God, liberal fanfiction is always the same tedious YA tropes.

I’m not. BrainInABox is the one talking about a movie. I’m not.

I was explaining the joke. BrainInABox was obviously making fun of what you said, because it's a silly thing to say. Imagine a comment saying "They ate mushrooms to grow bigger" and someone replied with "Source: Super Mario".

Putin wants to control Ukraine. At any cost. He wants Stalin’s empire back.

No, this is wrong, this is a story that is pushed by western pundits, but it's based on nothing. If we instead assume Putin's statements are true, then he has been consistent for decades. In fact, you'll often see a sort of double-reality in the words of western commentators, where they both make fun of Putin for declaring and stressing his red lines (and then not following through with the threats), and at the same time stating that there was no way to predict what actions would lead to retaliation. One thing that has been abundantly clear to me following this war, is that Russia has been able to maintain their narrative in the form of goals and roadmap since the very first day of the war, and that the NATO-aligned countries have to adjust their narrative rapidly.

The much more realistic assumption, rather than Putin role-playing Bonaparte, is that Russia feels NATO in Donbass is an existential threat and wants a buffer region. This is consistent with Russian statements, with Russian war-goals, and with the reality that NATO is dangerous and destroys countries.

He’s waging his war because he lost his puppet, and he wants to prevent Ukraine from making its own independent decisions.

This is true.

They throw ridiculous numbers of soldiers at pointless human wave assaults just to gain a couple of meters ground.

If this was true, then we should see a large discrepancy in the number of dead soldiers between either side. Russian causalities are published, so the data is easier to gather. But either way, sites like Mediazona and UAlosses.org compile lists of confirmed dead, and it's similar between the two armies, despite Ukrainian losses being confidential and unpublished. Why is Ukraine worse at fighting? They probably aren't, the more likely conclusion is that you've read a stupid article with cartoon-logic, and that in reality Russia uses the most effective tactics available to them.

Generals don’t want to lose ground

There's a website called liveuamap.com, where you can see troop positions over time. And something it shows clearly is that prior to fortifications being installed somewhere, the Russian army does not stick around when there is even the slightest amount of heat. The actual evidence is the complete opposite of your narrative. They're extremely willing to give up ground. Why do you believe a narrative that's so disconnected with reality? Is it a one-off or could it be that the bar for evidence is low for the outlet that sold you that particular narrative?

It’s a dysfunctional mess, but every part of it makes sense for the people involved.

Maybe. But let me pitch you the Russian narrative, and you can see if that fits the reality better, and makes everyone out to be more rational actors.

• Russia claimed they were going to fight a war of attrition, not conquest. The reasoning is that their goal is the complete demilitarisation of Ukraine.
• Russia has ramped up production of military equipment and is now producing more than the combined west. This makes sense for attrition, but it doesn't make sense if you want a big push and expect to break through quickly, as building and staffing factories takes years.
• The combined west has sent weapons to Ukraine as they could spare them, but are running out or low and weapon shipments have decreased over time, meaning Russia is winning the war they themselves say they are in.

And since this started with you saying we shouldn't trust TASS, you might think that I'm saying Russia is completely trustworthy. But I'm not. Just that on the war, their interests align closer with being honest. In this news story about POW exchanges, there are only two possible sources, Russia and Ukraine, anyone else wouldn't be able to verify the information. So it makes zero sense to dismiss the Russian account if your goal is to find truth among narratives. You'd be left with a single narrative, and at best your intuition for bullshit.

And if you pay attention, you can see similar perverse incentives at work in western countries too. People as rational actors is a lazy lie used to justify dysfunctional systems.

I never made any claims about people. I made claims about sufficiently large organisations. Rather than blaming dysfunctional systems, you should analyse if there is a reason why institutions you rely on would intentionally fail you when they fail you, and then you should test your hypothesis across as much data as you can test against and adjust as you're proven wrong. Eventually you'll end up with Marxism.

Also consider IDF soldiers committing cartoonishly evil atrocities against Palestinian kids because it makes sense in their heads. That doesn’t make it any less evil.

The sadists are people. People don't need to be rational. The IDF is rational. Their goal is genocide. To further that goal, it makes sense to promote, protect and enable sadistic and evil individuals. It's rational for the state of Israel to push dehumanising narratives about Palestinians. It's rational for the oligarchy to direct their servants (USA and European governments) to give Israel as much support as they need, to allow them full reign, while taking on as little responsibility and complicity as possible, and that's exactly what's happening in Israel and in the EU and beyond.

Putin wants to control Ukraine. At any cost. He wants Stalin’s empire back.

Yup, that’s what the media have told me unceasingly. It’s bullshit, and anyway the USSR wasn’t an “empire.”

They throw ridiculous numbers of soldiers at pointless human wave assaults just to gain a couple of meters ground.

No, they don’t. You’re just parroting the “meat wave” propaganda that’s been blasted at us for the last 3½ years. And it’s a canard that goes back at least as far as WWII Nazi war propaganda. It’s as real as the Ghost of Kyiv.