President Putin is demanding that provinces in the far east of Russia provide him with 200 “volunteer” soldiers a week but he has spared Moscow from recruitment, according to a Ukrainian think tank.
The Centre for Defence Strategies said that the Kremlin was concentrating its recruitment on the far east and Siberia to sustain the war in Ukraine.
Armies have often concentrated on the rural rubes for their footsloggers….
Has he tried press gangs yet ?
Must seem bizarre to the Rooskies.
Why would he need more men when the victory is most glorious and continuous?
There’s no victory for Putin, just steady escalation to the point where he gets dragged to the bogs and shot.
Or maybe this is when the coup happens…
https://nypost.com/2022/05/02/vladimir-putin-to-undergo-cancer-surgery-transfer-power/
“terribly sad news that our glorious president did not awake from his surgery. Terribly sad. I shall of course, continue the burden of presidency and making sure that his gymnast girlfriend is properly taken care of” said Patrushev.
Any revolts out in the far east are a long way from the centre and can be hidden. Putin doesn’t want anything happening in the centre.
Not footsloggers. The correct term is Cannon Fodder.
Sound to me that he’d rather not be feeding more ethnic slavs into a conflict with a slav nation.
It was obvious from the start that this was going to be a difficult war for the Russians to win – urban, defender advantage, long lines of communications etc – and that a lot of them would die trying.
They might still ‘win’, for a variety of definitions, but even Putin ultimately has to concern himself with public opinion.
Even leaving aside the Russians’ (to me) surprising lack of capacity, total war is unfightable now for very long*, by any nation whose people have modern communications and are concerned about collateral damage and (especially) boys coming home in body bags.
You’re less likely to get mass demos in Moscow if your dead are being buried in Irkutsk. He’s buying time.
*depending on your definition of ‘very long’ – and in anything other than a war of national survival (which, unsurprisingly, is how Putin is selling this to the Russians). Obviously, and in reference to the earlier thread, you can commit total war on a defenceless population if your target is largely poor illiterate brown people, and the western world supports you with funding and munitions, and the media doesn’t very much care about those kinds of deaths.
President Putin is demanding that provinces in the far east of Russia provide him with 200 “volunteer” soldiers a week but he has spared Moscow from recruitment, according to a Ukrainian think tank
It’s a ‘Ukranian think tank’, and therefore an unimpeachable source whose words drop into our ears as pure Otex of Truth (#GhostofKiev), but do they specify exactly how Putler is “demanding” 200 troops a week?
It said that the Kremlin was using propaganda to recruit 200 men a day
Propaganda, you say? Thankfully we sophisticated Westerners are immune to such truth-bending shenanigans.
At least 15,000 Russian soldiers have died since the invasion began in February, British intelligence suggests
Lol.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, soldiers from Buryatia, a Buddhist republic in the far east, began shooting at Muslim fighters from Chechnya in the North Caucasus.
I’m sure Ukrainian intelligence would love it if Chechens believed this.
Defence experts believe the Kremlin will struggle to make further territorial gains in the Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian coal-mining region where the war is now concentrated, without recruiting more troops and getting more heavy weaponry to the front line.
I think this is what they call a buried lede. Or something like that, anyway.
The war is going very badly for the Ukrainian armed forces, they’re fighting manfully but can’t seem to halt or push back Russian advances in the east, and are suffering untold casualties every day (which is why the Western magician wants you to look at alleged Russian casualty numbers instead).
Rooskies seem content to take their time methodically capturing villages and pounding Ukie positions with artillery. Ukies don’t appear to have any answer to this. From a French news report in AFP on Sunday:
Packed with exhausted Ukrainian soldiers with clenched jaws, the truck drives away at full speed. The troops from the 81st brigade have just received an order to withdraw from the eastern front where Russian forces advance.
The brigade walked 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) Saturday, camouflaged in the woods and under crossfire, until their point of retreat at Sviatoguirsk.
For a month, the 81st — whose motto is “always first” — battled to push back the Russian advance in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region where Moscow’s troops move forward slowly, taking villages one by one.
It gets worse:
“As you can hear, the enemy is very, very near,” he says, pointing to the sky. The line of Russian tanks is on the other side of a hill, around seven kilometres (4.3 miles) away.
