The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Putin on a blitz

Glenn Greenwald - The War in Ukraine:

https://rumble.com/vvrd3t-the-war-in-ukraine.html

I wonder how well Ukraine will hold up. I've tried to get a sense of it, but found it impossible. Russia obviously has the initiative and generally superior air and armor, but holding onto gains should prove rather uncomfortable for them if Ukrainian morale holds up as the West will likely continue to supply them with armaments and such. I have no idea if it will.

My view is that Ukrainian military will do about as well against Russia as Saddam’s army did against USA. I think Ukrainians are motivated to fight and the population is generally armed, so Russian invaders will have to go through urban combat phase and will face partisans if they attempt to hold territory outside of East Ukraine.

I think the question at this point is how much of Ukraine Putin wants to control and how much bloodshed he is willing to inflict on the uncooperative population.

The real danger at this point is neocons convincing NATO to get involved in a hot war with Russia. This can lead to nukes, especially considering that Russia has a policy to use tactical nukes in cases of direct engagment with NATO ground troops. Even without ICBMs flying, it takes only a few to make East Europe a lot less habitable.

For Putin, the danger is that Ukraine will turn into Afghanistan. If Ukrainian military command was at all clear-minded, this is the scenario they spent preparing for since Crimea annexation.

Seeing how Russian military having serious logisitcal issues, seeing how Ukraine still has functional AA and some airforce left, seeing how Kiev still not captured, it looks like Afghanistan is probable and maybe even Winter (Finnish) War scenario is possible.

Video of thermobaric weapon (a type of non-nuclear WMD) used in Ukraine:

It appears that Putin changed his approach to Ukrainian conflict and now uses Syrian tactics. Specifically, targeting civilians and civilian targets to intentionally increase collateral damage.

Links:

Russian troops are intentionally shooting at civilians.
Russian missile attack on a regional government building in Kharkiv,
Grad Barrage Hits Residential Areas

As of 3/2/2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is unmitigated military and economical disaster for Putin.

Sanctions imposed on Russia exceeded anyone's expectation - the combination of tone-deaf “we are fighting Nazis” Russian propaganda and charismatic Zelenskyy (Ukrainian president) rallied the world against Putin. While this is unexpected, such scenario isn’t impossible.

What is absolutely bewilderedly improbable is how successful Ukrainian military and national guard in stopping Russian military. Russia still does not have air superiority. Russia yet to capture any of the initial objectives. There are reports that Russians are surrendering in significant numbers.
What is going on? Did Russian Military Command rebelled and intentionally sabotaging this invasion? How is it possible that the invasion so catastrophically incompetent?

Last but not least, what is the off-ramp for Putin? He must realize that his regime is now in danger, as failure of this magnitude will result in internal challenges to his rule.

The problem with someone like Putin, is that after letting his regime become so corrupt there isn't much of an offramp because as you noted failures of this magnitude wont be recieved well internally.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the incompetence displayed wasn't intentional, maybe not open rebellion but passive agressive. "Oh, you wanted 10 million gallons of diesel ready not just a million? Sorry, not sure how that zero got chopped off the manifest, I didn't look too hard because I was told we were just doing exercises in Belarus and we only needed a million for that. " type of thing.

I was suprised to agree with Krystal Ball, broad sanctions and social-media driven overreaction shifting Overton window makes it more likely that we end up with a direct NATO vs Russia conflic and risk global nuclear war.

So I actually watched that, and yeah I think she has a lot of good points. One complicating factor here is actually China, who at least according to our intelligence services were quite aware of Putin's intent to invade. A lot of parralels are drawn between Ukraine and Taiwan, and I think for good reason. Not aggressively pursuing economic warfare would be the equivalent of giving Xi Jingping a green light for his own wars of conquest.

