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A remarkably comprehensive take of unusual quality, I think. Something even more remarkable given its concision.
In particular, I really like your inclusion of the Belarusian color revolution as a precursor event. The connection is something that I've noted privately. Indeed, the lack of effective and reliable Belarusian support in 2014 may have been among the decisive factors against Russian intervention back then.
Seems like the attempt to color revolutionize two of the three Russias has turned out like many of the other badly motivated and poorly thought out adventures that have been intrepidly advocated by the Western consensus. It does appear that these ops keep colliding with each other.....
Heads up on what might be a typo: 'I might be completely wrong with this assessment, but I do think the immediate objective here is Odessa.' Surely you meant 'I do not think the imm. obj. is Odessa' based on the following text?
I, for one, do think that Odessa is intended to be bypassed. The threat to city will, I suspect, remain convincingly credible, but only to level required to pin the considerable Ukrainian resources committed to the area.
I also think that Kiev is going to be one of the last major pieces to fall into place - much better to seal it up and let the defenders chew on each other than risk blowing it to bits. I made a joke to someone that Russian tanks will be in Lvov before Kiev, but I definitely think that the priority is to destroy the Ukrainian military as quickly as possible and to solidify control of the key road, rail, and river networks in the center and east of the country before pressing the issue of the capital. It's unfortunate that Kharkov is facing a probable sacking but trashing Kharkov does appear to be a rather Lindy event and its example may prove a useful and motivating counterpoint to whatever agreement capable parties the Ukrainians are able to assemble.
I do think that however unlikely it does appear, there is considerable risk 'in the moment' for dramatic escalation. I'm sure that the Russian leadership is well aware of this and is probably positioning itself as best as it can to present a credible deterrent capability. Preserving its air forces and certain categories of weapons I'm sure is a key part in being able to fight a larger war. There does appear to be considerable movement of American military units to the broader region and there are plenty of signs that NATO is attempting to prepare its own best possible force profile. My hope is that all these and related activities are merely due diligence risk mitigation and not a prelude to Global Thermonuclear War.
At any rate, great writeup - it is one that I will be sharing.
What you wrote in the last paragraph there, about Russia holding back in case of NATO intervention is interesting, I had a feeling this could be the case
Thanks for liking my post, always nice to hear good feedback
Mar 11, 2022·edited Mar 11, 2022Liked by Alexander's Cartographer
I found out about your work from another. Very much enjoyed your piece on Abkhazia, I'll have to look at it again sometime - it's been very informative. Had no idea you had a Tw*tter presence until a day or so ago. But then again, I do not have a presence on that platform, preferring to write about a variety of different topics including what amounts to a small book about Peter the Great on my site - although it's been a good year since I've had time for anything new......
Anyway, thinking about it a bit further, I realized I have some other thoughts.
It's possible that Lukashenko didn't accidently leak the grand plan but rather deliberately presented a clever piece of disinformation that was plausibly revealed. When I first saw the grainy image, my gut reaction was this was a little bit of misdirection. Now, of course, I could be completely wrong in this, but I think it could be a rather nice bit of 4D chessplay.
Principally, the red and yellow arrow points towards a fair bit of coloring down by Odessa. As you have proposed and with which I agree, it seems that Odessa is a place of pinning. No one can fail to notice that it seems to be area of significant activity on the Lukashenko plan, a place of many rumors, and the site of a major Russian pleasure cruise. My tentative conclusion is that this apparent leak is another layer in the sales pitch to the UAMOD that Odessa is of extreme interest to the RUMOD.
I also spotted a second deviation from apparent fact: there has been no drive to Cherkassy as has been identified also (by my green arrow) in the Lukashenko plan. What significance indicates, I'm not so sure about.
