Hey are you from Ukraine, well welcome to the Forum. Sadly flying even subsonic jets like the fantastic L-39ZA is dangerous by nature (Cruise has one too). If you fly them it is an accepted risk, formation flying is risky and even the best pilots run a risk. Actually i heard in the USA that getting engines is a problem as these were made in Russia and revised in the Ukraine.
All the best and welcome to the forum
That was a piece of “art”.
Awesome review. I definitely subscribed to this channel. I’m not sure what you mean by piece of art as it could equally refer to the art of analysis or misinformation. But point by point he very gently puts large holes in the arguments made. I could have accepted the interview if only they gave equal time for the other side of the story but as is it was an awful piece of work. I spent several hours trying to fact check this garbage lol. Thank you for the help!
Vlad tells the different flavors of what is namend “conversative”:
Lots to think about. Although I disagree with maybe 1/2 of it, he does clearly explain his points. I have a feeling interpretations in Europe might be different from here and I have little idea how to interpret that.
Also understand that domestic US audience means maybe 1/3 of Americans. 1/3 think Tucker is evil, 1/3 could care less about the news and 1/3 might watch all or part of it. That makes Tucker one of the most influential journalist because journalists are even less respected than congressmen.
Who would you consider the modern-day equivalent of, say, Westbrook Pegler?
Like many others here I’ve been following the Ukrainian war with interest. One of the problems with an active war between two modern nations is the flow of information and its accuracy. In the west we imbed journalists with frontline troops to get a sense of what is really going on and often it’s uncensored as it is real time reporting.
This war pit’s authoritarian rule against democratic rule and there are two very different narratives. On the one hand Ukraine has been fairly open and honest with many things and have allowed journalistic freedom and because there is so much invested by western nations to Ukraine there is a demand for accountability which for the most part Ukraine has been open about especially in Equipment losses. However with that being said the losses of those killed and wounded have been deliberately hidden to maintain morale amongst the populace so a true accounting may not be known for years if ever.
On the other side is authoritarianism is the rule of the day where journalistic freedom is not allowed and the narrative is dictated by Moscow and no other reporting is allowed. Even propagandists must toe the line and even if they know it’s not true must report it as directed by Moscow. We may never know the true amount of deaths and wounded that have occurred as in addition to mobile crematoriums the Russian military has taken to digging mass graves up to 50 feet deep and tossing the dead in and burying the evidence in hopes it will never be found.
What is known however is Ukraine has excellent morale and has well trained and well armed troops with more being trained every day and equipping more and more western tech, armour and vehicles. Add to that Ukraine has novel approaches to using drones, artillery and tanks that the west never even dreamed about.
On the Russian side you have poor morale, poor leadership coupled with lack of trained and equipped personnel(lots of evidence to support that claim) and reports of Russia pulling 1950s era equipment out of storage, refurbishing and sending off to the front lines.(tanks, artillery, APCs and IFVs)
Nobody knows how much longer the war will go on and whether it will expand to other nations or will one side or the other finally say Uncle and negotiate an end to the war.
Woah! That one made me hit the research thank you.
Westbrook Pegler had a long career but during his peak he had a reach probably more than any journalist today. Tucker, an avowed Populist comes to mind and like Pegler has a varied career with evolving viewpoints. I don’t know in Today’s world he has the same reach. Pegler was in 144 newspapers but I would still say many could go without seeing him.
You also need to consider other mediums now. Would a Joe Rogan qualify? Maybe Ben Shapiro but I don’t consider Shapiro a populist. Tucker is my favorite man of the people journalist even though he will come up with some poor interviews he does not shrink from controversy.
Todays world seems like everything is a niche and the old mass media has lost its power to convince. How would you evaluate the reach of media today versus 1944? Has Tik tok become the major news media of today?
That’s the power of the internet, though the powers that be have been and are trying harder neutering it.
The media has only itself to blame for their increasing irrelevance over the years, especially lately. Their standards have fallen so low it’s pathetic. That’s not even mentioning the utter contempt they have for the public at large and the lack of integrity. And no, Tiktok isn’t much better either.
