NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine—Pvt. Oleksiy Malkovskiy, an unemployed father of three, fired a rocket-propelled grenade for the first time in his life on the front lines of the battle for Bakhmut in February.
Russian troops were assaulting one of the apartment blocks that his group of 16 draftees, many of whom had been enlisted days earlier and given no training, had been assigned to defend.
Malkovskiy missed. The Russians fired their own RPG and hit the wall beside him, leaving him concussed. He ran from the building and hid in a vegetable patch, his ears buzzing. When he returned after sundown, the bodies of two of his comrades lay in the room.
Over the 36 hours he spent in brutal house-to-house combat in the eastern Ukrainian city, 11 of the 16 men from Malkovskiy’s group of draftees were either killed or captured, according to surviving soldiers and relatives of the missing. ------ The 16 men including Malkovskiy, enlisted into the 5th company of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, left Kharkiv on Feb. 16 by bus for the brigade’s base 2½ hours’ drive south.
The passengers were mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital. Many had received mobilization notices that month, according to their military-service records. While some had completed mandatory service years or decades earlier, almost none had seen active combat. -------- On the morning of Feb. 21, the company sergeant major arrived to say he had orders to send the men into Bakhmut in groups of six. Russian forces were edging closer to the river that bisects the city, pressuring Ukrainian units defending themselves from constant mortar and artillery bombardment.
Some of the men threatened to write an official refusal to follow the order, citing a lack of training. Vladyslav Yudin, an ex-convict from the eastern city of Luhansk, said he told the sergeant major he had never held a gun, let alone shot one, and was scared. “Bakhmut will teach you,” he said the man replied.
The article is behind a paywall but here it is in its entirety in spoilers so it doesn't fill up the whole page:
EDIT: On second thought can the whole article be posted here if its behind a paywall? Eh, just to be sure if you want to read it you can PM me, very interesting read
I guess they all get their news from the same propaganda channels, impressive that the propaganda in russia is so effective at brainwashing, must be a heritage from the communist perfecting propaganda for so long
I guess they all get their news from the same propaganda channels, impressive that the propaganda in russia is so effective at brainwashing, must be a heritage from the communist perfecting propaganda for so long
The first couple of interviewees seemed to have a vague gauge of reality and the limits of propaganda are pretty evident in some of them.
The second half is almost a picture perfect example on why rampant nationalism and propaganda are a bad thing
On May 26 2023 02:16 zeo wrote: Wall Street Journal article from today offering a more rare look at everyday life during the Battle for Bakhmut on the Ukrainian side
KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine—Pvt. Oleksiy Malkovskiy, an unemployed father of three, fired a rocket-propelled grenade for the first time in his life on the front lines of the battle for Bakhmut in February.
Russian troops were assaulting one of the apartment blocks that his group of 16 draftees, many of whom had been enlisted days earlier and given no training, had been assigned to defend.
Malkovskiy missed. The Russians fired their own RPG and hit the wall beside him, leaving him concussed. He ran from the building and hid in a vegetable patch, his ears buzzing. When he returned after sundown, the bodies of two of his comrades lay in the room.
Over the 36 hours he spent in brutal house-to-house combat in the eastern Ukrainian city, 11 of the 16 men from Malkovskiy’s group of draftees were either killed or captured, according to surviving soldiers and relatives of the missing. ------ The 16 men including Malkovskiy, enlisted into the 5th company of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, left Kharkiv on Feb. 16 by bus for the brigade’s base 2½ hours’ drive south.
The passengers were mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital. Many had received mobilization notices that month, according to their military-service records. While some had completed mandatory service years or decades earlier, almost none had seen active combat. -------- On the morning of Feb. 21, the company sergeant major arrived to say he had orders to send the men into Bakhmut in groups of six. Russian forces were edging closer to the river that bisects the city, pressuring Ukrainian units defending themselves from constant mortar and artillery bombardment.
Some of the men threatened to write an official refusal to follow the order, citing a lack of training. Vladyslav Yudin, an ex-convict from the eastern city of Luhansk, said he told the sergeant major he had never held a gun, let alone shot one, and was scared. “Bakhmut will teach you,” he said the man replied.
