Ukraine Invasion: Part 32

[MagicFox]

Gosh, that last one filled up quick! Welcome to 32, all 🇺🇦

I don't think Russia would find the threat of an overwhelming nuclear response plausible.

The issue I forsee is Russia going ahead anyway (god forbid) and then NATO would be left either having to follow through with massive nuclear escalation (end of the world) or not following through on its threats and losing any ability to convincingly deter Russia. To me, it only makes sense to threaten consequences that Putin believes NATO may well follow through on and that we're actually prepared to enact.

Max Seddon AT Max Seddon
Two stats sum up how Putin's mobilization has backfired.

Defense minister Sergei Shoigu said today that Russia had called up 200,000 men to fight in Ukraine.

That's as many Russians as fled to Kazakhstan alone in the two weeks since Putin's announcement

So anyone who doesn’t agree with you “lacks capacity”?
That’s your argument?

Some posters here are impressive - the ones who can take different views on board while explaining why their stance remains important to them.

If they are called Elon musk, absolutely.

Last word from me on the subject, I promise

There's an interesting thread about giving refuge to running away draft evaders from Russia

One particulate poster claims that calling the savages "orcs" is the worst thing she has seen on MN. Pure proof right there that they are new to MN if that is the worst they've seen

Elon Musk has always seemed to me to suffer from a competence fallacy; because he is good at doing one thing (being an entrepreneur) he thinks he is infallible in all things.

This is like people who are very good at playing football and erroneously think this means they are experts on haute couture/cartography/immunology/French politics of the nineteenth century.

Iodine pills being given out in Kyiv. I thought they were virtually useless in the case of a nuclear weapon attack.

They are for children or someone breastfeeding. Iodine protects against later development of Thyroid cancer if I recall correctly. We have some because we live nearish an aging nuclear power plant.

Elon Musk has always seemed to me to suffer from a competence fallacy

Good point. See the closely related Dunning Kruger effect

Re the earlier posts about how the Russian milbloggers are reacting to the rapidly escalating Ukrainian defeats in the Kherson region, Rybar (one of the prominent ones) has blamed it on a lack of rotation for the Russian troops who have been there for seven months and the lack of infantry. These are both very good points. Troops who have been unable to regroup, reequip and reorganize for that long will be much less combat effective. The Russians tend to concentrate forces in cities and large towns. They didn't or couldn't position mechanized infantry in the suburbs and rural areas to respond to a Ukrainian offensive, so the Ukrainians were able to bypass their strong points and cause havoc in their rears, just as they did in the north.

#Iran said that it does not recognize the so-called "referendums" organized by #Russia in the temporarily occupied territories of #Ukraine.
This was stated by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani, according to IRNA news agency.

Somewhat surprising!

I agree with you @RedToothBrush , sadly half of my family would fit this category. After 8 years of this I’m utterly exhausted 😩. The worst thing is my mother recently said that Putin is there to “liberate” Donbas and he will stop once it’s done. Something just died in me. I love her dearly and we have always been close but she lives in Florida now. We don’t see each other often. We are going to visit there soon and part of me is dreading it.

Correct. Radioactive iodine is prevalent in the fallout from a nuclear blast. The thyroid takes iodine from the blood, so having lots of normal iodine in your system prevents radioactive isotope uptake.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Musk is Autistic. My daughter also is and very much has a tenancy to say exactly what's on her mind without reading the room first.

It's about the inability to argue a point i a way beyond what they have been told. That's why I say it's lacking in critical thinking. There is a clear difference between arguing with someone who is well informed and has read from a variety of sources and have considered the issue and someone who has read some shit on social media.

Wow, that's a turn up and a pleasant surprise.

He is yes. My older son is also autistic and .... Yeah, what you say.

the next round of US aid has been announced, bless them

Potassium iodide fills the thyroid gland with stable iodine in case of nuclear fall out.
The half life of radioactive iodine is 8 days so that is how long minimum you would have tk take them

They don't protect you from other radioactive isotopes

Sorry if someone else has already brought this up. I've just been watching some clips of Russian TV on Twitter (not sure how to link to tweets so I will paraphrase.) They were interviewing someone from the Russian army and asking how the Ukrainians were able to advance so quickly.

His response was that they weren't fighting Ukrainian troops- they were fighting NATO troops with superior weapons and intelligence to the Russian army. Not NATO by proxy, he meant literally NATO. I'm beginning to think PP on the previous thread was right and this could be how Russia attempts to save themselves humiliation. 'It's not our fault we lost- we were fighting NATO!'

I hope most autistic people would have the sense not to lecture professionals about their profession from a position of fairly hefty ignorance. Musk isn't just blurting out what he thinks: he is broadcasting his views to the world having gone out of his way to make an opportunity to do so.

His response was that they weren't fighting Ukrainian troops- they were fighting NATO troops with superior weapons and intelligence to the Russian army.

In Kharkiv, they were fighting drugged Ukrainian zombies. It's tough out there.

This is not very accurate as a sweeping statement about autism, to be honest. It may apply to your dc for other reasons. More than 50 percent agreed with his suggestion on twitter incidentally.

Oh and the supersoldiers built in biolabs!

(I'm still waiting for the alien-dna-hybrid claims)

😁

@bluetongue I am not sure if you are still on the thread, I have just seen your post on the previous thread asking about Russian reasons. I saw this documentary last week, and it had information which I was not previously aware of:

This is an article by Jacques Baud (ex NATO) which I read a few months ago, it has a lot of information about what happened between 2014 and February 2022, and also links sources which you can follow up and check out. It is in French, but if you go into it on google and right click and press "translate to English" it will be translated immediately:

cf2r.org/documentation/la-situation-militaire-en-ukraine/