Quote from: Cassia on October 11, 2023, 07:57:20 PMThe Catholic Church has a long history of poor assessments and associations, be it real 1930s Nazis or the Kremlin today. It's not the Pope's words that sends the message. It's what he does or doesn't do.  I guess I expect more from a guy that claims he has god on speed dial. Case in point:

 
David Kertzer's 2022 book The Pope at War explores this policy of neutrality and impartiality and the consequence of Pope Pius XII's public silence on the mass killings of Jews. Kertzer's review of newly unsealed files revealed that Pope Pius XII worked hard not to offend Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and feared that publicly opposing Hitler would turn off German Catholics.

https://time.com/6270677/catholic-church-holocaust-documents/

Flip side would be that the RCC as some sort of "real" moral authority for all those German Catholics opposing Hitler would have stopped the atrocities. Then again, the RCC has been crucifying Jews since you-know-when, even if it was fiction of the times. I didn't ask to be raised Catholic, and I think that if my mother (a staunch Catholic) was still alive, she'd be appalled as well. My wife doesn't like when I bring up the sins of the Catholic Church. I get her point- she thinks that she is a good person by following the teachings. In all fairness, she criticizes most religious people for their hypocrisy.

Quote from: Cassia on October 11, 2023, 07:57:20 PMThe Catholic Church has a long history of poor assessments and associations, be it real 1930s Nazis or the Kremlin today. It's not the Pope's words that sends the message. It's what he does or doesn't do.  I guess I expect more from a guy that claims he has god on speed dial.

The Vatican absolutely does have a bad track record, even pretty recently with the whole shuffling-around-pedophile-priests thing.  I'm just saying that the Pope is solidly pro-Ukraine, even if the messaging isn't always great.

And I just checked out the thing with Krill.  It's some sort of ecumenical thing - very tedious and yawn-inducing (though I do note their shared desire to "break the chains of militant atheism" lol).  It's not some sort of Munich Agreement or anything like that.

JFC, they weren't kidding about the Russians suffering heavy losses near Avdiivka.  Just say no to human wave attacks, kids!

Quote"A successful encirclement of Avdiivka – one of the most heavily fortified areas of the Donetsk Oblast front line – would very likely require more forces than Russia has currently dedicated to the Avdiivka-Donetsk City effort," it said in its latest assessment.

Source

Well, they definitely don't have the manpower now.  What's with Putin and needlessly sacrificing his army on the battlefield today and then later having bad performance due to - among other things - lack of manpower.  I'm not the brightest knife in the drawer, and even I can figure out that it's a good idea conserve your forces for when you really, really badly need them.  Not that I'm complaining about steadily degraded Russian forces, but you'd think the top brass would be more sensible.

Jeez!!  Avdiivka is taking much more of a toll on the Russians than I thought!

Honestly, it's a really good idea to call it quits at this point.  These kinds of figures are just insane.  They make the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan look tame in comparison.

Such a brutal war. I read somewhere that the actual current Russian death toll was around 200k and for UK around 80K or 2.5 to 1. I would think the coming winter may slow things down, but who knows.

UA, you mean.

It's been difficult to determine exact statistics, but the Ukrainian estimates generally aren't very far off from US and UK estimations and also jive with what has been independently verified.  Russian figures...well, suffice it to say that there's definitely a culture of lying.

While on defense, Ukraine's ratio of kills to losses is generally near 3:1 or 4:1.  In rare circumstances - like when Russia launches massed infantry assaults - it can briefly be even better than that.  Afaik, a lot of Russia's KIA are from wounded that can't be treated in time.  Additionally, Ukraine appears to put more of an emphasis on retrieving the wounded (which naturally, is easier when on defense)

While on offense, Ukraine's ratio drops down more to somewhere near 2:1 or 3:1.  Unfortunate, but that's what happens when you're attacking highly fortified areas with liberal use of minefields and no air superiority.  Western tactics work - but only with western hardware, hence the need for F-16s, more tanks, more mine-clearers, and more long-range missiles.  Cause it's a lot easier to clear minefields when no one's shooting at you.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/europe/russia-attack-avdiivka-ukraine-intl/index.html

So far, they haven't made significant progress, though I have heard that they have made some progress, capturing a small amount of territory.  But man oh man, at what cost!  Tons of armored vehicle losses and extremely high infantry losses.  It was exactly these sorts of tactics that exhausted the Russian advance last time and allowed for the Ukrainian counter attack.

Ukrainian resistance blows up train full of ammo, fuel

Headed from Crimea to Melitopol with a short stop in hell 🔥

There's combat footage of a wounded Russian soldier lying in the grass in obvious agony near a russian armored convoy.  An armored vehicle traverses and appears to run him over before the vehicle explodes.

I'm genuinely confused about what I just saw - who did what and why.

I see that North Korea has shipped 1000 shipping containers full of military equipment and weapons to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Russia needing help from North Korea.  Boy, that powerful Russian military is really rearing its ugly head now isn't it.  Has the stench of desperation all over it.

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 13, 2023, 08:02:30 PMI see that North Korea has shipped 1000 shipping containers full of military equipment and weapons to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Yeah, unfortunately.  Dictators support dictators.  Which is why it's important that democracies support democracies.  There are a lot more of us than them, and our economies are better, for some strange reason.

We have torpedoes, don't we?

Quote from: the_antithesis on October 13, 2023, 10:20:35 PMWe have torpedoes, don't we?

Shipping containers traveling by rail from North Korea to Russia.  It's possible to bomb such traffic, but that'd be tantamount to declaring war.

Well, all the cool kids seem to be doing that.