I think the largest factor driving the sanctions politically behind closed doors is Putin's use of economics as well as its intelligence services to undermine and corrupt the West, which, I think Germany in particular, had been strongly influenced by and the invasion gave them a wake up call to reverse course. I think a large part of the real motivation underlying these sanctions is not simply to punish and deter, but rather to excise Russian influence internally - Putin gave the best excuse for doing so, and many western nations intend to grasp the opportunity. So even if Ball is right, I think the situation was pretty much inevitable regardless, with Germany in particular taking the lead to eradicate Russian influence in the EU. The role of the US I think is being a bit overplayed, I think the impetus for the backlash against Putin is actually much stronger in Brussels and Berlin than Washington, which didn't do much more than make the expected noises during the Crimea fiasco some years ago.

Just, Washington is happy to facilitate whatever the EU wishes to do with an eye towards warning China that any overt military action in Asia will be disruptive at best and crippling at worst should they choose such a path.

Which doesn't make the overall calculus here any rosier, but I do think its important to note that the response here isn't a simple emotional knee-jerk, but the result of other factors and conditions that need be recognized in order to find any workable path forward. Because at a minimum, I doubt that EU members will ever be willing to restore Russian internal influence.

It is hard not to feel outrage after seeing war footage, especially when it involves deaths of civilians and children. Such reaction is human, but in our response we MUST NOT FORGET THAT PUTIN HAS NUKES.

Putin must have an off-ramp that does not involve regime change or he might press the red button on his way out, especially if rumors about his deteriorating mental health are true.

Visa, Mastercard suspend operations in Russia over Ukraine invasion

This is continuation of an alarming new trend of politicization of payment processing. Cancelling credit cards of “people we don’t like” shows that cashless society will be much more repressive. More so, even this move is morally dubious, as what every day Russian has to do with Putin’s invasion? It isn’t like Russia had free elections and they voted for the guy.

I do start to worry that we are focusing too much on punishment at this point, as well as rumors about preparing for govt in exile for Ukraine.

Better path forward right now is supplying military hardware with a quickness, and spooling up a refugee program to resettle large amounts of Ukrainians in the USA.

I am having very difficult time understanding how the war is unfolding in Ukraine (and I can read both Ukrainian and Russian). Russian media appears to be into conspiracies – Ukrainian Nazis, US bio labs and all kinds of other non-credible bullshit. They are also forced to call this invasion a special military operation and consequently don’t report Ukrainian military casualties as this would undermine that narrative. Ukrainian media obviously does not report its own side’s military casualties, only Russian military casualties. Fantastically, I read reports of Ukrainians killing Russian Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, member of the command staff. Even accounting for exaggeration, it appears that Russian Army is suffering very substantial losses. I have to assume that Ukrainians are suffering similarly high, if not higher, casualties.

Turns out, US official just confirmed, direct quote: "Ukraine has biological research facislities, which in fact we are now concerned Russian forces may be seeking..."

https://rumble.com/vwwv0d-us-official-confirms-the-existence-of-bio-labs-in-ukraine.html

What the fucking fuck, for fucks sake?!

Putin is preparing a terrorist attack on Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and will blame Ukraine
Situations like this are why going all-in on sanctions was a bad idea. NATO has no more non-military deterrents left. If this reporting is true (by no means certain), what else could be done to dissuade Putin?

I thought Alex Berenson's take on this seemed pretty logical, though it doesn't make it right. One of his other posts related to Ukraine is titled "Everyone involved is bad, some are worse than others." Hard to argue with that sentiment.

My high level view of war in Ukraine - while there might exist bad actors on both sides, fundamentally the conflict is about Ukrainian people right for self-determination. Putin is attempting to impose his geopolitical goals by force. These goals are against the will of Ukrainian people. As such, there could not exist moral justification for Putin's invasion and occupation.

Now, if you zoom in from such high level view, it gets really messy. Is US pushing NATO toward Russian borders justifiable? Is Biden's administration benefiting politically from this war? Did Putin spend last 15 years or so declaring NATO membership for Ukraine as a red line? Did Ukraine recently amended its constition with the goal to enter officially into NATO ?

This war was avoidable.

