Russian Tensions
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I guess we should take these figures with a pinch of salt just as we should take pro-Russian figures with a pinch of salt along with the musings of wackos like Scott Rider et al. Both sides have a vested interest in distorting the truth.
Whatever the true death toll is it represents working-class lives wasted in supporting one capitalist warlord against another
Anyway here’s what the Kyiv Independent has to say…
“General Staff: Russia has lost 87,900 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24…
Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Nov. 28 that Russia had also lost 2,908 tanks, 5,861 armored fighting vehicles, 4,416 vehicles and fuel tanks,1,899 artillery systems, 395 multiple launch rocket systems, 209 air defense systems, 278 airplanes, 261 helicopters, 1,555 drones, and 16 boats”
The war in Ukraine has been a bigger human disaster for Russia than the disaster of Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. There are hundred of sources indicating all the human losses produced in this war and it is not a matter of laugh and joy, it is sad that many members of the working class have died defending their own exploiters and oppressors. Only nationalists, fanatics and cyclops want to deny the reality and claim victory, the only loser is the working class, and the winner is the capitalist class
“A 2017 article centred upon the political position of an American ex-president and an imagined scenario of a full-scale European theatre war.”
The distribution of forces has seen no significant change.
“How relevant is that today?”
Just as.
“The fact that Russia had to mobilise 300,000 extra soldiers from its reserves shows that it never prepared for a long war nor expected such heavy casualties.”
Wrong, military planners prepare for all contingencies. Calling up reserves was always a contingency.
“That is a fact. And after almost 3 months it has still failed to deploy them to any extent to change the balance of the battle.”
The reserves were/are being trained and equipped. A great deal have already been deployed. The ground is still a bog. When it hardens most analysts anticipate a Russian offensive.
“I did read today that Russia has brought up artillery and rockets in the South, to counter any attempt by Ukraine to advance beyond Kherson towards Crimea.”
Lol, with what? The Ukrainians are spent. The math doesn’t lie.
“An offensive if it takes place is to the north on the Donbass front and there, as I said, it is trench warfare with artillery duels.”
Much of the conflict since the very start has been trench warfare. The Ukrainians spent the entire period of the Minsk
Agreements building trench and fortification networks. That’s why Russia’s progress is “slow”. It’s a meat grinder and Ukrainian conscripts are the meat.“In your recent absence, I have posted on Scott Ritter’s lack of insider information from his time as an Iraq WMD expert.”
He doesn’t need to have insider information to know what regiments, etc are where. It’s publicly accessible information.
“Two decades out of the intelligence agencies loop, he has no more access to information than any other journalist, (perhaps even less as he is thought of as a pariah,) relying on what is in the public domain and in published research papers he read.”
What’s he wrong about?
“Is it crystal ball reading when I said “…it is the workers who in the end pay the price.””
What a pivot! You said Russia’s war aims wouldn’t be accomplished. Erm, what does “workers paying a price” have to do with anything?
“Or very basic Marxism?”
Lol what does Marxism have to do with it? We’re talking about Russia meeting its military objectives here! Stay focused old man.
“This is a follow-up on my earlier claim that
“… workers are the source of wealth creation it will be us who eventually bear the burden…””Again irrelevant.
“The costs of war have to come from the increased extraction of surplus value from working people – economic exploitation of their work.
It is called the Marxist Labour Theory of Value.”
Blah, blah. So what?
“And it applies equally to NATO countries as well as to Russia.”
Water’s wet. Yeah, go on…
“Hence my other prediction was that if the war keeps going authoritarianism will grow in Russia not because of civil or human rights but because of the necessity of the State to intensify the class war against Russian workers to appropriate more surplus value from them to make up the loss in profits from the expense of war.”
Again, blame NATOstan and the Kiev Nazis for this.
“That is not speculation. You forget that what underlies our views is always a socialist analysis, something you very much lack”
Lol, except you aren’t socialists you are liberals LARPing as socialists.
“simply because you don’t comprehend what Marx explains in the Communist Manifesto “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.””
Erm, it’s not that hard to understand. Don’t overestimate your rather limited intellectual capabilities.
“The price of war is not just in workers’ blood but in their sweat and toil.”
Seems it’s “Platitude Day” today here at Socialist Posers Guardian Bros HQ. Here’s another: love will find a way.
You have a talent for responding only to certain points made.
