8 ms·

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Mujahideen had a phrase, "You have the watches, we have the time."

BitwiseFool 5y ago
In your assessment, who has the time in this scenario? Russia? Europe? Ukraine?
- tarboreus 5y ago
  Russia has the watches. Ukraine has the time. Not sure if I agree in this circumstance, but traditionally insurgency is something of a waiting game.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    I feel the same way. I wasn't sure if Russia had some long-game tactical advantage I was hitherto unaware of and wanted to ask.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    I've barely followed what's going on in the conflict, but I think some regions of Eastern Ukraine are the insurgents with respect to the Ukraine government. So in their case perhaps they've had the time for the past years and finally Ukraine's watches are winding down there. Great proverb.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Then maybe you should go bone up on what has happened in the last week or so before commenting? Things have moved quite a bit compared to the state that you describe, to put it very mildly.
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
        No I know enough to know about the separatist regions, if not by propaganda then by actual action because western governments have begun to scrutinize business dealings with entities in those separatist regions, not just Russia. If everybody had to be actual experts in something before commenting on it here, there would be zero comments about any Russia/Ukraine story. Aside from that It's extremely difficult to get reliable information from any source I have found about the details of the situation. I've not seen anything that is contrary to what I said though. Maybe you can enlighten me.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Too much to summarize but you can start here: https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent they're pretty good and if they make mistakes they admit them and correct.
        throwawaylinux 5y ago
        So you're unable to even point out what part of my comment was not correct or outdated. Doesn't sound like you actually even know. Maybe you should take your own advice with respect to commenting then.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        It reads as though you completely missed the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that therefore the situation you describe is technically correct but taken as a fragment of the whole currently utterly irrelevant.
        throwawaylinux 5y ago
        I can't help that you "read" something I did not write, and can not follow the context of the discussion. In context it's clear I was talking about this situation of the separatist regions contrasting with the situation of Russia occupying Ukraine. So you're totally out to lunch if you think I completely missed that.
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist? Russia claims that the Russians that are fighting there are "volunteers". So basically everybody in that region knows very well who they are really fighting. Not Ukrainians but Russian "volunteers". Ukrainians have both the time (they tasted western freedom and don't want to go back, russian troops need to be paid by the day) and the watches (javlins, stingers, US intelligence and now extra jet fighters)
      - cudgy 5y ago
        > All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. How do you know this to be the case?
        koonsolo 5y ago
        Charkov is mainly Russian speaking. Show me the media where they are welcoming their invaders. Here is the media of the current situation. Doesn't seem very welcoming does it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0x9pqYqvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0x9pqYqvs https://youtu.be/XnTGHUCN7SQ?t=75 https://youtu.be/XnTGHUCN7SQ?t=75
        jacquesm 5y ago
        The bravery on display makes me choke up. People seem to make the mistake to think that the citizens that speak Russian are automatically pro Russian. But that isn't the case, they are Lithuanians first for the most part.
        cudgy 5y ago
