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Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

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Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#141

Post by dekhn »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #57

I just have no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another. The media so far (in the West) ranges from tangibly self-conscious to overt propaganda, much of which is proven false a day later. There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part, I get that, but I at this point I wouldn't be surprised that Russia is doing much better than what is being…

I think you can look at the maps that major establishment newspapers publish and see that the Russians are making significant land headway in many parts of the country. Each day they grind a little bit more, to the point where kyiv is facing two distinct military axes.

however, I don't think the western press is missing any deep details about russian fighting. The fight for Kyiv may end up looking like a reverse Stalingrad.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#142

Post by wizwit999 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #49
rdtwo wrote: post #11

Do people put money on this because 4:1 odds are pretty good. If definition of fall is a mission accomplished type photo op I’d take those odds. If it’s prolonged stable holding then I probably would not

The insurgency in Iraq was also a minority- most supported the US. I like to imagine that Russia will have a much more difficult time in Ukraine where they are almost universally despised.

No party in Iraq "supported" the US. There were various opportunists with different priorities.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#143

Post by q1w2 »

dekhn wrote: post #121
q1w2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also getting fresh soldiers. I saw a claim from a Canadian vet in Kyiv that 40,000 foreign fighters were already in Kyiv. The Canadian was part of a 500-man exclusively Canadian urban battalion. There was also a report on BBC that Russia had summoned foreign ambassadors in Moscow to complain about foreign volunteers traveling to Ukraine to fight against Russia [1]. I've also been on Telegram channels helping…

Eventually the question becomes "if these guest fighters are successful, at what point do they consider going north through the contested border and attacking Russian (or, more likely, Belurussian) cities?"

Probably not at all. I doubt there will be any will to invade Russia. Crimea and Donbas would be hard enough.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#144

Post by krastanov »

user3939382 wrote: post #113
krastanov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are conflating media and social media. If any of these stories were picked by something like NYT, it would be "here are some examples of local stories going around to strengthen the morale", never as "truth". Actually, even reddit comments were generally "I know the Ghost is made up, it would be silly to believe it, but gosh, it is a good story". Moreover, the radiation in Chernobil did rise (measurably,…

> you are conflating media and social media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russi... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-sold... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukrai... I could go on, but you get the point. These were definitely fake stories propagated by the western media as part of thei…

I stand corrected on half of a story (I am certainly surprised The Guardian did not make it more clear that they are citing Zelensky, the way WaPo did).

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#145

Post by jjulius »

user3939382 wrote: post #113
krastanov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are conflating media and social media. If any of these stories were picked by something like NYT, it would be "here are some examples of local stories going around to strengthen the morale", never as "truth". Actually, even reddit comments were generally "I know the Ghost is made up, it would be silly to believe it, but gosh, it is a good story". Moreover, the radiation in Chernobil did rise (measurably,…

> you are conflating media and social media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russi... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-sold... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukrai... I could go on, but you get the point. These were definitely fake stories propagated by the western media as part of thei…

Did you wanna include the part where outlets corrected themselves? Stories change - you do your best to verify, and then report the change once more information comes out.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-island...

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#146

Post by otherme123 »

tada131 wrote: post #94
otherme123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically what Finland achieved in the heroic Winter War. True, Finland lost some terrain, but I don't think anyone would find the aftermath as a soviet victory, when the original desire was to anexate the whole country.

But Soviet losses were incomparably bigger than Finland. Is this war the case?

IMHO war isn't a scale of bodies. Each side has a strategic objective(s), and winning/losing should be measured against that.

Case in point: Vietnam. uSA and allies lost between 1/3 and 1/2 lifes than the North. And the USA loses were small (60.000 in a total of 1.5 million deaths). But it was a total defeat of the USA because none of the strategic objectives were achieved.

Ukraine: strategic objectives are being an independent country with a fairly working democracy. Russia: conquer and create a puppet state in Ukraine and keep pressing west againt NATO countries.

In the end we should measure against that, not by body count. I don't like it either.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#147

Post by [deleted] »

helpseeker wrote: post #135

Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down. I think since after the 1st week of troop movements it's pretty clear: - Russia aims at encircling cities, draining the resistance there, forcing them into negotiations and so that enemy combatants can evacuate into western Ukraine (like they did in Syria) - Ukraine aims at short-term lu…

[deleted]

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#148

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

otherme123 wrote: post #31
jcadam wrote: post #13

Zelensky is starting to sound like he's open to considering some of Russia's stated terms (no pursuit of NATO membership and cession of eastern Ukraine). That doesn't sound like things are going especially well for him.

Maybe Zelenskyy doesn't like thousand of Ukraines dying for some inflated ego, potentially millions. That solution, and specially if acompanied with guarantees of no further agressions if Ukraine doesn't enter NATO or EU, is a win for the country, and a pyrric victory for Putin: his credibility is gone forever, and all he got is a small piece of terrain. Enough to sell internally as a win, but hardly anywhere else.

I think he won't be able to sell anything for a win because Russia is financially finished. The only way this can play out is by the oligarchs killing Putin, apologizing to the world, replacing the public face of Russia with a new puppet, so they can continue earning. Putin has stopped the machine. That's the only rule in organized crime (and business) that must never be violated. You don't stop the machine. If Putin were a CEO of a legit "Russia Inc" then he is directly responsible for that business collapsing. There is no universe (criminal or legit) in which that scenario goes well for the leader.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#149

Post by WJW »

pessimizer wrote: post #137
WJW wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The west can do for the Ukrainians what Pakistan has been doing for decades for the Taliban: provide safe havens, supplies and weapons to small insurgent groups doing guerilla strikes against the Russians. The Ukraine is so large that to keep it occupied would take hundreds of thousands of troops and Russia cannot afford to keep up such mobilisation for long. They have a few months at most and properly beating an ins…

> The west can do for the Ukrainians what Pakistan has been doing for decades for the Taliban: provide safe havens, supplies and weapons to small insurgent groups doing guerilla strikes against the Russians. This would be a great tactic to reduce Ukraine to a pile of smoking rubble over a couple of decades of war. I'm not sure that's a great outcome for Ukrainians.

What the West does is what will be the best for them, not necessarily what will be the best for Ukrainians. I'm sure there are a couple of foreign policy officials somewhere that would love the idea of Russia being tied up in the Ukraine for decades instead of using that capacity for bothering other countries.

Re: Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

#150

Post by time_to_smile »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #57

I just have no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another. The media so far (in the West) ranges from tangibly self-conscious to overt propaganda, much of which is proven false a day later. There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part, I get that, but I at this point I wouldn't be surprised that Russia is doing much better than what is being…

> no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another

Not only is this true from a general sense of "fog of war" and misinformation, but even in a purely statistical sense, these numbers aren't compelling. As a stats person, both 0.9 and 0.26 are probabilities that basically reflect nothing more than a vague sense how the outcome will go.

In a classical NHST this degree of confidence would not pass even the most lose definitions of "statistical significance".

And in a more Bayesian setting, being 90% and 26% sure of rain both mean you'll bing an umbrella. Having a 90% chance of survival and a 26% chance of survival means are both too risky for almost all scenarios.

But for whatever reason, when predicting things like outcomes of an election or outcomes of a war, people start applying `round` to their probabilities.

At work if I see that I'm either 90% sure or 26%, I report that we still don't have enough information to say anything particularly interesting or to justify any major risks. So even if we had reliable information about the situation, these numbers aren't interesting. Since we don't, they're useless.

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