P.S. I don’t think the media was much better in 1944, even though it had more influence. Certainly had more integrity, but even then, the media threw it away sometimes (see coverage of the Holodomor and the Katyn massacre for examples)
I don’t know the exact situation and I don’t trust McGregor who keeps using the same number forever 400K dead. But also the Fact Checking had its problems and was partisan. Trying to fact check both sides
For on he accused McGregor of playing the “Straw man” argument as he stated that no one said Ukraine was winning. Maybe true but there was a lot of hype before the offensive and e.g. Joe Biden said that Russia already had lost the war.
As for F-16s the "fact checker " a great presentation on why the F-16 is still relevant when they come online next year. OK McGregor said they are old and these are Dutch write-offs so there is something to say for that. I agree with sending the F-16s to Ukraine BUT hope they can get all the updates. There are a lot of details flying around and the “Fact Checker” mentions the Harm and Ritter then points out that the range of the Harm is insufficient.
In my view it are just 2 people who have an opinion and let details fly in the ether. This war is incredibly complex and while these details get copied by laypeople like us these in no way create a decent picture.
Oh and in an interview it is easier to misspeak an acronym than when making a slick video online. So I don’t really like to jump on the bandwagon. The only thing that seems obvious that after 550 days of war in such a large area the casualties must be massive. Dead/wounded/traumatized and not to mention the large number of extra health problems because of the unaffordable food prices.
So I don’t trust these people although I see they have a separate belief systems which drives them to partisan.
Major General Bakshi has a pretty interesting view. In short the Ukranian offensive has failed to crush the “Battle of Kursk” inspired defenses. BUT the Ukrainians are keeping reserves in place to stave of the Russian counterattack. But this might go on in next years
Not what I want to hear but nevertheless…
As for casualties, Willy OAM does not trust the figures BUT the casualties must be huge as:
1 Russia keeps looking for new recruits in the poorer parts of the Country
2 Ukraine wants to mobilize students who were exempt And really lowers the standards for forced conscription by scrapping a lot of medical exemptions. He uses Ukranian sources (well you are welcome to prove me wrong).
Also fired Ukrainian Defense Minister, was that for corruption which had been going on for ages or maybe they need a scapegoat for the “failed offensive”.
The mysterie and mass slaughter will continue
Chew
Oh well make up your own mih
But Russia loosing the war does not make this war a winn to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian people are the loosers in this war. But they do not have an alternative to victory.
I watched both of these videos. Wily I tend to think gives a fairly balanced view while the mustache gave a fairly pro Russian view.
I think both sides have been hard pressed. The Ukrainian offensive has used several different tactics but have shown the hard cost of advancing into mines and artillery without having other options. It reached the 1st major defensive line but I don’t know how much farther they will go. On the other hand the Russian drive on Kupyansk seems to have made equally little headway. This looks like a stalemate. I don’t see Russia about to have a knockout blow nor do I see Ukraine reaching even Tokmok this year and that was only the first major goal.
I don’t know what the casualties are. Too high for sure. I see no evidence of the 400k Ukrainian dead but 100k would not surprise me. But I just don’t know.
Both sides economies are in deep shit. Europe is in recession and God knows I expect the US may follow. It’s closer to gut check time for everyone and winter will be tough.
While by no means comprehensive it does show what Russians claim to have killed or wounded and why those figures are way out to lunch
Created a separate post from the above. Everybody is making noise about how slow the Ukrainian advance is and a lot has to do with mine fields as the Russians created a nightmare scenario for deminers.
There are tons of videos and articles on this subject but in one field that was approximately 30 hectares that Ukrainians recently liberated 5 teams of deminers spent three weeks clearing the field and pulled up 27,906 anti-tank mines of which about 30% were boobytrapped and 5612 anti-personnel mines.
This is the primary reason the offensive is going so slow as it is estimated that just in the Robotyne sector there are well over one million mines that the Russians planted. It will be a long slow process and the irony is the deminers are reusing any mine that is still good against the Russians.
