Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "Professor Gerdes Explains 🇺🇦 " channel.

Rather like a drunk saying the tree jumped out onto the road in front of his car.
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Problem is that, until recently, the US didn't have the replacement for the ATACMS in production. So they only had their current stocks in warehouses, since they weren't producing ATACMS anymore. Now that the ATACMS replacement is in production and being released for use, ATACMS are on the table. Remember that the US has to worry about attacks on NATO countries, Taiwan and South Korea. Supplying equipment to Ukraine is a bit of a juggling act to keep sufficient ammo available for helping to defend both of these nations AND supply Ukraine with what it needs. Also, because ATACMS has been in storage for a while, they all have to be tested and verified that they are actually working, and not like some of the garbage that Russia is sending to the front lines.
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I can just imagine a President Vivek Ramaswamy coming down the steps of Air Force One after visiting Putin in Moscow saying, "We will have peace in our time". His whole stance, indeed his entire statement about how he would have the US and Russia negotiating Ukraine's future echoes that of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. When will people learn you cannot negotiate or appease a dictator? Or as George Santayana rightly said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
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One thing I did to calculate the possible Russian death toll was to take the estimates of the total number of Russian troops who were sent into Ukraine, and subtracted the number currently estimated to be fighting in Ukraine. Given that Russia was completely incapable of really countering either the Wagner mutiny, the Freedom of Russia forays into Russia, and the fact that border troops from the China border are now reported in Ukraine, I came up with this approximation: Initial Russian forces Feb. 24: 280,000 Wagner Forces: about 10-20,000 DPR and LNR Forces: about 60,000 Spring 2022 recruitment: 134,500 Mobilization: 300,000 Fall 2022 recruitment: 120,000 Kaliningrad garrison: 10,000 Far East Units: 10,000-20,000 So, adding these figures together we get a minimum of 924,000 Russian soldiers have served in Ukraine to date. We might be able to add another 60K LPR and DPR press-ganged soldiers and 30K prisoners fighting for Wagner and the Russian MOD, plus perhaps other regular Russian units from other regions. Now, I may have this wrong, but from what I recall from one online program, the Russian MOD currently have the following troop strengths in Ukraine: Luhansk Front: 150,000 Donetsk/Bakhmut Front: 50-100,000 Zaporizhzhia Front: 150,000 Kherson Front: 50,000 This gives us a total of 450,000 troops, more or less. So, where are the remaining 500,000 Russian troops, given that we have evidence that there has been no leave or rotation of units, and no reserves in Russia itself? The numbers suggest that Russia has suffered at least 500K casualties, of which 150,000 are KIA and a further 300-350,000 WIA (using WW2 ratios of killed to wounded). And given that I have lowballed some of my figures, that Russia has been tossing construction workers into the front lines and cleverly concealing recruitment drives, this could be much higher.
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At least the one thing I was afraid of didn't happen. Which was that Trump would have Zelensky arrested and hand him over to the Russians.
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Your analysis of Scott Ritter pretty much aligns with mine - he has a massive chip on his shoulder. Indeed, I would say that holds true for MacGregor and Redacted. All three engaged in what could be questionable activity, suffered the consequences for it, and are now using the internet to lash out, using the Russo-Ukrainian War as a portal to vent their bruised egos. In my eyes, if it weren't for the potential harm they are causing it would make them rather pitiable individuals.
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The warhead carried by those missiles may be insufficient to cause severe damage to the bridge. They probably need a missile carrying a 2000lb or greater warhead to put the bridge out of action.
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What is really funny is that Kim is saying he is providing full support to Russia. So, where are the North Korean munitions? North Korean artillery pieces? North Korean tanks? North Korean troops? Kim's support seems a little thin on the ground, if you ask me. And Hinkle doesn't seem to notice this at all.
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@Tedagens7168 HIs other problem is that he was passed over for promotion several times, possibly because of his openly stated views on race, gender, etc. He was eventually tossed out of his position at West Point in part because of his bigotry and mysogyny. Like Ritter he has a chip on his shoulder several miles wide, and so is likewise speaking out against a government and military organization that he feels spurned him. As you say above, he has a persecution complex and is lashing out at.
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Like most Russian "combat footage". There are either major cuts, rapid changes in the scenery, "soldiers" doing things that no frontline troops would do, or there is a complete lack of return fire. There was even one case where the Russians used a piece of Ukrainian war footage and claimed it as their own! Back in July last year there was a piece of footage (shown by the Russian MOD) that claimed to be Russians taking out a M-777 unit. It started with a drone drops a grenade on an artillery crew (no idea what casualties were inflicted). After this the M-777 battery loads up and heads into the woods. Russian artillery starts to land, but it is over 100m away from the Ukrainian battery. The scene then cut to a forested region with a highway cloverleaf. The entire area was being plastered with artillery. Thing is, none of the terrain near the cloverleaf conformed at all to the forested area containing the M-777s or fields that were being targeted by the artillery. Yet the Russians claimed they destroyed a battery of M-777s. One has to be very careful when watching Russian videos.
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I somewhat disagree with your analysis. What you say about Putin being in an echo chamber that is reflecting what he thinks and wants to hear is true, but it is only part of the picture. It only provides the reason why he felt he could pull it off. Personally, I think the reasons WHY he invaded Ukraine are as follows: 1) Putin has delusions of grandeur, and wants to recreate the Russian Empire, much as Napoleon III and Charles de Gaulle dreamt of recreating the French Empire. 2) Geopolitical, in that to achieve this dream he needs the strategic position that Crimea gives him. 3) Geopolitical, in that when Crimea was stolen from Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine blocked the North Crimea Canal and deprived the Crimean Peninsula of 85% of its water for all uses (potable, industrial and agricultural). Water reservoirs were, by February 2022, at 7% capacity, meaning most people would have had to evacuate Crimea. All of Putin's dreams would have gone down a proverbial toilet. So he attacked Ukraine to secure the water supply for Crimea. Of course that was messed up by Russia's ham-fisted handling of the Nova Khakovka Dam, so now the clock is once again ticking on Crimea. 4) Economic, in that Crimea and Donbass potentially have large reserves of natural gas and oil that Russia needs. Russia may have large petroleum reserves, but they are getting expensive to extract and ship, while Ukraine's are relatively easy to tap in comparison. 5) Economic again, but this time a Ukraine that is part of the EU could undercut Russian hydrocarbon exports, reducing their income from trading partners in the EU. So, taking Ukraine removes this threat to Russian markets (at least it did until the EU reduced dependence on Russian oil and gas). 6) Geopolitical. I suspect that Putin dreamed of getting the EU over a figurative barrel with dependence on Russian oil and gas (at least he did until the EU reduced dependence on Russian oil and gas). 7) And finally, Ukraine upset Russia's long term plans for the region by throwing out Russia's puppet and holding free elections. The invasion of both Crimea and Donbass strike me as being improvised affairs that only worked in 2014 because Ukraine was in disarray politically and militarily following the Euromaidan.
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I saw some information a couple of years ago that Zaluzhny and Zelensky knew that the invasion was likely to happen but did not inform the general public because they needed the roads clear of refugees so they could deploy their forces in the first days of the war. They wanted to avoid the road jams caused by refugees like those that hampered the Anglo-French forces during the initial days of the invasion of France in 1940. It was a hard and somewhat cold-blooded decision for them to make, but if Ukraine was going to have ANY chance to survive the Russian invasion it was the only decision that could be made. The fact that the bulk of Ukraine's command structure, airpower and AA missile batteries survived the first few days of the war shows in hindsight this was the correct decision.
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Um, WW2 lasted 6 years (September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945), from when Germany invaded Poland to the formal Japanese surrender. Add another 2 years and 2 months if you count the start of the Sino-Japanese war as the actual beginning of WW2.
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@yojo619 You know, Neville Chamberlain of the UK asked a similar question about Czechoslovakia in 1938. His comment was "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing." After doing the exact same thing that Vivek is proposing for Ukraine (negotiating directly with Russia without Ukrainian participation and coming to a compromise peace), he said, "My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time." and "I am sure that some day the Czechs will see that what we did was to save them for a happier future. And I sincerely believe that what we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos." Slightly less than 1 year later Nazi Germany invaded Poland and kicked off World War 2 in Europe. So yes, the war in Ukraine has EVERYTHING to do with the US. You forget history at your, and your country's, peril. You cannot negotiate with imperialistic, expansionistic, ultra-nationalist dictators. All that happens if you do is that it gives them the notion they can keep taking other countries.
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There are, in my opinion, three reasons why Russia hates the US: 1) Jealousy - the US has all this influence in the world, is wealthy and has everything that Russia has always wanted but cannot have because of their internal culture of autocracy and corruption. 2) Frustration - as you said, the US stands in the way of Russia being THE dominating world power. They seek to dominate others and, because of the inefficiency of their economy and industry, seek to steal resources from other nations to prevent their economy from collapsing. The US is THE main roadblock in their path for global hegemony. 3) Scapegoating - they NEED an opponent on the international stage to blame for their failings, and an enemy who can be used to focus the public's attention away from the shortcomings of their own government and society. It is easier for them to blame someone else for their own problems and for the leadership to deflect criticism away from themselves than to try the painful process of fixing them.
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Thing is, Ritter must have a pretty fragile ego if he cannot withstand criticism. I also noted in the Wikipedia article that he has a nasty habit of making a stand on a hill and is willing to die on it, i.e. he makes up his mind about something and will defend it to the death (even if he is wrong). The other stuff mentioned in the Wikipedia article contribute to this - he feels he is never wrong. In other words, he has a psychopathic or narcissistic personality.
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@majungasaurusaaaa Canada played Trump like a fiddle. As did Mexico. All we did was basically say publicly what we had quietly agreed to do with Biden.
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I have seen images that suggest that an anti-aircraft missile was shot at the plane, and video of the plane falling from the sky missing a wing. So yeah, it was a deliberate act.
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Canadians are doing the same thing by boycotting American imports. Most people are now checking labels and only buying Canadian unless they have no choice. It is already hitting American producers.
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I enjoy trolling pro-Russian posts using the simplest methodology - I give them the truth with references. It's amazing how often the trolls just stop posting after being deluged with facts.
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As a rough guideline, I have compared the equipment losses recorded in Oryx to approximate Ukrainian losses compared to Russian ones. At a guess, it appears that Ukraine has suffered around 1/3 the casualties the Russians have. But that is only a guess based on incomplete data, and doesn't take into account losses caused by artillery shelling, missile strikes on barracks, etc.
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The Kursk offensive is even more dangerous to Russia as a potential military-industrial economic disaster. Kursk is home to a lot of industry, including a complex that produces about 85% of Russia's iron and 15% of Russia's sugar. Capturing Kursk and the nearby nuclear power station could cripple the Russian war industry, especially given Russia's scorched-earth approach to offensives.
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@tellyboy17 There are several pro-Russian channels like Military and History out there. You have to really be careful which channels to watch.
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@ffff7164 I believe it has to do with the supporting material that forms the basis of the outer ears being made of cartilage, not bone. Being connective tissue, it has different properties (semi-rigid and somewhat flexible) and cannot be shaped or easily duplicated by artificial substances. Acting prosthetics might be used, but if they fell off the gig would be up. So it is safer to leave things as they are and hope people don't notice.
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Professor, something that speaks against Ukraine doing this is that they will lose the ability to navigate up and down the reservoir and strike wherever they want. It also cancels their gains downstream of the dam. However, I don't think Russia did it either. Blowing this dam will likely result in the draining of the North Crimea Canal. This canal supplies around 85% of the water used in Crimea for human consumption, industry, and agriculture. It would be like chopping off your own leg to threaten someone. It makes no real sense. Losing this canal means that in 8 years Russia will have to move the bulk of the population and military forces out of the Crimea and turning it back into a backwater Region. It would be the same as Putin eliminating one of his primary war aims, because he has little chance now to hold onto Crimea with any meaningful way. Looking at the water levels in the video, I think the most likely scenario is that the Russians didn't open the floodgates, or didn't allow the engineers to open the sluices, to reduce the water levels in the lake behind the dam. Either the dam was overtopped, or suffered a structural collapse due to the excessive amount of water exceeding the design limits of the dam. Considering the Russians blocked the primary sluice gate with earth and rubble so they could continue resupplying their troops in Kherson last fall, I suspect they had no way to empty the reservoir of excess water. So, it is a Russian-caused disaster, caused more by their own stupidity and thoughtlessness than direct action.
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@Speed-Daemon-123 Trump does rise to the occasion, like a dead fish!
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It does not help Russia at all, in fact threatens their entire ability to remain in Crimea. Around 85% of the water used in Ukraine comes from the Dnipro River from the North Crimea Canal, which originates from just behind the Nova Khakovka Dam. Without this water, Russia will need to evacuate Crimea within 8 years.
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I don't think that Trump or his toadying sycophants have realized yet that they have made it extremely unlikely that ANY reasonably honest nation will sign an agreement with them now. Or even deal with them. He has succeeded in isolating the US even further, and will soon find out that the world can get by without the US.
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I don't think Bandera is someone who should be praised or used as a national symbol for Ukraine. HIs party conducted terrorist activities (attacking post offices, assaulting police, etc.) in Poland BEFORE WW2, including the killing a Polish Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki in 1934. I am pretty sure there are others who have striven for Ukrainian independence who fit the bill much better. Like Zelensky. As a comparison, in the Philippines, Jose Rizal is considered their national hero even though he never took up arms against the Spanish or the Americans. Emilio Aguinaldo, on the other hand, although remembered is not the national hero even though he fought against both Spain and the US. Mind you, when I lived in the Philippines, there were comments to the effect that Rizal became the national hero in part because of American propagandizing.
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The point everyone is missing here is that it is NOT a government banning Scott Ritter, but Google, the company that owns Youtube. It is up to YouTube to decide if he can post or not. It is like banning someone from a restaurant or a shop. With Youtube you are using the platform at Google's discretion. If Scott Ritter wants to complain, he can either talk with Google, or take Google to court for banning him. Remember, newspapers and journalists do this all the time by refusing to report on individuals or events. The most famous example of this that I can remember is the treatment of General Meade after the Battle of the Wilderness. General Meade lost his temper with a muck-raking journalist and threw him out of the tent. The journalist got together with his buddies afterwards and they all agreed that they would attribute all the victories of the Army of the Potomac to General Grant. This action reverberates to today. People all know about Grant, very few people know about Meade and his superb generalship at Gettysburg and afterwards.
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The person blocking the initial NATO expansion following the collapse of the USSR was President Clinton. I'm guessing he didn't want to expand NATO and offend Russia. However, when he told Lech Walesa and Vlaclav Havel that they had no plans to expand eastward, both Walesa and Havel started courting the Republicans during the election year. Basically it was Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary who twisted Clinton's arm politically and forced him to decide on giving them NATO membership or losing the US election. Once the barn door was open, the remaining eastern European countries ran to NATO and completed their Membership Action Plans as fast as they could so they could join. It wasn't forced - all the countries knew what Russia was like and wanted protection.
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"The 100,000 people who signed contracts" are part of the Kremlin's ongoing intake of people into the Russian military that has been quietly taking place for almost 2 years now. Russia has been recruiting/conscripting around 30,000 people per month, so a total of 100,000 in 3 months is not out of the question.
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He is also wrong on tariffs. Farmers are already worrying about the bankruptcy of their farms and ranches. They are worried in Nebraska that the state will go bankrupt within 6 months. Farmers won't be getting cheap Canadian potash for fertilizer. The US has just lost all its political capital with Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, you know, ALL its allies. Trump will be a disaster for the US.
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@Dark_Voice I agree with @mickearrow8035. I have NEVER seen or heard of a Vice-President stepping in during a press conference like that. It was an ambush, a way for Trump and Vance to reject giving aid to Ukraine and hand Ukraine over to Russia. Oh, and a way for Trump to get his petty revenge on Zelenskyy for him not manufacturing evidence against Biden in 2020.
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Professor, you didn't include the possible cost of damage to port facilities, and potential costs related to loss of equipment and dock utility.
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One thing that NATO not providing a guideline to Ukraine accomplishes, as you said, is that Russia is kept guessing about Ukraine being accepted into NATO. It eliminates one potential propaganda tool that Putin and the Kremlin can use to enact general mobilization. It also makes the whole "Ukraine is an American puppet" argument farcical. It also means that if Ukraine can sign a reasonable peace treaty at the end of this war, before the ink dries a diplomat could walk up to Zelensky, ask for his autograph, and then shake his hand as the newest leader of a NATO country (I know that cannot happen literally, but possibly proverbially). What this statement does is prevent the US and other NATO countries getting locked into something, which in diplomacy is not always a good thing.
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I suspect that Prigozhin probably caught wind of the Kremlin wanting to arrest him. Prigozhin was probably also in contact with other disaffected members of the military and oligarchy. So, I think this was in the works for a while. It is likely, in this scenario, that Prigozhin caught wind through his contacts that Shoigu and Putin were planning to arrest him with the usual made up charges. So he was forced to act a bit earlier than he planned. The Wagner Group staged the attack to give themselves justification. Reasons I think this: 1) The damage from the "attack" looked far too small and concentrated for it to be a major attack killing hundreds of Wagner soldiers (a few scorched trees and a fire in a trench, I mean really?). There were no impact craters. No buildings were seen to be hit either. So I think this is a "false flag" by Prigozhin. 2) Wagner family members received calls from their men that they might not see them again, 24 hours before this "attack" as far as I can tell. 3) The FSB surrounded the Wagner compound near Moscow almost as soon as Prigozhin made his initial broadcast. This is way too fast a reaction time for the FSB, unless they were already planning to do it. 4) The Wagner forces were already on the road and moving to Rostov and Moscow almost as soon as the broadcast was made, if not sooner. The speed of this reaction, and the fact the tanks were already loaded onto flatbeds suggests it was pre-planned. So basically, I think that Prigozhin and the Kremlin were both plotting against each other. What we are seeing is the result of Prigozhin and Wagner beating Putin and Shoigu to the punch.
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I think you mean emulating British Parliament in 1932-1939.
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johnnyhjohns3817 I know a lot of research scientists who are also clueless on foreign policy and lacking in common sense. When you deal on a regular basis with a research scientist who watches "Ancient Aliens" and believes it, or a research scientist who spends days setting up IR cameras to photograph Bigfoot, you really have to wonder sometimes.
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@terjeoseberg990 There is a very good reason why Intelligence and Wisdom are two different stats in D&D. They are not the same thing. You can be really smart, but thick as a brick when it comes to putting those smarts into practice.
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Why were they putting tires on a B-52?
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No, it means that they refuse to support Ukraine. All they want is the mineral wealth of the country. You do realize that by NOT giving security guarantees that Trump and his cronies can just write off any AMERICAN workers who get killed by Russian bombing and shelling in Ukraine, don't you?
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I understand the issue that Warthog ran into was showing videos that contained dead Russians. It violated Youtube's standards. Guess Youtube will allow false and misleading information, but will not allow you to show war as it really is. Guess that time image of the girl hit with napalm in Vietnam, or the bulk of the BBC's World at War series would be banned as well.
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@kenibnanak5554 Doesn't work against GPS, though.
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Once again, Professor Gerdes is forgetting that the West could send all the equipment to Ukraine that they could want, but unless the troops are trained on how to use them they are basically useless hunks of metal. There are only so many instructors, so many training grounds, so many simulators. More importantly, there is a limit on how quickly you can train a competent NCO corps, who are the ones who maintain discipline, and a whole new officer corps to direct the new units. It is very easy to say, "We should have given everything that Ukraine needed sooner", but setting up the training and logistics for all these new systems takes time. I agree that things could have been expedited, but there is also a limit to what can be done given that Ukraine and the West are going from a peacetime situation to full on war. It took the US and Britain around 3 years to get everything up to speed in WW2, and we are seeing the same thing here. It is very easy to criticize, but one needs to research things to discover if those criticisms are valid.
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@Professor-Gerdes I saw some "Russian" footage on "The Enforcer" a few months back where the footage had a blurred out watermark. A number of people watching the stream (myself included) realized it was a Ukrainian video we had seen a few weeks prior to that evening's stream. The Russians had taken the Ukrainian video and photoshopped out the unit logo so they could claim it was Russian combat footage. So yes, the Russians do pirate Ukrainian videos for their own propaganda.
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Just remember that according to the experts, by the end of his FIRST term Trump was considered the worst president in American history. I guess Trump wants to solidify his place in history.
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