Image is of Russian mercenary Frodonov Bagginsky, standing in the ruins of Bakhmut after the battle concluded.
After nearly a year of intense fighting for the town of Bakhmut, Russian forces have finally reached full control.
While tens of thousands of lives have ended in the area in and around Bakhmut, perhaps almost as interesting as the battle itself has been the war of narratives over it. The state propagandists in the West have spent a lot of effort muddying the waters about the battle for the city, to the extent that the two sides now live in effectively separate realities.
If you are pro-Ukraine, the reality you observe is that this was an excellent maneuver by the Ukrainians - as the Russians send in their troops in human wave attacks armed only with shovels, you have achieved a 1:7 casualty ratio in your favor. You have fundamentally weakened the Russian army because, for some inscrutable reason, they have decided to attack one of the strongest parts of your front line - this reveals the inherent stupidity of the Ruskies. Let them have the city for all you care - it has zero importance and you will soon recapture it. You are, in fact, one step closer to winning the war - far from losing it.
If you are pro-Russian, the reality you observe is that this was an excellent maneuver by the Russians. By utilizing your massive artillery advantage over the enemy side, sometimes achieving over ten times the number of shells fired on any given day, you can easily attrit enemy forces and you have done so, achieving a 1:7 casualty ratio in your favor. As Bakhmut is a central city in the fortification line, Ukraine has no choice but to defend it with all their strength, which allowed you to create a cauldron which has been the death of tens of thousands of troops, at the expense of only mercenaries. The logistical links that capturing the city has both created for you and severed for the enemy will make future campaigns easier, and you are now capable of advancing into territory that hasn't spent the last eight years being fortified by all NATO has to offer. You are, in fact, one step closer to winning the war - far from losing it.
While I would love to be a very smart enlightened centrist and go "Well, both sides have a point here..." all evidence I can discern points to the Russian position and away from the Ukrainian one. When Zelensky went to the US and spoke before Congress earlier this year, he said:
To ensure Bakhmut is not just a stronghold that holds back the Russian Army, but for the Russian Army to completely pull out, more cannons and shells are needed. If so, just like the Battle of Saratoga, the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the warzone.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist (but still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Another big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia's army.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
One thing I've noticed about American coverage of this war is it's very consistently called "Russia's War in Ukraine," or "Putin's War in Ukraine," rather than "The War in Ukraine."
I don't recall Iraq or Afghanistan regularly getting called "The U.S. War in..." or "Bush's War in...", even after those wars became increasingly unpopular. Yet another :citations-needed: episode in real time.
The wording in other NATO countries is the "Invasion War in Ukraine" even though the wording doesn't really make sense, either grammatically or factually.
I know it's gauche to make Orwell jokes around these parts, but seriously, what better example of newspeak?
DOUBLE PLUS UNGOOD WAR IN UKRAINE.
Yeah, I should clarify I'm talking about how the war is covered i n corporate media.
I've been thinking the same, in Finnish media it's always "Venäjän aloittama hyökkäyssota Ukrainassa", in English "The attack-war started by Russia in Ukraine", and yeah, in both languages it is true that language does not work like that!
Because Ukraine manufactured consent that they're beautiful little peaceful angels brutally attacked unprovoked by savage Russian orcs.
Russia's brutal unprovoked illegal war in Ukraine.
Extra points if the guy saying it literally voted in favour of the Iraq war.
It was literally called “The War On Terrorism.” And that hasn’t ended since. Every war we enter isn’t publicized as a war against a country or people. It’s just the war on terror
Its funny hearing people talk about the debt ceiling as if Joe Biden isnt just gonna give the Republicans whatever they want at the 11th hour
Western media claiming russia's security conserns are doodoo ass because NATO is a purely defensive organisation you buffoon, you dumbo's.
Only defensive part about nato is how defensive they get when you ask them about the middle east. Or the balcans. Or asia. Or south America.
You PROMISED me that you would name the thread "Russia makes a comebak(hmut)" when the city fell. You promised me. And what do I get? A Frodo .webp? How bloody fucking dare you.
Edit: obviously I'm not actually upset about this, great thread as usual comrades.
Remember Afghanistan? There is never a reckoning. There’s always just more bullshit piled on top
My favorite dumb take on Afghanistan in the last few years was Tommy Tuberville whining about the helicopters left behind after the Biden administration pulled out. It was something like "we could have used those for hurricane relief."
