Coffeesforclosers

I'm behind on this part of the Ukraine war news. So critically important bits of Russian industry have all started catching fire at the same time?

Per Russia, their losses are: KIA, 13,441 MIA, 7,000 WIA, no number given. 116 Sailors when down with the Moskva, 100+ are still missing and at this point are probably lost at sea. Make of this what you can.

We only just learned. Instead of knocking over some tiny, 3rd world country, Russia thought it could roll over a real military supported by a determined, patriotic people and their government. Of the three things I mentioned, the bluff part was the most important. Nobody, not Bush, Obama, or Trump ever called it, and Biden only got to call it by accident.

A fraud of a superpower based on petrodollars, mountains of rusting Soviet weapons and a few hi tech toys, and bluffing.

Kreminna was a tough hold. All the roads are on the west and northwest sides, with farmland or impassible terrain everywhere else. The defenders wouldn't have had the easy access to supplies, reinforcements, and very predictable escape routes. If the Ukrainians did any counter attacking around Izyum, they were probably more like raids. Or spoiling attacks to throw off Russian preparations rather than attempts to retake the city. The Russians are attacking from the very same places they supposedly captured.

Heading into Day 2 of The Big Attack, news is very sparse from the front. Ukraine has confirmed that North African mercs have been killed in Russian service. There's video of their bodies for anybody that wants to look for it. The city of Kaminna was taken by the Russians, population about 18k before the war. It's right on the front lines, so Russia's making *some* progress through Ukraine's defences. More people falling into Russian hands is very bad for them, but Ukraine has some space to trade if it increases the burdens of Russian logistics.

If you get a chance, check out Attack on Europe where they're documenting vehicle losses of all types from both sides. It's an eye opener, and the post the proof they're using to make the determinations right there for you to see. I don't know if they scrub/edit out KIA, so be warned now.

Looks like Russia's big attack has started. This is supposed to be their war winning offensive, so we're going to learn a lot about a lot in the next week or so. Ukraine had reportedly been counter-attacking around Izyum and making good progress. The city is Russian held and Ukraine had almost cut all the supply routes leading to it. So if all that's true it, Russia had to go now to bail out the Izyum garrison. Operative words being if all that's true. Good luck Ukraine, and good hunting to the JFO, Regulars, and Territorial Defense force units.

If Russia were just beating up on Ukraine to prove they're top dog in the region, JD Vance is right. But Russia has said over and over and over again that they want to erase the Ukrainian state and assimilate the Ukrainian people to restore their empire and break US power. So JD Vance is an idiot.

What a lazy, inaccurate answer when you Google the actual articles of impeachment in about a minute.

Mariupol is about to fall for real this time. Ukraine's 36th Naval Infantry Brigade (part of the garrison) sent out their farewell video today. Pretty much said that they'd fought to the last bullet and that Ukraine should keep on fighting until it wins. *Somehow* Ukraine was sneaking ammunition through Russian lines to these guys, but Russia overran the drop zones in the last 72 hours.

Whataboutism is a staple of Russian propaganda. Push come to shove, America has never shot 16,000 Polish POWs and dump their corpses in a forest, because they were engineers, doctors, lawyers and professors, and therefore a threat to revealed truths of Marxism-Leninism.

Love it. Enjoy your career, McCorkle.

Fun fact. The overwhelming majority of the votes against the EU embargo of Russia came from Communist and Fascist parties. Don't you just love it when Tankies and Brownshirts get together to declare their hatred of liberty? But hey, if anything will get them into bed together, it's the idea that Might Makes Right.

The EU Parliament just voted for a total fossil fuel embargo of Russia. I have no idea if it's binding (leaning strongly towards no), but that's quite the 180 from 8 weeks ago. Angela Merkel looks less and less like a pragmatist, and more and more like a fool every day. Putin thinks he wins because he's the only guy on the planet that believes in something besides peace and profits. Like any good fascist, he's just enough of a left win nutcase to hate capitalism and indiviualism, and just enough of a right wing nutcase to believe in he can slaughter his way back in time to a past Russia where everything was traditional and awesome.

I don't get the B-Man thing. He only posts tweets or retweets. He doesn't seem to have any original opinions and rarely if ever discusses things with anybody. I'm pretty sure he's a bot.

Russia's going further and further down the rabbit hole. The only way they can think of to get out of this is through slaughter, torture and deportations. Not that any of this is new, it was the Tsar's SOP the Communists' SOP, now it's Putin's SOP. Everybody is waiting for a big offensive by Russia, aimed at a breakthrough somewhere near Izyum. We'll see, hopefully nothing comes it. Ukraine's been pretty wily so far and punched far, far above their weight, but it ain't over until it's over.

Putin's savvy, calculating strategic genius at work. Letting your enemy know that if you stop fighting, you'll be murdered, and your wife and children will be raped and/or murdered, or tortured and imprisoned.

When St. Javelin appears, all Russian tanks take off their hats.

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Obliged. So who are you looking for to lead? Who benefits from leading might be the better question.

It's not though, and the stakes are too high. Tsar Vladimir the Insane cannot lose, nor can he allow anything that looks like Ukraine winning. Ukraine likewise cannot lose, because then Russia will slaughter, torture and brainwash Ukrainians until nothing of the people or the country is left. Nukes buy Russia time, in the sense that they'll have to do something even worse than Irpin or Bucha to get us and Europe to throw down directly. India isn't strong enough, and China's happy doing nothing, though what good that does them is anybody's guess. We're in. We've already picked a side, and no 3rd Party has the combination of balls, guns and power to knock us, Europe's or Russia's heads together. We're all too big, too rich and too dangerous. Which means the war ends when somebody loses. Which I obviously hope is Russia.

I agree, but it doesn't seem likely, not with the fallout of Bucha, Irpin and the rest of Russia's atrocities still settling. Russian opinion also seems to be hardening in favor of the war. Which is what you'd expect when people have the choice between "we're just victims, woe is us" propaganda and confronting what their army is actually doing. Russian state propaganda is turning whole hog in support of a Holodomor style genocide. Their message is the only way Ukraine could be fighting this hard is because all Ukrainians have embraced Nazism. Therefore, all 44 million of them are fair targets for torture, reeducation, deportation or slaughter. I'm going to ahead and check back into Marco Rubio's Twitter, because I don't think he's been wrong yet on predicting Russia's strategy of murder and/or replacement of Ukraine's people with loyal Putinists. Their heads are screwed on so backwards they thing Zelensky is a Jewish globalist Nazi American Anglo-Saxon puppet. Which just goes to show they have no idea what those individual words mean, except to describe things they don't like.

Why give them that much credit, given their biases? The truth is that any people, any where have the right to defend their country to the death. Whether they want to or not is their choice. Saying one side has won and the other side has been ground to bits isn't saying surrender explicitly. Just like how Jesus told Judas "whatever you have to do, do it quickly" didn't explicitly say "Go betray me to the Romans". The founding fathers had no rational reason for rebelling against the British. They were all rich, respected, and if you compared their financial and military resources against the British, they didn't have a prayer. But they did it anyway.

Meh, we can beat anybody except the Colts, and KC from time to time. KC without Hill is a whole different animal on offense so we'll see about that too. We should be favored in 95% of our games, with 11-13 wins a year minimum.