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

metaculus.com

331–340 of 419 posts

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

#331
post #89
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

Literally the second sentence of the article. Is it that hard to read before commenting on an article? > This question will resolve positively if it is publicly reported by at least three reputable media sources or from direct statements from at least four Permanent UNSC members that the majority of Kyiv's raions are under Russian military control by April 1, 2022.

Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#332
post #114
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.

Cession of eastern territories and Crimea is probably not going to be too difficult a decision, considering Russia controls them anyways and did so even before the war. Demilitarization of Ukraine, NATO membership and relations with the west in general are all going to be very contentious, and it's hard to see a solution here that both sides will accept.

> Cession of eastern territories and Crimea is probably not going to be too difficult a decision, considering Russia controls them anyways and did so even before the war.

Before the recent escalation of the 8-year war it controlled Crimea and the breakaway “People’s Republics” in Donbas and Luhansk each controlled a small fraction of the territory they claim; before the war Russia and their pawns controlled nothing in Ukraine's claimed and generally internationally recognized borders, that was the proximate problem Russia (which shortly before that time had controlled the Ukrainian government as a puppet) sought to rectify with the war.

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

#333

how much of this was contributed to banning all reporting from the Russian side of things? right now the atmosphere is like if you even remotely suggest that Russia is actually making slow progress despite losses you are viewed as supporting Russia! Yet what the fixation on Kyiv is doing is it's pulling resources away from the south and Donentsk/Lukansk area where the Ukraine army is in real danger of being completel…

> right now the atmosphere is like if you even remotely suggest that Russia is actually making slow progress despite losses you are viewed as supporting Russia!

Only on Twitter and Reddit. Look at conventional media and they are mostly discussing Russian gains in the south, while occasionally mentioning that their advance has ground to a halt in the north.

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

#334

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…

> There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part Huh? War is incredibly harmful to civilian infrastructure, and propaganda is similarly harmful to our ability to communicate. Putin's propaganda loves this trope: "we can't know for sure, it's all propaganda, you have no choice but to pick a side. We're totally the good guys though, so be a good little soldier, spread our me…

I agree with you.

And I ran a simple experiment on Google News.

I simply removed a news source (using the three dots) when an article presented by it was:

1. Easily proven inaccurate (with a Google search) 2. Pure speculation (no actually reporting of change to “facts on the ground”)

I don’t have a single major news source left in my feed.

I highly recommend curating sources by their trustworthiness.

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

#335
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.

> 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.

If I was President of Ukraine, and wanted to convince the West of the urgency of a radical step escalation in military assistance, I might want them to perceive me as starting to waver in the face of the assault.

If I was President of Ukraine, and wanted to convince the Russians that good faith humanitarian corridors that weren't simply routes to captivity in Russia/Belarus and maybe even a general cease fire for negotiations while the Western sanctions continued to hollow out their war capacity were good ideas, I’d want to project the prospect of an acceptable resolution through negotiations.

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

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any evidence of government action so I assume it is voluntary. A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits. A number of Wikipedia articles for historic events are also actively being revised

> A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits. Looks like the rumors are true: you Russians are using Google to search for targets. It's hilarious that you're complaining that this is censorship when saying "war" gets you 15 years in gaol in Russia.

I didn't say it was the end of the world.

Just an example of information being delisted from search engines in the west. i.e. censorship.

I don't like my government participating in a war while being censored form learning about what is going in that war from public sources. These could include statements from my own government, past or present.

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

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what you're asking about, but I'd classify the filtering for what people want to hear as propaganda. Why is so much of the news I see about Ukrainian battle victories while Russians are clearly advancing on multiple fronts? There could easily be more coverage of Russian victories than Ukrainian if we were shown a random sample of phone footage. I'm not complaining - these things have a tangible effect on morale.…

Yeah, I ran into this and was was shocked to see information not just berried, but firewalled. I wanted to understand the situation and searched "Ukrainian troop locations" in google, bing, DDG, and Yahoo. One of the first times I have received no results in google. Absolutely blatant censorship. Ostensibly, google doesn't want to provide intel to Russia, who has ample satellites and combat reports. It seems a little…

You need to add "reddit" on query /s

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. There is a very real chance that a nuclear strike on a purely military target will cause a flinch by the other side. Lets say Putin nukes a carrier group at sea. This wont trigger an immediate counter attack like launching ICBMs would. Biden/whoever would have to order launching the nukes. Follow this for any usage of tactical nuclear weapons. Will he decide to end life in America and most of the wor…

> There is a very real chance that a nuclear strike on a purely military target will cause a flinch by the other side. I really doubt it. At the bare minimum a nuclear strike on military targets would provoke nuclear strikes on military targets in response. Excepting the middle of oceans, that's going to involve major civilian casualties. And then we're back to doomsday. Not to get all Dr Strangelove on you, but once…

Would it? Would you order a nuclear strike on a target that would guarantee a retaliation that would destroy your country and maybe the world and likely yourself?

Especially if a purely military target was hit like a carrier group and it was all soldiers that died?

Its not so obvious to me that every leader could do that.

Now look at the opposite. You are a leader who is about to be killed/ousted/lose everything if current course continues. No matter what you are probably dead in 10 years anyways due to old age. Why not? Especially if you think Putin is how he is portrayed by Western media?

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really really hope not. As sad as this is, revenge will only escalate things. We want to be able to have our kids talk to their grandkids about the mistake that happened and that it ended as quickly as it started.

If the conflict in Ukraine ends quickly, do you expect that to be the last invasion Putin will arrange? Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Whether I think I think that is immaterial to deescalating this war. Pithy statements aside.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you were talking about me. I think blame is a stupid and fruitless framing for discussion. I do think the Eastward advance of NATO was a strategic and moral mistake.

Moral mistake to stand up to a bully? That is the only reason NATO still exists. We literally paid hundreds millions of dollars to prop up Russia and their nuke labs during Yeltsin. Look what it got us. We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment. We needed to keep the boogeyman alive.

You have to reconsider who is the bully given the number of countries invaded, governments toppled, and civilians killed by the US in the last 30 years.

The US takes the cake in all categories, but of course we aren't a bully, all the people we kill were the bullies. We are the strongest so we define who is a bully or not.

>We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.

yeah, you really sound like the good guy here

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