President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia • Hacker News Board

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#201

Post by _ph_ » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:36 AM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #189

danielheath wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes are a possibility, but MAD has stopped us all using them for many years so far. As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets. In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the locatio…

> In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed. Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.

No, Russia isn't waiting for a reason to invade the Baltic states. If they wanted, they could have come up with it any time. However, that would mean a war with NATO, which they couldn't possibly win. So far they are struggling badly with the few modern weapons delivered by the NATO to Ukraine.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#202

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:37 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #157

88840-8855 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, super good idea. We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s FACT: the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people, no matter whether Russia loses or wins the military operation. Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics. If Russia is left alone humiliated again then we will have the next anti-western sys…

> We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s The mistake was corrected after WWII by splitting the country into occupation zones. That is the only way to deal with Russia too. Pushing out of Ukraine isn't enough. Russia has to be demilitarized, most importantly - denuclearized, it should lose its place in UN Security Council. It also should be denazified - t…

Having this split happen through occupation would be a disaster. The west does not have anywhere near the manpower necessary to make this happen. The rule of thumb is that the occupying force needs to be 5% of the population, which means 9 million for Russia.

However, it could happen naturally. If the Putin regime collapses it is quite likely that a clear successor widely seen as legitimate doesn't materialize. If so, the many autonomous regions of Russia with regional identity could declare independence and make it stick.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#203

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:37 AM UTC

130 points, 3 hours ago, 184 comments

Not on the front page or the second page of HN.

The comments have been civil, all things considered. These events have been extremely consequential and possibly the root cause of the looming global recession.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#204

Post by _ph_ » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:41 AM UTC

farseer wrote: post #108

lolc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could conquer Ukraine and effectively quell unrest, the Federation could be said to have come out stronger. That is very unlikely though, with the Ukrainian army getting effective support. If they manage to hold the land bridge to Krim and negotiate a cease-fire, it can be argued that they had limited success in their objectives. But at a huge economic and humanitarian cost. And in a nuclear war, nobody wins.…

Would the West intervene in a nuclear war limited to Ukrainian territory?

I would assume so. Probably not with a nuclear answer, but some restricted air strikes against Russian troops inside Ukrainian territory.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#205

Post by philistine » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:41 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #121

danielheath wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes are a possibility, but MAD has stopped us all using them for many years so far. As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets. In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the locatio…

Does MAD really protect Ukraine? Edit: suppose the old man has properly lost it. If Putin drops a tactical nuke on a Ukranian military position, will Nato really respond in kind? Seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Perhaps not, but China and India would definitely stop supporting Russia after that. China has a nuclear-equipped little madman of its own, so it needs to show what the consequences are for using nukes. India is also a nuclear country, bordered by another one, and can't imply Pakistan can just use nukes without consequence.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#206

Post by trhway » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

azangru wrote: post #191

dandanua wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language. "Ukraine" doesn't mean borderland, it's another Russian attitude with the aim to humiliate Ukrainian nation. You can also look at the map and see who is really a borderland of the civilized world.

> Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language. This is an old and complicated argument. The Russians have their language. In that language, for several centuries, probably as long as the word Ukraine existed in it, it was governed by the preposition "на". There are other Russian toponyms that are gover…

> It really is a question of whether the language should change because of a new political status of Ukraine (and therefore all its speakers should change their linguistic habits); or whether this word should continue to be among the exceptions that take the preposition "на".

No. There is no need to change language. If in any given phrase one means Ukraine as a region, like Caucasus, then it is "на", if one means Ukraine as country then it is "в". With Ukraine becoming independent country most semantic contexts though from the "region context" have naturally become "country context".

The issue here is that Russians to intentionally demonstrate their unrecognition and disrespect to Ukraine use "на" (as in the "region context") when they really speak about Ukraine as a country and thus, by Russian language rules, must have used "в".

>The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.

It isn't annoyance. It is tens (actually looks more like early hundred) of thousands people dead for the reason that that factoid demonstrate - Russian refusal to recognize Ukrainian right to exist and to exist independent of Russia.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#207

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:43 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #165

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was in favour that NATO would secure the skies 'Securing' skies is a term that has been repeated a lot but in practice it means potentially shooting down Russian aircrafts to 'secure' a corridor. This would mean a NATO member doing an act of war against Russia _without_ the purpose of defending a NATO member state. The main argument is where do you draw the line? Why did NATO not provide air support for Georgia i…

Just because we closed our eyes in the past doesn't mean we need to continue doing that. It's the straw that breaks the camels back. Shooting down Russian airplanes over Ukrainian territory when they are literally bombing Ukraine is not "an act of war against Russia". That's a bit of a far stretch don't you think? If NATO bombs Belarus and Russian airplanes defend, you can hardly call that "Russian war against NATO".

> If NATO bombs Belarus and Russian airplanes defend, you can hardly call that "Russian war against NATO".

That is literally a casus belli. It very much is an act of war.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#208

Post by Sammi » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:43 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #161

spywaregorilla wrote: post #154

A few months ago analysts were warning of impending collapse of Russia's troops due to poor supplies and poor morale. Russian cheerleaders on HN were doubting it as Western propaganda saying it had been declared for months and not materialized. Well it materialized in the collapse of the Kharkiv front over a week so there's that. In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter. The Russian problem is bad s…

> In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter Oh it matters. More poorly trained and equipped cannon fodder means more dead and more prisoners. The influx of caskets into previously less impacted areas in Russia might start to impact the general population more - that's how the USSR had to pull out of Afghanistan.

And more strain on the already failing logistics. More people to equip and feed. They are already failing to equip and feed those they have...

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#209

Post by _ph_ » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:47 AM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #93

_visgean wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their only connection to the Mediterranean. If you look at the map russia has quite a few other cities with direct access to black sea. e.g. Rosnov, Sochi, Novorosijsk...

touche. I guess I'm stupid. But Sevastopol is important.

It was important. As the Ukraine already attacked targets there, recently Russia moved their submarine base from Sevastopol to some mainland harbor. That means, effectively this harbor has been lost to Russia as a consequence of the war.

Never mind that the Bosporus is closed for military vessels.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#210

Post by Markoff » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 11:49 AM UTC

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #118

bjourne wrote: post #103

Can someone Russian explain what on earth they are thinking? Russia appears to have 10x the casualties as Ukraine, soldiers that doesn't really want to fight, and are currently losing. Yet the leaders think it is a good idea to keep the war going? To me it seems that with the material Ukraine is receiving from the West they will easily retake all territory Russia has occupied.

>Russia appears to have 10x the casualties as Ukraine Reliable source? That isn't what I read anywhere from not-so-partial sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...

I like how Russian forces have various estimates, but for Ukrainian forces we take Ukraine data for granted, while the truth is both countries are highly likely downplaying their losses, same as both of their dictators are same corrupted thieves as proven in Pandora Papers last year when they were appearing together in all articles. Can't believe someone believes any data coming from these 3rd world countries.