Concerning Russian logistics failures, I’m sure there are multiple causes, such as: Ukraine doing everything in their power to interdict Russian supplies and the means to deliver them; historic theft and corruption at every level diminishing both the quality and quantity of supplies making it to the front; Russia’s top down ‘push’ system of supply (where every unit gets X number of Y supplies at regular predetermined intervals); and yes, probably even bureaucratic red tape plays some role here too, as it does with every other army in the world.
I’d sure like to have a better idea of what’s really going on in Bakhmut. On the way home today from work, NPR reported that Ukraine is on the verge of falling to Russia in Bakhmut, but I’ve seen conflicting reports.
God damn, I wish this would end. So many people are dying and it’s just such a stupid waste.
Most of what I’ve read today supports that the Ukrainians will evacuate, but they will stay as long as they can because they are killing a lot of Russians.
Some Russian soldiers filmed and distributed a video of themselves executing a Ukrainian POW. I haven’t watched it and I do not want to, but it is supposed to show an unarmed Ukrainian who shouts “Slava Ukraine!” before being shot multiple times. The Russians then target his head after he falls dead.
Idiotic savages publicising their own war crimes.
This is probably the reason behind Zelensky’s recent tweet:
I would assume that reports of “eliminated personnel” include all casualties, killed, wounded, captured, AWOL, etc. The relevant number, from a military point of view, is how much you’ve decreased the count of the soldiers fighting against you.
The same usage as the English military term “casualties”. Individuals who are no longer combat-effective.
The two are not in contradiction. POWS, badly wounded, MIA are also part of “eliminated” The UK has 175-200 casualties.
Yep.
Peter Zeihan seems to know his way around geopolitics. He recently gave a long seminar that covered a lot of fascinating ground around the world, but the first 27 minutes are specifically about the war in Ukraine, its roots in Russian history, and his unsettling predictions regarding the short- and long-term consequences for societies, industries, and economies of Russia, Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the world:
I saw this tonight on ABC Evening News
Executing POW’s says a lot about the Russians and the need to support Ukraine.
I hope pride isn’t driving this decision.
Link Ukrainian leaders agree to continue Bakhmut defence as casualties mount | Ukraine | The Guardian
This is becoming like a parody:
(Video higher quality at source)
Could you perhaps summarize this? Because I don’t want to spend 27 minutes on a video listening to someone drone on and on, much less something longer.
one doesn’t exclude the other … they could send Wagner enough to shut them up, yet not enough to win (too little to live, too much to die) …
but I think there is a broader relevant aspect discussed above:
Putin is in a bind … If Wagner takes Bakhmut, then its WAGNER, not russia who took it - which makes the ugly Prigozhin guy even stronger (“…the only one who is winning in UKR is Prigozhin”)
so in a way Putin has the choice of losing in Bakhmut or making Prigozhin even bigger for him (pun intended 
)
and let’s be honest … there are currently just 2 names in RU leadership - Putin and Prigozhin … the Chechen loudmouth-guy pretty much dropped off (due to lack of success in UKR) …
… and my fear is that if Prigo should drum up a following (and with his radicalism he just might touch the russian soul) and Putin falls out of a basement-window and dies - he is def. crazier than Putin …
- him holding nukes would be a real worldwide worry … (to the extend of a James Bond movie material)
I found the whole thing to be pretty fascinating, and he’s a good, charismatic presenter; you might give him 2-3 minutes just to see what you think. Short of that, here’s my haphazard summary of some of his main points on the war in Ukraine:
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Russia has been invaded numerous times in the past, and they’re paranoid about a repeat performance. The USSR had control of the major routes of entry at its borders that invading forces might move through, i.e. the relatively flat terrain between mountain ranges and bodies of water, but lost control of all of that thirty years ago and has been conducting numerous military campaigns since then to try to plug all of those gaps. The threat of Ukraine coming under the protection of NATO may have bumped up Russia’s timetable, but invading Ukraine to secure that land route was actually just one more item on their “secure the borders” to-do list.
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Contrary to popular claims that the atrocities being carried out in the occupied areas stem from Putin’s hatred of Ukraine for its turning to the west, the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and attacks on the civilian population - particularly men who are of an age suitable for military service - are a rational act by Russia to wipe out any industrial base in those areas and eliminate any future military threat from the people who were stubborn enough to not to evacuate (i.e. stubborn enough to resist instead of fleeing).
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Energy prices in Europe shot up this winter after Russian supply lines were cut off, but rather intensive conservation efforts and a mild winter prevented prices from really skyrocketing. Germany’s industrial base is likely to be severely crimped in the years ahead by high energy prices. The joke he offered was that if you want to buy a BMW, you’d better do it this spring.
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Petroleum is the most obvious Russian export that will be/is being affected by the war, and that supply won’t be quickly restored after the war ends. There is reportedly quite a bit of western technical assistance involved in keeping the Russian petroleum infrastructure running, and that assistance fled when the war started. Not only will it be a long time before that assistance returns, but if wells in the permafrost regions get shut down, they are likely to freeze solid and are reportedly very difficult and time-consuming to get operating again.
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This year, Russia will likely resume its disruption of Ukraine’s agricultural production and export, with consequences for food prices around the world, particularly among nations who are net calorie importers.
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In addition to oil, Ukraine and Russia are involved in the production and processing of other commodities, such as aluminum and iron. The disruption of these supply lines will jack up prices on the global market.
There’s quite a bit more, but that’s what I can recall for now.
Machine Elf responded already, but I’ll add: there’s no issue with the dude droning on. If anything he’s so entertaining, confident, and informative that it sets off my “am I being hustled” alarm system. I watched the whole 90 minutes and am giving thought to adjusting my mutual fund allocation.
He discusses which raw materials will be affected by the war in Ukraine and how that will affect tech, industry, and agriculture in the rest of the world, especially China, Russia, and North America. He says Ukraine controls the fresh water to Crimea and might well shut it off during the upcoming agricultural season — leading to massive famine in the area.
I wondered about that point. Presumably there wouldn’t be an actual famine, since the Russians in Crimea would have the means to retreat back to Russia-proper. Given that Russia illegally annexed the area in the first place and has no business being there today, would shutting off water to drive them out be considered a war crime?
Way off-topic, please do not repeat. Hidden by What Exit?
First, thank you folks for summarizing the video, much appreciated.
I’ll take that into consideration, but I have some issues with videos. First I read a LOT faster than I watch/listen, so if I can read something I’m much more inclined to engage with it because of the next reason, which is time. I get referred to so many videos that there is no way I can watch all of them and get anything else done (just looked - yesterday I had about 4 hours of video recommended to me via forums and people sending me links, and that’s legit people not spam or scams. That’s typical (read on for why this is actually more than four hours of listening for me) so I’ve gotten really picky about which ones I choose to watch. Third, and most important, due to some hearing loss issues I’ve discovered recently I can have real problems with hearing/comprehending the speaking unless it is in extremely high quality and an accent I can understand without difficulty. Even then, I sometimes have to back up and replay, fiddling with volume, speed, and settings to understand everything going on. So sometimes it takes me an hour to get through a 30-40 minute video. Unless it has decent closed captions - I’m really loving closed captioning when it’s properly done. It’s getting more common that I have to take the videos referred on the internet and re-find them on my TV which has a much better sound system than my computer (much less my phone), for a high quality sound that I can better comprehend, which adds more time and effort to the process. This is the most serious problem for me, and why I generally will not engage with any video longer than about 10-15 minutes unless extremely motivated or I know in advance it’s a speaker I won’t have trouble understanding.
I am aware that this is an invisible issue that you can’t be aware of until I tell you about it, but there’s a reason not everyone is enthused with the push towards more and more audio-visual content.
(Yes, I am also having some issues with movies and TV, too, but in general the sort of things I like don’t require absolute fidelity on the dialogue to watch and enjoy. Please enjoy with me the irony of watching the TV series featuring the blind superhero Daredevil with the closed captioning on.)
The end result is that for me it’s no longer so simple as “oh, just watch this quick video” and perhaps you can understand my reluctance when someone slaps a lot of video in a thread - for me, “a quick, simple listen” is becoming a thing of the past. There is a reason I favor print forums like this. And getting older can suck.
That said - the summary information you folks have given is all stuff I already knew, so I’m not sure the frustration:new information ratio is favorable to me. Thank you again for the summary, it is much appreciated and might be helpful for others as well.
Most YouTube channels offer a AI created Transcript.
I find it a time saver.
Look in the video description for the transcript link.
I have trouble with Suchomimus accent. The transcript saves me frustration with the Ukraine reports.
That issue seems like the kind of non-news the mods hate in this thread, but would be a decent independent thread. That said, my guess is that half measures would be in order: a well timed warning that allows evacuation, and a water reduction rather than a cut-off. Ukraine has to watch their public image.
I think some of your assumptions might be in error (but hey, I could be wrong, too).
Yes, there could be an actual famine. And an actual shortage of water. And problems with resupplying Crimea by any method. Don’t underestimate that these things can happen.
Will it? I don’t know. But it is a real possibility, however likely or unlikely it might be.
Also, please do not make the assumption/mistake that everyone in Crimea is Russian. Even the most recent census I could find information on by the Russians (this wikipedia entry gives census data and provides references) in 2014 puts the percentage of “Russians” at about 2/3 of the population, meaning 1/3 isn’t Russian. Not surprisingly, the next largest category is Ukrainian, then Crimean Tartars, but there are others. From people I know from Eastern European former Warsaw Pact countries, the Russians like the exert pressure (often subtle, sometimes pretty overt, sometimes deception, sometimes “we’ll fill this form out for you in advance, sign here”) during a census for people to declare themselves “Russian” regardless of what they might have said in the past. Even so, people who are ethnically, linguistically, and historically “Russian” in Ukraine should not automatically be assumed to be Russia- loyal, particularly if they or their families have been living and working in Ukraine for an extended period. The homes of Russians who had been living in Mariupol or Bakhmut have not been spared shelling or destruction. There are native Russian speakers loyal to and fighting for Ukraine (their president, Zelenskyy, has Russian as his first language though he’s clearly fluent/bilingual in Ukrainian). Here is gift link to the New York Times article about the Free Russia Legion fighting on the side of Ukraine, you won’t need a subscription to read it.
So it’s not as simple as “Crimea was annexed by Russia, everyone there is Russian and loyal to Putin”.
Shut off the water to drive out the Russians and it’s not just the Russians you’ll be harming.
And yes, I’d think that would be a war crime but I’m not a lawyer or authority on war crimes.