UAF still conducts shaping operations - mauling russian units on forward defence postions. There little reason for UAF to advance on well fortified RFAF defence lines, before RFAF runs out of reseves. The only way to see it behind endless cool pics, is go through the list of deployed units and see how they rotated/reinforced. That exactly what Tom Cupper does in most of his posts, lists status of involved units.
I'm not sure that's a proper way to respond to negative feedback. We should strive to argue in a polite and civil manner, curious, but not judgmental and open to criticism. We ought to do better than the Russians leading by example.
In liberal democratic societies - exactly what Ukraine is striving for - it is very important to accept other opinions and to answer them rationally, based on evidence; most often they express justified concerns, not bullshit.
By the way Tom was quoted several times in an article of the Swiss newspaper "Neue Züricher Zeitung", a rather gloomy assessment of the current military situation in Ukraine. I'm not sure, if Tom is really all too happy with the message of the text, but it reflects without doubts the thoughts of a lot of people in Europe and America, who support Ukraine wholeheartedly.
Trying to be polite and civil so I chose "pathetic" instead of the word I preferred.
No doubt from the lofty heights of your pulpit you can help me by explaining how to " answer them rationally, based on evidence" when answering to "a couple of cases" without them providing any shred of evidence like date of the claimed losses, where published with date, the location where the losses occurred, which units were involved, etc, etc.
I am not sure which NZZ article you are referring to?
Today they write "The fighting reached Robotine near the small town of Orikhiv, in the south-east Ukrainian troops liberated the village of Staromajorske, and around Bakhmut the Russians had to retreat a few kilometers."
Thanks, answering pathetic people is also a kind of civility - very appreciated!
Yes, that's the right article; it's paywalled, so I didn't link it.
I'm a simple mind without knowledge of military science and far away from the war events, of course I have no information and detail; because of that I treasure Tom's opinion.
But beyond that the whole topic is very complex and controversial, nobody knows what will happen. Under these circumstances to dismiss claims for balance and objectivity as 'bullshit' is not really helpful.
Sorry, but you didn't get the main point of Tom's reporting style: There is not nearly enough evidence to make reporting based on visual evidence. If there is any visual evidence, it is
a) only a tiny part of what happened and not about everything that happened
b) selected by the publisher, what is published, where and when and from which angle and at which point in time and to generate which narrative
c) delayed and if from ground forces deliberately so, to guarantee operation safety
d) not published to inform you, but cause the publishing side seems it usefull in its information war (seems, cause if your a dumb enough to reveal your position you get bombed)
e) not a representative sample for what happens on the battlefield
f) those, that I forgot.
The most important evidence in this war is by the way the repeatedly wrong information of the Russian state (no matter if Putin, MoD or anybody else there). Sadly, there is no visual evidence for that. You can't take them as "justified concerns" as it is a waste of time. Why? This video explains it quite good: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik&feature=share8
If one side has a hierarchy based on lying and you can only go up the rank, if you do that too - what are you expecting?
Aren't you wondering why people that criticise the leadership based on their front line information (again without visual evidence) get removed so efficiently or fall out of windows? (Popov, Teplinsky to name the latest examples)
I readily accept what you mean and wouldn't doubt it, but you speak exclusively about Russian disinformation. Besides there are several reliable Western commentators, resolute supporters of Ukraine and unquestionable opponents of Russia, who convey a mixed picture about the situation and the developments - and even Tom is doing so, if you summarize his texts.
A realistic assessment and an open discourse is probably the best way forward to avoid disenchantment and to convince people to keep up or at best increase their support for Ukraine - and that will be decisive.
PS. I'm not interested in Russian propaganda and completely ignore it.
The issue on hand is simply, that Russian visual evidence is picked up by Western media to make news. So you won't evade Russian propaganda because it is visual evidence shown by Western media to report news while Ukraine is keeping operational silence. So you can't envade Russian Propaganda.
To the contrary Tom is admitting when he was to optimistic.
