Russia has invaded Ukraine

[jfman]

Oddly Hugh I can’t remember the last time you actually addressed a point made. It’s all playing the man, not the ball.

That said if all I had to work with was supporting sending Ukranians to their deaths in the name of western imperialism I’d probably play the man too.

What little consensus remains over Ukraine will be gone by 2025. A new boss in town in Washington and who knows. This could be all over by February. Before a single F-16 ever saw action.

Originally Posted by jfman

Oddly Hugh I can’t remember the last time you actually addressed a point made. It’s all playing the man, not the ball.

That said if all I had to work with was supporting sending Ukranians to their deaths in the name of western imperialism I’d probably play the man too.

What little consensus remains over Ukraine will be gone by 2025. A new boss in town in Washington and who knows. This could be all over by February. Before a single F-16 ever saw action.

This is one of those posts I’ll keep bookmarked (a bit like all the ones where you predicted further lockdowns and covid waves that never occurred)

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is one of those posts I’ll keep bookmarked (a bit like all the ones where you predicted further lockdowns and covid waves that never occurred)

There certainly are still waves of Covid - the Winter Covid Infection Survey tracked that over 2023/4. Wastewater analysis around the world shows multiple waves per year in all seasons based on new (but not named) variants.

I may well have underestimated Boris’s commitment to “let the bodies pile high” in the earlier waves though. Not convinced we saw any economic benefit though but I see little value in resurrecting the Covid thread to discuss our economic stagnation given the multitude of ways the Conservatives can be blamed for it.

Efforts to keep Trump of the ballot may well succeed, or Biden might see some improved cognitive condition between now and November. But I can only make a judgement based on my perception of events. Other interpretations are available.

Originally Posted by jfman

Oddly Hugh I can’t remember the last time you actually addressed a point made. It’s all playing the man, not the ball.

That said if all I had to work with was supporting sending Ukranians to their deaths in the name of western imperialism I’d probably play the man too.

What little consensus remains over Ukraine will be gone by 2025. A new boss in town in Washington and who knows. This could be all over by February. Before a single F-16 ever saw action.

Well, if all I had to work with was defending a country who repeatedly invaded a neighbouring country, and that country has also invaded other neighbouring countries this century, and defends sending Russian conscripts into a meat-grinder in the name of Putin’s neo-Soviet Union, I’d be pretty embarrassed too.

It’s pointless replying to your posts with counter-points, because the counter-points have all been posted before, such as the very high likelihood of Putin using a cease-fire to re-arm and re-populate his military before his third invasion of Ukraine, just get poo-poohed by you…

Your vatnik pro-Russian posts are laughably transparent, even with your crocodile tears over lack of elections and conscription, even though the same thing happened in the U.K. when it was under threat of invasion.

---------- Post added at 13:23 ---------- Previous post was at 13:21 ----------

Originally Posted by jfman

There certainly are still waves of Covid - the Winter Covid Infection Survey tracked that over 2023/4. Wastewater analysis around the world shows multiple waves per year in all seasons based on new (but not named) variants.

I may well have underestimated Boris’s commitment to “let the bodies pile high” in the earlier waves though. Not convinced we saw any economic benefit though but I see little value in resurrecting the Covid thread to discuss our economic stagnation given the multitude of ways the Conservatives can be blamed for it.

Efforts to keep Trump of the ballot may well succeed, or Biden might see some improved cognitive condition between now and November. But I can only make a judgement based on my perception of events. Other interpretations are available.

More vatnik outpourings - set up a false narrative, then base all posts on that…

[jfman]

I’m not sure I’ve made a single post that’s “pro-Russian” - an interpretation of events that predicts an outcome of Ukrainian defeat (on some level) as an observation of objective reality isn’t in an of itself a “pro”-Russian stance.

I’ve certainly suggested ways that Ukraine, or NATO, could effectively use any period to leave themselves in a better position to defend later.

I absolutely reject your sleight on my concern for conscripted Ukranians as “crocodile tears”.