The article is behind a paywall but here it is in its entirety in spoilers so it doesn't fill up the whole page:
EDIT: On second thought can the whole article be posted here if its behind a paywall? Eh, just to be sure if you want to read it you can PM me, very interesting read
I had heard that Ukraine was holding back troops for training while holding Bakhmut, I had not heard that they were throwing people who didn't know how to shoot a gun into a meatgrinder to do it though.
It seems a lot is riding on their reportedly pending counter offensive. Without some major ground being taken (and relatively soon), western support (particularly from the US) could dry up pretty quickly. Without that support, their efforts are completely unsustainable.
There is zero chance of western support drying up outside of a Putin stooge taking power. Putin has interfered with elections, invaded his neighbours multiple times, murdered British civilians in Salisbury, shot down a passenger airliner filled with the Dutch, funded Brexit, hacked the DNC, embarrassed the political elite of Germany, and broken the post Cold War status quo. Plus the whole genocide thing and that his army are literally raping toddlers and uploading the videos. The line has been drawn, tolerance has been exhausted, the lesson must be taught. It ends here or it never ends.
On May 27 2023 02:27 KwarK wrote: There is zero chance of western support drying up outside of a Putin stooge taking power. Putin has interfered with elections, invaded his neighbours multiple times, murdered British civilians in Salisbury, shot down a passenger airliner filled with the Dutch, funded Brexit, hacked the DNC, embarrassed the political elite of Germany, and broken the post Cold War status quo. Plus the whole genocide thing and that his army are literally raping toddlers and uploading the videos. The line has been drawn, tolerance has been exhausted, the lesson must be taught. It ends here or it never ends.
I understand the sentiment, but the reality is that it seems it already is.
Western public support for Ukraine is falling
In America, a new AP poll has found that less than half of Americans (48%) are in favour of providing weapons to Ukraine, down from 60% in May 2022. Separately, a Pew poll from this year revealed that the share of Americans who say the US is providing too much support to Ukraine has grown from 7% in March 2022 to 26% in January 2023. What’s more, the share of Americans who said that the US is not providing enough support has dropped from 42% to 20% in the same period.
According to one January Forsa poll, an astonishing 80% of Germans said that it was more important to end the conflict quickly with negotiations than for Ukraine to win. Similarly, a survey of nine EU countries by Euroskopia found that over 60% of Austrians and Germans want the war to end quickly whereas the Dutch, Portuguese and Polish are strongly opposed to this idea.
War fatigue thus appears to be setting in faster in Germany than in any other country, with public opinion hardening in recent months. Almost half of Germans (43%) now agree that ‘the problems of Ukraine are none of our business, and we should not interfere’, marking an 11-percentage point increase from March-April 2022 to November-December 2022.
Americans show signs of impatience with Ukraine war
A plurality of Americans, 46%, said the United States should stay the course in supporting Ukraine for only one to two years...
At the same time, the public is divided on the level of expenditure in support of Ukraine between those who say it’s too much (33%) and those who say it’s about the right level (30%). Only 12% said it’s too little...
Public support had been relatively robust, with very little change over the months ending in October 2022. But the current poll shows a marked drop on all three measures ranging from 9-15 points.
What explains such a drop? Perhaps the realization that there is no end in sight for the war at its first anniversary was sobering to some. But there is one variable that we have been measuring that could account for at least some of the drop. As we have shown in previous polls, the degree of support for Ukraine is highly correlated with the public’s evaluation of Ukraine winning or Russia losing.
The Ukrainians have come a long way from being considered practically lost to successfully stalling to then successfully securing the entire Northern region and eventually even liberating Kharkiv and much of Kherson. That's a comeback story like no other, against the Russian military no less. An absurd success story. So if it was correct to support Ukraine a year ago, then it's still correct today. The earliest point to start reconsidering would be 2024 or in my opinion 2025. The Ukrainian military is still growing stronger, while the Russian military has all but reached a peak. If people are already refusing to support Ukraine, it must be that either they're too impatient or they're falling for propaganda. Most importantly, the cost for supporting Ukraine for another few years is minimal compared to the reward of bringing it under the EU/NATO umbrella, even if not by name.
