What is Putin up to?

Military News and current conflicts. Middle East, Syria, Ukraine, etc.
paul.mercer
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen, Thank you for your posts.
It's interesting to see the latest development of Putin ordering the call-up of 300,000 reservists, of course no-one knows how long they have been 'out of the service' and what sort of condition they are in, (if the reports are correct there are many of them trying to get out of Russia before being drafted!) so whether they will be any better than those currently retreating from the Ukrainian attack will remain to be seen.
As for Russia taking advantage of the oncoming cold weather, this was certainly true in WW2 against the Germans but whether the current crop of recruits are of the same standard as their predecessors seems somewhat doubtful given their current performance.
It was also interesting to see the Russian people on the streets protesting about the call-up, which made me wonder if the general Russian population are beginning to realise that this is a serious war with many casualties and not the simple 'military exercise' that they have been told it would be by Putin?
Byron Angel
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Re: What is Putin up to?

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Scott Ritter (YouTube) has provided some interesting commentary and opinion on the Russian mobilization.

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RF
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Re: What is Putin up to?

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I don't think the cold winter will be as severe on Ukraine as it was for the Heer or for Napoleon Bonaparte, Ukraine is further south and marginally less cold, the Ukrainians are on home soil and know the conditions, and if ''global warming'' is happening then it will affect the coldest areas the most....

The war will carry on as a stalemate, perhaps the best comparison would be the ten year Iran-Iraq war which was stalemate from start to finish.

No negotiations, no prospect of negotiations, no room for concessions or giving way the war will go on. All it will do is bog down and drain the Russian Army, rather like the futile invasion of China bogged down the IJA.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
paul.mercer
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Byron Angel wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:58 pm Scott Ritter (YouTube) has provided some interesting commentary and opinion on the Russian mobilization.

Byron
Hi Byron,
He seems to like Russia quite a lot, as do his followers judging by their comments!
HMSVF
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by HMSVF »

RF wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 7:27 am
Byron Angel wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 12:06 am


To argue that the EU is irrelevant to the military situation is quite misleading.
All the major European members of NATO are also EU states. Those very same EU states make it logistically possible for those USD 53 billion dollars (and counting) of American war supplies and support to reach the Zelensky "government". It is the EU states that have, in addition, been supplying Leopard II tanks, Gepard SPAA vehicles, APCs, miscellaneous support weapons, small arms and ammunition from their own arsenals to the Ukrainians.
I don't think its misleading at all.

The EU is a political organisation that has expressed a desire for ''European'' armed forces but the fact is that it has no more military capacity than the Vatican, that is not intended as a pun but a reminder of Stalin's comment about how much military muscle the Holy See had.

The supply logistics and equipment supplied to Ukraine has come from those EU member and European non-EU member states (such as the UK and Norway) through the NATO alliance, by decisions by the individual countries themselves as NATO members which is why different countries have provided different levels of support and of commitment. The EU will want to associate itself with this support particulary as its wants to include Ukraine into EU membership but it is not in itself a military organisation, any more than the EU is the whole of ''Europe.''

Furthermore much of the support from EU member states has come from the lead the British Government has made in publicly supporting Ukraine and also the immediate security issues for those countries closest to Russia. Sweden and Finland want now to be members of NATO, they are in the EU but realise that EU membership doesn't in itself provide the necessary military defence.

This.

Part of the problem IMHO that the largest and richest in the E.U either ignored or didn't believe that Russia was still a problem. You had the next biggest country in the group loudly proclaiming the idea of a European Army, ignoring the fact that apart from the UK and Greece (apparently) non of the NATO members were undertaking the promise to spend 2% of GDP on defense,so what chance did a "Euroforce" have(unless said member was banking on supplying the whole bloc). It was all "showboating" for want of a better word, something that came apparent when Putin undertook his planned road trip to Kyiv. I don't doubt that the E.U wants to associate itself with NATO support. Arguably it's because they allowed one of the biggest post war foreign policy failures in allowing itself to be dependent on Russian fuel.

In regard to Putin's next move - I'm expected a referendum in The Donbas and other territories where Russia wins 140% of the vote! He then claims that they are part of the Russian federation and that any attempt to take them back is an attack on "Mother Russia". What happens in that event could be scary.


Just my 2 penneth of course!
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Re: What is Putin up to?

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paul.mercer wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:55 am
Byron Angel wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:58 pm Scott Ritter (YouTube) has provided some interesting commentary and opinion on the Russian mobilization.

Byron
Hi Byron,
He seems to like Russia quite a lot, as do his followers judging by their comments!

Hi Paul,
I pay ZERO attention to the western mass propaganda media - it's a symphony orchestra of lies, dissimulation and prevarication. People like Ritter, Douglas McGregor and John Mearsheimer are experienced professional military and geo-political analysts. They "call 'em like they see 'em" and let the chips fall where they may - which I far prefer.

