Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "Anders Puck Nielsen" channel.

  1.  @MN092krjsj  Yes. And getting on for three years later Russia is still fighting harder and herder in Ukraine despite hundreds of thousands of casualties. Why?
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  2.  @ericp1139  Anders is a member of the Danish Armed Forces, not the RusFed's.
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  3. I gotta admit the explanation of Ukraine 's attritional withdrawal tactic is pretty good. But why can't Russians around Bakhnut have their own non urban version of it: pre register their positions with artillery then blast hell out of those positions when Ukraine attacks and occupies them? By the same token, why could the Ukrainians not reoccupy the positions after springing their tactical trap? Hmmm.
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  4.  @connormycyk1835  The Europeans are going to have to pony up.
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  5. @ Ha
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  6.  @connormycyk1835  But keep paying?
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  7. Trump was explicitly facing facts that Europeans are aware of but not publicly talking about. European countries could carry on keeping Ukraine in the war but they would have to be willing to find the extra money for Ukraine by hurting their own voters. Winning the war with Russia over Ukraine is not obviously what it would have to be: a supreme priority objective of European governments or the US. And is winning the war against Ukraine a supreme priority for Putin? No one knows how much Russia still can draw on, or whether China would be willing to seriously help Russia if it was losing. Committing to continuing with 'however long it takes' would be an unlimited liability exercise for the West. We honorably did the best we could, and now it is time to talk with Russia.
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  8. Is denmark going to agree to directly fight Russia /: NO IT WANTS OTHER COUNTRIES TO DO THAT! Same policy as in the Korean war.. Denmark has a gold plated welfare state; what does it know about where to find that money?
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  9.  @Ikkeligeglad  American taxpayers foot the bill for European defence. That makes Denmark and others like Poland recklessly push Ukraine association with Nato in the belief that the US would be picking up the tab forever more.
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  10.  @Ikkeligeglad  F35s are not available on the open market, they are 'sold' to US allies. Denmark and Poland especially have been the tail wagging the dog over Ukraine.
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  11. 10:56 Is Russia trying for encirclements like Mariupol, or are they wary of repeating that kind of urbanised last stand by hard core Ukrainian battalions? I think Russian military strategists perceive the casualty ratio in Bakhmut ECT (whatever it may be) is the best Russia can get anywhere in Ukraine; and so the fighting there is thought by the Russian military to be to Russia's advantage
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  12.  @harmless6813  There is no argument about the Russian casualties being at least 50% convicts. Or that Russia is bigger in population than Ukraine.
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  13.  @thomasherrin6798  The Russian forces have done the opposite of shrink in number since the begining of the war according to testimony by Gen Cavoli the other week, and he estimates they can fight on for a year. In a very recent interview General Milley said that neither side is likely to achieve their objectives. Those two figures have access to the very best intel (better than the Ukrainians have) How is the war going? It is going to go on without any decisive result.
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  14. Except Ukraine will not agree to any deal except one in which Russia agrees to recognize Ukraine's original borders, and if Russia did that Ukraine would in all likelihood join NATO, which would be a disaster for Russia.
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  15. The elite units are glad that they are in Kursk and are not being used in Pokrovsk.
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  16. The Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, did ten years in prison and is a minion of Putin; Prigozhin fascinates the intel and deception machine of the west that is looking to cause trouble in the kremlin because the battlefield is not looking too good, but in all truth his current prominent position could not possibly survive Putin leaving office, and the idea of him being a successor is very far from credible. Wagner's convicts ( 20,000 of which 10% have been KIA to date) are not skilled but they are advancing in a very rigid way quite possibly as sitting ducks for locating Ukrainian positions (per drones that are always overhead of Wagner assaults bands) when the Ukrainian open fire. The convict Wagerites' lack of skills is a feature, not a bug. They are not there to take territory and are expected to die in the process of not taking it. Russia is not going to run out od robbers and murders they have a 100,000 srill incarcerated. They are not there to take territory and are expected to die in the process of _not_taking it. Russian men against American machines, It's only the convicts who are being killed, and it seems they are being used to locate Ukrainian artillery when it fires on Wagner's constant reconnaissance in force. Wager has 20,000 convicts, the planners of Wagner operation just get more convict to replace the ones dying, The bombardments after Wagner operation are greater thAT THE ONES THAT WERE TO SUPPORT THE OP. These ops always take place in daylight, all the better for Russian drones to see the Ukrainian artillery's firing. And sorry, but it is working for Russia be it ever so ugly. If is really is good for Ukraine why do they keep telling the world that the Russian tactics in Bakhmut are stupid? RusFed individuals being lost there are almost entirely convicts and them being KIA is a saving to the Russian taxpayer. Bakhmut is where they have the firepower and Ukrainians standing and fighting and these are some of the best and most determined units in the Ukrainian being pinned or 'fixed' in Bakhmut where they are immobile and easy to bombard instead