I've made a spitball prediction elsewhere that I expect this war to last 44 days +/- 5 days. This was another gut-fueled reaction I had around day three of this exercise. I figure that the rough proportion of comparative capabilities between UA and RU is, while totally different, not incomparable to the relationship between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in 2020. The topography is totally different as is the vastly different scale of forces. However it was still a tremendously successful offensive operation in the face of stiff resistance that was relatively rapid (hence the 44 days) marked with plenty of pauses, creative tactics, and abortive ceasefires (and a brutality unmatched as of yet in Ukraine). I think that if Russian military forces can subdue the Ukraine's formal ability to resist within a month and a half, they are doing very well indeed. My perception is that the Ukrainian Armed Force probably has the third most formidable set of ground forces endemic to the European continent (I.e. I'm not including America).
Vox Day shared an assessment of unknown provenance 10 days ago that predicts a 41-day operation here: https://voxday.net/2022/03/01/ukraine-invasion-a-comparative-analysis/ - I thought it made a couple intriguing comparisons and it makes a prediction more or less in line with my own expectations. We'll have to see how well this fellow's analysis and my intuition fits the actual results.....
At any rate, I'm looking forward to your next essay wherever it may take us.
I was considering that about Lukashenko's map reveal, that it might be 4D chess, but who knows
I think if the drive on Cherkessy is a real plan, the Ukrainian resistance at Kharkov and especially at Sumy have prevented this advance from being realized
Your prediction on a 44 day might be true, the real question is just how motivated the Ukrainians are to fight on. Based on Ukrainian and Western media their morale is sky high, which might be true or just propaganda. As time goes on and the more and more I think about it, it seems the Russians have ran into a major problem in terms of Ukrainian popular resistance, pacifying them will seemingly be an enormous task. Even if they take Kiev tomorrow, its not obvious the rest of the country will lay down arms.
But of course, Ukraine's very successful info war might be misleading me here
Well, the upper band for my prediction was 49 days. This is looking like it will expire before Ukraine does. Unless some truly big shit goes down, it sure looks like this coming Wednesday will pass as just another day at the front.
Astute and impressive........I am sensing that something a bit "more" may be in the offing in Ukraine but we will know for sure shortly. I'm surprised by your estimate of the size overall of the available Russian Army....... Only some 300,000 ? Are you sure?
I have skimmed very quickly the lengthy situation report but am thinking much about your “Final Thoughts” . Yes a “Rubicon” , yes an assault on the “liberal international order” or, better, the globalist WEF clique which in no genuine sense was ever “liberal”. But since history has been restarted I think we should recognize that it has always been extremely messy and right now it has become almost incomprehensibly messy. In short, even in a best-outcome-for-Russia situation we are nowhere near an “overthrow” of the “order”. Rather it is no more than a skirmish, a battle space shaping probing of the frontier – writ large that is, with old fashioned geographical boundaries being perhaps the least important aspect of the space and, just one example, the landscape of social media presence being far more crucial.
Add to that the fact that the battle space comprises a very real civil war which further defines the kinetic action in a place called Ukraine of less importance than Putin’s closure of Echo Moscow; that may well be a far more momentous Rubicon.
But never forget messy; that best-(kinetic) outcome-for-Russia outcome seems to recede each day and at some not too distant point the mere duration of the operation forecloses anything close to best outcome. Seems to me (straying into subject matter that I only skimmed) that it had to be accomplished quickly and it wasn’t.
Still, battle lines that were vague before have become much better defined; there is no going back. If I try hard enough I find that exhilarating and even encouraging.
Finally, in the midst of our false end of history how very surprising to find a reference to Ernst Junger! However, I think Kurt Eggers is a more appropriate reference point in this context. Junger was an old man, a respected author by the start of the war. Eggers was much more the Nietzschean hero who met his fiery doom in a Panzer at Kursk in 1943.
Thanks for reading my note. This is a very interesting, suggestive follow on. "American hegemony" and its decline has resulted in what? - at a minimum, an "un-serious" elite - simply compare - on one given day, yesterday - Biden rambling about "a guy taking intimate photographs" with Putin including in the order of battle a sneering reference to "gender freedom". Opinions may differ on Putin, but at some level he - his speaking presence, at least - is simply impressive in a way that no western, narrative droning leader is. (I am, of course, responding to his translated speech.)
Did you see, I think, the Patriarch of the Orthodox church, rejoicing at the disappearance of PornHub from Russia? - "We've been praying for this for years!", he said. He too has a clear sense, seems to me, of the order of battle.