        Good luck finding video on YouTube favorable to any Russian viewpoints. “The media” is cultivated to display or at least promote the main narrative of the US policymakers.
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
        > All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. I didn't say they wanted Russian occupation necessarily, just that they were separatist from Ukraine. They were all significantly in favor of Ukrainian independence from USSR of course. > So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist? Are you in denial of the existence of Ukrainian separatist regions and the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic?
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Ukraine has the time, in the sense that each day that the Russian army is delayed there are more chances that someone in Russia will decide to get rid of Putin. This is roughly what happens to every dictator that doesn't know when to stop, and usually dictators are so much self confident that they soon lose any contact with reality. Putin has gone too far and now he can't withdraw because that would be his political death, and can't drag things for too long because of the above reason, therefore he hopes to bring Ukrainians to their knees as quick as possible, but that can't be achieved without hitting indiscriminately lots of civilians, therefore no matter how it ends, he's already fucked. Also, he presumably knows all skeletons in the closet kept by the oligarchs, so it's very likely that if an international arrest warrant is issued, he'll rather be executed in Russia than surrendered.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    That is wishful thinking. Despite the initial blunders, Russia is advancing in Ukraine at the same pace Germany was in Poland. And it's unlikely they'll get worse as time goes on (the Wehrmacht in its time used Poland to massively improve their operational readiness). Dictators in times of war, in countries subjected to isolation, tend to stick around. And even then, the absence of Putin doesn't mean the general trajectory of Russia would change. I really don't see much hope for Ukraine, and considering the size of the NATO fast response teams, I expect more countries to fold before Russia starts stalling. I'd say every country without its own autonomous nuclear arsenal is at risk. That's includes everyone under America's umbrella.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      You and the parent comment are operating on totally different time scales. Russia will "win" the invasion. But so long as enough Ukrainians (it need only be a small minority) would prefer to die than be subjugated and there are enough others to materially support them the conclusion is a forgone one. The Russian people will run out of fucks to give long before Ukraine runs out of people.
      - Bayart 5y ago
- outside1234 5y ago
  Russia is going to run out of money at this rate. This is not a rich country.
  - thebeastie 5y ago
    They’re not, while Europe keeps buying their energy.
FuckButtons 5y ago
The mujahideen also had the mountains of Afghanistan. Anyone who is under the illusion that Ukraine can mount a similar insurgency to the afghans has not studied much history.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  There are also other factors at play, such as that there are a lot more funds available.
- outside1234 5y ago
  They have skyscrapers. I would be terrified as a Russian soldier to walk in Kyiv. Only a matter of time until you get sniped, cocktail'ed -- or worse.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Or drive there, the number of Javelins and RPGs in circulation handily outnumbers the number of tanks and armored vehicles. It would be like driving into a meatgrinder.
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      Or fly for that matter, with all the Stingers. I can't imagine flying some expensive attack helicopter, and at any time some Volodymyr can pop out behind a corner with a Stinger and a finger on the trigger.
  - FuckButtons 5y ago
    Skyscrapers can be flattened with enough artillery. The Hindu Kush cannot.
- bouvin 5y ago
  After WW2, Ukrainian partisans fought on until the late forties – without the foreign aid that be expected this time.
- alamortsubite 5y ago

