- Nuff said.
You still haven’t provided any cites or evidence to back up your assertions.
Fun to troll you mean?
Yes I have. My main ones. But I also get completely exposed to the other more mainstream ones all the time without even having to try. My main ones are far more likely to give plus and minus to both sides. The mainstream ones were almost 100% positive in all respects to Ukraine up until very recently. Mainstream media is seeming to report that Ukraine is having a hard time lately. Getting more negative as to their prospects currently and going forward. If one looks back at other conflicts the pattern repeats. The mainstream media, especially in the countries that are gung ho involved in the conflict will be gung ho in reporting. But when the country’s political rulers begin to shift negatively to the conflict, the media with some lag time will begin to go negative on it. This is not the situation in all countries. There are different relationships with the press/government in various countries. But there seems to be more negative reports in western media lately of the battlefield conditions.
As far as my sources? Look it up lazy bastards. I posted them as suggestions in the other thread long ago. Of course they are Russian stooges… Hmmmm. There’s me, there’s you, who’s the third? hehehehehehhehhhheeeeeee
Yeah, memeing aside, dismissing the entire Russian military as being a bunch of bumbling incompetents isn’t a wise move. Here’s an interesting video that’s over a year old that looks at some of the weaknesses and limitations of the VDV that came/come from its doctrine and organization. It’s chaptered, if analyzing TO&Es and OOBs makes your eyes gloss over or you just asked yourself ‘what are TO&Es and OOBs?’ you might want to skip to about 11:50 and the chapter titled 'limitations (opinion) if you still feel like giving it a look.
The upshot is that the VDVs current organizational origins date back to the Soviet Union where deep strikes of airdropped mechanized infantry against a faltering NATO seemed a credible use for them. The Russian Air Force doesn’t have the lift capability to actually drop more than perhaps 2 battalion tactical groups of the VDV at a time, unlike the Soviet Air Force which had the resources to drop an entire VDV division of mechanized airborne troops. As a result, they have mostly used as elite armored infantry and have been used as that pretty much exclusively after the first weeks of the war. The problem is they combine the worst features of both light infantry and armored infantry in one package because their vehicles need to be air-transportable and air-droppable. The BMD only carries 4 dismounts, meaning at full strength (which many apparently weren’t when the invasion was launched) a VDV air assault company has a bayonet strength of only 48, which is closer to the bayonet strength of a light infantry platoon. A US light infantry company, by comparison, has a bayonet strength of 117.
Among other things, he also did a more approachable video on mapping the defeat of the 200th Arctic Motor Rifle Brigade (Arctic being something of an elite title for Russian units) from its deployment from its base at Pechenga to its virtual destruction in Ukraine.
Mapping the Defeat of Russia’s Arctic Troops in Ukraine - YouTube
Also Simplicius’s Garden of Knowledge.
But you have to pay.
I pay for a couple other news sources too. But they are more broad based.
My sources are not twets and posts. They are 30 to 120 minutes long. Or 15 to 45 minute reads. I do see lots of tweets and other social media information, such as it is.
Cough The New Atlas? Christ on a crutch you’re even nuttier than I thought.
The Bangkok-based blogger, known for his pro-China and pro-Russia views, “Tony Cartalucci”, (aka Brian Joseph Thomas Berletic), is at it again. He has released his latest Conspiracy YouTube recording – 14-minutes in duration – accusing the grassroots activist platform FORSEA (Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia) as a meddlesome “tool of US and European powers”.
FORSEA was launched in Kuala Lumpur in the wake of the Malaysian Spring in 2019 with two keynote addresses by Professor Noam Chomsky and the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. Neither of these iconic figures supports imperialism, USA or others.
Previously, the ex-marine blogger has also slandered Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim as a “tool” of US imperialism, having labelled Myanmar armed resistance as “terrorists” and deriding the Milk Tea Alliance as a product of US interference.
Berletic offers not a shred of evidence – financial, institutional or photographic or audiovisual – to support his wild assertion that FORSEA and those affiliated with this 5-year-old network of volunteers have received funding from US and European government-funding agencies.
Yeah, 1) He’s not a news source, he’s a conspiracy nut, and 2) never trust a man with two middle names.
I’ve not listened to the content of any of the sources you’ve provided, but here are some comments on them.
Military Summary - They provide no information on their channel as to who they are. Speaker talks with Russian accent. Youtube commenters on channel are uniformly pro-Russian.
The New Atlas - Youtuber called Brian Berletić (aka Tony Cartalucci) [lol!]. A former US marine electro-optical ordnance repairman living in Bangkok. Youtube commenters on channel are uniformly pro-Russian.