There’s nothing incorrect about the statements that there are efforts to remove Trump from the ballot, nor that Biden is clearly suffering from cognitive decline.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by jfman

Meantime, Ukranians getting conscripted (against their will) to the front line meat grinder is an acceptable price to pay while America at best resources at stalemate and at worst a managed defeat?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-Kremlin.html

Farage also out doing his bit to end the Parliamentary consensus on this.

Ultimately the clock has run out on Ukraine ever regaining its territory lost in 2022, never mind 2014. There’s only bogging down Russian resources for longer. This may well suit some of Ukraine’s neighbours, the USA and wider NATO objectives but as ever in the absence of democratic accountability for the Zelensky regime there’s no voice for the men being marched to their deaths or the refugees in the west.

If we levelled with them that much of the rhetoric from 2022 was merely lies and that their objectives and ours only coalesced within a short timeframe I suspect the Ukrainian support (within and outside it’s borders) for the forever war would be minimal.

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At least Ukraine are winning the meme war I guess.

There are some Ukrainians being conscripted against there will but no where near what you imply (though it closely follows what Russian bots are posting).

Try actually talking to a Ukranian rather than sourcing info frrom Russia. They are easy to find depending on where you look.

[Pierre]

Before the February 2022 attack, there were 8.7 million men of conscription age in Ukraine; by February 2024 there were about 5 million. Ukraine’s army needs up to 400,000 more soldiers to fight off the Russians, who have a mobilization capacity at least four times as great given the difference in population size.

Ukraine need around 10% of fighting age men to join up, it appears they don’t want to.

, newly trained troops are reaching the front line far too slowly. As a recent frontline report from the Kyiv Independent stated: “Experts and soldiers alike identify manpower as the core problem at the heart of Ukraine’s military at this stage of the war: overstretched and undermanned units, with infantry often fighting for so long without rotation that their combat effectiveness begins to drop.”

It’s not F16s they need.

It would seem that they quite simply do not have the manpower to push Russia back.

https://cepa.org/article/ukraines-wa...iption-crisis/

[Hom3r]

Scaring thing is that if Trump get in, he will more than like pull all US equipment and resources from Ukraine

Originally Posted by jfman

I’m not sure I’ve made a single post that’s “pro-Russian”

... and yet everyone thinks your Putins best mate {smoke, fire, you know the saying ....}

I'm starting to think you're getting sponsored to post "Ukranians getting conscripted (against their will)", given how often you repeat it.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Paul

... and yet everyone thinks your Putins best mate {smoke, fire, you know the saying ....}

I'm starting to think you're getting sponsored to post "Ukranians getting conscripted (against their will)", given how often you repeat it.

We could sponsor him to stop saying it, I'll chuck a quid in for that

[jfman]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

We could sponsor him to stop saying it, I'll chuck a quid in for that

I think it'd be preferable for Ukraine to have a volunteer army that NATO adequately resources if it seeks to use it as a pawn, tbh.

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Originally Posted by Paul

... and yet everyone thinks your Putins best mate {smoke, fire, you know the saying ....}

I'd propose it's more likely a limitation of the counter argument it resorts to jibes instead. Ultimately, some are too far gone on the kool aid (every inch, plus Crimea) to realise it's a mere fantasy and the US has form for letting down it's short term allies.

I did see a Ukraine flag at their match in Germany with "give us elections" at kick off swiftly removed. Of course, it must have been the Kremlin that instigated it. Ukrainian refugees couldn't possibly want democracy.

---------- Post added at 06:16 ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 ----------

Originally Posted by pip08456

There are some Ukrainians being conscripted against there will but no where near what you imply (though it closely follows what Russian bots are posting).

Try actually talking to a Ukranian rather than sourcing info frrom Russia. They are easy to find depending on where you look.

I'd propose that all conscripts are against their will. Otherwise why didn't they sign up? Indeed, why do they need conscription at all if they are overwhelmed with volunteers to mobilise?

It's only an existential threat, after all.

Of course no rational person could make this observation, it must be a Kremlin endorsed line.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

I'd propose that all conscripts are against their will. Otherwise why didn't they sign up? Indeed, why do they need conscription at all if they are overwhelmed with volunteers to mobilise?

I consider this statement to be wholly accurate.