At 21 years old, Samoylov, an officer from the Odessa military academy, finds himself managing 130 conscripts, often twice his age.
When your (formerly) mechanised brigade is having to walk 12 km before getting on the back of lorries, and has 21 year olds leading hundreds of 40-something conscripts, you’re probably not about to win.
But how to explain to Western audiences, who’ve been told consistently the Russian army is about to collapse, when the opposite thing happens? Ah, it’s because that fiendish fiend Putler sent “more heavy weaponry to the front line”. What a rotter!
has 21 year olds leading hundreds of 40-something conscripts, you’re probably not about to win.
One wonders how the British Army triumphed in WW1 & WW2. Steve says it shouldn’t have.
Actually, for both sides, I imagine the important factor is how quickly they’re using up their experienced NCO’s. Officers make tactical decisions, NCO’s implement them.
BiS, not to agree with mail-order bride Steve, but the answer is “because the Americans joined in.” (And in WW2, “because the Russians were made to join in.”
More speculation here about a coup:
https://www.cityam.com/kremlin-on-high-alert-as-coup-rumours-grow-in-moscow-disgruntled-generals-join-fsb-looking-to-oust-putin-and-end-ukraine-war/
Of course it could all be western and Ukraine intelligence to working on his paranoia, but you never know.
The problem is that there is no natural successor and the thugs who could carry it out aren’t going to be implementing any liberal or pro western changes, other than maybe backing out of the war whilst blaming Putin’s bad strategy and interference in military matter.
If you’ve got 20 bazooking millions of weaponry coming from the USA if you just wait a bit, then giving up ground in the East as slowly as possible seems a sound strategy. Imv of course.
Steve, the Ukrainians don’t want to halt the Russians.
They let them advance to near Kiev to give them flanks to attack. If they had tried to resist frontally they would have been smashed. This was straight out of NATOs plan to defeat the OMG strategy. And it worked a charm.
Now they let the Russians take small gains, because that keeps them attacking. At the wrong time of year. In penny packets.
This is not particularly new as a strategy, but is effective if the opposition is too hidebound to stop.
The Vietcong did it. And won. Because they wore out their opponent. Despite never being able to take them on in open battle.
That the Russians are “stronger” is irrelevant if the opponent won’t take you on where you have the advantage.
Again, I’m not claiming some superior knowledge. This is how irregular forces win.
The brigade walked 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) Saturday, camouflaged in the woods and under crossfire, until their point of retreat at Sviatoguirsk.
Sounds like a copybook tactical dis-engagement. One certainly doesn’t bring soft vehicles anywhere near the line of battle or you’re going to lose them & their occupants. At 12km they could be anywhere in around 50km² of countryside. Hard for your opponent to identify & target for an artillery fire mission
The Russians haven’t even got air superiority so they aren’t that much stronger. They’re also just about to lose their artillery range advantage.
And they can’t even get decent tyres on their equipment.
Or is their lack of progress in the Donbass another feint like the one on Kiev?
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1521182849000423426
@BiS
“One wonders how the British Army triumphed in WW1 & WW2. Steve says it shouldn’t have.”
I’m not sure that is what Steve is saying. You’d have to ask him, but I imagine he would draw a distinction between trench warfare in 1914-18, when all you had to do was master your Lee Enfield .303 and bayonet (and walk forward now and then), and modern mobile urban warfare, with all its greater attendant complications, in 2022.
Conscripts are fine for the former – in fact, they’re arguably better, because you haven’t wasted money, time and effort training them.
BiS – do we think modern war is comparable to 1918 and 1945? There’s a reason the Pals’ Battalions of Redditors were quickly killed or fled the Ukraine.
Chris – well, we also caused crippling shortages in Germany thanks to our (then) world-beating navy. Western sanctions against Russia aren’t having the same effect, but the war itself might. Hopefully we don’t see another Turnip Winter.
Bongo – this seems to be more or less NATO’s plan:
(1) Fight this war to the last able bodied male Ukrainian
(2) Get ready for next war
Idk how much of a “Ukraine” will still exist as a viable, functioning state by the time of next war tho. Up to 5.5 million refugees now and the economy consists mostly of Western loans.
Chester – that might work if the Rooskies play along. What if they don’t?