=
I did not mean to denigrate Junger nor his impressive WWI war service. Eggers was by any standard a comparatively minor writer. But he was, unlike Junger, in the neighborhood of current interest - hopelessly over-extended across THAT Rubicon.
Good synopsis, I agree with the ending as well. Of course all this could have been avoided had the US minded it’s own business and not broke the Minsk accords in the first place. I see Jews and jesuits everywhere though and the outcome either way is going to be a problem. A strong Russia is a good thing as is a strong China and a strong US. Problem is, at least here in the US. We have been castrated and earmarked.
Yes the Ukraine is a highly corrupt state but nobody is suggesting that the Ukraine should set to conquer Russia. Did Poland "deserve" German conquest in 39 because of its own corruption? No.
Your military analysis (former mil intel professional here) is excellent. I fully agree with you about the insanity of a no fly zone.
However your concluding paragraph is perniciously evil Dostoyevskoid/Nietzschean madness. The storm of war invigorates nothing. A dying ex-superpower that killed 60 million of its own people plus aborting perhaps a hundred million more this past century should not be in the business of violent conquest--it needs to repair and restore its once vast population.
Putin has made a vast, stupid blunder. Full stop.
The West and the United States have a primary interest in ensuring an independent Ukraine for one simple reason. They need to rub China's nose into the fact that conquest of its former province of Taiwan is equally stupid and doomed. They must be discouraged from doing it.
If China goes to a war of conquest of its own as well the the conflict that follows could last 50 years. Russia must be stopped.... Without direct NATO intervention ... To keep the peace of the world. The whole point of the invention of nuclear weapons was to stop this madness before it starts.
I don’t agree with much of this analysis. I am reading it one week after it was posted.
The Ukrainian militias are denigrated, and Russian combat effectiveness clearly overstated.
They obviously tried political de-capitation and failed, now they are using standard Soviet tactics and equipment.
The reality is that the spring is coming, and with it the mud. That means only road transport of heavy vehicles. That means a lot of NLAWS and Javelins, in the hands of a lot of people, are very likely to fundamentally test 80 year old Soviet tactics and 40 year old equipment run by conscripts.
While Russia has nearly 100% of ground forces committed, with very little recent movement, Ukrainians are mobilizing at an enormous rate. The Russians are calling on the Chinese for help.
Clearly plan A was rapid troops with large numbers of people to quell the public. Plan B is a war of attrition and minimal bloodshed. Plan C is what this person lays out “shelling of cities and mass bloodshed”. People who believe the war is going well for Russia, need to start asking about “What is plan D and E?”
Russia better start thinking about its supply lines, on the roads, in the mud, with 500,000+ people with NLAWS roaming around and no clear air superiority. The smart play now is diplomacy, but politically speaking, Russia has already lost. The only question will be how much is it going to cost them in the future. Ukraine survives, it will forever hate Russia. You can bank on that.
Almost anyone with an interest in military history can figure out these points. The appalling statement that Ukraine is willing to sacrifice populations to achieve Western support is outrageous. Putin lied, “no plans to invade” - “will not target civilians” - “only aim to protect the Donbas russian population”. Your observations start from the disgraceful fact that an invasion of a sovereign nation has been instituted by a corrupt and dangerous leader and you then start along a revisionist history (while it is happening). This essay is disturbingly close to an endorsement of russian stupidity and arrogance, I really don’t expect anything else from an obvious apologist armchair warrior.
In my opinion, you are trying to take the logic of a municipal courtroom into international law. International law does not work like a courtroom. Compare Iraq in 2003 to Ukraine now. The US did the same thing with faked evidence of WMDs.
Should what is basically a colonial war against a long oppressed nation from an extremely corrupt mafia state be celebrated? Shouldn't it be condemned without reservation?
The main difference is that Ukraine with its limited resources has done A LOT to rid the country of that post-soviet disfunctionality, where as Russia has relished in it, too lazy to make the necessary very painful reforms along the lines of what Poland did with the Balszerowicz reforms for instance.
