bucho

That one's tough to answer. I'm hopeful that they'll reach Tokmak by the end of the year, but I don't know that they'll take it this year. Russia knows the logistical importance of that place, and they'll throw everything at it to retain it. Plus, there's only like 2 months left in the year before fighting conditions get too degraded by weather. So, I'm guessing that the lines will start to stabilize again at the end of October or beginning of November, and we won't see much progress until next Spring.

The good news, though, is that they're gonna be getting a bunch of F-16s from the Netherlands, so that will help out immensely in the next offensive drive. I wouldn't be surprised if they're able to take Tokmak early on in the year, and then make a push towards Melitopol. Could be celebrating another independence day by the end of next year.

Of course, a lot depends on conditions in Russia. Anything could happen. We've already seen one major coup attempt from Wagner before they stopped about 200km away for some reason. I don't think they're going to try again because they stupidly put all of their upper leadership together in the same plane... but I think it's possible that another coup attempt could happen from a different faction. If Putin is removed or killed, I don't think the war will continue. I think the next guy will just blame Russia's poor performance on the last guy and will call it a day.

Alright there, bud. Please tell me where anything that I have said has diverged from objective reality.

Yes. Both things are true. It's not like some weird gordian knot that you have to strain your brain to figure out. The majority of the Russian army at this point are very poorly trained mobilized soldiers. They still have a few veteran units, but after a year and a half of fighting, most of them have been replaced with mobiks. And Russia is now calling for another 450,000 people to be conscripted, despite having very little in the way of equipment to give them.

Now the Ukrainian army is less trained and has inferior equipment to fight this war then they did at the start

Even poorer? WTF are you talking about? I want them to get their land back, and kill the fuckers invading them. I want them to get the tens of thousands of children Russia abducted back. I want them to get reparations for the invasion.

what’s going to happen to the millions of Russians living in Crimea and eastern Ukraine?

I couldn't give one single, solitary fuck.

Do they just get genocided or flee en masse in another Nakba, lib?

Well, flee if they're ingelligent, I suppose.

Thank you for debunking yourself mid post to save everyone’s time

Uh, what? A significant portion of the Russian army at this point is mobilized soldiers with days of training. This is not Western propaganda, unless you're saying that the Russian milbloggers and Russian posters on Russian telegram channels who say the same things are Western plants.

Now the Ukrainian army is less trained and has inferior equipment to fight this war then they did at the start

What? Are you completely out of your gourd? They have vastly superior equipment now than they did at the start. Cluster munitions, Bradleys, Leopards, self-propelled howitzers... The Ukrainians are better prepared to fight this war now than at any point in their history.

I mean, I know you guys are a lot of tankies, but Jesus. Use your brain.

So NATO trained Ukrainians with tactics completely unsuited to the kind of war that Ukraine is fighting. Do you think this was because of malice or stupidity?

Neither? You can only train people on the things you have experience with. Ukraine is fighting a unique war from the perspective of NATO trainers. That doesn't make the training the Ukrainians have received worthless. They have benefitted quite heavily from training in squad tactics, combined arms, etc. Military training is far more extensive than just: "Hey - avoid minefields."

What a lot of people fail to grasp about why Ukraine isn't advancing more quickly despite having superior equipment and training than the vast majority of the Russian army is the realities on the ground. For example, NATO tactics assume no, or very few mines. Ukraine is the most heavily mined place on Earth now. NATO tactics assume air superiority. Ukraine has very few fighter jets, and won't receive new ones from Western countries for several more months.

The reality is that despite being better equipped and trained, there are still several extremely difficult obstacles in the way of them reclaiming their land, and so they're taking it fairly slow in an effort to not throw lives away unnecessarily. Even so, every square inch they liberate is paid for in blood.

Still, I'm optimistic about the next few months. Ukrainians just reached the first Surovikin line near Novoprokopivka, and the latest reports suggest they've already entered the eastern side of that village. If they can take it and the high ground in that area, they'll have about 12km of contact with the trench network. If they can make a breakthrough at any point along that line, they can assault the length of it from 3 different directions, and collapse a whole front.

Also, with the death of Prigozhin, there's a decent chance of more unrest in Moscow, which would likely move Russians off the front line to quell any dissent back home. That, combined with morale among the Russian forces being at an all-time nadir makes me optimistic about Ukraine's chances of advancing to Tokmak this year. And Tokmak is a lynchpin of the entire Russian defense in the area. It's a major hub, as it is where all of the rail lines from the east join the west. If the Ukrainians control Tokmak, practically the entire area south of the Dnipro will be cut off from supplies.

So yeah, fingers crossed!

I saw a loaf of Rosemary Focaccia on sale the other day, and it occurred to me that "Rosemary Focaccia" is a great drag name.

I mean, you can. ChatGPT hasn't steered me far wrong yet, though, and I've used it quite a lot over the past 4 months or so. It's really quite good.

I hate the official python documentation. I often find what I'm looking for much quicker just by asking ChatGPT. You can even ask it to pretend it's William Shatner while explaining how to use a given function. So that's fun.