Ukraine

[civilcoconut]

^uh huh... if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in Crimea

I dunno man, I'm not a fan of the alternatives, but attention and clicks = ad dollars = money in the owners pocket.

[MultiVerse]

For most users, Sports & Entertainment still rule the X platform. Turning of retweets on X makes it more tolerable. Even better is using lists and ignoring "what's happening". All these platforms whether it's X, or YouTube, or whatever are choose your own adventure. On X as well as others you can click on the three dots next to posts choosing "not interested" and that type of content won't show up very often.

The reality is even though recommendation algos can be tweaked, they more or less work the same way: show people more of what they looked at in the past. X sucks. Bluesky sucks too. They all do unless a person chooses to follow only trustworthy sources. Otherwise, X has been taken over by MAGA dipshits while Bluesky has been taken over by unremarkable prog snowflakes. The interesting libs are still on X. The smartest people in tech are still on X. The smartest finance & econ folks are still on X.

Which makes it a total bummer that the site's owner has intentionally made the site a morally decaying soul-sucking rot where the dumbest largest most followed accounts are allowed—without constraint—to spread endless flows of disinfo and red meat in the form of "breaking news"

[highangle]

[jono]

Bluesky has a working search tool, available without logging in, including when viewed through anonymizing proxy tools. X has an algorithm and you're going to use it, because every attempt to improve the place using outside tools (nitter etc.) has been blocked.

Those technical differences may exist for money (unlikely given the loss so far) or politics or pure ego, but enshitification is its own problem. Move on or get comfortable licking boots.

[ex-powderbroker]

apologies for the twitter link

https://twitter.com/antii__dote/stat...13969872142342

[Meconium]

I've never had the twitter app. I just log in from the web. I follow about 20 people and if I veer to someone else, it is from accounts that I follow. It's pretty straightforward, just a feed.

[TBS]

From NY Times
The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine

Discussing US involvement that went way beyond providing materiel to Ukraine.
Also describes the political stresses inside the Ukraini government that didn’t help their cause in the final analysis

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...smid=url-share
Paywall removed

[Hopeless Sinner]

^^^was ready to post that. It certainly explains a lot.

[MultiVerse]

A good read. Perhaps the seemingly minor, yet biggest in terms of impact from the article, is the fact Americans were sending "points of interest" but not detailed intelligence which created a lot uncertainty among Ukrainian commanders. As a result, American generals would alternate between preaching caution and urging Ukraine's armed forces to drop the hammer. Without firsthand intel Ukrainian generals would try too acquire battlefield intel separately on their own resulting in costly delays:

"The back-and-forth had cost between 24 and 48 hours, officers estimated. And in that time, south of Robotyne, the Russians had begun building new barriers, laying mines and sending reinforcements to halt Ukrainian progress. “The situation was changed completely,” General Zabrodskyi said. General Aguto yelled at General Tarnavskyi: Press on. But the Ukrainians had to rotate troops from the front lines to the rear, and with only the seven brigades, they weren’t able to bring in new forces fast enough to keep going."

Repeatedly, Ukrainian generals didn't concentrate their forces and American politicians didn't send enough weapons until after an offensive stalled: "Desperate to salvage the counteroffensive, the White House had authorized a secret transport of a small number of cluster warheads with a range of about 100 miles, and General Aguto and General Zabrodskyi devised an operation against Russian attack helicopters threatening General Tarnavskyi’s forces." ATACMS and permission to strike Russian artillery in Russia with American 777s etc. would come too late, while still limiting capabilities. That was the perennial standoff:

In the Ukrainians’ view, the Americans weren’t willing to do what was necessary to help them prevail.

In the Americans’ view, the Ukrainians weren’t willing to do what was necessary to help themselves prevail.



Also noteworthy, "General Donahue explained that the Ukrainians were the ones fighting and dying, testing American equipment and tactics and sharing lessons learned. “Thanks to you,” he said, “we built all these things that we never could have.”" Not mentioned in the article is that there's now an advanced NATO training center in Poland where Ukrainian combat vets train NATO troops on advanced warfare.

[riser4]

Good journalism. I wonder if some of the disclosures of what we did are premature and may be harmful.

[RTsucks]

You mean the thank you? JD must be foaming to have Donahue court martialed. Then, hopefully, base jumping vacay.