At the beginning of the full-scale war, I read your publication about the number of downed planes. The numbers were very different from ours. It pissed me off. I thought: "He's too picky. This is war, not everything can be identified at once." Then I remembered that it is better to take into account the worst indicators than the best and registered on the website to read you regularly. And she did the right thing. Thank you for your work.
The Ukrainian artillery officer known as 'Arty Green' (Yevhen Bekreniev) has stated multiple times that the territory taken is not what is really important in this counteroffensive: it is the ability of the offensive to inflict losses on the Russians while minimising them for the Ukrainians. He compares the situation to that in 1918 for the Imperial German Army, which eventually capitulated in November 1918 despite still holding significant amounts of French territory.
He's not really wrong. The war was won when they failed to take Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa because that means the Russians failed at their war goal of destroying the independent Ukrainian state. Everything after that is gravy.
It is evidently Putler's order to hold as much of the Ukrainian territory as it is possible regardless of the losses and casualties. From the Soviet sources we know that casualties in the battle for Budapest in WW II amounted to 200 000, and "the liberation" of Berlin took even more. In Russian historical publications of 2000-ies (Utkin, for instance) we find numbers of 5000 000 of the Red Army killed or taken as prisoners during 1941 due to the vain efforts to hold the territory. So Russia will fight for the territory as long as it would be able.
Every move of the Red Army was politically determined. Because Stalin personally was never politically or physically responsible for any disastrous military decisions he sent millions to death without hesitation. The details of the WW II may be discussed indefinitely. Concerning the war in Ukraine we can conclude that Putler has no allies, his resources are large but limited, so the West is to blame because of its limited and slow help to Ukraine.
Alas Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are killed and wounded. We lose engineers, journalists, actors, IT-specialists and Russia loses mainly convicts and the like. It's a great tragedy of Ukraine.
Thank you for your efforts to inform us about the 2022 Russo-Uko War . Your accounts provide tactical seasonings to the stale propaganda from either side of this conflict.
I think most of your readership understands the strengths and weakness of your product ( a modified form of HUMINT and OSINT). You should not waste your (or our) time writing tirades about the criticism you receive from the Internet of Trolls. If we are reading you, it is because we have drilled down at least two levels of social media commentary to find your writing. If we are casual readers we don’t care about your critics, if we are more focused readers; we understand the limitations of your chosen format. Either way please continue.
One thing that you could do, is cite which maps or charts you are using for your narrative, and a potential source for obtaining such charts. The granularity of your reporting requires a level of cartography that many of us might not have.
Thanks for the review of the mostly ignored Cold War wars in Africa. It’s a good example of what you’re talking about. Russia could sure use the Cubans today.
Yes. Indeed with dealing with the prorussian side they live by images only. This most defo doesn't give us the whole story, as well as many edit breaks. Keep doing what you do it's defo a useful view and from what I've seen much is on point where it can be. Great job. 👍
Bull's eye about the proliferation on images from the scene. I don't know how many times I've seen western media's image(s) of the destruction of ZSU equipment north of Robotyne first week of the offensive, usually accompanied by harrowing statistics on Ukraine losses in this incident by whose extrapolation one is left to assumed the Ukrainian army will be unquestionability annihilated and the Russian army, led by their assortment of reprieved criminals will be in Kyiv, if not Poland, by Christmas.
Oh well, it's not all that can be found in news organizations referenced and matters with no such graphic presentations can be found depended largely on how earnestly your look. CBS this morning did a nice article on what I would call mass de-mining of an infested area. US army has currently perfected (?) a means of firing a string of munitions over such an area and detonating mines in that field of contact, thereafter proceeding with mine clearing equipment to finish the job for which Ukraine is now employing in "real life" applications. A slow process, but better than trying to locate mines by driving over them.
Another is the new "switch blade" drone. Not something one can stuff in a pack pack, but once deployed, could be extremely effective in taking out enemy mechanized equipment.
Neither of the above techniques is the "magic bullet" unilaterally turning the tide of war, but both may or just may be part of an effective arsenal against the aggressor and more importantly, stem ZSU personnel looses which is apparently of major concern in the Ukrainian press.
