Russian special military operation in Ukraine #37

Economy destroyed:

-no physical damage to Russian infrastructure and factories, massive import substitution and replacement of
parts previously sourced from the west.

Military mostly destroyed:

- it was only used in a soft flash initial operation and afterwards withdrawn.
- the heavy lifting for most of the war has been by Wagner, Donbass militia, and Rosgvardia at some stages (Mariupol).
- credible losses at under 20,000 (BBC estimate around 12 thousand with an ad hoc 60% fluff factor).

Decades to recover? Why?

The question is where is VKS? WTF
https://m.vk.com/video-123538639_456295481

The vicinity of Bakhmut is the deep territory of Ukraine?

And let's not forget how those special detachments were stuck on that airport starving to death because military superpowers of Bulgaria and Romania refused to allow Russian airforce to deliver them some MREs (or whatever passed for food in Russian Military back then)

It wasn't until they agreed to everything that NATO asked for were they allowed to eat

Like Moskva this "accomplishment" is one Russia should pretend never happened

I knew someone from the NATO contingent who arrived at that airport

He said they shared their own rations with the Russians, as the Russians indeed had none

And that from his perspective, it was certainly quite a fall from grace for Russia for its soldiers to end up in such a situation. Well he was correct.

ALAMO wrote:The number for Russkie is about correct, but the number for Ukrs is not.
The latest call from the Ukro side - quite official - was 250+ kilo.
Stratfor "calculated" it above 300k.
There is really a reason why they hunt males on the streets.
The Internet is full of films with that. FULL.

So from the perspective, we tale close to 1 mln KIA/WIA/MIA/POW in some 15-18 mln population at most.
Clashed with the number that hardly differs from the number of car accident victims number.

That is why we face a crazy level of propaganda. Crazy even for this, particularly crazy, war. People in the west REALLY are being fed with stories that Ukrs didn'r made a mobilisation yet, while the Mordor horde is at the brink of extinction. This madness continuous.

I was accosted by a Ukrainian former co-worker on Skype the other day

The conversation was far from hostile, and yet not quite cordial either.
He was desperate to convince me of the 130,000 Russian casualties that was in that Ukrainian tally graphic you posted a day ago; he in fact sent me another version of it no less, with that trizub coat of arms. "They're lying to you", as I was told. I felt as if I was back in March 2022; considering this primordial level of propaganda I was confronted with.. I mean these days even Ukro trolls on YouTube are far more subtle and measured in their agitprop.

I inquired as to who precisely was lying to me; as the first piece of counter-evidence I submitted, even before he wrote that classic line, was the BBC's joint investigation with Mediazona which found a grand total of some 12k Russian military graves/names of KIA. But he literally took no notice or didn't realize.

When I pointed out that such a level of discrepancy between actual deaths and unaccounted ones would be impossible to cover up in Russian society; that we still have the internet and newspapers and social media and journalists and everything here, even taking into account the anti-criticism of the SVO laws, his response was that the bodies of the Russian soldiers are not retrieved by their own army; simply left to the dogs on the battlefield.
In response to my postulation that that such a number of missing would elicit many inquiries from society, his claim was the mothers and relatives of the deceased are constantly rallying all over Russia and being beaten down by OMON in turn. Unfortunately he declined to provide examples of such.

Putin was accused of being a ******* and being responsible for this whole war. I agreed that yes, Putin holds some responsibility, that he had 8 years to avoid this situation but failed; but that events were mostly beyond his control - including the Anglos putting the Ukrainians up to it, facilitating their military build-up, establishing NATO bases there, enabling Kiev to flout the Minsk agreements, Biden refusing the provide guarantees to Putin over no nukes being deployed in the Ukraine, and a bunch of other things. Elaborations of mine which were all completely ignored.
I pointed out that Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations came close to fruition back in April before being broken off on Western instructions. His response was that no agreement was ever being reached. Indeed on that he might be right.
And that while we started the war, the Ukrainians will be the ones who end it. On this I fear though that he is mistaken, and tragically so.

I was sent a photo of Bradley IFVs on a train somewhere and asked, 'do you know where they're going from and going to?'. As if 1). that this is news in Russia still, and 2). that I'd be awed by the knowledge that the US is sending some armored vehicles of its own production to the Ukraine. And hardly low-quality ones in my estimation, but what will these tin cans with auto-cannons do that all the previous vehicles in Ukrainian possession and supplied to them have failed to do, exactly?

As his efforts failed, he became more and more vexed and frustrated.

It's bizarre. It really is something you would find in a schizophrenic disorder or some such, where the patient turns to ever more elaborate and unlikely explanations to rationalize his actions or point of view, and willfully ignores contradictions which are self-evident or are pointed out to them. Simply doing everything to avoid facing the truth.
This man wants to see the war through to the end, to witness total Ukrainian victory. Yet he himself is living comfortably in Europe. Who does he propose to send to guarantee this outcome? More middle aged men forcibly conscripted from their country houses into the Ukrainian army and given 4 weeks of training at most? Or does he count on NATO troops doing the work instead?
Most probably the later.

Yet this exchange was pretty telling.
The first thing that came to mind was the parallel between Ukrainian propaganda's (and the people who follow such) escape from reality, and that of the neo-cons in Washington disassociation from reality, those whom this brainwashing serves. For with every failure Washington never fails to double down, raise the stakes and dig the hole deeper, even when it's clear that they stand to only lose more from such decisions.
And the second thing that I realized, is that there are people, a substantial amount of them still, that really do still believe in all this stuff, all these infographics about 130k Russian dead and 4000 destroyed Russian vehicles, and that the kill ratio is 7 to 1 in the Ukraine's favour, as this former co-worker claimed. And that it is precisely this indoctrination, that allows the Ukraine to continue to mobilize at least some of the population still, and for Western governments to continue to send ex-military or outright military advisors to the Ukraine; who are earnestly confident that they're winning.

Military Summary believes that a serious Russian attack or some kind will happen in the next 3-4 days. He has his reasons. One is that Russia recently closed the border with Georgia and Mongolia.

Could just be a new wave of mobilization to replace some of the soldiers going back into the reserve, whose contracts have run-out and whatever