Republicans are trying to blow up the world economy over us government spending but refuse to even think about mentioning cuts to aid to Ukraine or other military spending outside of cutting benefits to veterans.
The case for sending more weapons and ammo to Ukraine is better than it was a year ago. The wars in the middle east weren't popular at all by this time and we still pumped well more than a trillion against an enemy that wasn't the great western satan for generations.
So... wouldn't this just set up the country for high possibility of terrorism and internal civil strife? No to mention very dangerous criminal activity.
More than 9,000 Russian teenagers will attend military-patriotic camps by the end of the summer, where they will receive fire training and study tactical medicine and UAV piloting.
"Teenagers aged 14 to 17 will receive fire, tactical, and engineering training, learn the basics of tactical medicine, as well as the organisation of communication and piloting of UAVs. Pupils will meet with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and "special military operation" (the war in Ukraine – ed.), famous sportsmen, and they will also study "the history of Russia based on the examples of feats of Soviet and Russian soldiers and officers, military and civilian volunteers."
It is reported that the first summer shift will be held under the motto "Time of Heroes". It will last for 21 days. The organiser is the "Voin" military and sports training centre, created on the initiative of Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the presidential administration.
Military-patriotic camps will open in Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Khabarovsk Territory, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Pskov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen Oblasts and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
If this whole counter-offensive thing ever happens, it will be a dominant factor in public support. If it is successful, it will be easy to keep support flowing. If it falls flat, people will encourage concessions and an end to the war.
That being said, I don't think the west will really let it fall flat. Regardless of what public perception is, the west is entirely aware that the Russia problem would not stop with Ukraine. Selfishly, either NATO lets Ukrainian soldiers die against Russia, or NATO soldiers will down the road. It is highly advantageous to just keep going and let Ukraine "tank the hits" so to speak of this whole west vs east thing with Russia.
The other thing to remember is that public support is not everything, and for good reason. The right time to exit a war is not always the time Joe Shmoe decides it is.
Edit: Looking back on public support for joining in during WW2 is all the evidence we'll ever need of why public opinion on this sort of thing is not relied on. The powers that be would not stop supporting Ukraine just because it is polling poorly.
This all comes down to the fact that the west is able to be 100% sure Russia intends to just expand as far as it can and that it is not ever going to reach some sort of equilibrium where it is suddenly not aggressive anymore. Now that it is hard for folks to ignore that, this will likely just continue until either the west or the east run out of resources.
On May 27 2023 04:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So... wouldn't this just set up the country for high possibility of terrorism and internal civil strife? No to mention very dangerous criminal activity.
More than 9,000 Russian teenagers will attend military-patriotic camps by the end of the summer, where they will receive fire training and study tactical medicine and UAV piloting.
"Teenagers aged 14 to 17 will receive fire, tactical, and engineering training, learn the basics of tactical medicine, as well as the organisation of communication and piloting of UAVs. Pupils will meet with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and "special military operation" (the war in Ukraine – ed.), famous sportsmen, and they will also study "the history of Russia based on the examples of feats of Soviet and Russian soldiers and officers, military and civilian volunteers."
It is reported that the first summer shift will be held under the motto "Time of Heroes". It will last for 21 days. The organiser is the "Voin" military and sports training centre, created on the initiative of Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the presidential administration.
Military-patriotic camps will open in Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Khabarovsk Territory, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Pskov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen Oblasts and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
On May 27 2023 04:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So... wouldn't this just set up the country for high possibility of terrorism and internal civil strife? No to mention very dangerous criminal activity.
More than 9,000 Russian teenagers will attend military-patriotic camps by the end of the summer, where they will receive fire training and study tactical medicine and UAV piloting.