Comments on him from Reddit while talking about a different subject (gene therapy):
Alexander Mercouris - Seems to have once been a barrister, but got disbarred for charges including document falsification. Here’s a petition to get him off Youtube for being a pro-Russia propagandist.
Alex Christoforou - Thoughts from Redditors:
Seriously? Of course Zelenky wants more weapons. Every military commander who has ever been in a war wants more weapons. When the allies were sweeping accross the Pacific and marching across Europe in 1945, do you think that Patton sent a message to FDR saying, I’ve got enough tanks so don’t bother sending any more but thanks for the offer. The fact that he didn’t didn’t mean that Hitler was winning.
Kedikat, if memory serves, you mentioned using Odysee as a source previously, although I don’t recall if you specified the channel(s) you preferred. If you’re relying on the Alex Chrstoforou channels (he’s listed as the co-founder, president, and chairman of The Duran, the other Odysee channel you linked), you’re essentially double-dipping on an extreme right-wing source.
Similarly, I found this statement about Simplicius’ Garden of Knowledge:
The blog you referred to is a shameless pro-Russian propaganda vessel, with articles full of lies, ridiculous conspiracy theories, racist hatred of Ukrainians and deliberate misrepresentations of western media reports.
In other words, the sources you seem to rely on so heavily are wildly biased at best, and possibly nothing more than propaganda organs for Russia. I understand you claim to sift through “multiple viewpoints” to arrive at the truth, but at some point you have to realize these outlets simply wave at the truth as it passes by and then continue their diatribes.
I would encourage you to rely on information and reports from the Institute for the Study of War, the BBC, and Al Jazeera. The first two are Western-based sources, true, but their reporting and analysis has been balanced overall. Al Jazeera is based in Qatar, which – while being an ally of the U.S. – also has strong ties with China and various Islamic states, along with Russia. In fact, Qatar as of six months ago owned 19% of Russian oil giant Rosneft, and anticipated continued investment in Russia.
In other words, it’s possible to use media and think-tank resources that don’t blindly spout one-sided propaganda. Unless, of course, that’s your goal in the first place.
It’s good to look for varied sources and to pay attention to what people on both sides of a debate are saying.
But it’s not good to think that just because you’re paying attention to both sides, that both sides are equally deserving of attention. You need to critically assess those voices. For the sake of simplicity, let’s vet two potential sources of information on the war, the oft-cited Oryx and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The guy who runs Oryx and the people who help him are not unbiased. They are all extremely pro-Ukraine, and will cheerfully admit as much. But every single entry in the database comes with receipts. Every single entry contains a link to a photo or video that documents the loss in question. Anyone can view these links and look for errors, such as the same loss appearing multiple times due to being pictured from different angles, or before and after being dragged off the battlefield, or whatever. And in fact there are people who make it their hobby to do exactly that (some of them pro-Russian), and from time to time the loss numbers actually drop because duplicates have been removed after people submit evidence of them. Oryx as a source thus has a claim to credibility, because the evidence is there for anyone to audit.
The Ukrainian MoD claims on Russian losses, on the other hand, are presented without supporting evidence. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re completely untrustworthy, but it does mean their claims are uncorroborated. One can vet their claims to some extent, however. In many categories, the numbers they claim correlate over time with Oryx’s, for example. That is, if the MoD claims an increasing number of tank kills one week, then usually there is also an increase of visually confirmed Russian tank losses posted on Oryx in the following days or weeks. The time lag is explained by MoD numbers coming presumably from after action reports, and Oryx having to wait for videos to be posted to Telegram, which is often delayed for opsec reasons by the units who post them. That tells us there is reason to believe the Ukrainian MoD daily report isn’t completely fabricated, though we also have reason to believe that it’s probably claiming more Russian losses than there really are just because armies have been overestimating how many enemies they’ve taken out ever since a couple proto-humans in east Africa raided a neighbouring tribe, killing 5 (actually 2) warriors and bringing a couple captives back as slaves.
On the other hand, we can look at the Russian MoD as a source and note that it has claimed to destroy more western-supplied HIMARS and M777 than the west has actually supplied, and to have shot down the Ukrainian Air Force 3 times over, and conclude that its claims should be dismissed as pure fantasy.
