Comments by "David Ford" (@davidford3115) on "Inside the "Black Sea Grain Initiative": Why Russia Lifted Its Blockade of Ukraine" video.

@Kasper I don't disagree that Turkey is the odd man out in NATO. But I look at it from a different perspective. Turkey could turn to its Muslim neighbors who depend so heavily on Russian and Ukrainian wheat and claim that THEY were the ones to secure the world's food supplies. That is a very powerful message to send. Turkey is looking to expand its influence, and this was the perfect opportunity.
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@juicebox86 Then you don't believe in treaty negotiations. History has shown time and again that you DO have to sit at the table with an aggressor to officially end hostilities. The only question is, do you have the stronger position or do they?
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A bigger issue is if Ukraine choose to even let those areas go. They many not and may instead opt to fight for six or seven years in an attritional battle to gain them back. That is where the author miscalculates with his fancy lines on a map. Ukraine's yellow line may be at the original Russian-Ukrainian border. On another tangent, if their offensive in Kherson is successful, they may turn south to Crimea rather than north to Donesk. From a strategic point, Crimea gives Ukraine more strategic options than simply pushing into Donbas.
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@mitri5389 Useless fronts? The fact that Ukraine has managed to fight a numerically superior foe to an effective draw show that their actions are anything but useless. If anything, Russia is the one dividing its forces making them weaker overall.
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@juicebox86 As George S. Patton famously said, "you are not defeated until you admit defeat". Ukraine refuses to admit defeat and why should they? The fact that they fought a numerically superior foe to an effective draw show that Russia is NOT in a very strong position. The author of the video is wrong about wars only lasting a few months. MOST wars actually last for at least THREE years. The Ukrainians are barely six months into this war. As many have pointed out, all of Ukraine was overrun by the Germans in less than six months during Operation: Barbarossa. The Soviets stopped them at the tractor factory in Stalingrad. And a little more than two years after that, the Third Reich fell. Try looking at the battle maps of WW2 in that part of the world. The Ukrainians today have defended a number of cities using almost the exact same strategies as the defenders did in WW2. In many cases, they have been MORE successful than in WW2. So, no. You are counting your eggs before they have hatched. This war is FAR from over and you need to open your mind beyond your flawed preconceived notions.
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To paraphrase Winston Chruchill, "capitalism is the worst form of economics.... except for everything else that has been tried from time to time"
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Bootlicker.
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Ukraine's rail gauge is NOT the same as the West. Also, kilo for kilo water travel though slower and longer is VASTLY cheaper than rail transit. it is why shipping via rivers and locks is still widely in use around the world. Indeed, the largest transportation of Goods in the US is up and down the Mississippi River.
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@edwhite7078 Uh, dude, you clearly don't understand that the cars themselves can't change gage unless they have been specifically built to operate on more than one. And even then, the wheels take time to be adjusted from one to the other. Oh, and since you don't actually understand what gauge is, it is the length of the space between the rails. In the former Soviet bloc, the gauge is 1,520 mm. In Western Europe, the space is 1,435 mm. The best thing Ukraine can do is simply lay down an extra rail so that Western cars can run on their rails. And while yes, you COULD unload from one car to another, that take time and time is money making the transition across the border more expensive in terms of labor costs. It is quite clear you have no understanding of logistics much less the economics of trade. Speed of delivery has a cost. Volume has a cost. Trucks are the fastest, and most versatile, but also the most expensive per kilo. Shipping via water is the cheapest per kilo, but also the slowest in terms of delivery. Rail falls somewhere in between those two extremes. And Air delivery is its own separate category.
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@edwhite7078 Calling me a bot means you don't have an argument; it is just tacit admission you can't argue the merits. I am talking about transport of one thing and one thing only: the wheat and grain which was the original point of discussion. You, however, are trying to move the goal posts (logical fallacy) by trying to make it about arms imports which was NOT part of the original discussion. But I get it, you are making excuses because you can't defend your position. You engage in ad hominin attacks (logical fallacy, again) because you know you are wrong and so attempt to discredit the messenger because you can't debate.
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@edwhite7078 I am not missing the point, you are moving the goal posts because I refuted your argument and now you can't defend your position. By saying you don't want to argue about certain things, you are basically admitting that you know you have lost the debate.
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@edwhite7078 I have clearly "triggered" you with you putting three posts one after other. Once again that shows you are making an emotional outburst rather than a coherent logic based argument. mic drop.