Can you answer my message #237059 and present a class-based explanation rather than a Russian nationalist one.
As for Ritter, I can offer numerous former ex-military and advisors with far more experience that do possess insider access who would disagree with him. However, you automatically dismiss opinions that do not agree with your own pre-determined ones.
“He doesn’t need to have insider information to know what regiments, etc are where. It’s publicly accessible information.”
You over-simplify. Are you suggesting that neither NATO/Ukraine nor Russia require specialised intelligence departments with sophisticated spy technology and only require a public subscription to some media or academic outlets to know the enemy’s strength and dispositions, especially considering your put-down of Oryx website for using open-sourcing? Such double standards from yourself are to be expected.
Russian war aims have not been achieved.
SMO began in February or don’t you have a calendar?
De-Nazification has not been accomplished. Zelensky’s power has strengthened.
NATO influence has grown not lessened.
The separatist republics remain under threat. Now even Crimea is possibly at risk.
What fantasy are you in that the obvious is obscured for you?
A contingency is when you have prepared a Plan B in advance to implement if required. The Russian mobilisation according to their own media reports was chaotic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html
Donald Trump wanted the USA to be out of NATO and wanted them to pay a higher price, but now the USA has more control and domination over NATO and the alliance is more compact now. Russia has not accomplished anything, just the killing of the Russian soldiers or private soldiers in a large quantity, if they do not retreat it is going to be another Afghanistan. The USA Republicans are playing the Anti-war card until the weapons manufactures put pressure on them who are also the donors of several senators, they are playing with both sides of the USA senate
“Russian war aims have not been achieved.”
Erm, you said they “won’t” be achieved. The conflict is ongoing. You’re calling the game at the half time whistle.
“SMO began in February or don’t you have a calendar?”
The Russian’s are busily
defeating the most powerful army in Europe. That takes time.“De-Nazification has not been accomplished. Zelensky’s power has strengthened.”
See above.
“NATO influence has grown not lessened.”
NATO is in a death spiral. It’s about to lose its proxy war, its economies are collapsing, its people shivering its weapons turned to smoldering lumps of scrap.
“The separatist republics remain under threat.”
Threat of an excess of human fertiliser maybe.
“Now even Crimea is possibly at risk.”
Lol. It’s at as much risk as Starlight the rainbow unicorn is of drowning in Bubblegum Lake. Meanwhile, in the real world…
“What fantasy are you in that the obvious is obscured for you?”
Lol, only obvious to Guardian Bros and other MSM useful idiots.
“A contingency is when you have prepared a Plan B in advance to implement if required. The Russian mobilisation according to their own media reports was chaotic.”
What were the numbers mentioned in the article you linked to? 4,000 wasn’t it? Out of 300,000+? Lol
“Lol, except you aren’t socialists you are liberals LARPing as socialists.”
LOL Truly Stupid surpasses himself in his own stupidity. “Liberals”, as I understand it, uniformly support one side and one capitalist warlord in this sordid capitalist conflict against the other side. Socialists don’t. As supporters of capitalism, liberals have an awful lot in common with a rabid anti-socialist and supporter of Russian capitalism like TS – Putin’s bootlicker on this forum
Socialists, by contrast, take a class-based view on the matter and state loudly and clearly for all to hear: A plague on both your houses! To hell with Zelensky and Putin. To hell with both these capitalist regimes. Not a single drop of working-class blood is worth spilling in support of either side
You will dismiss it as just fake propaganda but it possesses the same credibility as some of your own dubious sources
“You will dismiss it as just fake propaganda”
You always say that then link to such shit anyway. Why?
“but it possesses the same credibility as some of your own dubious sources”
Erm no, it doesn’t. Which of my sources is “dubious” and why?
““Liberals”, as I understand it, uniformly support one side and one capitalist warlord in this sordid capitalist conflict against the other side.”
You’re liberals because you say you support workers but that’s the extent of your concern. You don’t actually do anything. In fact you oppose the only people who do try to build a workers’ state.
“Socialists don’t.”
You are not socialists. You hate socialists and every socialist government that has ever existed. Just like liberals do.
Walks like a liberal, quacks like a liberal. You’re liberals.
The Pope’s racism and bigotry
“Generally, the cruellest are perhaps those who are of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition, such as the Chechens, the Buryats and so on,” he said.
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