Ukraine Invasion: Part 31

[MagicFox]

31st thread, welcome all and thanks as usual.

I looked at some of the 'referendum' images. It's pitiful and delusional.

The nuclear talk and referendums are distractions. hardly worth engaging with. The latter because they are near-irrelevant and the former because the consequences are such that it is very unlikely and if it happens, well it might lead to not being in a position to talk about anything.

The two things that interest me at the moment are what gains Ukraine is able to make in the coming weeks before Winter and the drone / counter drone war. I note that Israel is involved in systems to counter Iranian drones.

>I wonder if you well-informed people can help me. I am having a bit of a ‘moment’ over everything and wondered if anyone could supply a scenario where the current situation is resolved without the use of nuclear weapons.

I don't know how this ends, or even in the short to medium term IF it ends. In my imaginary triangular graph the points are labelled: Bang We're Dead, Capitulation and It Just Stops. The first is the nuclear option maxed out, the second a surrender (don't see that) and the third is some sort of running out of steam / ceasefire. There's a lot of space in-between and I think things might end up somewhere between the latter two. My current most likely scenario, which is below 50% likelihood, is an Armistice where Russia withdraws. Why? Ukraine will continue to gain ground, the mobilisation will prove to be a death march of the poorly armed and underfed, and Russia has already withdrawn from the North East following the failed drive on Kyiv. 3rd March would be a good day (Brest-Litovsk). But who knows?

How will this end?

This will end with Crimea being taken back and the Kerch bridge destroyed. How long this will take or the path to get here I don't know but Ukraine will keep going.

@blueshoes from your mouth to gods ears. Slava Ukraini

mobile.twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1573389065734524930 Iran's diplomatic credentials to Ukraine revoked

Eyebrow raising thread on Twitter by AT secretsqrl123.

He thinks that over 100k of the invaders have died and goes into why.

There was a leaked report that the Russian MoD had told the MoFinance to cough up for 50,000 dead. (Was reported here on the thread at the time).

We know that a lot of killed are reported as 'missing' so's to avoid payments. There have also been desertions and PoW's (not seen a number of estimated Russion PoWs actually)

But, and this is a kicker, this 50k does not include Wagner and PMCs, nor does it include the Luhansk and Donets men, nor the policemen sent to the front.

Secretsqrl123 said ^LDNR forces... recently the leader of the LPR stated that 50% of the forces he mobilized ....
are now dead... he has sent over 25K to the battlefield. the DPR has sent more^

He thinks Wagner could be down by 75%

No wonder Putin has mobilised generally, and is trying (apparently) to get a million recruits. You don't do that when your armies have lost only 6,000 men.

Now all this may be wishful thinking but there's some logic behind his thoughts.

mobile.twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1573355260558688259 Finland to revoke Russian tourist visas

"I think if we ever came to the stage of conscription again"

@Igotjelly do you think this is a possibility?

There are rumours of a coup in China with Xi under arrest. I bet this isn't true, but it's all over Twitter at the moment

No, and certainly not at the moment. I was simply making the point that people now are very different to what they were then.

I'd be surprised. His position is weaker than it was, the Evergrande fallout is going to cause huge ongoing damage, but a coup?

Rumours of a coup seem largely premature (and probably entirely unfounded) but interesting that 60% of flights across China were cancelled yesterday. Most people seem to assume its related to the outbreaks of Covid.

Nobody thinks the following has anything to do with rompers? No idea myself, just speculating.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-23/china-security-official-gets-life-in-jail-as-xi-crushes-clique

That low a turnout means no genuine legitimacy. It's odd that Russia actually publishes that. Seems iffy to me.

One of the takeaways from Bill Browder’s book I mentioned upthread was that Russia lies and conceals things but is inescapably process driven, probably as a result of Soviet centralised command, so everything gets written down. It was one of the ways Magnitsky and others got details of their appalling treatment by the authorities into the public record (even though those authorities then denied what they themselves had recorded).

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Russian’s fixed the result to be that joining Russia was a mistake and used it as an excuse to get the fuck out of there 😂

One can dream.

I was inwardly thinking (hoping) for this 😂

That would he amazing! 'Ah they dont want to join us, sorry for all the trouble, we'll get our coats!'

To be honest I wondered what happened to him, news kept talking about his influence in the initially negotiations then he seemed to drop of the face of the earth. Looks like he’s still around being a go between

I think in terms of negotiations (be them for wider peace or with regards to prisoner exchanges etc.) the ones we don’t see splashed all over the papers are the consequential ones. For example there was virtually nothing ahead of the recent exchange brokered by Turkey and Saudi and yet its massively consequential.

Ditto with the back channels communication between China (rumours of a coup aside) and Putin/Russia. Diplomacy is best done quietly.

That would seem the most obvious assumption. Not that I have any idea what's going on really.

Rumours * 🙄

Ah, ty for the explanation.

I have seen some of the pictures of the released Azovstal POWs and they look like they have come out of a concentration camp. I dread to think what they have been through.

Re behind the scenes diplomacy, one of the commanders in Turkey said they didn't know where they were being taken until they disembarked the plane and saw Ukrainian representatives waiting for them. Or maybe it was more he couldn't dare to hope.

I was thinking this. Those men look completely broken. I really hope I’m time they are able to get help for the PTSD that may well result.

This morning's Twitter haul, two good pieces

Lawrence Freedman, "All the Tsar’s Men
Why Mobilization Can’t Save Putin’s War"

www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/all-tsars-men

Patricia Lewis, Chatham House "How likely is the use of nuclear weapons by Russia?
Exploring key questions around Putin issuing what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries if they interfere in Ukraine.

www.chathamhouse.org/2022/03/how-likely-use-nuclear-weapons-russia

Re infantry drones. I ask you to consider where the technology is for mars rover drones. To traverse the surface remotely they have to programme it. Some of it can be done via an automated programme but for more complex areas they have to survey the terrain and then program accordingly. One of the major issues is the delay in sending instructions because of how far away the rover is which would be a concern on earth but we are still talking about a large team to control just one drone.

Now image a large number of drones in close proximity and how they could crash into each other. Or how you might have to consider hiding a drone from air drones. And how tanks are sitting ducks for air drones.

If this is where NASA's technology is at, and the really of a war zone is as it is, I really can't see infantry drones coming to fruition any time soon. Probably not within the rest of my lifetime.

Unless China has something hidden. And tbh being a country with such a huge availability of manpower, I'm guessing it's probably not going to be high on their priority list. It will come from the west if the technology does emerge.