The reason many people monitor the conflict via images and video is becouse they dont have other source, telegram chanels lies, so the only way to monitor for them without access to better sources is that.
Cuito Cuanavale... a good comparison. And something to remind Putin fans:
-USSR (and after that, the RF) fought by proxies whenever it suits them.
-That, in the root of ruZZian invasion are proxy war against Ukrainia in the Donbass.
But today we’re living in a 1sr World images time. Anything that isn’t pictured or videoed “don’t exists”. And people are (be trained to) be lazy, so here is the (des) information’s breeding ground.
Please, Tom, keep both the (clear) info effort, and don’t be timid spicing it with Cold War comparisons. Having a personal interest in Midern African Wars, is a valuable additional benefit.
I see the current Ukraine invasion as a proxy was of Russia against the West. Even though Russia itself is in the war the actual troops mainly consist of Ukrainians from the 2014 captured territories, criminals, minorities, political opponents, and other undesirables.
Such materials just show me how uneducated i`m about Africa conflict. It`s like Tom giving me piece of detailed information about a battle and i don`t know such war happened.
Well, UA manage to attack bridge in Arabat Spit and Chonhar bridge with Storm Shadow missiles today.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F22xG53XEAAmFhc.jpg
Claimed to be a picture of the Arabat Spit bridge
https://t.me/Crimeanwind/38750
And new photos of the Chonhar bridge
https://t.me/s/Crimeanwind/38743
He does speak about ukranian losses, one exemple is the 30 of july post "oldies and boldies"
Look at the reporting regarding the Soledar debating club
UAF still conducts shaping operations - mauling russian units on forward defence postions. There little reason for UAF to advance on well fortified RFAF defence lines, before RFAF runs out of reseves. The only way to see it behind endless cool pics, is go through the list of deployed units and see how they rotated/reinforced. That exactly what Tom Cupper does in most of his posts, lists status of involved units.
So far, there's never been a weak or ill-sourced posting of yours. Don't know where you find the time!
There was a couple of cases when Tom ignored Russian reports about Ukrainian losses in attacks last months.
Tom has a great bullshit detector.
I'm not sure that's a proper way to respond to negative feedback. We should strive to argue in a polite and civil manner, curious, but not judgmental and open to criticism. We ought to do better than the Russians leading by example.
In liberal democratic societies - exactly what Ukraine is striving for - it is very important to accept other opinions and to answer them rationally, based on evidence; most often they express justified concerns, not bullshit.
By the way Tom was quoted several times in an article of the Swiss newspaper "Neue Züricher Zeitung", a rather gloomy assessment of the current military situation in Ukraine. I'm not sure, if Tom is really all too happy with the message of the text, but it reflects without doubts the thoughts of a lot of people in Europe and America, who support Ukraine wholeheartedly.
PS. Too preachy, sorry.
Not preachy, pathetic.
Trying to be polite and civil so I chose "pathetic" instead of the word I preferred.
No doubt from the lofty heights of your pulpit you can help me by explaining how to " answer them rationally, based on evidence" when answering to "a couple of cases" without them providing any shred of evidence like date of the claimed losses, where published with date, the location where the losses occurred, which units were involved, etc, etc.
I am not sure which NZZ article you are referring to?
Today they write "The fighting reached Robotine near the small town of Orikhiv, in the south-east Ukrainian troops liberated the village of Staromajorske, and around Bakhmut the Russians had to retreat a few kilometers."
https://www.nzz.ch/international/ukraine-krieg-kiews-offensive-an-der-suedfront-steckt-fest-ld.1749811
Of course, your lack of detail makes it difficult to rationally answer.
Thanks, answering pathetic people is also a kind of civility - very appreciated!
Yes, that's the right article; it's paywalled, so I didn't link it.
I'm a simple mind without knowledge of military science and far away from the war events, of course I have no information and detail; because of that I treasure Tom's opinion.
But beyond that the whole topic is very complex and controversial, nobody knows what will happen. Under these circumstances to dismiss claims for balance and objectivity as 'bullshit' is not really helpful.
