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One Year into the War in Ukraine

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Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#81

Post by yucky »

int_19h wrote: post #49
yucky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands have been killed on both sides of that conflict since 2014, handpicking a temporary downturn in 2021 is a bit disingenuous, no?

It wasn't a "temporary downturn". If you look at the graph of casualties in Donbas before 2022, the first 2 years of fighting in 2014-2015 see the vast majority of casualties, and then it goes down sharply from there. By 2021, this much lower rate was a well-established status quo, and this was reflected even in official government briefings from separatist republics and Russia itself. For example, DNR published ( ht…

I can show you the same trend in the Iraq War, and it doesn't make it not a war. I guess I'm not sure of the point.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#82

Post by timeon »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #77

Only people whose knowledge of history begins with WW II think everything is Munich, and that analogy applies to everything. There was 6,000 years of recorded history before Munich. It's not always correct to think that "if we appease them here, they'll be in our bedrooms next." Sometimes in history, the two sides cut a deal, and peace was maintained for a few generations, which was all anyone expected anyway.

This seems bit vague.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#83

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

JohnFen wrote: post #37
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #8

"The current War in Ukraine is, after all, a continuation of what I’ve seen termed the War in the Donbas, which began in April of 2014. " I was happy to read that since it is constantly ignored by American media.

> since it is constantly ignored by American media. It is? It seems to be talked about a fair bit for being ignored.

If you ask Americans how long the war in Ukraine has been going on, they'll almost all say “about a year”, whereas Ukrainians would say “about nine years”.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#84

Post by ninjagoo »

I_complete_me wrote: post #68

In fact Putin is completely correct in his attempt to retrieve Ukraine for Mother Russia and it is the West that is the aggressor. Now, if you just had a visceral (negative) response to this, I am with you. The point I am trying to make is that the Russian people seem to be equally incredulous to the idea that Russia itself is the aggressor. How is it that the Russian media has such a hold over them - in this day of…

> The point I am trying to make is that the Russian people seem to be equally incredulous to the idea that Russia itself is the aggressor.

You may want to point this crowd to some sources about that incredulity being widespread in Russia.

> How is it that the Russian media has such a hold over them - in this day of the internet and other forms of communication?

There is a language barrier at play here - Russian natives may not be able to avail English-media content, and I do wonder about how much russian language counter-programming is widely available to the average Russian.

> And if Russia can have such a hold, why couldn't OUR government have such an equal hold over US.

Russia is practically a dictatorship, while the US is a functioning democracy. That said, within the last 2 decades we have seen the US invade Iraq for no good reason, with significant support from the population resulting in Bush's re-election. Granted, the US people finally threw those responsible out of power for a couple of cycles (albeit for a mix of reasons, including poor economic performance). Meanwhile the Russian people do not appear to have that luxury of being able to peacefully remove Putin from power for any reason.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#85

Post by andrewflnr »

pshirshov wrote: post #79
andrey123 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero war support across friends/colleagues but maybe up to 30% support on the streets (taxi drivers, cashiers, mechanics, neighbors, ...). In small cities there shall be more supporters (less Internet, more TV).

I really doubt it's "zero". I've quizzed many many people I had connections with and literally all of them support the war up to some extent. The most common opinion is "we shouldn't have started this but we should win this war and take over Ukraine and Poland". It would be really strange to count such opinions as "anti-war".

Poland too, huh? Have they thought through the implications of that one?

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#86

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

bigdict wrote: post #69
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They basically are. They don't have russian passorts. How can they be russians?

> They don't have russian passorts. You clearly are not familiar with how things work in Transnistria.

I'm from around that region so I'm quite familiar.

Just because Putin says those people are Russians so he can claim some clay, doesn't make it a fact.

Sure some are ethnically Russian, but that doesn't make them Russian citizens of the Federal Russian Republic.

They are Moldovan citizens. Transnistria is a rouge separatist nation that's not internationally recognized and only exists on paper because Russia is a nuclear power which has troops and weapons there and Moldova is too weak to do anything about it.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#87

Post by [deleted] »

andrey123 wrote: post #66
RivieraKid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the mood regarding the war in your social circle? How often do they support it?

Zero war support across friends/colleagues but maybe up to 30% support on the streets (taxi drivers, cashiers, mechanics, neighbors, ...). In small cities there shall be more supporters (less Internet, more TV).

[deleted]

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#88

Post by andrey123 »

pshirshov wrote: post #79
andrey123 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero war support across friends/colleagues but maybe up to 30% support on the streets (taxi drivers, cashiers, mechanics, neighbors, ...). In small cities there shall be more supporters (less Internet, more TV).

I really doubt it's "zero". I've quizzed many many people I had connections with and literally all of them support the war up to some extent. The most common opinion is "we shouldn't have started this but we should win this war and take over Ukraine and Poland". It would be really strange to count such opinions as "anti-war".

> I've quizzed many many people I had connections with and literally all of them support the war up to some extent.

I would have reconsidered my approach to making connections if that happened to me :)

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#89

Post by andrewflnr »

anextio wrote: post #76
meheleventyone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “They are only focused on attrition and minimizing their own casualties.” ??? That’s errr... going poorly.

https://meduza.io/amp/en/news/2023/02/17/close-to-15k-russia... An investigation via open sources by the BBC and Meduza (an anti-Putin media outlet based in Latvia) has confirmed the deaths of about 15k Russian soldiers since the start of the war, and estimates the true number to be up to 60% higher. What sources do you have that the widely reported media number of 200k+ is actually true that doesn’t ultimately come…

The sources I'm seeing that say 200k include injuries. Combined with your source on actual deaths, that puts injuries:deaths at around 10:1, which sounds right.

Re: One Year into the War in Ukraine

#90

Post by rainworld »

It’s hard to know exactly how heavy Ukrainian losses in the first phase and this second phase were; I suspect we’ll find out that they were quite a bit heavier than media coverage would lead us to believe.

Actually, if you read Western mainstream media front line reports, past the headlines and between the lines, a picture of very heavy losses emerges. Units completely depleted or rebuilt several times. Territorial Defense volunteers sent into the trenches with hardly any preparation [0]. And so on. But somehow such reports never manage to shatter the Conventional Wisdom.

[0]: Just one recent example: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/world/asia/ukraine-russia...

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