Well, that analysis apparently didn't age very well...in view of the events of the last week...not so surprising for me actually, knowing Russia inside out am not surprised at all.
Would be interesting to read some follow-on from Alexander Cartographer
Here is a very good analysis on the Russian military on why it's proving to be so hopelessly inadequate up till know:
Your line: "For example, the British population was emotionally manipulated into joining the First World War thanks to fake information about German atrocities, the infamous “rape of Belgium”." Checking with WIkipedia, it seems the German atrocities were real, which makes me wonder where you got your version of the story.
The British media vastly over exaggerated what the Germans did, also what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time - it was nothing new or unusual, nor was it at a scale as large as the media said it was
And these words especially "nor was it at a scale as large as the media said it was" - show that you do not accept the very concept of war crime. All war crimes have the same scale.
"what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time".
No. You are either misinformed or simply giving excuses to war crimes with this sentence. As an example, in the first days of the war in August 1914 Germans invaded the village of Rossignol and executed the civilian population. 117, including women, disabled and old men. It was noted at the time that Germans purposefully executed the women last, after executing their husbands. https://www.1914-1918.be/rossignol.php
"what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time", INDEED.
So I think this sentence reflects the lack of consideration from your country for the laws of war (Geneva convention). We've seen it in Chechnya, we see it today in Ukraine. I am really sad to read this sentence, because the rest of your exposé has a lot of substance to it. Because the enemies of Russia are not respecting the laws of war either, I think we are not headed for the heroic age of Xenophon, but for something far more sinister.
A remarkably comprehensive take of unusual quality, I think. Something even more remarkable given its concision.
In particular, I really like your inclusion of the Belarusian color revolution as a precursor event. The connection is something that I've noted privately. Indeed, the lack of effective and reliable Belarusian support in 2014 may have been among the decisive factors against Russian intervention back then.
Seems like the attempt to color revolutionize two of the three Russias has turned out like many of the other badly motivated and poorly thought out adventures that have been intrepidly advocated by the Western consensus. It does appear that these ops keep colliding with each other.....
Heads up on what might be a typo: 'I might be completely wrong with this assessment, but I do think the immediate objective here is Odessa.' Surely you meant 'I do not think the imm. obj. is Odessa' based on the following text?
I, for one, do think that Odessa is intended to be bypassed. The threat to city will, I suspect, remain convincingly credible, but only to level required to pin the considerable Ukrainian resources committed to the area.
I also think that Kiev is going to be one of the last major pieces to fall into place - much better to seal it up and let the defenders chew on each other than risk blowing it to bits. I made a joke to someone that Russian tanks will be in Lvov before Kiev, but I definitely think that the priority is to destroy the Ukrainian military as quickly as possible and to solidify control of the key road, rail, and river networks in the center and east of the country before pressing the issue of the capital. It's unfortunate that Kharkov is facing a probable sacking but trashing Kharkov does appear to be a rather Lindy event and its example may prove a useful and motivating counterpoint to whatever agreement capable parties the Ukrainians are able to assemble.
I do think that however unlikely it does appear, there is considerable risk 'in the moment' for dramatic escalation. I'm sure that the Russian leadership is well aware of this and is probably positioning itself as best as it can to present a credible deterrent capability. Preserving its air forces and certain categories of weapons I'm sure is a key part in being able to fight a larger war. There does appear to be considerable movement of American military units to the broader region and there are plenty of signs that NATO is attempting to prepare its own best possible force profile. My hope is that all these and related activities are merely due diligence risk mitigation and not a prelude to Global Thermonuclear War.
At any rate, great writeup - it is one that I will be sharing.
I also unironically endorse your final paragraph.
Thanks, I'm happy you liked, thanks
What you wrote in the last paragraph there, about Russia holding back in case of NATO intervention is interesting, I had a feeling this could be the case
Thanks for liking my post, always nice to hear good feedback
I found out about your work from another. Very much enjoyed your piece on Abkhazia, I'll have to look at it again sometime - it's been very informative. Had no idea you had a Tw*tter presence until a day or so ago. But then again, I do not have a presence on that platform, preferring to write about a variety of different topics including what amounts to a small book about Peter the Great on my site - although it's been a good year since I've had time for anything new......