of being free for surprise offensives. Meanwhile the VDV (professional core of the Russian army) has been resting and refitting after being withdrawn from West bank Kherson months ago. I think Surovikin has the wherewithal for an offensive using his mst capable and now freed troops while putting the hundreds of thousands of mobilised reservists into the fortified defensive positions .It must be remembered that the Wagner convicts are there to die., A well planned defensive battle is to the Russian army's taste. It is in over extending itsele by advancing too far too fast and distant from logistic infrastructure that Russia has come unstuck. I think Surovikin would be happy to let Ukraine come to him, now he has a consolidated, fortified and fully manned front line plus in the VDV a large mobile force being held further back to be thrown in to a critical battle that will be on ground where Russia has the logistic advantage. And Surovikin can cut the bridges across the Dnipro when that will have maximum disruptive effect. If one was going to chose a place to fight Russia , south east Ukraine would not be top of the list. I think Russia giving up in a war against a medium size country on its doorstep would be very surprising, and it is not necessary to attribute their continuation of this war against Ukraine to anything but standard nation state geopolitical interests. When all is said and done Russia has propinquity and resources, while Ukraine does not have a monopoly on nationalism and people supporting their country when it is up against it. I would not bet on Russia settling for less than a draw, or the US /Ukraine assemblage being able to get an outright victory.
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  17. So Western combined arms boils down to complete command of the air, (thats what air superiority is) . Far from clear how air support would have been have been useful against Wagner's highly urbanised light infantry attack, which used expendable convicts to clear mines and draw fire, and could have been used to soak up airstrikes by extremely valuable planes braving the Russians AA missile festooned ground forces
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  18. The Russians think they are the good guys, and they take Ukraine very seriously as a threat. Ukraine has united behind their leader,, that is what countries (not just democratic ones) do in war. A country is a survival machine.
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  19. "Russia is headung for defeat" . No, Bakhmut .
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  20.  @mariaf.6601  Does America want Ukraine to get the kind of victory that Zelensky is saying is what he would settle for? I don't think the US has ever said that or supplied Ukraine with the advanced long range missiles to do it.
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  21.  @mariaf.6601  The early gains were headlong drives by columns of vehicles along roads; not methodical and accompanied by fortification and mine laying. The current Russian offensive is more ratchet than pendulum.
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  22.  @shuathe2nd  Why all this now? Because the West knows Ukraine is about to need it. Newsflash: Russia is advancing on multiple fronts
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  23. Anders talks about war as the continuation of politics but what is lacking in his analysis is an understanding of politics in war. Ukraine to keep fighting no matter what and Nato countries populations will have to take the financial pain is is a purely military perspective. It's just not politically feasible to continue forever. We did the best we could.
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  24. The Russian steamroller is gathering pace (gist of what Oberst Reisner says about the Kharkiv offensive), but Anders is buoyed that Putin will be embarrassed as if he is a high school girl.
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  25. They have always been economically weak, That is nothing new for them.
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  26. By the UN definition: none. And the Gaza situation is actually the Palestinian situation,
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  27. Unless the Russians are dim, the mobilised reservists are for replacing the remaining contract professional soldiers currently stationed at cushy bases inside the current borders of the RusFed. The freed up young tough professional soldiers will be sent to Ukraine. Not clear what Putin is going to do with them, but I think he understands Ukraine aided by America is holding almost all the cards in a long war, and further Ukrainian advances are likely. Invading the Russian Motherland is something that Ukraine must not and won't willingly do, because it would give Putin a theoretical justification (under long standing Russian rationales for first use) to detonate a theatre thermonuclear weapon on the Ukrainian army. What Putin is up to with the proposed rapid incorporation of the occupied territories is getting Ukraine on the horns of a dilemma whereby trying to liberate their own territory they will be moving into what is in Kremlin eyes as Russian as Siberia. Please note: I do not think Russia will demand Ukraine withdraw from what they have liberated in Donbass ECT just because of some law that Russia has passed saying all Donbass is Russian, but I do think that once Russia passes such a law the Ukrainians will be put on notice that if they advance any further their force will be treated as if they are a conventionally unstoppable aggressor at the gates of Moscow.. The meaning of Putin's "this is not a bluff" remark is clear. It is much cleverer than a demand to 'surrender or we drop the Bomb'. because it puts the ball in the Ukrainian American court. My feeling is the US behind the scenes will tell Ukraine to advance as quickly a possible before the occupied Ukrainian territories can be incorporated into Russia proper under Russian law. Once that happens America will choke down the supply of HIMARs ammunition, and the war will effectively end. America is not going to get into a nuclear war with Russia, and a US force (including air force) conventionally fighting with Russia would have much too easy a path to nuclear war, because there are tactical anti aircraft missiles that Russia commander would in 15 minutes ask for permission to use when they were being clobbered as they would be.