"Teenagers aged 14 to 17 will receive fire, tactical, and engineering training, learn the basics of tactical medicine, as well as the organisation of communication and piloting of UAVs. Pupils will meet with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and "special military operation" (the war in Ukraine – ed.), famous sportsmen, and they will also study "the history of Russia based on the examples of feats of Soviet and Russian soldiers and officers, military and civilian volunteers."
It is reported that the first summer shift will be held under the motto "Time of Heroes". It will last for 21 days. The organiser is the "Voin" military and sports training centre, created on the initiative of Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the presidential administration.
Military-patriotic camps will open in Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Khabarovsk Territory, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Pskov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen Oblasts and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
I doubt it. Fascists love running stuff like that, because you can indoctrinate the children into a proper fascist mindset. Here in Germany, the Nazis had massive quasi-mandatory youth organisations with the HJ and BDM. And especially the male side of that involves a lot of drills and quasi-military training.
You can very effectively glorify war, and glorify sacrifice for the country, and really push the idea of heroic fighting for the great leader into the minds of children.
On May 27 2023 02:27 KwarK wrote: There is zero chance of western support drying up outside of a Putin stooge taking power. Putin has interfered with elections, invaded his neighbours multiple times, murdered British civilians in Salisbury, shot down a passenger airliner filled with the Dutch, funded Brexit, hacked the DNC, embarrassed the political elite of Germany, and broken the post Cold War status quo. Plus the whole genocide thing and that his army are literally raping toddlers and uploading the videos. The line has been drawn, tolerance has been exhausted, the lesson must be taught. It ends here or it never ends.
Popular support =/= actual military support, I don't know why this even needs to be said. There may be some correlation in the long term, but ultimately if the military/NATO decides it's worth sending stuff to Ukraine, the west will keep sending stuff to Ukraine, no matter how much people like it. People in the west might have more of a voice in these matters than, say someone in Russia right now, but let's not delude ourselves that it's that much more. Maybe that's wrong, but for example I don't see the US support (military support) for the war drying up any time soon, even if a Republican wins the presidency in the next election. There is too much at stake and too much money and interests tied up in this war, and too much invested already, pulling out now would basically be seen by most of the world as US conceding and losing a war to Russia, whether that's technically true or not.
Withdrawal of support seems very unlikely. We had a tweet a couple of pages ago that they want to create an Israel style security relationship. You don't make those plans if you plan to withdraw support. In reality support for Ukraine is not a big political issue. It is not like Afghanistan where NATO allies sent personnel and which was very expensive. Aid to Ukraine by contrast is not much at all. For example, The Netherlands budgeted around 2.5 billion for aid in 2023 which is approximately 0.006% of the government budget and 0.0025% of GDP and we've sent most aid as percentage of GDP outside of the Baltics and Poland according to ifw.
Iirc Norway's parliament nearly unanimously pledged its support for like 5 years, so even if the Norwegian population flips in 2023, we would still be supporting until 2027.
On May 27 2023 20:26 RvB wrote: Withdrawal of support seems very unlikely. We had a tweet a couple of pages ago that they want to create an Israel style security relationship. You don't make those plans if you plan to withdraw support. In reality support for Ukraine is not a big political issue. It is not like Afghanistan where NATO allies sent personnel and which was very expensive. Aid to Ukraine by contrast is not much at all. For example, The Netherlands budgeted around 2.5 billion for aid in 2023 which is approximately 0.006% of the government budget and 0.0025% of GDP and we've sent most aid as percentage of GDP outside of the Baltics and Poland according to ifw.
Since when did numbers and proportionality dictate public sentiment?
I’m not seeing much evidence of any wholesale flip in broad public support, nor even if that did occur I don’t think most nations have any appetite to pull out of their commitments.
If it does flip though it’ll be the usual populist ramming home of rhetoric versus a sober reflection on the numbers, and these days that tends to only go one way.
Yeah. This is one of those rare situations where both the giant military industry gets to profit AND it's ethical and largely supported by the population. This is one of the easiest wins ever. Even the American right wing are heavily influenced by their military industry, so a Trump-style sudden withdrawal of all support for Ukraine is incredibly unlikely to happen
EPT