They don’t have enough men in theatre to take the whole of the country (never did). So, unless they quit, they could try two main options:
(A) general mobilisation to conquer Western Ukraine
(B) Secure Donbass + the water supply for Crimea, then declare victory.
Option A is extremely risky, could lead to the end of Putin’s regime, WW3, or both. It’s also not obvious what the prize is – millions of new, armed subjects who hate them? A border with NATO? It’s also not obvious Russia could win without terrible losses on both sides, much worse than anything we’ve seen so far – Kiev alone is a massive, sprawling city built for 3 million people, trying to secure that would be a nightmare more grim than the Rus has seen in Mariupol (which was already painful).
Option B seems more feasible. I don’t think it’ll lead to peace tho – Ukraine won’t be allowed to sign a peace treaty, and probably won’t want to. I think we’re heading for a frozen conflict along the lines of Korea, with a new Ironic Curtain.
@BiND
I’m by no means an expert but I am aware of the scenario planning for the Cold War Air/Land Battle Europe & this isn’t it. By rights, the Russians should have gone all the way to the Polish border against Ukraine alone. They’ve fucked-up big time. On current performance A/LBE would have been over by the first afternoon with Warsaw Pact forces in tatters all the way back to the Urals.
People do seem to fall for propaganda very easily. Sure all you armchair strategists were quite convinced that the “ghost of Kiev” shots down nearly 50 Russkis, and that the Russian CoS was wounded in battle just a day or so ago.
There is however one battle the Ukrainians and NATO are winning hands down, and that’s the propaganda battle to convince the credulous that black is white and Ukraine is winning.
The truth is (as one who certainly didn’t believe the Ghost of Kiev shite) we don’t know who’s winning, Ed. We don’t even know the Russian objectives, which makes it hard to determine how close they are to achieving them. There’s propaganda on both sides, and idiots posing as military analysts all over the media/social media. I am personally wary of anyone stating anything as a certainty.
@BiS you certainly use soft skinned vehicles in battle, depending on the terrain, if you’re going for mobility – I think most people would rather be on a quad bike (or on foot) than in a tank out there right now.
Interested,
The “just carry a rifle and walk forward when told to” was what got us the first day of the Somme (where Haig had to attack much earlier than he wanted, with newly-recruited troops of Kitchener’s New Armies only able to do basic “advance in waves by the clock”) Haig tried to cover that weakness with numbers and a week-long artillery barrage; it wasn’t sufficient, and where inexperienced troops ran into uncut wire they suffered horrific (and geographically and socially concentrated) casualties.
Training troops to be able to fire-and-manoeuvre, react to events (the wire’s not cut but there’s dead ground to the left…), co-operate with tanks and trench mortars, and use the range of improving weapons (Lewis guns, hand and rifle grenades, Stokes mortars…) that didn’t exist in 1914? That’s a bigger ask and took longer, but doing it was why we were winning with much lower casualties by 1918.
As late as the 1980s, we still pushed university officer-cadets through MTQ1, MTQ2, and the TA Commissioning Course; a key point being that platoon commanders die rapidly in battle (you’re the one putting your head to see what’s going on and shouting orders… so you’re seen and shot more) and it’s not an enormously difficult skillset to lead a platoon attack by decently-trained troops (it’s a nightmare trying to do it with novices, though…) So, if the OC gets slotted, the aim was not to replace him with an experienced and much harder-to-replace platoon sergeant for any longer than necessary; but to have a supply of new officers to drop in to fill the smoking boots and take over, with stern advice to learn fast and listen a lot.
A key gap in the Russian forces is their lack of a professional NCO cadre. Their junior NCOs are simply men picked from the intake at the start of their one-year terms and told “you’re this section’s commander, well done” rather than men who’ve shown talent for a few years; and they don’t have any significant equivalent of the sergeants and CSMs who keep a grip on the troops, and advise, guide and train the officers. (“With all due and proper respect, Lt. Lynch…”)
Hence, why we see everything from their poor discipline and gopping admin, to their headless-chicken reactions under fire.
Lots of things could still happen, but the Ukrainians have done much better (and the Russians much worse) than would have been expected back in January.
“Refuse to engage where your enemy is strong” has been around since antiquity. Isn’t that what Hannibal did in northern Italy? Roman army standing around thinking “why won’t they attack?” Because we’d lose!