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  28.  @krpi7685  Holding the referendums and doing the annexations now does not fool anyone outside Russia, but it must be for a purpose and I think he is preparing the ground for the contingency of having to issue a credible theatre thermonuclear strike when and if 'Paddington' puts his paw across whatever front line exists at the time. Putin is readying a backstop in case the Russian army gets routed again, wants the West to understand that the personnel of the state including the military commanders in Russia are going to be given a order consistent with the long established decision protocols for an apparent proper rationale for the use of a theatre thermonuclear weapon on the rear area of an Ukrainian army driving into what by that time in Russian law ' 'is' as Russian as Vladivostok. In a situation where America is retaliating for a Russian battlefield thermonuclear strike on Ukraine's advancing army with a direct military attack of some kind on Russian forces in and around Russia, Russia would have has already crossed the Rubicon of first use, although not against any member of Nato. None of such complicating factors have been well worked out in all their implications in the way a Warsaw Pact NATO conflict had been over decades, so there can be little certainty. Nonetheless, I venture to say it is barely plausible that after detonating one theatre thermonuclear weapon on a Ukrainian army, the Russians are going to accept that their nuclear deterrent to conventional attack is so risible to America that it can for example, brazenly send swarms of F35s to sink the Black Sea Fleet with impunity, while Russia is paralyzed with fear. Two things are thing is for certain Russia would be pathetically vulnerable to any conventional raid America launched on it, and another is that in the thermonuclear weapons' realm Russia can look the USA in the eye; so what would the Kremlin do in retaliation? 'Nothing' seems an unlikely response from Putin in view of his track record.
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  29. "Given time and steady support Ukraine will win." How are they going to convince Russia to agree to end the war? As long as the war continues Russia has not lost.
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  30. 5:30 Russia once was willing to be like one of those thirty countries, because Russia tried to join Nato and not just under Yeltsin, but under Putin too. And they did not get a pre-emptive acceptance like Georgia and Ukraine did in 2008, which was supposedly a dead letter but officially reiterated for Ukraine in a Nato announcement of er, June 2021 (hmmm), Russia was fobbed off instead. Now was exclusion from a formerly anti Soviet alliance designed to help Russia develop into something very different to the USSR? Russia would surely not dare attack Nato, but Ukraine was announced to be joining Nato at an undetermined point in the future, whereupon a military option for Russia to deal with Ukraine would cease to exist in effect. Yet until Ukraine did actually join Nato then Russia would still have an invasion option. So why would anyone not think Russia was going to invade while it could? Rather that different attitudes to international rules, I think the belief that Russia was only up to clandestine hybrid war rather that a promethean endeavor such as an all out invasion of Ukraine is the key to what went wrong.
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  31. Russia and Ukraine both made a serious mistake getting themselves into the sticky situation they are currently in. They are well and truly in the soup together.
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  32. I think Russia would as likely as not use nuclear weapons on Ukraine to stop Ukraine if it was about to win. There definitely would not be a nuclear war because years into the conflict the West has not got directly involved in fighting Russia even conventionally over Ukraine. Fortunately, Ukraine is further away from winning than ever. Does not mean Ukraine is going to lose, just that a meaningful win is beyond them. Or rather that the West does not dare push Russia into a corner by supplying Ukraine with everything it needs. It's called a nuclear DETERRENT, not "blackmail".
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  33. Shouldn't parts of the front under pressure be reinforced by fresh units held in rear areas as a reserve rather that taken from another part of the front line?
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  34. The calculus of nuclear stand offs as they existed in the Cold War between equal superpowers was understood. The Russian (Warsaw Pact) conventional superiority was deterred by Nato's nuclear weapons doctrine of going nuclear if a Soviet conventional attack was succeeding. Anders's assurances of nuclear weapons use against the Ukrainian army being a counter productive non starter for Putin in any conceivable circumstances is an entirely novel hypothesis. Washington does not appear to be at all confident that Putin can not use tactical nukes without being overthrown, judging by the grudging provision of the really effective weapons to Kiev.
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  35.  @macki-1  Wagner as it fought in Bakhmut (apart from the early advance attempting to encircle it), was was using a very specialised l method of advancing spearheaded by convict groups sequentially sent along the same routes and suffering extremely high casualties. As the US said Wagner's tactics in Bakhmut were not ones that the Russian would chose to use if there were other options. Bakhmut had to be denied to Ukraine at whatever cost in the Russian command's opinion
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  36. Trump lost an election, by a very narrow margin. He may, or may not, win one soon. Putin may be bad, but he is genuinely popular in Russia.
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  37. Putin does seem to have greatly underestimated Ukrainian resistance in 2022, but Zelensky greatly underestimated the degree to which Putin was serious about an invasion. Anyway we are now in 2024 and it is clear Putin ain't bouncin' cause he's a GANGSTA
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  38. Ukraine has agency and is fighting for its life; well it is becoming critically short of infantry yet still will not draft its young men. You cannot blame Trump for that
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  39. Yes, yet he is still at it and amping ever more up to fight it. Maybe he thinks it is worth any price.
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  40. Under Obama. Then under Biden. Not Trump's war dude, he is just here to clear up the mess.
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  41.  @Ikkeligeglad I do think Trump has got the blame for things that were not his fault. Like the pandemic, which many people now are willing to admit was a Chinese lab escape.
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  42. Germany has always been part of the West, no matter who was leading it. Britain and France were making plans to attack Russia in the Russo Finnish war even though Britain and France were officially at war with Germany It was the Nazo Soviet pact that cause Britain to declare war on Germany.
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  43. Anders is right that Ukraine would win if only the West gave them proper backing but the strategists in Washington are not trying to really defeat Russia in Ukraine, They want the Kremlin to become discouraged and quit Ukraine. Russia has to stand alone after this war ends because it is going to be needed as part of a US led alliance of Germany Britain Japan India over against a future mega power China as predicted by Mearsheimer. Russia getting trounced in Ukraine might make it permanently alienated from the West.
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  44.  @victorhopper6774  A quarter of Russians don't have an inside toilet, and a similar proportion of Russian men die before they reach 55. Russians are remarkably careless with themselves, not anxious. I would not bet a lot of money on them over dramatizing their difficulties, or correctly characterizing them. They are most likely going to blunder on the same pyrrhic fashion, and wreck Ukraine in the process.
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  45.  @aaronbaker2186  True, but who thought it necessary to forbid men under 60 from leaving the country? Russia has stopped trying to ape US methods had has gone back to blind artillery sledgehammering of everything within reach, this does not require much quality in infantry. We are talking about two countries with low birthrates, one much larger than the other and the larger one is recruiting the dregs while the smaller country has the best men in the country on the front line. Moreover, Russians do not have a diaspora in the West (refugees) exerting a powerful draw to a life of peace , no military service, and relatively high wages.
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  46.  @cv990a4  One wonders why Russian has not pulled back again, if it has culminated for the second time.
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  47.  @kimpedersen4746  Inviting death is something that in real life gets less attractive over months. I think that Ukraine is going to give up on maximal objectives. and end up with what is far short of Minsk, which they could have had for the asking a year ago.
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  48. Mearsheimer is getting on for eighty years old, and his theories are about states and as he himself always cautions are simplifications of reality, yet I think he has been remarkably prescient about the geopolitical realities. He predicted over thirty years ago, that Russia would bully Ukraine unless Ukraine had an independent nuclear deterrent (to any invasion by Russia obviously).No one not even Putin could have predicted in 1994 what Russia would be doing 30 years later but Mearsheimer did. He also assumed in 2022 that Putin would not invade Ukraine because surely Putin understood his forces would incur very heavy losses trying to hold Ukraine down. The 2022 invasion was a failure of comprehension by Mearsheimer about another individual's assessment of the feasibility of conquering and holding down Ukraine, yet his analysis of the Russian state's policy toward Ukraine was not wrong. The current amped up Russia offensive in Ukraine is being done despite the heavy cost being understood. So the Russian effort in 2024 is not just a mistaken personal belief by Putin that Ukraine is low hanging fruit. The Kremlin now understand the cost is huge and still climbing but thinks it is worth it for Russia's strategic security. The Kaiser vetoed an attack on Russia in 1905, which Mearsheimer admits is out f line with his theory.
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  49. Mike martin's book says we fight for belonging and status. Crying uncle would make Russia not longer a major league country. And the deaths of Russians in Ukraine are a 'sunk cost'. So how are the Russians going to be made to quit? It is my impression that they are preparing for a 'war without end, not a blitz strategy.
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  50. A third possibility occurs to me. The story being printed and then being quickly taken down seems very like a ploy Goebbels once used to mislead the allies. I suspect the Kremlin want Ukraine to go all in on the bridgehead and advance so as to free Russian artillery from counter battery fire and let then knock seven bells out elite Ukrainian formations crowded into the bridgehead.
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