And very happy for someone to explain to me how and why it is inaccurate.

Originally Posted by Pierre

I consider this statement to be wholly accurate.

And very happy for someone to explain to me how and why it is inaccurate.

The facts are accurate. The inference is not. In WW1 we didn’t conscript until 1916, after the initial swell of volunteers pretty much stopped. There were demonstrations against it but enough men accepted it as necessary, if undesirable, for the policy to work.

We conscripted from the outbreak of WW2 but extended it to unmarried women and all men up to 60 in 1941 because ancillary services (civil defence, police, women’s army auxiliary) were getting too few volunteers.

The British armed forces have never wanted to go back to conscription because it always causes training and discipline issues you don’t get in a willing, professional volunteer army. There is no reason to suppose human nature is very much different in Ukraine today.

So, yes, jfman’s words are factually correct. But like a sort of Farage of the Far Left, he is very good at leaving inferences hanging in the air (which he might later deny he made if they prove objectionable). And the inference here is that people being conscripted against their will is evidence that the war does not have popular support, and that the Ukrainian ‘regime’ is unpopular, avoiding democratic accountability and possibly illegitimate.

As others have noted, we faced our own existential struggle between 1939 and 1945. In that time, as well as conscripting people into various forms of national service far more broadly than Ukraine has done, Parliament passed Acts on 2 occasions extending its own life beyond the norm (The Prolongation of Parliament Acts, 1940 and 1942). There is nothing happening in Ukraine that is out of the ordinary for a democratic state facing an existential threat. Unless of course you’ve been captured by that part of Russia’s information operations that has led you to think otherwise. Note, they don’t need you to think Russia is in the right. They just need you to think Ukraine might be in the wrong for your voice to contribute to their wider aim of making support for Ukraine in democratic western states harder to sustain.

[jfman]

Tl;dr I’m right. Lots of historically irrelevant narrative from conflicts almost a century old. Anyone who disagrees with the official western narrative is, automatically, parroting Russian narrative.

Support for Ukraine is western states is waning because without adequate commitment and support - which the US have consistently not given - it’s simply a fools errand. And the best justification is it keeps Russia away from Poland. While strategically a noble aim, sacrificing a generation of Ukrainian men seems like the kind of thing you should at least have their consent for.

Ukraine have banned opposition political parties, trade unions, and broadcast media that doesn’t endorse the state narrative. Journalists have found themselves followed, and even conscripted, to intimidate and silence them. And that’s just the it’s in the Guardian. This is absolutely not the norm. Nor a “Russian narrative”. While I appreciate it’s a useful trope to censor legitimate criticism, I’m not having it.

Much like the insult of “the Farage of the Far Left”.

Originally Posted by jfman

Tl;dr I’m right. Lots of historically irrelevant narrative from conflicts almost a century old. Anyone who disagrees with the official western narrative is, automatically, parroting Russian narrative.

Support for Ukraine is western states is because without adequate commitment and support - which the US have consistently not given - it’s simply a fools errand. And the best justification is it keeps Russia away from Poland. While strategically a noble aim, sacrificing a generation of Ukrainian men seems like the kind of thing you should at least have their consent for.

Mmmhmm. The biggest state-on-state armed conflict in history has nothing to tell us about the biggest-state-on-state armed conflict that has since occurred. Obviously. Tl:dr …. Your argument’s holed below the water line, but that’s what happens when you get your opinions from Russian botnets.

It is by no means a fools errand. The White House is presently preoccupied with worrying about a total Russian collapse at least as much as it worries about someone in Moscow going mad and authorising a small nuclear detonation. They remember USSR 1991 and they don’t want it to happen to the motherland. For that reason, they give Ukraine what it needs to survive (which, incidentally, is somewhat less than they are treaty-bound to do as a result of persuading Ukraine to give Russia all its nukes) but not what it needs to win.

I happen to think the policy is flawed because Russia has doubled down and is going to destroy itself trying to take Ukraine either way. It is suffering a bad case of sunk cost fallacy. The question is whether that happens quickly or slowly, and whether half-hearted Western aid emboldens the likes of China vis a vis Taiwan.