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Another Excellent Source for Ukraine Updates
This is only the second update I’ve seen from this channel, “Good Times Bad Times” and I’m not even finished with it, but the information is spectacular!
Today’s Update:
Russia’s economy bleeds, as negotiations starts. Day 5. – YouTube
Good Times Bad Times (YouTube Channel)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXW9oUSOwt7mcTT5d_5hQcA
I saw yesterday’s update and refrained from posting here based on a single data point. Then I watched a couple of their older videos, and today this one is just blowing me away. This is what our media should be doing! Anybody’s media!
The S2 videos recommended by Mountie are excellent for their “intel” presentation — this is more a gazette of reports, clips, announcements, and reports ranging from first to third-hand. Fair enough.
I can’t vouch for it as “Authoritative Knowledge”, but it comports with what I think I understand, and most of it seems well-sourced. If it’s nonsense, it’s better than average nonsense.
The channel is not new and has covered things with depth and nuance. It is not some recently stood-up tool of any faction.
I don’t mean to over-caveat this — I’m sold! I just would like to convey that this is not a source I just bumbled into and took at face value. Not far from it, perhaps, not having expert knowledge, but I’ve done what due diligence I can given *things*, and I highly recommend this channel.
Published in General
Thank you!
The channel seems to be pretty good, from what I know.
Seems pretty strongly for Team Ukraine. I doubt there are any truly objective sources, so more perspectives is better.
The Telegraph has recordings of Russian soldiers..
I’ve skimmed the first video.
What makes you think that this is good information?
It opens with a flawed argument, I think. It shows alleged shelling in Kharkov, and claims that this proves war crimes, shelling of a residential neighborhood.
But wait a minute. Didn’t the Russians arm a bunch of brave, heroic irregulars to fight the Russian invaders? If so, might those Ukrainian Wolverines be, I don’t know, fighting in those residential neighborhood in Kharkov?
That would be a reason to shell the place, wouldn’t it?
Now I have no idea whether or not there is such resistance in Kharkov. My point is that the video doesn’t even consider it. Rather, it assumes that attacks on residential areas are always war crimes.
You might notice that this is the same charge that the Palestinians make against the Israelis. So in this case, maybe it’s true, maybe not.
This makes the video look like propaganda, to me.
The claim about the Russian economy “bleeding” looks completely unsupported, to me. There’s been a currency devaluation and a bit of a stock market dip. I don’t see any indication that Russia couldn’t endure this. The US stock market was closed for several months at the start of WWI. We didn’t collapse.
The quantity of intercepted communications traffic is insane, and makes me wish I knew Russian and Ukrainian so I could better get the flavor. I neglected to bookmark the thread, but I was reading today about how the Russian Military is broadcasting in the clear partly because a big procurement for encrypted comm systems was fubar’d by corruption: the guys in charge spent the money on cheap Chinese equipment, slapped some domestic nameplates on the gear, and pocketed 4B rubles. (They were found out, and indicted.)
One of the exchanges was something out of an MMorpg CoD chat log, with insults flying back and forth. Mothers were invoked. Except it was deadly serious. There’s no respawning here.
I think you mean Ukrainians in your first sentence. It’s entirely possible the “brave, heroic” Ukrainian “Wolverines” – sarcasm noted, don’t worry – are fighting in residential neighborhoods. Why would that be? Someone rolled up and wanted to take the town, maybe? Ah, but:
I think the analogy works if the Ukes in Kharkiv (as the people who live there spell it) are building rockets in the residential neighborhood, which they are launching into civilian communities in Russia, and Russia knocks out the rocket fabricators with pinpoint strikes, often preceded by a warning to evacuate. Grozny-wise, this doesn’t seem to be the Russian modus vivendi.
(kevinbacon_alliswell.gif)
All of the international financial markets closed, because everyone was going to cash to finance the war. Wall Street didn’t close because of a concentrated international effort to make the American market toxic; we had no involvement in the conflict.
Russia is not only finding it difficult to sell oil and get financing for shipments, because companies fear getting whacked by sanctions, cargo container lines are declining their business, and the government is prepared to forbid foreign investors from exiting the market, one of those things that poisons the well for some time. Hotel California syndrome.
They may well endure this, but the economic landscape looks bloody, muddy, and littered with abandoned vehicles. With diminished access to their foreign-based financial reserves, they might have to sell all their gold to prop up the ruble. Of course they can stagger on for a long while; see also, Stalingrad. The West-facing urban class will get used to being deprived of all the markers of participation in Western society (Visa, Apple updates, American movies), and they will know that none of this affects Putin personally; he will eat well, his sheets are soft, and the floor of his bedroom, when he rises, will be warm.
They should be grateful! Bog knows what perfidy was being planned in the dark corridors of Kharkiv.
Sorry, Kharkov.
A view shows the area near the regional administration building, which was hit by a missile according to city officials, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in this handout picture released March 1, 2022. Press service of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service/Handout via REUTERS
Some interesting updates:
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/mysterious-case-missing-russian-air-force
https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-lessons-us-military-leaders-learned-watching-putins-invasion-1683625
I’ve found the daily assessments from the Institute for the Study of War to be quite good, they draw from a wide array of sources to compile their detailed reports thereby avoiding the pitfall of having their perspective be dominated by a single point of view.
Just as an aside, yes I do realize this foundation is subsidized by defense contractors. As with all sources a skeptical eye is merited.
No source is objective, in this however I know the agenda which is a bonus. One: DoD contractors need to understand actual warfare as opposed to table top exercises, simulations and white papers. Two: Yes making the research public is definitely an advertisement keeping ongoing conflicts in the public mind so that every procurement official wonders, “Do I really have enough ordinance when the @#$ hits the fan? Or should I buy a little bit more?”
Whatever my own opinion is worth, I thought it was worthwhile to spit out that caveat to it. Take it or leave it.
Good caveat, but good source, nonetheless.