BitwiseFool 5y ago

In your assessment, who has the time in this scenario? Russia? Europe? Ukraine?

tarboreus 5y ago
Russia has the watches. Ukraine has the time. Not sure if I agree in this circumstance, but traditionally insurgency is something of a waiting game.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I feel the same way. I wasn't sure if Russia had some long-game tactical advantage I was hitherto unaware of and wanted to ask.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  I've barely followed what's going on in the conflict, but I think some regions of Eastern Ukraine are the insurgents with respect to the Ukraine government. So in their case perhaps they've had the time for the past years and finally Ukraine's watches are winding down there. Great proverb.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Then maybe you should go bone up on what has happened in the last week or so before commenting? Things have moved quite a bit compared to the state that you describe, to put it very mildly.
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      No I know enough to know about the separatist regions, if not by propaganda then by actual action because western governments have begun to scrutinize business dealings with entities in those separatist regions, not just Russia. If everybody had to be actual experts in something before commenting on it here, there would be zero comments about any Russia/Ukraine story. Aside from that It's extremely difficult to get reliable information from any source I have found about the details of the situation. I've not seen anything that is contrary to what I said though. Maybe you can enlighten me.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Too much to summarize but you can start here: https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent they're pretty good and if they make mistakes they admit them and correct.
        throwawaylinux 5y ago
        So you're unable to even point out what part of my comment was not correct or outdated. Doesn't sound like you actually even know. Maybe you should take your own advice with respect to commenting then.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        It reads as though you completely missed the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that therefore the situation you describe is technically correct but taken as a fragment of the whole currently utterly irrelevant.
        throwawaylinux 5y ago
        I can't help that you "read" something I did not write, and can not follow the context of the discussion. In context it's clear I was talking about this situation of the separatist regions contrasting with the situation of Russia occupying Ukraine. So you're totally out to lunch if you think I completely missed that.
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist? Russia claims that the Russians that are fighting there are "volunteers". So basically everybody in that region knows very well who they are really fighting. Not Ukrainians but Russian "volunteers". Ukrainians have both the time (they tasted western freedom and don't want to go back, russian troops need to be paid by the day) and the watches (javlins, stingers, US intelligence and now extra jet fighters)
    - cudgy 5y ago
      > All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. How do you know this to be the case?
      - koonsolo 5y ago
        Charkov is mainly Russian speaking. Show me the media where they are welcoming their invaders. Here is the media of the current situation. Doesn't seem very welcoming does it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0x9pqYqvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0x9pqYqvs https://youtu.be/XnTGHUCN7SQ?t=75 https://youtu.be/XnTGHUCN7SQ?t=75
        jacquesm 5y ago
        The bravery on display makes me choke up. People seem to make the mistake to think that the citizens that speak Russian are automatically pro Russian. But that isn't the case, they are Lithuanians first for the most part.
        cudgy 5y ago
        Good luck finding video on YouTube favorable to any Russian viewpoints. “The media” is cultivated to display or at least promote the main narrative of the US policymakers.
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      > All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. I didn't say they wanted Russian occupation necessarily, just that they were separatist from Ukraine. They were all significantly in favor of Ukrainian independence from USSR of course. > So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist? Are you in denial of the existence of Ukrainian separatist regions and the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic?
squarefoot 5y ago
Ukraine has the time, in the sense that each day that the Russian army is delayed there are more chances that someone in Russia will decide to get rid of Putin. This is roughly what happens to every dictator that doesn't know when to stop, and usually dictators are so much self confident that they soon lose any contact with reality. Putin has gone too far and now he can't withdraw because that would be his political death, and can't drag things for too long because of the above reason, therefore he hopes to bring Ukrainians to their knees as quick as possible, but that can't be achieved without hitting indiscriminately lots of civilians, therefore no matter how it ends, he's already fucked. Also, he presumably knows all skeletons in the closet kept by the oligarchs, so it's very likely that if an international arrest warrant is issued, he'll rather be executed in Russia than surrendered.
- Bayart 5y ago
  That is wishful thinking. Despite the initial blunders, Russia is advancing in Ukraine at the same pace Germany was in Poland. And it's unlikely they'll get worse as time goes on (the Wehrmacht in its time used Poland to massively improve their operational readiness). Dictators in times of war, in countries subjected to isolation, tend to stick around. And even then, the absence of Putin doesn't mean the general trajectory of Russia would change. I really don't see much hope for Ukraine, and considering the size of the NATO fast response teams, I expect more countries to fold before Russia starts stalling. I'd say every country without its own autonomous nuclear arsenal is at risk. That's includes everyone under America's umbrella.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    You and the parent comment are operating on totally different time scales. Russia will "win" the invasion. But so long as enough Ukrainians (it need only be a small minority) would prefer to die than be subjugated and there are enough others to materially support them the conclusion is a forgone one. The Russian people will run out of fucks to give long before Ukraine runs out of people.
    - Bayart 5y ago
outside1234 5y ago
Russia is going to run out of money at this rate. This is not a rich country.
- thebeastie 5y ago
  They’re not, while Europe keeps buying their energy.

FuckButtons 5y ago

The mujahideen also had the mountains of Afghanistan. Anyone who is under the illusion that Ukraine can mount a similar insurgency to the afghans has not studied much history.

jacquesm 5y ago
There are also other factors at play, such as that there are a lot more funds available.
outside1234 5y ago
They have skyscrapers. I would be terrified as a Russian soldier to walk in Kyiv. Only a matter of time until you get sniped, cocktail'ed -- or worse.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Or drive there, the number of Javelins and RPGs in circulation handily outnumbers the number of tanks and armored vehicles. It would be like driving into a meatgrinder.
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    Or fly for that matter, with all the Stingers. I can't imagine flying some expensive attack helicopter, and at any time some Volodymyr can pop out behind a corner with a Stinger and a finger on the trigger.
- FuckButtons 5y ago
  Skyscrapers can be flattened with enough artillery. The Hindu Kush cannot.
bouvin 5y ago
After WW2, Ukrainian partisans fought on until the late forties – without the foreign aid that be expected this time.
alamortsubite 5y ago