NATO was told during the last administrtation to start spending more on their Defenses. A lot of people scoffed at it. It didn't take them long to change their minds when Russia invaded Ukraine. I just hope some how, some way this ends without Nukes flying. It's just too bad we have a really green VP that seems to be way over their head and a President that can't put a sentence together. Lets hope someone with some sense will step up and get us past this.

Geopolitics are always messy.

Pushing NATO toward Russia being justifiable? Depends on your point of view. For the USA, not really. For the new member states who have suffered under the whims and domination of their neighbors - both Russia and Germany (and Austria and Prussia etc - yes intentionally referencing 'older' history) then entirely so. Russia has too much of a nuclear deterrent to ever seriously worry that NATO would initiate a land war for conquest, so the prickly point for all sides is whether they should be allowed to dominate and effectively colonize their European neighbors.

Which is a pretty complicated question. Morally, I'd say no. But as a practical matter, there are huge risks and costs involved in cockblocking Russian neo-imperialism as we are currently seeing.

It would be less complicated if Russian leadership hadn't become so terribly corrupt, and if they were actually fair and beneficial partners to the polities in their sphere of influence. As it stands, its less even about simple Russian influence so much as it is giving green light for Moscow and its cronies to loot their neighbors. Its not so much even that NATO has been actively pursuing a push toward Russia as much as it is that Russian politics and tactics push their neighbors into the arms of the West, because for all its imperfections, integrating ties with the West brings a lot more benefit with a lot fewer strings than submitting to Moscow's corrupt oligarchy. Not that Moscow is likely to see it that way.

But when Russian operatives start poisoning local politicians that oppose their agenda, its kind of natural to expect that they might start becoming a bit wary and looking to align with other powers.

Ultimately I do think it is important to remember that it is ultimately mostly on Russia, for the simple fact that Moscow under Putin has seemingly forgotten entirely about the carrot or holding a belief in mutual benefit but instead relying entirely on the stick.

I keep listening to channels of Russian dissidents; the somber view from within Russia is that sanctions will be nothing short of devastating and there is non-zero chance of “iron curtain” to block flight of talent. I keep listening to the channels of Ukrainian politicians, the view is that Putin lost the strategic war and soon to lose tactical war; Kiev could not be taken with what troops and equipment Putin has and as casualties on Russian side mount (and they are catastrophic) and West keep supplying arms, it is only a matter of time until there is complete collapse of Russian invasion.

I think Finnish War scenario is highly probable at this point.

China's Xi Jinping stated war in Ukrain is 'in no one's interest' and "state-to-state relations cannot go to the stage of military hostilities". Way it was worded a) it is war and not military action b) state-to-state relationships are signals to Putin that Xi will not support Russia in this war.

‘This Man Cannot Remain in Power,’ Biden Says in a Brazen Challenge to Putin.


Of all missteps that Biden has recently stumbled into, this one is one of the biggest. This message will allow Putin to claim “US is after regime change in Russia”, use that to retoactively justify his actions and offload responsibility on disastrous Ukrainian war and likely have a good chance to rally Russian people and remain in power. All Biden had to do is talk about dead Ukranian children and civilians. Instead, he threw Putina a lifeline.

Yeah, it wont be helpful. Overall I think Biden has done well so far, but there are things he could have done better. I dont waste too much time criticizing though,since overall the handling has been sane. At least he has taken the opportunity to reconsolidate the political unity of the Western Alliance, while very forcefully standing firm on Article 5. I shudder to image what would have happened under Trump, who would have vaccilated between waxing lovingly on the size of Putins schlong, and wondering aloud if the US should bother defending NATO members and probably saying things like they should do stuff on their own. Easy to see how some eastern countries might have already entred the war in that scenario, thinking they needed to act now since the US might not be there to back them up if Putin won in Ukraine and started eying the rest of the region.

I do worry that Biden's slips will make Putin... TOO nervous. Thats a danger as well, because it is patently obvious at this point that without excessive WMD usage the US military would easily manhandle the conventional forces Putin can array. Thus, in the event Putin decided that conflict with West was inevitable, the odds that things would immediately escalate are frighteningly high.

I think your models of Trump's behaviour are poisoned by now proven false Russiagate narrative.