Interested – We don’t even know the Russian objectives
Yarp. ‘Demilitarisation and Denazification’ could mean whatever Putin says they mean. As long as he can reasonably justify it to the selectorate. No telling what they think.
We know what the US objective is – weakening Russia, with an eye towards regime change somehow. Despite the experience of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the US still thinks regime change is a pretty neat idea.
I’m less sure what Britain and Europe hope to get from the Ukerfuffle. Convincing Germany to commit economic suicide seems needlessly cruel, and self-harming. It’s not likely those shuttered German industries will move to Britain. The Foreign Secretary barking at China is the kind of thing that would’ve scared the kowtowing mandarins 100 years ago, but just pisses them off in 2022.
This war is very different to WW1, but similar in this respect: it seems like a lose-lose proposition all round. Everybody will walk away from this poorer and weaker than they were before, except the Chinese.
We don’t even know the Russian objectives
Not even the Russian’s know their objectives! They were only duped into the war by Ukrainian Jewish fascists, Bill Gates’ vaccine nanobots and NATO staring at their pint.
Oh yeah, and the Ukrainian desire for self-determination and sovereignty was definitely wearing a short skirt, the slag.
BiS – do we think modern war is comparable to 1918 and 1945?
As far as the use of young officers, Jason who’s done the young officer job, would seem to say yes, Steve
Well, must admit back when it started that I thought the Russians’d do better. How it’ll all turn out I’m buggered if I know.
Still, I do have to agree with Steve that it’s a lose-lose situation all round.
bis,
When I was in Germany in the ’80s exercises only lasted at most 3 weeks because that’s how long we thought it would take to go nuke because the Russians had reached the channel ports, or some similar scenario.
At the same time we were getting intelligence briefs about how poor the Russian soldiers and their equipment were because of poor workmanship. They showed us a set of pictures from inside a newly built block of flats, one that was supposed to be for party workers. Communal toilets where individual urinals had been mounted in a corner such that you couldn’t get your legs between them to have a piss, let alone 2 people using them. Communal kitchens with cupboards at weird angles.
It was assumed that a lot of their equipment had probably been manufactured with the same loving care and that their soldiers had the same attention to detail.
The accompanying .jpg text to this Tweet is worth a read:
This is really remarkable. Soldiers from South Ossetia openly stating that the complete chaos and incompetence of the Russian command in Ukraine led them to desert and return home. They say huge amounts of equipment simply do not work.
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1521793724174450689
Of course it could also be western/Ukrainian propaganda as no doubt Steve will be on her in a flash to tell us, but there’s so many stories like this coming out that there has to be some truth in them.
The rules for mechanised warfare were laid down during the World Wars, it is just that the weapons have improved.
We have learnt that victory demands on air superority and that the enemy is denied the ability to wage war.
We know that tanks can win, but can’t hold territory and are severely restricted in an urban environment.
An attacking army must possess overwhelming superority to succeed or the enemy must be so demoralised that they can offer no opposition ( see above and below )
An army marches on its stomach. An army that is not equipped, replenished, supplied properly fails.
I think Ed Snack is being unfair. This is a healthy debate with a bit of banter. We are all sceptics on here. We are just being sceptical about different things.
BiND
The Soviet tank commanders had no instructions for what happened after they breached the Fulda Gap and crossed the Rhine, because it was assumed that they would have already been wiped out.
Yes Prime Minister as ever gets it right
https://youtu.be/o861Ka9TtT4
As in most things, looking up who might actually know what they’re talking about is valuable.
Sites that are rather unlikely to be Poootin bots & don’t seem controlled by the Dems/ DS are
Scott Ritter on telegram( ex US marine officer & UN weapons inspector in Iraq)
https://t.me/ScottRitter
Jacques Baud – Swiss military, seconded to Nato & UN, experience in both the Donbass & helping the Ukros become more professional.
https://www.thepostil.com/our-interview-with-jacques-baud/
Larry Johnson – US military:
https://sonar21.com
Moon of Alabama
https://www.moonofalabama.org
None of these people are sympathetic to Poootin, neither are they enamoured with the Ukraine regime.
They are pretty unanimous in their opinions on the current propaganda war & their opinions seem to mostly agree with Steve.