Sadly the truth is not always helpful
Sorry, but you didn't get the main point of Tom's reporting style: There is not nearly enough evidence to make reporting based on visual evidence. If there is any visual evidence, it is
a) only a tiny part of what happened and not about everything that happened
b) selected by the publisher, what is published, where and when and from which angle and at which point in time and to generate which narrative
c) delayed and if from ground forces deliberately so, to guarantee operation safety
d) not published to inform you, but cause the publishing side seems it usefull in its information war (seems, cause if your a dumb enough to reveal your position you get bombed)
e) not a representative sample for what happens on the battlefield
f) those, that I forgot.
The most important evidence in this war is by the way the repeatedly wrong information of the Russian state (no matter if Putin, MoD or anybody else there). Sadly, there is no visual evidence for that. You can't take them as "justified concerns" as it is a waste of time. Why? This video explains it quite good: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik&feature=share8
If one side has a hierarchy based on lying and you can only go up the rank, if you do that too - what are you expecting?
Aren't you wondering why people that criticise the leadership based on their front line information (again without visual evidence) get removed so efficiently or fall out of windows? (Popov, Teplinsky to name the latest examples)
I readily accept what you mean and wouldn't doubt it, but you speak exclusively about Russian disinformation. Besides there are several reliable Western commentators, resolute supporters of Ukraine and unquestionable opponents of Russia, who convey a mixed picture about the situation and the developments - and even Tom is doing so, if you summarize his texts.
A realistic assessment and an open discourse is probably the best way forward to avoid disenchantment and to convince people to keep up or at best increase their support for Ukraine - and that will be decisive.
PS. I'm not interested in Russian propaganda and completely ignore it.
The issue on hand is simply, that Russian visual evidence is picked up by Western media to make news. So you won't evade Russian propaganda because it is visual evidence shown by Western media to report news while Ukraine is keeping operational silence. So you can't envade Russian Propaganda.
To the contrary Tom is admitting when he was to optimistic.
As Zelenski said laughingly: How could the Russians destroy 5 Patriot systems when we got only 3 delivered.
Ah, yes: West is lying and we are fighting Polish US-equipped divisions in Ukraine.
At the beginning of the full-scale war, I read your publication about the number of downed planes. The numbers were very different from ours. It pissed me off. I thought: "He's too picky. This is war, not everything can be identified at once." Then I remembered that it is better to take into account the worst indicators than the best and registered on the website to read you regularly. And she did the right thing. Thank you for your work.
The Ukrainian artillery officer known as 'Arty Green' (Yevhen Bekreniev) has stated multiple times that the territory taken is not what is really important in this counteroffensive: it is the ability of the offensive to inflict losses on the Russians while minimising them for the Ukrainians. He compares the situation to that in 1918 for the Imperial German Army, which eventually capitulated in November 1918 despite still holding significant amounts of French territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrnEPA_Om8g
He's not really wrong. The war was won when they failed to take Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa because that means the Russians failed at their war goal of destroying the independent Ukrainian state. Everything after that is gravy.
Exactly. At least I can only agree with him.
BTW, as of 2 September 1945, the US-led allies liberated less than 50% of territories captured by Imperial Japan in 1942....
It is evidently Putler's order to hold as much of the Ukrainian territory as it is possible regardless of the losses and casualties. From the Soviet sources we know that casualties in the battle for Budapest in WW II amounted to 200 000, and "the liberation" of Berlin took even more. In Russian historical publications of 2000-ies (Utkin, for instance) we find numbers of 5000 000 of the Red Army killed or taken as prisoners during 1941 due to the vain efforts to hold the territory. So Russia will fight for the territory as long as it would be able.
Every move of the Red Army was politically determined. Because Stalin personally was never politically or physically responsible for any disastrous military decisions he sent millions to death without hesitation. The details of the WW II may be discussed indefinitely. Concerning the war in Ukraine we can conclude that Putler has no allies, his resources are large but limited, so the West is to blame because of its limited and slow help to Ukraine.
He can try like waves against the rocks of the eternal shore. He can crash against them and be broken.