My personal opinion is that this Ukraine/Russia conflict has roots going back A LOT DEEPER than the public is being led to believe (like about 2005 or so). It is essentially a proxy war long ago planned, prepared and instigated by the EU/NATO (including the US) to dismantle Russian Federation as an independent nation-state and "acquire" its ample and very valuable natural resources. After all, why should the EU pay for all that Russian oil, gas, grain, fertilizer, titanium, gold, etc when they can simply "appropriate" it after collapsing the Russian Federation and installing a Zelenskyesque puppet government more in sympathy with Europe's interests.

Go here - https://theintercept.com/2022/09/10/ukr ... oversight/ - and ask how 40 Billion Dollars of US aid to Ukraine this year alone (which does NOT include the aid previously implemented by the Obama administration all the way back in 2014) can be justified for what is a border dispute between two neighboring East European states. Nor does it include the funding provided by the EU. Taken together, it's by any measure a very great deal of money to spend on "the most corrupt nation in Europe (Ukraine) over what is, at the end of the day ..... a border dispute. No one in the West was 40+ billion dollars concerned over the Shia/Sunni conflict in post-Desert Storm Iraq that went on for decades; no one in the West was terribly worried about the endless Kurdish/Turkish border conflict; no one in the West went beyond detached bemusement when 500,000 people were slaughtered in the Rwandan tribal genocide; no one in the West has been terribly worried about the Lebanese Civil War or the Hezbollah/Israel border strife, or the running 50+ year long sore that Palestine/Israel border dispute. But we are being asked to believe that this Russia/Ukraine dispute is somehow an order of magnitude more important to the peace of the world than all those struggles.

This is all nothing more than another ugly power politics con job being foisted upon (and forcibly financed by) the American taxpayer.
"Nihil est planum".

You may, of course, see things differently. I'm perfectly OK with that.

Byron
paul.mercer
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Byron,
Many thanks for your detailed reply which certainly puts a different light on the whole situation, it's certainly true that some newspapers in the UK have a very 'Gung Ho' approach to anything they do not like or approve of.
Whatever the truth is, there is no doubt that there are some pretty nasty things happening in Ukraine at the moment from both sides and it's not good news for the rest of the world, particularly when one side threatens (so it has been reported) to use nuclear weapons, Frankly, I don't think that even Putin would go that far or that his senior military staff in the chain of command would even comply with an order to do so.
It is a very unpleasant situation which I hope gets resolved before it goes too far and NATO gets heavily involved, if it does heaven only knows what will happen.
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Re: What is Putin up to?

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paul.mercer wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:52 am particularly when one side threatens (so it has been reported) to use nuclear weapons, Frankly, I don't think that even Putin would go that far or that his senior military staff in the chain of command would even comply with an order to do so.
History says that desperate people and/or desperate institutions will take desperate measures. But is Putin the desperate one? Think about Sri Lanka.

This is a proxy war. Western Europe and to lesser extent, North America, has done unto themselves over the last 30 years what would normally take a strategic bombing campaign by an enemy to accomplish. Putin by-passes the sanctions via Communist China and India.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
Byron Angel
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by Byron Angel »

Paul, believe me when I say that I share your concerns. If you are interested in how Mearsheimer sizes up this Ukraine debacles and its unsavory roots, go to YouTube and search out the video entitled “John Mearsheimer on War in Ukraine with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Anbassador Jack Matlock, more...”

Another interesting aside - a recent YouTube post quite acerbically pointed out that what Russia is doing in Ukraine right now is interestingly analogous to what NATO did with Serbia twenty-odd years ago: they attacked and militarily defeated Serbia, organized a referendum in the Serbian province of Kosovo, then used the result to detach Kosovo from Serbia. Interesting.

Meanwhile, we all get to watch a simultaneous slow motion collapse of our Western polities, economies and societies.
Coincidence? You tell me.

Byron
paul.mercer
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Byron,
The situation at the moment the situation appears to be heading towards another 'Cold War' scenario which will either fracture or unite all the European countries. If Putin does eventually take Ukraine (which seems to be increasingly unlikely) I just hope he doesn't then decide to try and take back all the territory Russia gained after WW2 which would undoubtedly lead to a nuclear WW3 with all of NATO totally involved - in which case we probably won't be around to debate it!
Anyway, thanks again for your post, I found the last bit which stated, "Meanwhile, we all get to watch a simultaneous slow motion collapse of our Western polities, economies and societies" rather disturbing, I sincerely hope it doesn't happen!
All the best,
Paul
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by Byron Angel »

paul.mercer wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 3:20 pm Hi Byron,
The situation at the moment the situation appears to be heading towards another 'Cold War' scenario which will either fracture or unite all the European countries. If Putin does eventually take Ukraine (which seems to be increasingly unlikely) I just hope he doesn't then decide to try and take back all the territory Russia gained after WW2 which would undoubtedly lead to a nuclear WW3 with all of NATO totally involved - in which case we probably won't be around to debate it!
Anyway, thanks again for your post, I found the last bit which stated, "Meanwhile, we all get to watch a simultaneous slow motion collapse of our Western polities, economies and societies" rather disturbing, I sincerely hope it doesn't happen!
All the best,
Paul

Hi Paul,

Go here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0zaYncvFQ
Listen to the remarks of the guest Jacques Bard, retired Swiss intelligence officer and NATO advisor, particularly with respect to the ethnically discriminatory two-tier legal code imposed by the Zelensky regime. Bard describes it as akin to the Nuremburg Laws imposed by the Nazis in 1935, except that the Ukrainians are playing the role of the Nazi Party and the ethnic Russian community has become the Jews. There is a lot that the western media omits from the Ukraine drama ..... and not by accident.