(Of course every non staff officer ex military type could also be a Pootin lover)
The propaganda is irrelevant. One simply compares what this campaign should have achieved for Russia with what it has achieved. No Russian in their right mind would have gone into this expecting today’s situation after a month. They’re hardly off the start lines left from 2014. The metrics for win/lose are different for both sides. Ukraine simply has to survive. Ukraine continues to survive so is winning. Russia has expended a great deal for very little gain. Currently, they’re losing.
@Nessimmersion
Someone else on this site recommended Moon of Alabama as an unbiased source. The reality is he seems to be trying so hard to be contrarian that he leans over backwards to paint everything the Russians do as double plus good. Every bit of contrary information or setback is filed under “Russian feint”, or “disinformation”.
I linked to MoA recently because someone was complaining about censorship, but I would never have the made the claim it was unbiased.
Gunker, and the other three sites that pretty much agree with MOA?
Are they also painting everything Wussia is doing as double plus?
There are a fair few “that was stupid” etc opinions about russia.
The article on the changing opinions on ” da Natzis” in the US press seems fairly truthful for example.
They do contrast articles in the NYT in previous years with the current narrative, of course those who call bringing up someones previous as being a Pooootin cheerleader are unlikely to be a neutral observer.
– Interested
It was obvious from the start that this was going to be a difficult war for the Russians to win – urban, defender advantage, long lines of communications . . .
?
It wasn’t obvious from the start at all; nearly everyone including the Russian and American governments thought it would be a cakewalk.
The urban content of the war is low (mostly Mariupol); the fighting has been along country roads and their small towns and villages but primarily around Ukrainian defensive positions. The Russians barely got into any cities.
The Russians are fighting just across their (and initially, their allied neighbour’s) border. Their lines of communications are short.
The russians didn’t bring enough troops to win it old-style.
When a man-portable ATGW hThe Moisins of stalin’s army had better range. as a range numbered in km, the area of cover from which it can engage a tank is in the hundreds of times more than a PIAT or panzerfaust in WW2. New armour tactics are called for. You accompanying infantry can’t shoot that far with an AK. The Moisins of stalin’s army had better range. And the infantry don’t seem to want to get out of their IFV. Doctrine is to fight from within it. From within the inflammable tin box.
As far as equipment breaking down, a crew walking back form their abandoned T72 is safer than the crew in the working one. Although we’ve known for decades how dodgy russki tanks are wrt ammo fires, they don’t seem to have done anything about it.
– Steve
. . . but can’t seem to halt or push back Russian advances in the east . . .
In just the last couple of days the Ukrainians pushed the Russians back 40km in an area to the east of Kharkiv. That’s in addition to the weeks of gradual advances they’ve made since the Russians moved to the defensive there. If the Russians wish to retain the ability to bombard the city (only their biggest guns can do that now) then they’re going to have to divert forces from elsewhere. In fact, it’s usually the case that where the Russians aren’t actively attacking, the Ukrainians are able to push them back, resulting in Russian attacking forces being diluted to defend.
You’ve chosen one report (Western media good!) of one end of one battle to promote the idea of the Ukrainians being destroyed. You paint the inability of the Russians to advance quickly in their potentially most mobile theatre (no pre-built Ukrainian defences for miles) as some genius level grinding attrition. We’ve seen this before from you (the Ukrainians can’t win, their cities are surrounded, if they try to escape they’ll be destroyed from the air). Let’s see how this one plays out.
– Scott Ritter on telegram
( ex US marine officer & UN weapons inspector in Iraq + longstanding hero to lefties and convicted pedophile)
These chaps from Far East Russia: do they have to supply their own ponies, and bows and arrows?
Ottokring
BiND
The Soviet tank commanders had no instructions for what happened after they breached the Fulda Gap and crossed the Rhine, because it was assumed that they would have already been wiped out.
Yes Prime Minister as ever gets it right
They usually did. In this case predicting Salami tactics? Its certainly Poland and the Balti states something to think about.
There, Tovarishch, is your enemy! There are your guns! Attack!