Like dude you opposed the pull out. If the USA hadn't done that guess where those helicopters you are honking about would be? Oh that's right they'd still be in fucking Afghanistan
Dude has creamed corn for brains.
I've seen three stances on it:
The general Western stance (best exemplified by Reddit) is that Bakhmut has little strategic significance - depending on your viewpoint, either it was a bad move for Ukraine to commit so many of its forces to the city when they could have used them in the counteroffensive, or, if you're totally delusional, it was a brilliant move by Ukraine as they've lost almost no people in exchange for gunning down hordes of Russian orcs and the only reason they had to move out of Bakhmut is because they ran out of bullets.
The Ukrainian stance (best exemplified by Zelensky and his speech to Congress, of which I included an excerpt in the preamble) is that Bakhmut is indeed very important, but usually couched in jingoistic language like "It's important because it'll be how we defeat Russia! Battle of Saratoga 2.0! Stalingrad, but we're the Soviets, but we're good instead of bad!" and not through more sober analysis about fortifications and such.
The Russian stance (best exemplified, in English at least, by the constellation of war bloggers like Big Serge and Mercouris and Berletic, etc) is that Bakhmut is very important because of the reasons I gave in the preamble, though I do also think that there's been a tendency to overstate its importance, with some like Mercouris even saying effectively "Once the city is taken, there's not much standing between Russia and the Dniper." I see no reason why Russia will give up its attrition strategy when it's been effective, if rather unimpressive in terms of really visible results so far, and instead switch to a more offensive model perhaps even with big arrows. They might do it, of course - maybe the Russian command has agreed that Bakhmut's capture will be the event that switches their strategies - but I can't immediately see why. As it stands, I feel like we won't be talking about the Battle of Kramatorsk/Slavyansk for a while, let alone about Russian forces reaching the Dniper.
IF Russia were to do a "big arrows" approach as you suggest, my take is that a big arrow to Izyum would cut off Kramatorsk/Slavyansk from an extremely important supply line and secure the entire of eastern Donetsk. A second big arrow from the south while a push from the east occurs would then be effective.
This however depends on the landmine situation, issues with bridging the city river, and how well they can maintain their supply line running north to Izyum past the east of Slavyansk. Some mention of towns to the east was occuring in the last thread but I looked and see very little worth defending there.
I think it's more likely that they'll just continue the attrition approach. It is working and carries less risk while also being very boring for global onlookers.
idk i think putin should draw some big arrows and magically make them work so i can own redditors
Chinese scientists war-game hypersonic strike on US carrier group in South China Sea
Over 20 intense battles, Chinese forces sank the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier fleet with a volley of 24 hypersonic anti-ship missiles, in a simulation run on a mainstream war game software platform used by China’s military.
The researchers, led by Cao Hongsong from the North University of China, said almost every US surface vessel was shattered by the attack and eventually sank in the simulation.
The war games suggested the US carrier group – previously regarded as unsinkable by conventional weapons – could be “destroyed with certainty” by a relatively small number of hypersonic strikes, they said.
:sicko-pig:
It's always weird discussing politics with Americans online and seeing how angry they get when you mention the Democrats are right-wing. They immediately start screeching about Communists and how you don't understand politics because the Dems are actually very left-wing. My country is actually pretty right-wing and even we can see that the Dems would be conservatives here. I guess that's what happens when you have no strong leftist presence in your nation. Even Japan has the neutered JCP.
I still can't get past how many people are going to die for this old shithead pissing contest.
Anyone that claims Bakhmut is worth dying over - much less worth tens of thousands of lives - is utterly divorced from reality.
And it's not like there's much left of it, in all the images I've seen it looks flattened.
Fuck war
The real question is whether leveling a whole city is worth killing thousands of nazis.
Buildings can be rebuilt. Ukraine were already shelling Donbas for 8 years. Nothing has changed since Russia got involved except the speed of the dying and destruction and that now it is the nazis dying instead of people who refused to be ruled by nazis and have to abandon their culture.
Buildings can be rebuilt.
When you blow up the regional water treatment plant and everyone in town gets dysentery and cholera, fixing the plant doesn't magically undo all the damage from the epidemic.
Nothing has changed since Russia got involved except the speed of the dying and destruction
Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
When you blow up the regional water treatment plant and everyone in town gets dysentery and cholera, fixing the plant doesn’t magically undo all the damage from the epidemic.
You say that like Ukraine hasn't been doing this in Donbas for years. Some of the first cease fire breaches after the second Minsk agreement happened at a water treatment plant. All the things you are worried about were already going on before Feb '22. Russia is trying to stop civilians from being killed by nazis and if that means the have to destroy buildings the nazis are hiding in so be it.