Anyway, thinking about it a bit further, I realized I have some other thoughts.
It's possible that Lukashenko didn't accidently leak the grand plan but rather deliberately presented a clever piece of disinformation that was plausibly revealed. When I first saw the grainy image, my gut reaction was this was a little bit of misdirection. Now, of course, I could be completely wrong in this, but I think it could be a rather nice bit of 4D chessplay.
I'm sure how to embed an image into a Substack comment, so here's a link to a PostImage upload: https://i.postimg.cc/hGg9kMb2/image.png
Principally, the red and yellow arrow points towards a fair bit of coloring down by Odessa. As you have proposed and with which I agree, it seems that Odessa is a place of pinning. No one can fail to notice that it seems to be area of significant activity on the Lukashenko plan, a place of many rumors, and the site of a major Russian pleasure cruise. My tentative conclusion is that this apparent leak is another layer in the sales pitch to the UAMOD that Odessa is of extreme interest to the RUMOD.
I also spotted a second deviation from apparent fact: there has been no drive to Cherkassy as has been identified also (by my green arrow) in the Lukashenko plan. What significance indicates, I'm not so sure about.
I've made a spitball prediction elsewhere that I expect this war to last 44 days +/- 5 days. This was another gut-fueled reaction I had around day three of this exercise. I figure that the rough proportion of comparative capabilities between UA and RU is, while totally different, not incomparable to the relationship between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in 2020. The topography is totally different as is the vastly different scale of forces. However it was still a tremendously successful offensive operation in the face of stiff resistance that was relatively rapid (hence the 44 days) marked with plenty of pauses, creative tactics, and abortive ceasefires (and a brutality unmatched as of yet in Ukraine). I think that if Russian military forces can subdue the Ukraine's formal ability to resist within a month and a half, they are doing very well indeed. My perception is that the Ukrainian Armed Force probably has the third most formidable set of ground forces endemic to the European continent (I.e. I'm not including America).
Vox Day shared an assessment of unknown provenance 10 days ago that predicts a 41-day operation here: https://voxday.net/2022/03/01/ukraine-invasion-a-comparative-analysis/ - I thought it made a couple intriguing comparisons and it makes a prediction more or less in line with my own expectations. We'll have to see how well this fellow's analysis and my intuition fits the actual results.....
At any rate, I'm looking forward to your next essay wherever it may take us.
I was considering that about Lukashenko's map reveal, that it might be 4D chess, but who knows
I think if the drive on Cherkessy is a real plan, the Ukrainian resistance at Kharkov and especially at Sumy have prevented this advance from being realized
Your prediction on a 44 day might be true, the real question is just how motivated the Ukrainians are to fight on. Based on Ukrainian and Western media their morale is sky high, which might be true or just propaganda. As time goes on and the more and more I think about it, it seems the Russians have ran into a major problem in terms of Ukrainian popular resistance, pacifying them will seemingly be an enormous task. Even if they take Kiev tomorrow, its not obvious the rest of the country will lay down arms.
But of course, Ukraine's very successful info war might be misleading me here
Well, the upper band for my prediction was 49 days. This is looking like it will expire before Ukraine does. Unless some truly big shit goes down, it sure looks like this coming Wednesday will pass as just another day at the front.
Astute and impressive........I am sensing that something a bit "more" may be in the offing in Ukraine but we will know for sure shortly. I'm surprised by your estimate of the size overall of the available Russian Army....... Only some 300,000 ? Are you sure?
I have skimmed very quickly the lengthy situation report but am thinking much about your “Final Thoughts” . Yes a “Rubicon” , yes an assault on the “liberal international order” or, better, the globalist WEF clique which in no genuine sense was ever “liberal”. But since history has been restarted I think we should recognize that it has always been extremely messy and right now it has become almost incomprehensibly messy. In short, even in a best-outcome-for-Russia situation we are nowhere near an “overthrow” of the “order”. Rather it is no more than a skirmish, a battle space shaping probing of the frontier – writ large that is, with old fashioned geographical boundaries being perhaps the least important aspect of the space and, just one example, the landscape of social media presence being far more crucial.
