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Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
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Jun 11 • 3 tweets • 1 min read
You have to understand it's not about winning for Zelensky. He is sacrificing his army in a desperate bid for Western weapons, but he needs the war more than victory for his survival. Before the war he was heading towards an election loss and getting put in prison by Poroshenko.
Now, he gets to suppress dissent, send his opponents off to be killed, and if there's a battlefield loss, there is a built-in betrayal narrative of backers who didn't support Ukraine enough. And he gets to be an international superstar who can fuck off to the West afterwards.
Not bad for a guy who was polling in the 20% range, with cabinet ministers targeted by assassinations, and staring at a recall election before this kicked off.

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More from @snekotron

Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 10
A very good question, and one that I will use as a jumping off point. Just why is the Western media so aligned with the Zelensky team’s provocations and media narratives? It’s fundamentally an alignment of interests. /1
While some will say that the media is just whatever the “deep state” tells them to say, and there is much truth to the role govt plays in shaping media narratives, this view is too simplistic as it does not account for factions within the govt and the agency of journalists. /2
In their minds Western press has created a mythology around itself as the protector of free speech and the common people, based on the legacy of legendary investigative journalists like Ida B. Wells who exposed the epidemic of lynching in the Southern USA. /3
Read 12 tweets
Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 10
I keep seeing this stupid article pop up on my feed, with people celebrating supposedly how the Western media is being brought to heel and is being forced to admit the truth. This is wishful thinking. It is a psyop article. /1 independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…
Even with Russia's material advantages, a 20:1 advantage in artillery (40:1 in ammunition) on Russia's side would entail a complete, rapid collapse of Ukrainian lines. There would not be enough Ukrainian artillery to even conduct artillery skirmishes. /2
Moreover it has nonsensical statistics like outnumbered in artillery range - artillery restricted to a range of 25 kilometres, while the enemy can strike from 12 times that distance. They are literally counting Iskander for 300km range

What the hell is a Tochka missile, then? /3
Read 8 tweets
Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 9
There's a lot of commentary out there that attempts to glean some sort of endgame scenario out of a key phrase or two out of the mouth of Lavrov or Peskov or some other government official. Let me clue you in on how governing a bureaucracy works. /1 Image
This was written by Han Fei, a Chinese strategist during the late Warring States period, and it is remarkable in the canon of ancient philosophy in that it is nothing but practical insight into the flow of power in a bureaucratic setting. Very readable even for non-philosophers/2
The idea of a leader as a cipher, someone who holds his cards close to his chest and carefully manages bureaucratic rivalries is something that has been said about Putin, actually. Richard Sakwa, one of those Western scholars who isn't garbage has described him as... /3
Read 10 tweets
Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 7
Strelkov came out with a series of posts analogizing the current conflict to the Russo-Japanese war. It is a reflection of just how warped his thought processes have become. He has a point to prove, and it's a dumb one.
The defending side in 1904-05 (Russia) had apparently underestimated people it thought were racially inferior and therefore mobilized too late and by the time they were ready to fight, the economy collapsed and the war was over boohoo. 😢
But hold on, which side is viewing the other as subhumans and bragging about how easy it is to fight? Which side is carrying out desperate mobilization and scrounging weapons from abroad? Which side is demanding a decisive battle by zerg rushing to the Donbass front?
Read 4 tweets
Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 3
Another theory thread, prompted by a strange article demonstrating some of the typical cognitive biases of Western analysts. /1 warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-bu…
Kofman and Lee argue, as I have argued that there is a lack of personnel in Russian units. However, for them, the problem is a lack of light infantry and not the general manpower shortages associated with downsizing to brigades. There is this bizarre light infantry fetish. /2
The observation that Russian units are centered on vehicles and that there aren't enough dismounts because men have to be manning vehicles is well-taken. It is an issue, though I am not sure how relevant this is given the nature of this war in its current stage. /3
Read 12 tweets
Dr.Snekotron Profile picture
Jun 2
I am not defending the EU as an organization, but let it be said that every step of this process to their own economic self-destruction has been pushed by the citizens of the EU that attacked every attempt to to step on the brakes.

This was last month. Look where we are now.
If the ideologists of liberal democracy believe in popular sovereignty, then this is a good example of it, with solid majorities in most major EU countries supporting harsher measures against Russia. They should be proud that they browbeat their minders into submission.
Read 4 tweets

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