Tit for tat
I am satisfied with Ukrainian progress. I check the maps every day. Even with air supremacy this woUld not be easy. If they can breach this line they will advance a few fields and hit another line. They seem to be using combat teams rather than brigade size maneuvers.
They are doing all they can but in a few weeks rain then snow will slow any advance. I can’t conceive of crossing minefields covered by snow.
In don’t know. I can see that people might see him as “Pro Russian” but maybe in his mind his view is not pro-Russian but just stating how he sees it and putting his reputation on the line. Bakshi also commended the Ukranians for keeping their reserves out of the frontline to save them to stop the counterattack. Also Bakshi doesn’t have predictions for last year.
As for casualties, I am not sure how to see evidence for a 100.000 or even 400.000 KIA (or just casualties) or whatever if thermobaric bombs obliterate everything. In his first video just before the war Willy warned about massive casualties. I doubt if we will ever know the real numbers. Numbers are used as propaganda value, after Bakhmut the Russian casualties were set to a round 100.000 without any mentioning of Ukrainian casualties. Sounds fishy to me well any source is fishy. And for me it is tempting to think from a “pegged number” from propaganda but if I don’t know the numbers there is and infinite range to choose from. In 550 days a lot of people can become a casualty.
Also the youtubers tends to show videos that are provided by Russia and the Ukraine, they don’t make these videos themselves just relay what they get and add comments. In Desert Storm we called this embedded journalist (same principle)
I would LIKE the UKRAINE to drive the Russian back but
1 I still do see a risk that if Russia will lose, tactical nukes are still on the table and these are the only real game changers. RAND also warned for them. So that could be an option.
2 Another option which to me makes sense:Biden/Democrats need a victory before the 2024 election. They can declare victory after an Afghanistan style disappearing act. With NO US casualties and it blaming the Ukranians for not doing their job. Yes this is horrible behaviour but is that beneath the politicians?
Lots of NATO/UN forces died in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali. Among others these missions have been abandoned. This can happen to Ukraine as well. At that point Nato countries still have their article 5 and Nuclear Umbrella to protect them. The US can get out of Dodge easily and did, Ukraine can’t.
AND STATING AGAIN.
This is what might happen as which is something else then wanting it to happen!
One of the burning questions about the Ukrainian war is how many dead, wounded, missing and POWs there are on both sides.
Estimates from the US, GB, NATO and the belligerents cannot agree on the dead, wounded and missing.
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Estimates for Ukrainian military deaths range from 18,000(Ukrainian estimates) to 295,000(Russian estimates) in the middle are US military estimates at 70,000 to British estimates at 50,000 dead.
For Ukrainian wounded the estimates are more centralized but Ukrainian estimates are low (71,000)and Russian estimates are high(605,000) most NATO countries peg the wounded at 100,000 to 150,000.
For Ukrainian POWs it’s estimated by the Americans and British to be between 6,000-8,000. Ukraine says 4,100 of its soldiers are POWs. As of August 2023 just over 2,400 Ukrainian military POWs and 132 civilians had been released.
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Russian dead again run the gamut with Russia admitting to just over 18,000 to Ukraine saying there are 270,000 dead Russians. American estimates put the Russian dead at 120-140,000 and the British estimates at 90-100,000 Russian dead.
For Russian wounded the estimate 800,000 by Ukraine while Russia admits to 27,000 wounded. NATO is more centralized in the figures with 250,000 to 350,000 wounded.
As to Russian POWs it’s estimated that some 9,000-11,000 are POWs. Russia has stated only 500 Russians are POWs however as of August 2023 903 Russian POWs had been released in Prisoner exchanges
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PMC Wagner totals are separate from Russian totals
PMC Wagner put their losses at 22,000 and just over 40,000 wounded
Admitted to at least 210 Wagners are POWs
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As you can see the numbers are all over the board and there will likely never be a completely accurate picture of the dead and wounded.