[MultiVerse]

It's definitely a U.S.-centric perspective. This sort of thing always happens after an administration changes. People want to tell their side of the story. There's a lot context that gets left out. It's less harmful b/c a lot of it has already been covered in this thread. Maybe harmful in the sense that the reporting illustrates how aimless U.S. policy was WRT a plan for defeating Russia. We see that with the Moskva episode:

"In mid-April 2022.... American and Ukrainian naval officers were on a routine intelligence-sharing call when something unexpected popped up on their radar screens. According to a former senior U.S. military officer, "The Americans go: 'Oh, that's the Moskva!' The Ukrainians go: 'Oh my God. Thanks a lot. Bye.'
...
For the Americans, there was anger because the Ukrainians hadn't given so much as a heads-up; surprise that Ukraine possessed missiles capable of reaching the ship; and panic because the Biden administration hadn't intended to enable the Ukrainians to attack such a potent symbol of Russian power."

The article's point of view is American and paternalistic. In reality each side sometimes fell short and also triumphed because of the relationship.

[jono]

Over dramatic, too. The characterization of "broken trust and betrayals" isn't born out in the text.

It reads, probably pretty accurately, as a story of make-shift cooperation that was carried out very well in challenging circumstances, but not perfectly. When the only paths to success were either being perfect or continuing support (instead of letting Russians mass for counterattack in Kursk without US intel for Himars).

[summit]

Keeping Ukraine just empowered enough to stop the Russians was only good for America (and Western Europe) and only so long as it could continue. And then we end up where we are now.

We should have given unbridled support to Ukraine. 1000 Tanks and started training their pilots for F-16 after 1 month, as soon as they demonstrated their resolve. Long range missiles as well.

Instead we trickled everything from arms, to training to intel.

And now Trump thinks we have a choice to pressure both sides to ceasefire when we can really only pressure one side or the other.

[TBS]

^^^Two big takeaways for me
(1) The difference in perspective.
“We are allies, but we have different goals. We protect our country, and you protect your phantom fears from the Cold War.”

(2) The infighting among the Ukrainian general staff, and Zelenskyy’s desire for big PR wins. The last minute change in plan for the 2023 counter-offensive is Exhibit A.

[jono]

Keeping Ukraine just empowered enough to stop the Russians was only good for America (and Western Europe) and only so long as it could continue. And then we end up where we are now.

We should have given unbridled support to Ukraine. 1000 Tanks and started training their pilots for F-16 after 1 month, as soon as they demonstrated their resolve. Long range missiles as well.

Instead we trickled everything from arms, to training to intel.

And now Trump thinks we have a choice to pressure both sides to ceasefire when we can really only pressure one side or the other.

No disagreement from me, but that piece is clearly written to tell the story of the sources he had, which obviously didn't include anything close to the full perspective of the WH. It's the story of how the people dealing with those (highly questionable) strategic choices.

But yeah: Ukraine was asking for ATACMS for a long time and we should have sent them (and more) sooner. But it's absurd that the story just somehow naturally ends where it does. With all of the ways Ukraine has built up their own capabilities (5 million drones coming this year, and all the long range drones that hit distant Russian targets) there should be no question that we could help them win. Should be.

[mcski]

Even if they were getting their asses handed to them, we should be helping them. Fuck Putin

[Meconium]

So, one can read that Poland could rectify the problem. One could also read that the EU could also only last a few weeks. Russia has meat, drones and distant Air Force and Navy. Will Putin die from inside or outside or naturally?

[Meconium]

Supposedly, a pulse of US weapon delivering over the past few weeks. End of Biden or unknown Trump?

[Meconium]

Hard to believe EU could not dispose of Russians from Ukraine. Problem might be the aftermath. Military I can not wrap my head around why the US and Europe does not defend from the sky over Ukraine territory. The stand off technology is there.

[Hopeless Sinner]

Milley would always say, Youve got a little Russian army fighting a big Russian army, and theyre fighting the same way, and the Ukrainians will never win. General Cavolis argument, she said, was that with HIMARS, they can fight like we can, and thats how they will start to beat the Russians.

When ammo, troops, and victories were in short supply Ukraine reverted to the Russian fighting style giving away the advantage the US gave them wrt to targeting and major tactical moves. They had their chances.

quotes and apostrophes deleted for clarity

[RTsucks]

Um, their big mistake was not sending troops into combat with 'thank you JD and Elon' graphic tuxedos. At the least could use an uncle sam tophat instead of a helmet. Easy fix if you ask me. Let's get Rudy on it.

[Meconium]

I dedicate this to Putin https://youtu.be/PD2IT1JASi8?feature=shared

[MultiVerse]

Underestimating Ukraine was and remains the most consistent US foreign policy failure. After winning the battle for Kyiv Ukraine retook more than half territory once occupied by Russia. If the United States had gone all in on day one Russia would now be defeated and America would have the strongest army on the European continent as a lifelong ally, allowing America to focus on the Pacific without much concern over Russia

[Meconium]

As well as Biden and Trump pussies