For a long time, Russia has been attriting the Ukrainians across a long war of attrition front that barely moved.
It is still barely moving, but what is happening on that front is rapidly changing.
Russia has been pounding the Ukrainians with a lot more shells, rockets, and bombs, than the Ukrainians have been pounding the Russians. And there are more Russians than Ukrainians. So it was inevitable that the Ukrainians would run out of conscripts, before the Russians ran out of volunteers.
As a result, it is starting to look more like slaughter than war. If you are in a street fight where you are one against three opponents, you are going to take a pounding and the the three are going to take very little harm at all.
Ukrainian lines are undermanned, and rapidly becoming even less manned. So the Russians sneak through the line at one point, and create a Russian salient. Then they sneak through the lines at another point, and create another salient, and the two salients reach around trapping the Ukrainians in a cauldron.
It used to be that what little movement happened was one side pushing the other side backwards. Now it is the Russians trapping Ukrainian troops in killing fields. The Russians are moving forward, not to gain turf, but to prevent Ukrainian troops from moving backwards.
A couple of days before I wrote this, the Russians launched a salient towards the road that connects the Pokrovsk Myrnohrad agglomeration, a city substantially larger than Bakhmut. But the Ukrainians hung onto a village that makes it dangerous for the Russians to approach the road. So, two new salients looking like a rabbit`s ears. Now the village is surrounded on three sides, and the road leading into village on both sides, and the Ukrainians are pouring their remaining elite troops into the village.
So the troops go down a road being shot at from both sides of the road, then they take up positions into village that is rapidly ceasing to be a village and becoming a moonscape of shell craters and bomb craters, while being shot at and droned from three sides.
Because there are so few Ukrainian soldiers left, their remaining soldiers are forced to fight under circumstances that put them at severe disadvantage.
Pouring elite troops into the ruins of this tiny village is undoubted a sound tactic for avoiding losing the city in the middle of the Trump/Putin talks. It is a terrible tactic for winning a war of attrition.
This little village attracts attention because close to the major road to the Pokrovsk Myrnohrad agglomeration, but the same thing is happening in many many places along the front — a day or two before the rabbits ears formed, I saw a cauldron inside a cauldron inside a cauldron, and the outermost cauldron was still bleeding troops into the inner cauldron.
From the big retreat onwards, the Russians have been fighting a war of attrition, and the Ukrainians have been dying for bullet points on tomorrow’s Washington presentation. Over the past few weeks, bullet points on tomorrow’s Washington presentation have become far more lethal.
This is how a war of attrition is lost. At first slowly, then quickly. Because the Ukraine does not have enough troops left, it is losing troops far faster than it was.
Forming salients is still a risky business for the Russians. Sometimes their attempt penetrate fails, and a lot of Russians die. Sometimes a salient gets cut off, and instead of surrounding, the Russians are surrounded. But it seems to work most of the time, and it seems to be working better and better, as Ukrainians rapidly get fewer and fewer. The Ukrainian’s have been trying to emulate this tactic, but they always wind up with salients that instead of surrounding, are surrounded, because the Russians have enough reserves to get themselves out of the mess when things go wrong, and the Ukrainians do not.
I had always hoped it wouldn’t actually go to the last Ukrainian, but alas.
Total madness, to say nothing of the repeated insistence of the media telling us that ‘losses on the Russian side are much heavier than those on the Ukranian side.’
First Covid was going to be GAE’s Chernobyl, where GAE would lose its credibility forever, but it looks like no, they got away with it. A bunch of missing vaxxed Grandma’s and “suddenly attacks”, sure, but as long as CNN never brings them up, these normies aren’t saying anything.
But Ukraine-Russia is different, right? This one will be the GAE Chernobyl, RIGHT? CNN can ignore the dead Grandma’s, the turbo-cancers and nobody-important suddenly attacks, but can they really ignore Russia winning this thing? Can they?
Normies never notice anything, but their betters are noticing and it filters down slowly. Cancel culture stopped the filtering down in its tracks, but without the heavy hand of the state, the supposedly grass roots cancellation and deplatforming went up in smoke. Massive shilling is slowing it, but only slowing it.
It has been a very long time since a war of attrition was fought to its ultimate conclusion, and people have forgotten what it looks like. Once the war is over, it is going to sink in and no one is going to want to do it again for eighty years or so. After which it will be forgotten again, and the lesson will have to be relearned.
Read the Twitter files to see how the sausage was made. Spoiler: heavy state/intelligence involvement.
That is fucking terrifying.
taken on results per soldier / resource, ukrainians have been more effective. russia only appears to be winning. if ukraine had equal numbers of men etc, it would be winning. it doesn’t, so it is losing… big dog invades smaller dog, little dog loses. not much more to it than that. little dogs can compensate with excellence, but only so far.
This depends on what results you care about.
If measured by bullet points in tomorrow’s Washington presentation to ask for more money to be embezzled, the Ukraine has been enormously more effective.
If measured by what matters in war of attrition, the destruction of enemy manpower, equipment and resources, the Russians have been enormously more effective, as demonstrated by the exhaustion of Nato weapon’s stocks and the diminution of the Ukrainian army.
After some nasty casualties at the beginning of the war, the Russians hid their casualty figures, but now that Russian casualties have considerably diminished, they are completely open and transparent about casualty figures, including the rather high casualties at the beginning of the war that they hid for quite a while. Ukrainian casualty figures remain hidden, but we can make good guess from the shrinkage of the Ukrainian army and the expansion of Ukrainian graveyards and it is obvious that the Russians are killing dozens of Ukrainians for every Russian that the Ukrainians kill. (For the first couple of years of the war it was somewhat comparable, but now the Russians are sprinting to the finish line.)
Ukrainian streets are empty and silent. Russian streets remain normal, as one would expect from a war fought by volunteers and without war socialism, with neither men nor resources being conscripted. (Russia has conscription for homeland defence, but conscripts are excused from the special military operation.)
Not entirely true, I’ve seen footage from Kiev and it looks surprisingly normal. Women and no men though lol.
Go to the front you disgusting evil little shit. You will throw away everyone’s life for this war but your own you hold dear.
Those like you are why we need a civil war in the heartland, because you need to be tried and your guilt spilled into the soil, burned up, and it’s not going to happen under Don. Don will look the other way on your evil little antics. Lets see how spirited you are when the weapons rain fire down around you. Lets see your wimpering moralizations when you are on trial, and its not someones else’s life you are spending.
Ukraine had numerical superiority at the start of the war and until UKR losses and RUS increase changed the balance on the front.
Having more men would only have made the process go slower; we saw what happens when Ukraine attacked prepared Russian positions during the 2023 Ukrainian counter offensive. That is assuming the course of events is independent on big ticket items like artillery, air defense, etc that Ukraine is running low on and are independent of ‘man with rifle’; if it isn’t then being able to through a swarm of men at the problem doesn’t help if the Russians can just keep glide bombing them.
Down about 11kg since May.
What worked at first was strict meal timing.
What’s working now is a ChatGPT suggestion.
Add berries or fruit (veggies if you like) to every meal to add volume.
I feel full/fine and can lift/cardio at even 1750-2000 calories out of a 3100 maintenance.
I am down a crazy number of pounds after few months on reactionary diet. Before that time, while I knew not to trust carbs, I did not strictly count them to check they were under the 20g guideline, which was broken daily by absentmindedly drinking cups of milk, and I was unaware of the specific ketogenic state, and how you can go through the hurdle by drinking salted broths. My usual diet has been ribeye slathered in butter, with eggs or pickled cucumber. Nothing sweetened at all, not even artificial, to avoid the insulin response, though recently started doing small amounts of berries and small portions of milk. I allowed myself all the butter and broth that I want, there has been no difficulty dealing with the sensation of hunger since in the ketogenic state, i usually had to consciously remind myself to eat, to avoid full-on fasting effects
Quick weight loss is going to run you into trouble. You are in a marathon. Take it easy. When you are fat, you can go full steam ahead, because your body knows it is fat, but as you approach your healthy weight, your body is going to irrationally and inappropriately panic. Don’t be in a rush to get to where you want to go. Sneak up gently on your target weight. Eat more fat.
Q: “Today using force to convert is unthinkable. Why did this idea, that was used for centuries, pass away?”
A: “A couple disclaimers: this is an immensely complex topic, and I’m not an expert on post-medieval missionary history. That being said, my hunch is that it’s largely due to the rise of Protestant evangelical movements, especially the Great Awakening. Here we see a new stress placed upon the individual soul and upon religious experience. Conversion becomes a voluntary, individual turning to God. Once you have that understanding, the idea of forcing someone to convert becomes absurd.”
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/interview-converting-by-the-sword/
We see a fallacy of equivocation. It was Roman Catholics, not Christians, that put the fear of Deus in the Saxons. Gott is an useless loser. What would happen to a Muslim equivalent of Varg Vikernes, burning down mosques in Turkey, and insist people should return to Tengri and His Prophet Attila?
