Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[BlackCat]

The conclusions that I am drawing from the first week or so is that this will be a very long slog of an offensive..

I kind of agree, and then not. UA has certainly probed a lot with scouting units and actually captured a lot of ground, but I'm not so sure that they only are supposed to find weak spots - they are also trying to commit russian backup units to the front line and then get locked wherever they end.

Fun part is that UA SAS units apparently has crossed the Dnieper river making havoc where the russians have left after the dam explosion - don't expect the UA to make an major assault that way, but it could easily mess up RA decisions.

[PLATO]

Evaluating the first week of the offensive I see several things by looking at the maps and reading the somewhat limited reports:

1.) The majority of Ukraine's liberated territory seems to be coming at noticeable bulges in Russian lines. This makes sense as they would have multiple attack axis.
2.) One notable exception to the above is north of Tokmak. Tokmak is an immensely strategic location as it is the East West link for both major highway and rail junctions. It also seems to have some of the most heavily fortified positions. It will be very difficult to penetrate. The advances north of it are there but they are very small and not yet to the real weight of Russian defenses. Taking Tokmak would essentially cut off a large number of Russian troops west of there from resupply.
3.) Russian engineers seem to be highly competent with the defensive structure they have been able to build. From the air, the defenses look pretty good with fortified firing positions and good layering.
4.) Russian artillery seems to have initial firing solutions dialed in pretty well for positions the defenses are designed to funnel Ukrainian forces into. Ukraine also seems to be doing a fair job of avoiding most of them so far.
5.) Russian stand off airpower seems to be deploying more tactically then it has. This is a huge advantage as the Ukrainians have little to nothing to counter it.
6.) Only 3 of the 12 heavy armor brigades the Ukrainians have built up for the offensive have been reported in use so far. This seems to indicate that the Ukrainians are still in a probing phase trying to find a weakness to exploit.

The conclusions that I am drawing from the first week or so is that this will be a very long slog of an offensive. Russian defenses seem to be good and Ukrainians are showing good conservation of force in their probing attacks. It is likely that the Ukrainians will find somewhere along this incredibly long front to achieve a breakthrough. When they do, they will likely have the advantage in maneuver warfare. The question will be if Russian airpower can make the difference. Success or failure? Just to early to tell at this point I think.

[PLATO]

Wasn't calling you out. It was a great threadjack though.

[Dinner]

I responded to other people's posts.

[PLATO]

Great threadjack. Meanwhile in Ukraine people are still dying and a country is fighting for its right to exist.

To try and move it a little bit back on topic...if Ukraine was bribing Biden, then it seems like it was money well spent.

[Dinner]

There are a lot of partisan actors in the civil service. Sadly, both parties try to get their partisans embedded in high places. Even a good president would have trouble getting all of them to comply and, let's face it, Trump obviously isn't that good at running large organizations much less reforming them even if he has the power to do so. Which is just another reason why I prefer an experienced person with a proven track record like DeSantis.

[Dinner]

A nice run down with the Hill.

https://youtu.be/OwonLYqKc80

[-Jrabbit]

So cool that all this evidence of corruption was held back for so long, all the way through the Trump administration. Clearly, they were just waiting for Trump to be indicted so that Fox, OAN and you would have something else to talk about. Those whistleblowers sure know how to play the long game!

[Dinner]

It will be until it isn't. Two whistle blowers claiming it has been covered up and the guy who supposedly made the tapes of the Biden's accepting bribes say they do exist so does FBI documentation which FBI director Wray (a Biden appointee) fought tooth and nail to not release (only finally agreeing after Congress scheduled a vote to find him in contempt of Congress) say they do. Either way we have three sources (four of you count the FBI report itself) that say Biden took the bribes and we have financial transactions showing Biden received $5 million in bribes while his son got a $1 million gig he had no business or experience getting. We also have video of Joe Biden openly bragging about doing exactly what he allegedly was bribed to do.

We even have evidence from banks that the Biden's illegally broke up the bribe money into small amounts to avoid financial disclosure laws, to try to not set off Federal money laundering laws (which they failed as numerous suspicious financial transaction reports were filed by banks which the Biden admin also tried to cover up), and used shell companies the Biden's themselves created to try to launder the money. That is a hell of a lot of evidence.

