Yes I did. I also watched glowing news reports of it being done in recent conflicts.
Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure
Although Ullman and Wade claim that the need to “[m]inimize civilian casualties, loss of life, and collateral damage” is a “political sensitivity [which needs] to be understood up front”, their doctrine of rapid dominance requires the capability to disrupt “means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure”,[8] and, in practice, “the appropriate balance of Shock and Awe must cause … the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary’s society or render his ability to fight useless short of complete physical destruction.”
Granted, it is a bit of a hijack. However, there is a sliver of relevance, as far as some striking similarities to US involvement in Mujahideen v USSR in a different century. And we all know how well that turned out.
Russian forces likely left behind dozens of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other heavy weaponry as they fled Ukraine’s advance in the east of the country, a Ukrainian think tank said Wednesday.
The Center for Defense Strategies said one single Russian unit that was around Izium left behind 39 T-80 tanks and 35 infantry fighting vehicles.
Another unit left behind 47 tanks and 27 armoured vehicles.
There are reports they are leaving Melitopol, not Mariopol. Melitopol is between Kherson and Mariupol, right in the middle of the blue blob of “reported Ukrainian Partisan Warfare”.
Earlier in the war there were certainly a lot of arguments on social media that boiled down to “It was wrong when the US did it, therefore it’s fine that Russia is doing it”. I think they got their tu quoques stuck in their whatabouts and ended up with little baby gibberish.
It’s a seven-minute video, but well worth it. Clarke points out that the Ukrainian forces used Western arms to allow it to conduct the counter offense like a Western army would. They used long range precision artillery to disrupt the rear areas such as headquarters, logistics, and bridges and pinned the enemy forces in place, making it impossible to move around or get reinforcements, all before the battle began.
They didn’t use so many tanks, but Western protected mobility, which is all of the armored vehicles needed to move troops around. While Russians tend to use more tracked vehicles, the Ukrainians used more wheeled ones in this offence, which gives greater speed and agility.
The Ukrainians used Western methods, Western training and a good amount of Western equipment, which paid off.
He does credit the Ukrainians and the ones who did pull it off.
The attack has demonstrated the brittleness of the Russian army, with a lack of training, equipment, morale and leadership. There were officers who ran away, which gives the troops no reason to stick around.
It wasn’t only the scratch troops which disintegrated. The 1st Guard Tank Army, one of their elite units, withdrew in a hurry leaving behind most of their tanks.
The Russian army has been humiliated. It hasn’t lost like this on an open battlefield since December, 1942.
The Ukrainians have the advantage of retaking their own territory, so they don’t need to leave troops to guard the villages they have retaken, where invading armies get thinner and thinner the further they go.
He sees another big strategic offensive by the Russians next spring.
Reminder that this is the breaking news thread in MPSIMS. Comparisons of this war to past US wars, etc. are political and are not appropriate for this thread. Take it to P&E.
No warnings issued, but drop the hijack now.
And everyone: you don’t need to correct people who are wrong on the internet. If there’s a political post you disagree with, better to report it than to engage with it.
The car crash that Zelensky was involved in was mentioned in the previous post, but in the form of a video report that “is not available in your country”.
Here’s a CNN article about it. Zelensky wasn’t hurt (at least, not seriously) but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the work of one of Putin’s stooges:
It’s hard to tell how serious a proposal this is, but if this is really being considered: Good God, what hubris.
Holding a referendum for an offensive to take back Russian-occupied territory? That 1) assumes that Russia is utterly powerless rather than merely weak, 2) assumes that Russia will make a sober cost/benefit analysis before responding [despite all evidence to the contrary], 3) takes away any element of surprise.