Following are strictly my opinions -

> I do not believe that Putin harbors absolutely any ambitions whatsoever to recreate the Soviet Warsaw Pact empire. On the contrary, it is NATO which has been expending effort to create its own version pointed in the opposite direction. I sorry I can't point you to the confirming site, but NATO/EU have had open strategy sessions to discuss the methods by which a progressive eastward NATO encroachment can over time surround and isolate Russia, overthrow its government, substitute a pliant puppet regime (a la Zelensky in Ukraine), exploit its resources and ultimately break it up into small, more easily manageable client states.

> Putin has no ambition or desire whatsoever to "conquer" Ukraine. His goal is to prevent EU/NATO from situating a powerful client state (Ukraine) right next door to Russia. Read the background of the Minsk Accords, under which Ukraine promised neutrality and whose terms were guaranteed in writing by Germany and France. NATO and Ukraine ignored the terms (the excuse was - "well, even though we re-organized, trained and coordinated with the Ukrainian army and developed a relationship exactly like that of a normal NATO member state, we never actually formally accepted Ukraine into NATO ... while Germany and France (both NATO member states :dance: , entirely ignored their obligations as guarantors and simply ignored the entire scam.


None of this, of course, ever finds its way into any of the major media outlets. It is necessary to dig for it (and search engines like Google do not help in the effort).

I'll leave it at that, before I set my hair on fire.

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Dave Saxton
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by Dave Saxton »

Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
Byron Angel
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Re: What is Putin up to?

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He He He. How far we've come; how far we have fallen. Vote carefully in November.

B
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by RF »

Byron Angel wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:47 pm

Following are strictly my opinions -

> I do not believe that Putin harbors absolutely any ambitions whatsoever to recreate the Soviet Warsaw Pact empire. On the contrary, it is NATO which has been expending effort to create its own version pointed in the opposite direction. I sorry I can't point you to the confirming site, but NATO/EU have had open strategy sessions to discuss the methods by which a progressive eastward NATO encroachment can over time surround and isolate Russia, overthrow its government, substitute a pliant puppet regime (a la Zelensky in Ukraine), exploit its resources and ultimately break it up into small, more easily manageable client states.
Basically I would concur with that.
> Putin has no ambition or desire whatsoever to "conquer" Ukraine. His goal is to prevent EU/NATO from situating a powerful client state (Ukraine) right next door to Russia. Read the background of the Minsk Accords, under which Ukraine promised neutrality and whose terms were guaranteed in writing by Germany and France. NATO and Ukraine ignored the terms (the excuse was - "well, even though we re-organized, trained and coordinated with the Ukrainian army and developed a relationship exactly like that of a normal NATO member state, we never actually formally accepted Ukraine into NATO ... while Germany and France (both NATO member states :dance: , entirely ignored their obligations as guarantors and simply ignored the entire scam.
This is contradictory. The only way to keep Ukraine out of the EU/NATO bloc is to have Ukraine as a Russian puppet state, or part of Russia itself. So effectively Ukraine has to be conquered, otherwise it will choose to align with the EU/NATO bloc even though it has promised neutrality.
The problem here is the meaning of ''neutrality'' - Russia taking it as not ever being part of the NATO military alliance, Ukraine taking it as not immediately being part of a military bloc but having the freedom of action as an independent state to join EU/NATO of its own choosing later on.

I think the real problem here is that Russia is not a genuine democracy, it has a regime which is backward thinking to the days of the USSR and Czarist Russia. The NATO countries realise this so as they see it the best way to manage the problem is to isolate and break up Russia for their own protection, this is particulary the view of the newer NATO members which border Russia.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
paul.mercer
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Re: What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
Thanks for all your input,
Even if Putin did take the whole of Ukraine, holding on to it would be a very different (and costly) matter for Russia both in money and men, the fact that he is calling up reservists is, I think significant, and it makes one wonder if the much-vaunted Russian ground forces are as good as they were supposed to be as they don't seem to be doing very well at the moment, particularly when they come up against western supplied weapons.
Of course, it's difficult to tell exactly what is happening as we only know what we are being told in the papers and on TV, all of whom back Ukraine.
Anyway, let us pray the situation sorts itself out quickly, and the world returns to normal. (Although I don't hold out much hope!)
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