Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i can't imagine he's going to have a great time in a prison in ukraine, to say the least. it feels a long way from justice to me. i don't want to get all up in biscuit's territory but i find the uk media too uncritical of the ukranian side for my taste.
Worth taking a moment to remember who the real cunts are here:

 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
looks like we've reached the end of daily media interest, the state of exception, all of that. on to the next one...
There doesn't seem to be much going on other than grinding attrition with both sides. The Russians are struggling to consolidate the gains they've made while trying to pretend they never wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine in the first place, while the Ukrainians lack the firepower to beat them back in the absence of a higher level of support from NATO countries, which they're unwilling to provide for fear of provoking Putin into doing something really crazy.
 

luka

Well-known member
still no sign of any meaningful endstate other than endless conflict and ongoing economic crisis
By Craners timetable Putin should of been deposed and awaiting trial by now. He said we didn't understand how the world works.
 

vimothy

yurp
I think the ugly truth is that there's no goal as such but we want ukrainians to fight and not to make any concessions to make this as costly as possible for putin and russia
 

luka

Well-known member
I think the ugly truth is that there's no goal as such but we want ukrainians to fight and not to make any concessions to make this as costly as possible for putin and russia
padraig said we're willing to fight to the last ukranian which i think is right
 

vimothy

yurp
I agree with him. at some point though, were going to have to accept the fact that the war will only end when russia and ukraine sit round a negotiating table and make concessions. in the mean time, we are flooding Ukraine with weapons and making the conflict as deadly as possible, essentially fighting russia in a proxy war where the risks of nuclear escalation and global economic meltdown become more and more likely
 

catalog

Well-known member
But isn't the main thing that all the weapons still can't be used offensively ie to attack Russian cities and things like that? And as soon as that happens, which will surely need to happen at some point, then you'll get eg Russia declaring war on the UK and America or something?
 

vimothy

yurp
what were relying on really is the idea that if we send arms and advisors to the Ukraine in order to enable them to kill more russians, its somehow different to doing it ourselves
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
as long as russia respect this distinction then we're ok
I think both sides generally do. Russia and the U.S. have been playing this proxy war game war 70+ years, after all, so not to respect it is bad form.

within certain limits ofc - you can send these kinds of weapons, but not those weapons. you can sanction, but no boots on the ground. and so on.

the problem being that those limits, and the general proxy war ruleset, are by their nature implicit and undefined

I'd assume a part of the media wrangling by the powers on both sides is essentially unofficial public negotiation about those limits

in addition to whatever other unofficial lines of communication exist

but possibility of unintended consequences is always there, which in this case are much worse - or wider in scope, at least - than most proxy wars
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I thought from day 1 that the Western defense establishment was primarily interested in extracting as high a Russian cost as possible

tbf I was hardly the only person saying that

and I don't think all Western govt pro-democracy, concern for Ukraine talk is completely disingenuous, just secondary

the U.S. and Russia have been basically trading off these bloody quagmires for the last 50 years

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya I (tho that was more of an "internal" Russian affair), Afghanistan again + Iraq, now this

so there's an established history on both sides for helping your opponent bleed himself
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I think if anything the descent into bloody stalemate militates against nuclear weapons, at least

that seemed much less unlikely when the news was all the Russians getting their asses handed to them

they seem to basically have achieved/be achieving their objectives

unfortunately potential global famine and other disastrous economic consequences do still loom large

@catalog I very strongly doubt anyone will attack Russian cities. that would be fucking crazy, and almost certainly counterproductive.

that's the whole point of a proxy war
 
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