paying the price of their own rhetoric, that this was a defensive war against fascists and neo-Nazis,’’ he said. But now “we have an irritated Kremlin, and we haven’t seen yet what Russia has in store.”

The world is “starting to see stage two, when they go in with heavy artillery and ground troops, as they are doing in Kharkiv and Mariupol,’’ he said.

“I’m afraid this is really the beginning,” Mr. Boulègue said. “We can see a follow-on invasion with more experienced troops, with more forces, fewer precision-guided systems, more attrition, more carpet bombing and more victims.’’

In their effort to take Kyiv quickly, based on “terribly flawed assumptions about Ukraine,” the Russians withheld much of their combat power and capabilities and “got a bloody nose in the early days of the war,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute.

“However, we are only at the beginning of this war, and much of the euphoric optimism about the way the first 96 hours have gone belies the situation on the ground and the reality that the worst may yet be to come,” he said.

Jack Watling, an expert in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense research institution, returned from Ukraine 12 days ago and says he expects more pressure from Russian forces in the coming days. “The Russians have a lot of forces in Ukraine, and as they continue to advance in a steady pace, they can function in a combined way, and not as isolated tank columns, and they will apply a much higher level of firepower,’’ he said.

Analysts say they expect Russian forces to work to expand their hold on the pro-Russia, separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and to capture a land bridge to Crimea in the south, while pushing troops down from the north to try to encircle the main Ukrainian Army east of the Dnieper River. They are trying to surround Mariupol and take Kharkiv.

That encirclement would cut off the bulk of Ukraine’s forces from Kyiv and from easy resupply, the experts say, limiting the sustainability of organized resistance. Russian troops are also moving steadily toward Kyiv from three axes to try to surround it.

While Russian forces have had supply and logistical problems — in some cases stranding vehicles without fuel in the early days of the invasion — those of the Ukrainians are likely more severe. The Ukrainian Army will start to run out of ammunition in a week, the experts suggest, and out of Stinger missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles before then.

Countries belonging to NATO and the European Union are sending ammunition and Stinger and Javelin missiles into western Ukraine from Poland, a NATO member, through a still-open border. The European Union is even, for the first time, promising to reimburse member states up to 450 million euros for the purchase and supply of weapons and equipment like flak jackets and helmets to Ukraine.

But if the Russians cut off the cities, Mr. Watling said, it will be difficult to get those supplies to Ukrainian defenders. Russian helicopters are beginning to run interdiction flights near the Polish border, and more troops are likely to move down from Belarus to cut off supply routes from Poland, he said, especially if, as it seems likely, Belarusian troops enter the war.

Bad starts in previous conflicts did not keep Russia from prevailing, and often at a brutal cost.

In Syria, the Russians had early setbacks, bringing predictions of quagmire. Yet they adapted, using missiles, airpower and artillery while their allies mostly went in on the ground. From 2015 to the end of 2017, Russian airstrikes were estimated to have killed at least 5,700 civilians, a quarter of them children, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.

The two wars in Chechnya were especially brutal, destroying the capital, Grozny, and helping give Mr. Putin, then a new prime minister, a reputation for toughness. Many thousands died before Russia restored control and put a pro-Kremlin Chechen in charge.

To this point, Russia appears to have been restrained in Ukraine by the belief that “they could not turn Kyiv into Grozny and expect to govern the country,” Mr. Watling said. “But now we see the Kremlin approving demonstrative acts of extreme violence, starting in Kharkiv,” which has had severe shelling of civilian areas.

There have also been more shellings of Kyiv and Chernihiv, a city northeast of the capital.

“You don’t pacify a population that way and you lay the ground for insurgency,’’ Mr. Watling added.

That strategy also raises a question of morale, both among the Russian forces and the Russian public back home.

“A lot depends on how brutal the Russians are prepared to be,” said Ian Bond, foreign policy director for the Center for European Reform. “They can’t censor everything, so brutalizing Ukrainians for whom many Russians feel a connection may not be politically successful for Putin.’’

At home, Mr. Putin is facing an increasingly difficult position, the experts suggest. “He has another roll of the dice in the military campaign,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute research group in Britain. “But if he fails in week two as badly as in week one, he will be under pressure to find some way out of this.’’

The miscalculation of the early days has been reinforced by the impact of unexpectedly severe and coordinated Western sanctions, which have already devalued the ruble and promise further economic turmoil for many ordinary Russians.

There have already been some prominent Russian voices criticizing the war, and some demonstrations in Russian cities. Repressing those will not keep the reality of the war away from most Russians.

“Putin has miscalculated and put his hand in a mangle,” Mr. Watling said. “The war will go on, but a lot will depend on the character of the resistance” — whether it means fighting in the cities or, as many expect, it reverts to a partisan war. “But the Ukrainians will not give up,’’ he said.