@PJF – well, it was obvious to me – I said so, pretty much; a lot of Russians were going to die and it was a question of whether Putin could get whatever job he envisaged done before public opinion forced him to stop, or more likely encouraged someone to stop him. This isn’t Fallujah 2 – the Russians are not the USMC with the USAF overhead and the Ukrainians are not a raghead militia high on amphetamines and religious fervour – and even that was an assault on one specific city, not a trawl through the biggest country in Europe. I didn’t think the Russians would be as poor as they are, mind you. The fact that senior Pentagon people got it wrong is… unsurprising. Have you seen the cunts lately?
@Jason – I was obviously simplifying – the point is that warfare even at the section level never mind further up is infinitely more complex now than it was in WWI (and even WWII) and is just another reason why conscription is unlikely to solve Putin’s troubles.
BiND – I have no idea, they didn’t send their best and they’ve hamstrung themselves with their own ROE (mercifully, this isn’t WW2 and nobody’s trying to mass murder civilians yet).
Yet, contrary to what we’ve been told since February, they’re winning.
PJF – Let’s see how this one plays out.
Russia takes Donbass and an expanded Crimea, declares victory, then frozen conflict. I’ll bet you a borscht flavoured Pot Noodle.
“System going well. Send more money.”
“War going well. Send more troops.”
Yet, contrary to what we’ve been told since February, they’re winning.
Sweden and Finland about to join NATO.
Ukraine being united behind a single cause that is going to create a nation that Putin was trying to deny.
South Ossetian troops in open rebellion and refusing to fight with the shite equipment they’ve been given.
Ukraine’s troops supposedly being surrounded and destroyed every week, but still going strong.
Ukraine’s weapons being upgraded and replaced faster than Russia is destroying them.
Russia can’t replace the weapons it’s losing.
Russia hasn’t been able to get air superiority.
Russia’s economy heading south in the short term with the west moving away from energy dependency so its fucked in the long term.
A Russian brain drain.
Russia’s supporters in the SPD increasingly marginalised and made to be a laughing stock.
Russia’s troops approaching exhaustion and not being replaced.
Lets hope they keep winning.
For once the West united in applying sanctions.
Lets hope they keep winning.
Countries can recover very quickly from war.
By 1965 West Germany was fine, and it was much more heavily trashed than Ukraine will be.
South Korea likewise.
But much of the USSR was still in ruins in 1965.
The key will be whether the Ukraine can use this as an opportunity to sort out its corruption and oligarchs or not. It will also be the test of how fascist they actually are.
BiND – the BBC is one hell of a drug.
Chester – we should hope so, but apart from the war (which NATO has no intention of allowing them to end), and the endemic corruption and oligarchy, Ukraine has another big problem postwar Germany and Japan didn’t have to deal with: demographics.
Their birth rates were lousy and suicidal *before the war*. Now there’s five and a half million of them in other countries, and no end in sight. Most of them are the young and fertile people they desperately need to make new Ukranians, and most of them aren’t going to rush back.
A few days ago, Jens Stoltenberg was bragging about how NATO would bravely encourage Ukranians to fight Russians for years to come. I don’t think Ukraine has years, it’s turning into Children of Men *now*.
Russia, the EU, the UK, the US, and even China have the same problem, and it’s a serious and potentially deadly one. But it’s now critical in Ukraine, their demographic pyramid is crumbling in front of our eyes.
They really don’t need more fighting, they need to get fucking, because countries that don’t make babies don’t have a future, and don’t deserve one. Which is why it bemuses me to see Septics crying about Roe v Wade.
The enemy, of course, gets a vote. Declaring victory and sitting on the defensive is not an option, not when the enemy is newly equipped with longer-range artillery than yours, complete with new counter-battery radars and numbers of precision-guided shells. Plus those hundreds of loitering suicide drones. And that’s not even considering the economic consequences, with crippling sanctions incurred as long as the occupation persists.
On the other hand, remaining on the offensive bumps up against the additional problem that the enemy now has a superior tank force than you, having received hundreds of modernised tanks in aid whilst Russia’s own force has been comprehensively written down.
Ukraine is militarily far stronger than when the war started, and Russia far, far weaker. The prediction is that Russian forces are going to be increasingly taken apart over the coming weeks.
Today’s headline “Israeli special forces veterans arrived in Ukraine”
But…but…but…NAZIs!
“BiND – the BBC is one hell of a drug.”
That’s why I don’t watch it. Or ITV or C4 of C5 or CNN ….