Russia specifically didn't do massive airstrikes against infrastructure until after Ukraine's suicide truck bomb on the Crimea bridge. Russia has gone further to protect and evacuate civilians than any nation in the history of forever.
Stopping nazis is always the right thing to do. Stop trying to say otherwise or I'll just assume your a nazi sympathizer.
You say that like Ukraine hasn’t been doing this in Donbas for years.
Ukraine shouldn't be bombing Donbas either. Neither side should be bombing. No bombing. Bombing bad. Do not bomb. I am firmly opposed to bombing.
Russia specifically didn’t do massive airstrikes against infrastructure until after Ukraine’s suicide truck bomb on the Crimea bridge.
This is the same tired argument the US made in Iraq and Israel made in Lebanon. "Oh sure, we did cause a bit of collateral damage, but only because they were hiding the hardware really close to the health care. So that flaming wreck of a hospital doesn't count."
The Russians didn't initially target bridges or power plants or other public infrastructure while they were confident of occupying territory. But after they stalled out and experienced resistance and push back, they decided the utilities they couldn't control needed to be destroyed. That's fine, in so far as its a sound military decision. But its also abominable, in so far as every military decision is inevitably a wretched waste of life and livelihoods for some marginal advancement of military ends.
Stopping nazis is always the right thing to do
Replace Nazis with Terrorists, and you're just doing :us-foreign-policy: all over again.
You don't need to level half of Ukraine to "stop the nazis". And nothing about this war has mitigated White Nationalism in Europe. No more than the European powers obliterating each other in WW1 mitigated white supremacy a century ago.
The mass immiseration, extensive destruction of infrastructure, and flood of weapons into Eastern Europe is only going to further bloodshed across the continent into the next decade. Perhaps the next generation. Perhaps even the next century.
These wars will do to Europe what our endless fucking around in the Middle East has done to Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It will turn the region into a nightmare of military dictatorships and ideologically justified genocide.
Replace Nazis with Terrorists, and you’re just doing :us-foreign-policy: all over again.
Reddit moment
Go anywhere in the world and you can find someone that someone else thinks deserves bombing.
Bombing still bad.
Violence is absolutely justified in some circumstances, including bombing.
To be fair, I don't think Russia's reason for war has anything to do with Nazis in Ukraine, but I'm still not shedding any tears for the Azov battalion.Violence is absolutely justified in some circumstances
You can argue the finer points of ACAB all day long. But there's no such thing as a Bomb That Only Kills Nazis. You drop heavy ordinance on a city block and you're going to cause collateral damage. You're going to hit kids. You're going to hit the infirm. You're going to disrupt municipal utilities that everyone in the area need to survive.
I don’t think Russia’s reason for war has anything to do with Nazis in Ukraine
There's definitely some geopolitical angle to this that amounts to Ukrainian Ultra-Nationalists wanting to do a genocide on Russians. And Putin's URF has both real physical and ideological stakes in a United Russia, including all the corner cases in Ossetia and Donatsk and wherever else that large populations of Russians exist.
But in the same way that the US firebombing of Tokyo and the '79 Chinese invasion of Vietnam and the English invasion of the Falklands was wildly over the line, the continuous 15 month terror bombing of the whole of Ukraine has vastly outstripped whatever social mandate Russian leadership thought it had when this thing started.
"Ah, but we killed a few Nazis along the way!" isn't any kind of excuse for killing tens of thousands of civilians and displacing millions more.
The war in Ukraine has been remarkably restrained so far, actually. The fact that normal life is possible is Kiev should be testament to this. It's absolutely incomparable to WWII or Vietnam scale bombing.
Frontline cities have been ruined, sure, but given the slow speed of the advance, civilians should have had plenty of time to evacuate in most cases.The war in Ukraine has been remarkably restrained so far
I haven't seen anything material to back this up.
The fact that normal life is possible is Kiev should be testament to this.
Normal life isn't possible. They're suffering artillery fire on a daily basis. This is like saying the Nazis were remarkably restrained towards the British during Operation Sealion.
It’s absolutely incomparable to WWII or Vietnam scale bombing
Yes. They aren't inflicting as much damage as two of the most nightmarish aerial terror campaigns on human history. They've successfully cleared that particular bar.
Ukraine shouldn’t be bombing Donbas either. Neither side should be bombing. No bombing. Bombing bad. Do not bomb. I am firmly opposed to bombing.