It didn’t pass away- it just switched to ‘ideology’ when traditional religion ceased to be the organizing principle for society. It is called ‘exporting the revolution’ or ‘democratic liberation’, but it is the same idea.
So apparently the Trump-Putin meeting was a wet firecracker. Putin wasn’t assassinated, so that’s nice, but nothing of substance was achieved, it seems. Not that anyone here expected anything to come of it, I’m sure.
I wonder if they spoke to each other with other people far enough away that they could speak privately. And if so, what was said?
I think it’s obvious a lot happened and a lot will come of it. Both Trump and Putin seem very happy.
Seriously? I guess we’ll see.
Trump and Putin did speak in private.
But Trump needs to give something to Thermidor. And what he needs to give to Thermidor is a Russian defeat, and Putin is not going to give him that when Putin has lost around a hundred fifty thousand Russians winning this war.
I expect that Putin said to Trump
Trump:
Putin:
Trump:
At least I hope that is what he said.
If nothing else, the meeting at least got all the right people seething and frothing at the mouth.
Meanwhile in America, Trump sent the military into DC to clean it up. He should do that is all major cities.
It is nice to imagine that cleaning up lower class criminals inside the beltway is not so different from cleaning up the higher class criminals inside the beltway.
Why is Hillary Clinton suddenly praising Trump? I think they’re afraid.
What about Odessa? Is it important or just kind of symbolic? Will the good guys take it?
Putin is willing to concede Odessa for the sake of peace. But peace does not appear to be on the table.
The Ukrainian army appears to have suffered serious casualties in the course of containing the Russian effort to turn the Pokrovsk Myrnohrad agglomeration into yet another, bigger, cauldron — they sent their best troops in to fight in situations where the balance of attrition was bound to heavily favor the Russians. The cure may well have been worse than the disease.
If the Ukrainian army fights to the last Ukrainian — well, the last Ukrainian is in sight. In which case Russia is going to take Odessa.
What about “Heavenly Jerusalem”? Is it a 1488 conspiracy theory, or did Menachem Schneerson lay the groundwork for another Jewish state, Ashkenazi-only, because only Ashkenazis are supposedly descended from Khazars?
The Eurasian plain has no natural defense barriers, is filled with slavs who are competent at war and the population of Ukraine was 2-3 times the world’s Jewish population. It would be simpler and less insane to immigrate to the Russian Federation’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast- it isn’t sovereign, but it isn’t a territory whose name means ‘the borderlands’.
Putin has to take it all otherwise what ever is left over will just be used against Russia again regardless of what the agreement says. Of course not ‘everything’, Hungary should be reunited with their increasingly persecuted brothers trapped in Ukraine.
I’m quite sure that Plan Carpathia has new tires, fresh oil and filters, all its joints greased, its batteries charged and its tanks on ‘F’.
“Press to start.”
“We’ll fight the Anglostan Sultanate to the last Jew. Volunteer now or get the front line, Ari. As long as it takes.”
–Ubermerikaaner Chanceller Bix, 2042
https://substack.com/home/post/p-171172267
“This will also likely presage Israel getting whatever they want as long as they hold the knife of instability against the West’s throat. The West will probably bend and take the Gazans off the Israeli’s hands like the little bitches they are. In the UK it looks like the groundwork is already being laid. All they need to do is hold the line like the Russians did. Time looks like it is on their side now.”
Good stuff, so most of the west is going to be filled with Sincere Mohammadens who will ensure to do whatever they can to make the infidel suffer. To be honest, can’t even blame Israel for this, if every Euro Gov wants to dope themselves on any type of immigrant, why not just dump all the Gazans on them? They will say thank you too.
I’m sure if they could, India would ship all their underclass to Europe and America. There isn’t a lack of will, just a lack of means to do so (thankfully, transport capability to send over rivers of meat has stagnated or declined, so it would take quite a few decades to pull this off, which means its not happening).
Best case for both Russia and America is that the peace deal gets delayed as much as possible all the way to the last fighting Ukrainian. Anything short of a total Russian battlefield victory is bound to invite EU/GAE-in-exile bullshit back into Ukraine as a staging ground for more color revolution, border infiltrations, and outright military buildup because they are incapable of not reigniting frozen conflicts, which would just start the war back up to even more disasterous consequences. We need a lasting peace with Russia much more than we need Ukrainians alive as harsh as it is.