I’ve no idea about the other sites. I was referring to MoA (apologies to BiND, I thought he recommended it as a site that had an unbiased alternative view). I read MoA for a few weeks and once I realised he had no clearer picture than anyone else, but with an unhealthy pro-Russia with a smattering of antisemitism thrown in, I gave up.
Jacques Baud is another lying cunt with an agenda*, I remember checking out one of his articles making claims about the supposed Ukrainian offensive causing the Russians to invade. He’s one of those who provide links to seemingly back up his statements and assumes no one will bother checking. I did, and no surprise it was bollocks. The increase in shelling was primarily coming from the separatist areas onto Ukrainian positions – they were even firing out of Donetsk city centre. This was data from the OSCE that Baud had linked to. It was battlefield preparation for Russia’s invasion.
*I don’t know if these people are pro-Russian as such or if something has poisoned them against the west; maybe they’re just getting paid. The gullible swallow it all, of course, believing they’re all nuanced and sophisticated because they’re getting information from somewhere “independent”.
“I don’t know if these people are pro-Russian as such or if something has poisoned them against the west;maybe they’re just getting paid. The gullible swallow it all, of course, believing they’re all nuanced and sophisticated because they’re getting information from somewhere “independent”.”
Hmmm, what on earth has happened over the last decade that could possibly make people think that those in charge of the West (not just politicians but the entire non-voted for governing class) are lying scumbags who would sell their grandmothers for an extra dollar, happily treat their own populations like criminals and generally behave like the worst cartoon psychopath dictators, all the while telling people that its all for their own good?
Let’s assume all that’s true, Jim, in a way that isn’t reminiscent of all the previous decades. Why should that incline others to tell lies, or you to believe them? What reaction is next? Islamism? Veganism?
“Let’s assume all that’s true, Jim, in a way that isn’t reminiscent of all the previous decades. Why should that incline others to tell lies, or you to believe them? What reaction is next? Islamism? Veganism?”
I agree that the reality of the decency of Government may have been just as bad 30,40,50 years ago (though having lived through that period I fail to remember the State curtailing my liberties in the way it has done recently, despite it having more than enough reasons provided by the IRA for long periods).
However as far as I’m concerned the Western governmental elite has either become utterly corrupt within the last decade or so, or perhaps the last 10 years has revealed the always present corruption for all to see (or at least those who want to see it). And as such I don’t care what they say any more, I don’t want to associate myself with anything they espouse. Because being utterly corrupt they corrupt whatever they touch, even if its nominally a cause worth supporting.
Some people may decide that the West is so corrupt that its worth supporting anyone who opposes them, which might lead some to support Putin over the West. I wouldn’t go that far, as far as I’m concerned if there was a way to vaporise both Putin and the Western elite, I’d press the button in an instant.
I have the slightly uncomfortable feeling that the change is in us Jim. We’re wiser, having seen the roundabout a few times.
This might be the explanation of why people become more conservative as they age – wisdom.
“I have the slightly uncomfortable feeling that the change is in us Jim. We’re wiser, having seen the roundabout a few times.”
No I don’t think its that. I think the last half decade or so the powers that be have dropped any pretense of democracy or human rights in the West, they have been quite open in their behaviour. Can you imagine the Trudeau response to the truckers even 10 years ago? I don’t think so. Think of the UK government response 30 years ago to the opposition to the Poll Tax. That brought a rapid change in government policy, despite the protests being largely one big riot. The State then had enough self awareness and basic decency to say ‘You know what we’ve pushed them too far, we better pull back’ Now the same uprising against some high level government policy would be put to put down the protests as hard as possible and using all the (considerable) powers they have at their fingertips. Imagine an anti-Net Zero campaign that was as violent as the Poll Tax protests were. The State would certainly invoke anti-terrorism laws.
All Western States have become completely dictatorial. We should have realised that all those laws being passed in the last 20 years weren’t being put on the books to look pretty, they were there for real use. Now they are getting used, and we effectively live in fascist states where everything is down to the whim of the PTB – activities can be crushed utterly or permitted depending on whether the PTB approve or not. And the judiciary are utterly complicit in this as well. Face it, we live in 1984, just with slightly better PR. The apparatus is exactly the same.
Face it, we live in 1984, just with slightly better PR.
It’s been a long time now but I remember a different book.