[Jon Miller]

It seems like the tapes bit, and most/all of it, is currently 3rd hand allegation.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-admit-they-dont-know-if-biden-bribery-tapes-really-exist

JM

[Dinner]

I certainly will not be voting for Biden if that is what you mean. You are right though that there are a lot of other corrupt politicians out there. Personally, I think that makes it more difficult to vote finding out which ones are corrupt and which ones are just better at hiding it will be difficult. Probably the best approach will be just continuously voting for the outsider.

[-Jrabbit]

Sounds like you'll never again need to be troubled with voting.

[Dinner]

The links you provided were to accusations. A report by an FBI informant is similar to the Steele dossier, it doesn't mean it is fiction but it also doesn't mean it is true (And it could have both fiction and truth). So most of what you provide above is not verified or confirmed or anything of the sort.

But I also did say It seems like it could be reasonable to have an investigation. If for some reason the DoJ won't do it, which isn't explained by why they wouldn't do it during the Trump administration and there are still many pro-Trump offices of the FBI (and more then), then the path forward for those who think this is worthy of an investigation would be for Congress to press for an independent counsel.

Or to subpoena with eye towards creating a law about the president/potential presidents/vice presidents or impeachment.

Accusations, even reasonable ones like in the Steele dossier, don't mean that much.

JM

Congress subpoenaed the records and the banks complied showing those transactions which were published in a Congressional report. I am sure Biden's attorneys will claim the five million in payments weren't bribes just like an additional five million in payments from Chinese and even Romanian interests but the congressional reports showed that after receiving the payments Biden did special favors and/or changes in official policy which benefited the people/organizations who gave him bribes.

Sorry, ai don't give politicians the benefit of the doubt after that. Sure, legally the proper legal standards need to be applied but as far as voting? No, I will not vote for such a politician ever. I just fine it amazing how all of these politicians spend 30, 40, 50 years in government service yet all retire with tens of not hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth.

BTW the steep dosier was never, ever reliable and was found to be almost entirely lies. It was literally paid for and released by the Hillary Clinton Campaign and Obama personally knew it was a lie when he agreed to green light the FISA corruption. We truly have partisan weaponization of government departments and it is banana Republic stuff which is doing massive harm to the nation.

[Berzerker]

The IMF is named as pushing for Sorkin's removal before Joe stepped in. As were Republican Senators.

BTW, I have been very pleasantly surprised by Joe, but I hadn't been a fan. If it turns out that he accepted a bribe, to do what the IMF and Republican Senators and many other groups in Europe (including Germany) were requesting, I would want a full primary with debates and put someone else up in 2024 (I would want someone other than Kamala).

Still wouldn't hold a candle to what Trump has both been accused of and has evidence in the open for doing.

JM

I'm running on memory but I think Shokin came out of retirement in the early spring of 2015 to take the job. The Biden clan was getting $$$ from Burisma starting in mid 2014. Joe was already on the payroll and I wont be surprised to see GOP senators on the 'donation' list, Ukraine policy was/is bipartisan. I think it was May '15 when Burisma came to Washington to meet Joe, Shokin was still new to the job but he might have been making waves out of the gate. Now that would be an interesting investigation - when did Burisma decide to fire Shokin and who started smearing him at the time? Maybe it was the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back and when Shokin ignored the pressure long enough they fired him.

As for Biden's performance, the only good thing he did was stumble out of Afghanistan and that was an utter mess. I blame him for this war, he wanted it and dragged us in so US companies can make billions on weapons and rebuilding Ukraine. Trump is a saint in comparison, I mean, the lesser evil. Let partisan investigators rummage thru Joe's life with fine tooth combs and you'd be horrified by what falls out. I'm horrified by what Joe has done in the open.

As for your links, I clicked on the last to see the date but they wanted cookies. The IMF works for us... Do any of your articles interview Shokin for his side of the story or do they just repeat the narrative? Shokin testified under oath the Ukrainian leader apologized to him for that smear campaign and told him he was fired for refusing to drop investigations. Its say the opposite day so naturally the narrative to smear Shokin painted him as doing nothing to investigate corruption.

[Proteus_MST]

Regarding the Biden bribery tapes:
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1669418367134908451

and

https://twitter.com/Roshan_Rinaldi/status/1669088745407016961