Curtis M. Scaparrotti, a retired four-star Army general and supreme allied commander in Europe, said that Ukrainian soldiers “can’t match the Russian units, but they won’t fold, either.”

The Ukrainians “have to survive and transition to an insurgency, a tough task to pull off,” he said in an email. “The Russians have to consolidate gains and control a big country with a hostile populace. Next few days will indicate how this may go. If it gets difficult, the Russians will get brutal.”

 

there is a good chance this might not have the Disney ending that many people are fooling themselves into thinking it will. if Lil Putie gets desperate and is willing to throw aside special consideration or restraint for a supposed brotherly people (btw the notion of slavic brotherhood is a lie, as are most nation-building myths), then Ukrainian cities could end up looking like Syrian ones where the Russians were free to conduct war crimes with impunity for years. there are already reports and accusations that they've been using indiscriminate/overkill weaponry like cluster bombs and vacuum bombs in Ukraine, albeit on a small scale for the time being.

I don't even want to get into the hot mess about how this war is being covered by the media/received by audiences wrt to its "blonde, blue-eyed" victims vs dirty brown ones. I'm sure more of an effort will be made now to get the EU's shit together on a coherent refugee policy than was made in 2014/15. or maybe they'll continue to leave it unspoken cos actually codifying race-preferential treatment is a bad look.

Expand  

There are satellite images of 40-mile long military convoys heading toward Kyiv. I'm very sorry to say that it appears very likely that the president of Ukraine will be killed soon, for all his public support and heroism. Such a horrible shame. I really don't want it to be the case, but it looks like Putin is determined to kill that guy. 

This whole time, I can't help but think about how I read somewhere a few years ago about how Putin was obsessed with video of Gaddafi getting anally raped by the rebels who caught him, and how Gaddafi was killed in an undignified way by the mob, and Putin would just play that video over and over and repeatedly say "This won't ever happen to me." His personal identification with a fellow dictator was revealing, and his take-away from that whole affair was super alarming. I fear that the lesson he "learned" from that was that he'd rather blow up the whole world than be anally raped. 

Such a shame how vulnerable the rest of us are to the bizarre whims of unbalanced wealthy people. 

  On 3/1/2022 at 5:59 PM, maxwellsq said:

ok , sorry for emotional post but today was a complete shit . out of words , im in city of Kharkiv , just see the news . every couple days it becomes way worse , now they are striking civilian buildings , wtf . can't get out of the city , somebody mentioned that I need to get out - its more dangerous now than sitting at home . fucking miracle that almost all city have electricity and water , hope that will last. its a full on city siege . we are praying that international community will pressure russians to stop this.

So sorry about all this. I hope something positive happens soon. 

update: lukashenko still hasn't received that promotion from vlad so he's going to sit this one out

  On 3/1/2022 at 6:14 PM, maxwellsq said:

thanks for advice , really really helpful , to get myself shot.  I guess you don't know what our security service thinks about all russian flags and that kind of stuff for last 8 years . haven't thought that this board have people this arrogant ...

Sorry for that crap situation. I'm trying economicaly donate something to help and defool some russian monglers in Internet. Maybe its time to chill, have a beer or roll a blunt while listening to some shit, everything is absurd anyways

  On 3/1/2022 at 6:07 PM, Satans Little Helper said:

That's close to the russian border! I hope you have a bunch of russian flags lying around to show them you are on their side

Don't be so fucking stupid 

  On 3/1/2022 at 6:43 PM, apriorion said:

This whole time, I can't help but think about how I read somewhere a few years ago about how Putin was obsessed with video of Gaddafi getting anally raped by the rebels who caught him, and how Gaddafi was killed in an undignified way by the mob, and Putin would just play that video over and over and repeatedly say "This won't ever happen to me." His personal identification with a fellow dictator was revealing, and his take-away from that whole affair was super alarming. I fear that the lesson he "learned" from that was that he'd rather blow up the whole world than be anally raped.

i find this post disturbing as if youre presenting a choice that he should accept anal rape with a knife and get murdered to allow US influenced revolutions to happen.  as if US led murder attempts are righteous and just and he should accept them rather than intend on avoiding them.  Putin is a piece of shit but every single US president is worse on a scale hard to imagine because of the scale of their influence in comparison to russia.  you think putin wants to get murdered by nazi gangs in ukraine the US has been funding?

  Quote

Cities under siege across Ukraine are home to tens of thousands of African students studying medicine, engineering and military affairs. Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt are among the top 10 countries with foreign students in Ukraine, together supplying over 16,000 students, according to the education ministry. Thousands of Indian students are also trying to flee.

"In a situation like this, you're on your own. You've got to find the best way to find refuge for yourself. It's now that the reality is really hitting me. I think [for me] it's a bit too late for evacuation and all those things."

https://www.reuters.com/world/youre-your-own-african-students-stuck-ukraine-seek-refuge-or-escape-route-2022-02-25/