Alas Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are killed and wounded. We lose engineers, journalists, actors, IT-specialists and Russia loses mainly convicts and the like. It's a great tragedy of Ukraine.
Yes. Undoubtedly.
Thank you for your efforts to inform us about the 2022 Russo-Uko War . Your accounts provide tactical seasonings to the stale propaganda from either side of this conflict.
I think most of your readership understands the strengths and weakness of your product ( a modified form of HUMINT and OSINT). You should not waste your (or our) time writing tirades about the criticism you receive from the Internet of Trolls. If we are reading you, it is because we have drilled down at least two levels of social media commentary to find your writing. If we are casual readers we don’t care about your critics, if we are more focused readers; we understand the limitations of your chosen format. Either way please continue.
One thing that you could do, is cite which maps or charts you are using for your narrative, and a potential source for obtaining such charts. The granularity of your reporting requires a level of cartography that many of us might not have.
Cheers!
JB
Thanks for the review of the mostly ignored Cold War wars in Africa. It’s a good example of what you’re talking about. Russia could sure use the Cubans today.
Yes. Indeed with dealing with the prorussian side they live by images only. This most defo doesn't give us the whole story, as well as many edit breaks. Keep doing what you do it's defo a useful view and from what I've seen much is on point where it can be. Great job. 👍
Interesting read Tom thanks
I think I got your point already before, but I still appreciate such a clear and detailed example. Thank you.
i enjoyed reading this
Hello Tom.
Bull's eye about the proliferation on images from the scene. I don't know how many times I've seen western media's image(s) of the destruction of ZSU equipment north of Robotyne first week of the offensive, usually accompanied by harrowing statistics on Ukraine losses in this incident by whose extrapolation one is left to assumed the Ukrainian army will be unquestionability annihilated and the Russian army, led by their assortment of reprieved criminals will be in Kyiv, if not Poland, by Christmas.
Oh well, it's not all that can be found in news organizations referenced and matters with no such graphic presentations can be found depended largely on how earnestly your look. CBS this morning did a nice article on what I would call mass de-mining of an infested area. US army has currently perfected (?) a means of firing a string of munitions over such an area and detonating mines in that field of contact, thereafter proceeding with mine clearing equipment to finish the job for which Ukraine is now employing in "real life" applications. A slow process, but better than trying to locate mines by driving over them.
Another is the new "switch blade" drone. Not something one can stuff in a pack pack, but once deployed, could be extremely effective in taking out enemy mechanized equipment.
Neither of the above techniques is the "magic bullet" unilaterally turning the tide of war, but both may or just may be part of an effective arsenal against the aggressor and more importantly, stem ZSU personnel looses which is apparently of major concern in the Ukrainian press.
Ho, i asked your friendship on FB, why you don't answer?
There're some problems?
The reason many people monitor the conflict via images and video is becouse they dont have other source, telegram chanels lies, so the only way to monitor for them without access to better sources is that.
Cuito Cuanavale... a good comparison. And something to remind Putin fans:
-USSR (and after that, the RF) fought by proxies whenever it suits them.
-That, in the root of ruZZian invasion are proxy war against Ukrainia in the Donbass.
But today we’re living in a 1sr World images time. Anything that isn’t pictured or videoed “don’t exists”. And people are (be trained to) be lazy, so here is the (des) information’s breeding ground.
Please, Tom, keep both the (clear) info effort, and don’t be timid spicing it with Cold War comparisons. Having a personal interest in Midern African Wars, is a valuable additional benefit.
I see the current Ukraine invasion as a proxy was of Russia against the West. Even though Russia itself is in the war the actual troops mainly consist of Ukrainians from the 2014 captured territories, criminals, minorities, political opponents, and other undesirables.
They are losing their best equipment and units (VDV)
Great article on the Angola war and its context to the Russian war on Ukraine. History doesn’t repeat but often rhymes...
Such materials just show me how uneducated i`m about Africa conflict. It`s like Tom giving me piece of detailed information about a battle and i don`t know such war happened.
I knew South Africa had troops fighting in Angola but had no idea what it was about.