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@edwhite7078 Triggered again. Calling someone a bot doesn't make your argument, it is just another ad hominin logical fallacy. Here is a hint: if you find yourself in a hole, STOP DIGGING. "I learned long ago never to wrestle with pigs. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it," -George Bernard Shaw.
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Sadly, I fear you are correct. Long past are the days when the most thoughtful, most considerate rulers of nations. Instead, the world is ruled by petulant children who have grown up with a silver spoon in their mouth. World rulers today are weaklings who have never personally experienced hardship and difficulty.
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Nope. Thye just resort to classic Soviet tactics and strategies, which are VERY easy to predict and hence defeat.
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Transnistria? They can't even hold Snake Island, let alone capture Odessa. Keep drinking the vodka buddy, it is the only way you can keep from facing reality.
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@republica843 North Korea is not going to send soldiers to Ukraine. It is too great of a danger that they would defect like the guy who dashed across the DMZ. Further, once those soldiers saw what Russia and Ukraine was like, the Kimmies could never let them return home. It would shatter the lie told to the people that North Korea is the most technologically advanced society in the world. Those soldiers would return home knowing that their entire perspective of the world is a complete fabrication. Kind of like what happened with Soviet WW2 veterans who were all sent to the gulags after the war. Also, North Koreans love Choco Pies, and will gladly defect for them.
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@richardgray3112 And if Russia using a nuke, you can be guaranteed that Moscow will become a radioactive crater. Try playing the game "13 Days" based off the Cuban missile crisis. It will give you a better understanding of why such idle threats are just that. The first person to fire a nuke will be forever remembered and the person who alone caused nuclear apocalypse and the Post Atomic Horror.
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@pennyhardaway7491 Venezuela is a resource rich nation yet it is also a failed state. The problem goes down to the fact that strongmen (ie dictators and despots) tend to ruin their nations either through war or gross mismanagement. And while Putin was initially a good manager, since the start of the invasion, he has proven to the West that it was simply a shiny facade.
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@juicebox86 You clearly have zero idea about what you are talking about. Russia will only have that power if they crush Ukraine, which is highly unlikely at this point. I would compare it to the jingoist boast of Admiral Yamamoto saying he would dictate terms from the White House, but then that is not being entirely honest about what Yamamoto meant.
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How? Turkey under the Montreux Convention had already limited both Russia and non-Black Sea powers as to how many ships of military purpose could travel into and out of the Black Sea. Only members of NATO WITH a Black Sea Coast could have conceivably enforced such a blockade.
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@yam2050 You don't have to live in Russia to know what is going on inside the country. Information OUTSIDE of official mouthpieces of Putin's government is filtering out.
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@Aditya Chavarkar Land wise, yes. Population wise, not so much. The bigger issue is the legacy of the old Soviet Union.
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@mitri5389 Boy you have that bass ackwards. Your description applies to Russia, not Ukraine. It is Putin who is getting desperate to find recruits. Russia has been stopped dead in its tracks on the Kharkiv front, and they are boxed in at Kherson; there are no more intact bridges that can sustain heavy vehicles. Then you have the fact that bases in Crimea are now under fire.
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One can only hope.
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Indeed. They are just wishful thinking and fail to consider that Ukraine's line may be nothing less than all of the occupied territories, while Russia's line may be all of Ukraine.
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@randomdude8202 Well, and it would violate the Montreux Convention.
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Lebanon seized a Russia ship suspected of carrying stolen Ukrainian grain. You don't think that ALL Russian shipments would not also be impounded?
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@Kasper Hunger makes people desperate. Do keep in mind that during the North Korean Famine, they were eating their dead.
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@koreystuart7054 That is for Ukraine to decide, not you or some outside force. If the Ukrainians want to fight for six or seven years to take back the occupied territories, that is their choice.
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@koreystuart7054 Yeah, that would be nice, but it is wishful thinking. The Ukrainians have proven that they will settle for nothing less than the complete liberation of the occupied territories. Russia has shown they want nothing less than the complete subjugation of Ukraine. It is the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.
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@ArlindBraka Yeah, tell that to MacArthur during the Solomons campaign. Or Patton in Tunesia. Or Rommell in Libya. There IS some merit to landing further down the coast and surrounding the opposing force. That being said, I don't think Russia can do it because they are nominally a CONTINENTAL military, and their Navy power is drastically weaker that the old Soviet Union.
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I think Winston Chruchill said it best: " I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." -Radio broadcast, 1 October 1939
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