Posted on 03/22/2022 6:24:36 PM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
Military losses have mounted, progress has slowed, and a blame game has begun among some Russian supporters of the war.
In January, the head of a group of serving and retired Russian military officers declared that invading Ukraine would be “pointless and extremely dangerous.” It would kill thousands, he said, make Russians and Ukrainians enemies for life, risk a war with NATO and threaten “the existence of Russia itself as a state.”
To many Russians, that seemed like a far-fetched scenario, since few imagined that an invasion of Ukraine was really possible. But two months later, as Russia’s advance stalls in Ukraine, the prophecy looms large. Reached by phone this week, the retired general who authored the declaration, Leonid Ivashov, said he stood by it, though he could not speak freely given Russia’s wartime censorship: “I do not disavow what I said.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Igor Girkin, a former colonel in Russia’s F.S.B. intelligence agency and the former “defense minister” of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, said in a video interview posted online on Monday that Russia had made a “catastrophically incorrect assessment” of Ukraine’s forces.”
In January, the head of a group of serving and retired Russian military officers declared that invading Ukraine would be “pointless and extremely dangerous.” It would kill thousands, he said, make Russians and Ukrainians enemies for life, risk a war with NATO and threaten “the existence of Russia itself as a state.”
““There was probably the hope that they wouldn’t resist so intensely,” Yevgeny Buzhinsky, a retired lieutenant general and a regular Russian state television commentator, said of Ukraine’s forces. “They were expected to be more reasonable.””
Those damn unreasonable Ukrainians!
“As if responding to criticism, Mr. Putin has said repeatedly in his public comments about the war that it is going “according to plan.””
“We can definitively say that nothing is going to plan,” countered Pavel Luzin, a Russian military analyst. “It has been decades since the Soviet and Russian armies have seen such great losses in such a short period of time.”
“Russia last announced its combat losses three weeks ago — 498 deaths as of March 2. American officials now say that a conservative estimate puts the Russian military death toll at 7,000. Russia says it lost a total of 11,000 service members in nearly a decade of fighting in Chechnya.”
This article is bringing me so much joy. Tis the season.
The failures in Ukraine have started to create fissures within Russian leadership, according to Andrei Soldatov, an author and expert on Russia’s military and security services. The top Russian intelligence official in charge of overseeing the recruitment of spies and diversionary operations in Ukraine has been put under house arrest along with his deputy, Mr. Soldatov said. Even Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, who vacations with Mr. Putin and has been spoken of as a potential presidential successor, has suffered a loss of standing, according to Mr. Soldatov’s sources.
“It looks like everybody is on edge,” Mr. Soldatov said.
Mr. Soldatov’s claims could not be independently verified, and some independent experts have challenged them. But Mr. Shoigu has not been shown meeting with Mr. Putin in person since Feb. 27, when he and his top military commander, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, sat at the end of a long table as Mr. Putin, on the opposite end, ordered them to place Russia’s nuclear forces at a higher level of readiness.
NYT - propagandists.
Russia too much Macho and no brains , remember Stalin killed all the smart Russians
Is this the 4th or 5th time Russia has collapsed today? Hard to keep track.
According to NYT, it was FACT that there were WMDs in Iraq, and the only acceptable course of action was a stupid 12 year-long war that killed a million people.
Amazing how some of our fellow Freepers are taking as gospel what the NY Slimes and the rest of the MSM are reporting about the fighting in Ukraine. This is the same media that has lied to us about COVID for the last two years and pushed the fake Russia collusion narrative during the entire Trump presidency. Why would they start telling the truth now?
Funny to watch CIA narratives pushed right on regime change schedule. Soon we will learn the name of the leader of the color revolution in Moscow. This is just the street leader, the person Nuland has selected to be the new President will stay in the background a bit longer.
They expected the Ukrainians to meet them with flowers, and
recognize them as their saviors.
You’ve got to be sniffing industrial grade SR-71 glue to be
that clueless.
As much as this sounds like good news, I’m really not inclined to believe the NYSlimes.
“According to NYT, it was FACT that there were WMDs in Iraq, and the only acceptable course of action was a stupid 12 year-long war that killed a million people.”
America was scared after 9/11, so the American establishment and politicians sent the US military into Mesopotamia looking for WW1 technology..... otherwise known as WMD’s.
I’ll never forget the Bush administration sending Colin “the puppet” Powell to the UN with a box of crayons & an etch a sketch.
Meanwhile, House Republicans were renaming French fries....Freedom fries.
The “glory days” of our Constitutional Republic.(Sarcasm)
If someone offs Putin watch the Russians retreat fast and abandon their equipment. Unfinished business would involve Belarus and Crimea/Donbass.
It’s even funnier to watch Putinists declare victory over such a miserable failure. 10k+ dead Russians. Half a dozen general officers KIA in just a few weeks. A total clown show directed from the Kremlin that is befitting of any tin pot African dictator.
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