Add to that the fact that the battle space comprises a very real civil war which further defines the kinetic action in a place called Ukraine of less importance than Putin’s closure of Echo Moscow; that may well be a far more momentous Rubicon.
But never forget messy; that best-(kinetic) outcome-for-Russia outcome seems to recede each day and at some not too distant point the mere duration of the operation forecloses anything close to best outcome. Seems to me (straying into subject matter that I only skimmed) that it had to be accomplished quickly and it wasn’t.
Still, battle lines that were vague before have become much better defined; there is no going back. If I try hard enough I find that exhilarating and even encouraging.
Finally, in the midst of our false end of history how very surprising to find a reference to Ernst Junger! However, I think Kurt Eggers is a more appropriate reference point in this context. Junger was an old man, a respected author by the start of the war. Eggers was much more the Nietzschean hero who met his fiery doom in a Panzer at Kursk in 1943.
Thanks for reading my note. This is a very interesting, suggestive follow on. "American hegemony" and its decline has resulted in what? - at a minimum, an "un-serious" elite - simply compare - on one given day, yesterday - Biden rambling about "a guy taking intimate photographs" with Putin including in the order of battle a sneering reference to "gender freedom". Opinions may differ on Putin, but at some level he - his speaking presence, at least - is simply impressive in a way that no western, narrative droning leader is. (I am, of course, responding to his translated speech.)
Did you see, I think, the Patriarch of the Orthodox church, rejoicing at the disappearance of PornHub from Russia? - "We've been praying for this for years!", he said. He too has a clear sense, seems to me, of the order of battle.
=
I did not mean to denigrate Junger nor his impressive WWI war service. Eggers was by any standard a comparatively minor writer. But he was, unlike Junger, in the neighborhood of current interest - hopelessly over-extended across THAT Rubicon.
Good synopsis, I agree with the ending as well. Of course all this could have been avoided had the US minded it’s own business and not broke the Minsk accords in the first place. I see Jews and jesuits everywhere though and the outcome either way is going to be a problem. A strong Russia is a good thing as is a strong China and a strong US. Problem is, at least here in the US. We have been castrated and earmarked.
Yes the Ukraine is a highly corrupt state but nobody is suggesting that the Ukraine should set to conquer Russia. Did Poland "deserve" German conquest in 39 because of its own corruption? No.
Your military analysis (former mil intel professional here) is excellent. I fully agree with you about the insanity of a no fly zone.
However your concluding paragraph is perniciously evil Dostoyevskoid/Nietzschean madness. The storm of war invigorates nothing. A dying ex-superpower that killed 60 million of its own people plus aborting perhaps a hundred million more this past century should not be in the business of violent conquest--it needs to repair and restore its once vast population.
Putin has made a vast, stupid blunder. Full stop.
The West and the United States have a primary interest in ensuring an independent Ukraine for one simple reason. They need to rub China's nose into the fact that conquest of its former province of Taiwan is equally stupid and doomed. They must be discouraged from doing it.
If China goes to a war of conquest of its own as well the the conflict that follows could last 50 years. Russia must be stopped.... Without direct NATO intervention ... To keep the peace of the world. The whole point of the invention of nuclear weapons was to stop this madness before it starts.
I don’t agree with much of this analysis. I am reading it one week after it was posted.
The Ukrainian militias are denigrated, and Russian combat effectiveness clearly overstated.
They obviously tried political de-capitation and failed, now they are using standard Soviet tactics and equipment.
The reality is that the spring is coming, and with it the mud. That means only road transport of heavy vehicles. That means a lot of NLAWS and Javelins, in the hands of a lot of people, are very likely to fundamentally test 80 year old Soviet tactics and 40 year old equipment run by conscripts.
While Russia has nearly 100% of ground forces committed, with very little recent movement, Ukrainians are mobilizing at an enormous rate. The Russians are calling on the Chinese for help.