Some pro-Russian social media sources do have some degree of credibility. Milbloggers like Rybar, Greyzone, and Wargonzo have sources in the Russian forces, heck, Wargonzo actually spends a fair bit of time near the front lines. Even almost lost a foot to a petal mine near Lyman during the second wave of Ukrainian advances in Kharkiv last fall. Some times they’ve presented more accurate pictures of Ukrainian advances than the Ukrainians, because when the Ukrainians have been advancing they’ve tended to delay detailed news by a couple days for opsec reasons. But the pro-Russian milbloggers have all also frequently repeated fabricated reports of Russian successes, probably due to the Russian military’s systematic tendency of reporting fabricated successes. That is to say, if Wargonzo reports that Unit X successfully advanced on Town Y, there’s a good chance Unit X actually did report that, it’s just that the report didn’t bother to mention the ignominious retreat that followed the successful advance. The Russian army has a systematic problem with shall we say overly-optimistic reporting (i.e. reporting BS to your superiors to make yourself look good, which they turn around and report to their superiors because it makes them look good, and until reality comes along to reveal the lies everyone repeats those reports as gospel), and anything coming out of the Russian army at any level must be viewed through that lens.
Then we get to think tanks, Youtube talking heads, and the like. These aren’t actually sources. These are commentators. Unfortunately, this appears to include most of what you describe as your sources. That again doesn’t mean they’re worthless, but they’re only as good as their own sources. ISW is a think tank, for example, but its daily reports are festooned with footnotes, and you can click through to the source of any particular claim (usually a Russian Telegram post of some sort) to assess the basis of their judgements. Others are less valuable. Everyone’s favourite pro-Ukrainian youtuber, Denys Davidov, for example, is merely repeating stuff he sees being reported in Ukrainian social media space, and isn’t as good a judge of what’s reliable and what’s not as the guys at ISW are. Also he’s a lot less cautious about accepting rumoured good news for Ukraine than outfits like ISW or most serious OSINT Twitter acocunts. That doesn’t make him worthless as a source, just that you should be looking for corroboration before relying on him.
The bad news for you is that almost all of the pro-Russian talking heads don’t publish their sources, and insofar as anyone can determine their claims that Ukrainians have suffered heavier casualties than Russians are supported by nothing more than the Russian MoD’s published casualty figures. That is, the figures that report that Ukraine has lost more HIMARS and M777 than they’ve received. Those figures are pure fantasy. They are made up out of nothing.
The best, most objective source of loss data in this war that we have is counting up the losses visible in published visual media. This is the most videoed war in history, after all. Those counts indicate that Russia has lost approximately 3x as many vehicles as Ukraine. It is reasonable to presume that personnel losses are in roughly the same proportion. Your “sources” that report otherwise present no evidence to support those claims, aside possibly from pointing at the Russian MoD figures that are demonstrable fabrications.
Thoughtful and well written posts the both of you, but you’re casting your pearls before swine. Komrad knows all of this, he knows his ‘sources’ are a combination of horseshit, Russian State propaganda and shills repeating Russian State propaganda. Because he is a pro-Putin shill himself. He has no interest in the truth and isn’t using ‘sources’ from both sides to try to find some sort of balance. His only interest is in shilling for Putin and trying to coat it in blatantly obvious facade of ‘concern’ for Ukraine.
Replies are exactly as I expected!
Well done robots.
Actual evidence that Russia has lost 3x more than Ukraine has been posted. Can you provide any evidence whatsoever that Ukraine has had more losses than Russia?
Okay, what’s the likelihood at least one of those whacky “sources” Kedikat cited is actually Kedikat?
I have to admit the Military Summary guy is very pro Russian. But he does grudgingly report even Russian negative news. I often find it amusing how grumpy he is when doing it. And often he goes to great lengths to try and put some positive spin on it. I do realize when some of my sources are stretching and spinning things. I also look at lots of sources to note what is not being reported here and there.
I wonder what you suppose makes certain sources impervious to reality, but others the true gospel. If it is past performance of having reported and predicted facts, I find mine very good. I also like how they immediately and repeatedly inform the viewers, if they have made a mistake. And they usually will qualify as to how sure they are of the facts they present. Saying what the source is and if they feel it is very solid or not.
Understatement of the year Komrad! You realize your hero and reliable news source with some spin complete conspiracy theory spouting nut bag “The New Atlas” aka Tony Cartalucci aka Brian Joseph Thomas Berletic ‘spun’ things by calling Noam Chomsky of all people a tool of US and European powers and a supporter of imperialism. Now I personally despise Chomsky as a liar and propagandist himself, but anyone calling him a tool and supporter of US and European imperialism isn’t spinning things, they are completely delusional and detached from reality.
I mean, I just wrote an entire essay on judging the credibility of sources, but you wonder how I assess the credibility of sources.