I just recall things Trump actually said and did, combined with the generally high levels of incoherence and lack of coordination among his top officials. I'm not accusing him of being a Manchurian Candidate, I'm observing that his own ego and whims override any thoughts of larger policy goals and was incoherent, combined with severe incompetence at high levels of cabinet. The fact that some people played up particular angles that may not have been true doesn't in any way imply that Trump cares about anything other than himself, or was capable of executing a coherent foreign policy in time of crisis.

Trump need not be a foreign plant to still be utterly incompetent, mercurial, and incapable of proving effective international leadership. His buddying up with and general reverence for 'manly' foreign authoritarian figures is also well known and documented as is his extremely strained relationship with much of our Euro allies. As opposed to what I posited might happen earlier, its also quite possible he would have committed or threatened to commit US forces to combat to look like the big tough guy, or even to try and show how he wasnt some patsy for Putin.

New development. Yesterday Russian Command declared "mission accomplished" with Kiev front and started full retreat. This is major defeat that was indirectly acknowledged. Anticipated next move is redeploying all remaining Russian troops toward DNR(2014 captured territory) in attempts to save face and accomplish any of the initial military goals.

This is already catastrophic defeat and possibly regime-changing humiliation for Putin.

Hard to see how it could be different. I know movies and such depict battles as everyone killing and dying left and right, but in truth even 50% of top estimates of Russian losses putting KIA at 8k is a completely catastrophic number in historical terms. Battle of the Bulge iirc had 500-600k US troops involved, resulting in about 20k dead on US side, and considered one of bloodiest battles in history. Russia mobilized 150k into Ukraine, and by all accounts has lost at least 8k KIA possibly many more. 5% KIA attrition indicated likely total casulties including injury/capture about 3x to 4x that, which is completely unsustainable in any scenario except desperate last defense of a homeland. And they hadnt even gotten into the real urban combat yet.

Shifting tactics from attempting to take the country to trying to take a province, or Oblast as I believe they are called there, shows that at least some rational thinking still exists in the Kremlin.

Regime change does seem possible in mid to long term. Troops that are sent into that kind of meat grinder unprepared, for questionable goals and most importantly - under incompetent leadership, are historically very prone to to taking up 'political activism' after their return home.

Credible evidence of war crimes and civilian massacres in recently liberated Ukrainian territory. While things like that were understood to happen in Syria, it was socking to see Russian Army do this in Europe to Russian-speaking people (which any Ukrainian over 30 would speak, as that was taught in all schools there up until late 90s).

The question is whether it is due to intent by higher ups or just total lack of discipline. Or both. At any rate, I do not think it is debatable at this point that the current Russian leadership has traversed the line between agressive nationalist interest seekers and general malevolent, almost comic-book villain status. The difference is the difference between desire to rule, which we see in many - even revered - figures throughout history, as bloody as their conquests may have been, and a willingness to callously murder and destroy. It is clear that Russian forces at the least, were not seeking mere overlordship over the territories they had held.

It really makes you wonder what can be done about it, when the perpetrator holds a nuclear arsenal capable of plunging the world into nuclear winter.

U.S. Congress revives World War Two-era "Lend-Lease" program for Ukraine

At this point Russian defeat in Ukraine appears to be only a matter of time.

Russia will defeat Ukraine, it's only a matter of time. It will only be more prolonged giving them more money. We should help, but at what point do we say enough is enough?

Funding someone else's war especially against a Nuclear Power is going to be very expensive. Democrats are trying to spend us into oblivion as it is. Giving Ukraine billions on top of that doesn't bode well.

I think the only way we get Russia to calm themselves, if somehow we get China to get on board. But they have their own agenda with Tiawan. So I don't think that's going to happen. If China goes after Tiawan it's going to get really spicy.

I disagree, if for no other reason that Russian victory in Ukraine will have domino effect around the world. In a kind of World Order where Russia could win a lot of other bad things will happen. Yes, defeating Russia is going to be expensive, but the alternative is not going to be any cheaper.