Clearly plan A was rapid troops with large numbers of people to quell the public. Plan B is a war of attrition and minimal bloodshed. Plan C is what this person lays out “shelling of cities and mass bloodshed”. People who believe the war is going well for Russia, need to start asking about “What is plan D and E?”
Russia better start thinking about its supply lines, on the roads, in the mud, with 500,000+ people with NLAWS roaming around and no clear air superiority. The smart play now is diplomacy, but politically speaking, Russia has already lost. The only question will be how much is it going to cost them in the future. Ukraine survives, it will forever hate Russia. You can bank on that.
Almost anyone with an interest in military history can figure out these points. The appalling statement that Ukraine is willing to sacrifice populations to achieve Western support is outrageous. Putin lied, “no plans to invade” - “will not target civilians” - “only aim to protect the Donbas russian population”. Your observations start from the disgraceful fact that an invasion of a sovereign nation has been instituted by a corrupt and dangerous leader and you then start along a revisionist history (while it is happening). This essay is disturbingly close to an endorsement of russian stupidity and arrogance, I really don’t expect anything else from an obvious apologist armchair warrior.
So, Steven, the purpose of the newly-armed Ukrainian Volkssturm is.... to defeat the Russian military?
USA has been paying Ukrainians to kill Ukrainians in Ukraine since 2014.
Russia is now directly involved and USA reacts by trashing all Western economies.
Who's the more evil force in this scenario?
Agree!
In my opinion, you are trying to take the logic of a municipal courtroom into international law. International law does not work like a courtroom. Compare Iraq in 2003 to Ukraine now. The US did the same thing with faked evidence of WMDs.
My thoughts also!
Should what is basically a colonial war against a long oppressed nation from an extremely corrupt mafia state be celebrated? Shouldn't it be condemned without reservation?
"Extremely corrupt mafia state" is also an highly apt description of Ukraine, no?
The main difference is that Ukraine with its limited resources has done A LOT to rid the country of that post-soviet disfunctionality, where as Russia has relished in it, too lazy to make the necessary very painful reforms along the lines of what Poland did with the Balszerowicz reforms for instance.
So Ukraine deserved it. Gotcha.
Well, that analysis apparently didn't age very well...in view of the events of the last week...not so surprising for me actually, knowing Russia inside out am not surprised at all.
Would be interesting to read some follow-on from Alexander Cartographer
Here is a very good analysis on the Russian military on why it's proving to be so hopelessly inadequate up till know:
https://youtu.be/KJkmcNjh_bg
Your line: "For example, the British population was emotionally manipulated into joining the First World War thanks to fake information about German atrocities, the infamous “rape of Belgium”." Checking with WIkipedia, it seems the German atrocities were real, which makes me wonder where you got your version of the story.
The British media vastly over exaggerated what the Germans did, also what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time - it was nothing new or unusual, nor was it at a scale as large as the media said it was
And these words especially "nor was it at a scale as large as the media said it was" - show that you do not accept the very concept of war crime. All war crimes have the same scale.
"what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time".
No. You are either misinformed or simply giving excuses to war crimes with this sentence. As an example, in the first days of the war in August 1914 Germans invaded the village of Rossignol and executed the civilian population. 117, including women, disabled and old men. It was noted at the time that Germans purposefully executed the women last, after executing their husbands. https://www.1914-1918.be/rossignol.php
"what the Germans did was largely conventional military practice at the time", INDEED.
So I think this sentence reflects the lack of consideration from your country for the laws of war (Geneva convention). We've seen it in Chechnya, we see it today in Ukraine. I am really sad to read this sentence, because the rest of your exposé has a lot of substance to it. Because the enemies of Russia are not respecting the laws of war either, I think we are not headed for the heroic age of Xenophon, but for something far more sinister.
And regarding this sentence: "What Russia has done is to help birth a new world historical epoch."
No, this new epoch is nothing but a repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIH_kPXak7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRkPoF7iVGc
" I might be completely wrong with this assessment, but I do think the immediate objective here is Odessa."
I THINK THE WORD not is missing here. Check it.