No duh. But who is gonna stop the bombing? If Russia didn't get involved Ukraine wouldn't stop the bombing until all the ethnic Russian Ukrainians were dead. When Russia wins the bombing will stop.
This is the same tired argument the US made in Iraq and Israel made in Lebanon. “Oh sure, we did cause a bit of collateral damage, but only because they were hiding the hardware really close to the health care. So that flaming wreck of a hospital doesn’t count.”
No. USA hit Iraq with massive airstrikes before they even set foot in the country. It was called "shock and awe." stop making up lies.
Replace Nazis with Terrorists,
They have the fucking black sun on their uniforms. Fuck off :LIB:
The shelling of the Donbas was over within weeks of the Russian invasion. We’re three months into the second year.
No it hasn't, wtf?! Are you seriously that ignorant of the fact that Ukraine has continually been shelling Donetsk from fortified cities like Avdeeka (with western supplied artillery) for the entire length of the conflict?
Criticize Russia if you want for them being unable to fully stop the shelling of civilian areas of Donetsk City after like 2 years of war, but don't fucking act like this is a solved problem
The shelling of the Donbas was over within weeks of the Russian invasion. We’re three months into the second year.
lie. There is shelling coming from Avdiivka into Donetsk City all the time. Cluster bombs of petal mines are constant.
Russia won’t win. They might secure a temporary peace.
This is just splitting hairs. Obviously peace is always temporary.
You've been reading too much WAPO ant NYT.
You can tattoo a swastika on your forehead for all I fucking care. None of that shit justifies a bomb through anyone’s window.
You are literally standing up for nazis now. Nazi Ideoligy is a existential threat to any sane person. They believe that everyone not like them are not real humans and should die or be slaves. Killing a nazi is always self defence because they would kill other people given the chance. (not you though you are safe because you stand up for them) Fuck you nazi defender.
A small force belonging to the "Free Russian Legion" (an army formation supplied and commanded by the Ukrainian Army) has crossed the border into Belgorod Oblast . The raiding group include at least 2 Tanks, 1 Armored Personnel Carrier, and 9 Armored Vehicles including American supplied HMMWVs and MRAPs. They have aleady killed at least one Russian border guard, seized (at least temporarily)the House of Culture in the village of Gora-Podol.
Nearby roads are jammed with traffic from civilians trying to flee the area, with Russian authorities sending buses to help with such efforts as fighting continues in the town of Gora-Podol. Allegedly all police and law enforcement in the Oblast have been brought under Federal control, while Russian military forces are currently redeploying to secure the territory.
This is all pretty big. It's a huge escalation from the previous cross-border raids of Ukrainian forces, and is clearly timed to distract the Ukrainian public from the loss of Bahkmut. At this point I feel its fairly difficult to predict what Russia will do in response.
Hey, I think I heard that the group includes at least 2 Tanks, 1 Armored Personnel Carrier, and 9 Armored Vehicles including the American supplied HMMWVs and MRAPs. 😉 (I do this all the time. I have to go back and actually read over what I wrote after I start editing things to not sound silly and then I'll catch myself repeating info.)
Free Russian Legion
This war has sequels to everything it seems
Reportedly MetballRon's campaign launch on Twitter is going terribly, just technical issues all over LMAO
Man this whole bakhmut situation and others like it is why I stopped paying attention to the war like a month in, I’m not nearly educated nor dedicated enough to wade through the absolute sea of propaganda surrounding this war, I’ll wait for the dust to clear
i basically just listen to my slava brained turbo lib friend telling me about it and occasionally do like a joe rogan style "uhuh...", "damn, that's crazy...", "wow..." at him and then let all the information about how putin is eating babies just slip out the other earhole
:what-the-hell: yeesh i wouldnt be able to listen to that, you’re a better friend than I lol
This is why I don't have any friends. My earholes are nowhere near as big as a libs mouth :hillgasm:the flow ratio just doesn't work.
That's my general take as well. We really won't know how it went down for at least a decade after it's over. So much propaganda.
$55,683.00 is the value of $25k in 1991 when inflation is accounted for.
From 1991 to 2023 there was inflation of 122.7%. Stingers during that time increased by 700%.
One of Ukraine's top twitter generals has revealed the reasons behind the glorious Ukrainian offensive into Belgorod, and by god, is it a terrifying and extremely realistic strategy:
Why should Ukraine take this route? Because it gives them the option to do this:
