Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 13

It means you have no idea. You don't play the game as you do, it is not a matter of anything. You don't give up your rights or what is due to you if you don't have to, If you do you are a sucker and shouldn't be in a position to make such decisions.

There is no Eastern Europe.

Ahem, Poland is CENTRAL EUROPE, ok?

Here is a Russian talking about the economic impact of the invasion.

And Russia also havn't captured any significant cities since Avdiivka. Note that first they said that Ukraine wouldn't last inside Kursk and now they are saying that they are only occupying nothing of importance. See how the discourse changed?

If there is Western Europe, there is Eastern Europe.
Just like with North America and South America...

Just like there are Americans and Polish immigrants who pretend Americans. Ha!!

I think of Central Europe more as Czech, Austria, Hungary... Poland is more a hybrid, part Central part Eastern....

That's exactly as I see it. The first three (and arguably Slovenia) are classic Mitteleuropa. Poland has characteristics of both, and no shortage of onion domed cerkwi in the east and a lot of vodka and beetroot plus absolutist religion.

To make it clear:






Germany is so Central Europe/Mitteleuropa....West-Germany alone was abit Western Europe...but only till 1989 and the end of the partition.....

Reading reports this morning that Ukraine hasn't told anyone in the west what the objective is in going into Russia. While it looks solely like trying to grab a piece of land to negotiate, Putin is telling Russians not to worry and its all part of what they should expect. Meanwhile Biden is sending another 125 Million in aid to Ukraine today in existing US stockpiled weapons. No one in the west is talking about a peace plan, and Modi is in Ukraine today, while Orban continues to publicly call for talks to begin. Anyone thinking the west wants this war to end isnt thinking.

Well, it's the easternmost country of Central Europe. Borderlands are always a bit of a hybrid. Germany is partially West partially Central, Poland is partially East partially Central. There are many concepts of Central Europe, starting with the German Mitteleuropa, Kundera's core Visegrad Europe of small nations, Polish Intermarium, Austro-Hungarian nostalgia etc. but they all have something in common. My take on the matter is the closest to the K&K nostalgia with elements of Kundera but I respect other points of view, like the ones of Miłosz or Giedroyć who would like Central Europe to encompass even Belarus and parts of Ukraine as former Rzeczpospolita/Austria-Hungary lands.

In any case, whichever core concept is closest to our heart, Middle (Central) Europe is a very real thing in both physical and spiritual aspects and I have no time for simpletons who think that there is some sort of a wall separating Western and Eastern Europe and nothing in between.


If they had told the West, they would probably have been told not to do it, so they decided to keep it a secret.

I am reading this morning too, specifically The Economist - and I am a happy Russian today.

"The hope that Russia might respond by moving troops from Pokrovsk has been supplanted by the realisation that it has not. Ukrainian security sources confirm that while Russia has moved troops from other sections of the eastern front line, it reinforced around Pokrovsk. Ukraine meanwhile redeployed special forces units to Kursk, and is patching up the Pokrovsk front with untested formations. 'The Russians have figured things out and aren't taking the bait,' complains Dublin."

Source: economist.com/europe/2024/08/22/the-kremlin-is-close-to-crushing-pokrovsk-a-vital-ukrainian-town

In other news, Ukraine's main military journalist, and owner of nationalist news portal Censor.net, writes today that "Fifty Sudzhas are not worth one Pokrovsk". Sudzha is the largest settlement in Kursk Oblast currently controlled by Ukraine.

Source: amp.censor.net/ru/news/3506036/butusov_ob_operatsii_na_kurschine_i_boyah_na_donbasse

Butusov, above, writes that the loss of Pokrovsk, which seems imminent, would be a strategic defeat that would open the road to Dniepropetrovsk - his home city.

So, my friends, it took less than a month for it to become apparent what an enormous miscalculation the Kursk incursion was.

Ehrm.... this is what happens when political and "information war" motivations override military ones. The three week sugar high for Ukrophiles, came at a very high cost.

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P.S. Another juicy excerpt from Oliver Carrol's article in The Economist:

"Ukrainian commanders give different reasons for the Russian advance. Some say there aren't enough shells, with the enemy firing up to ten times as many. Others point to Russian tactics-small infantry assaults, glide bombs, new types of electronic warfare. But exhaustion and manpower issues seem to be at the heart of the collapse. 'People aren't made of steel,' says Colonel Pavlo Fedosenko. Ukrainian troops, outnumbered 4:1, aren't getting any rest, he says. Some stay on the front lines for 30 or 40 days at a time, cramped in foxholes inches from death. 'Dublin,' a fighter attached to the 59th brigade south-east of Pokrovsk, knows soldiers who have been in place for more than two months. Two had strokes."

It would indeed open the road to Dnipro - just 180km away. Shouldn't take long for a band of inexperienced drunks driving Korean war tanks

First they have to conquer Pokrovsk - unlikely before the snow comes

If there is no Eastern Europe there is no Western Europe.
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It is not the same, those are continents, it is geography.
Eastern Europe is a political term, invented by Imperialistic Austria in the 19th century and used by Moscow in its soviet stage.
Nowadays it is used either by geographically deprived Yanks or by Moscow to assert its claims of domination over that region.
In short, it is an imperialistic term that has nothing to do with geography or culture. The only thing a region called Eastern Europe has in common is that, in one way or another it used to be under Soviet domination.
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One is to expose russia's final 'red line' as being imaginary.... and all the proponents of 'de-escalation' don't know what they're talking about...

More from Zeihan

180 km of empty fields.

What you all Westerners see is with all due respect vestige of leftover Soviet domination and before that Russian domination. It is not in any way shape or form Polish culture which is Western. In the same way different from anglo protestant culture like Italian or Spanish culture. The thing is you are more familiar with those, that is the only difference. Plus of course those Soviet leftovers.
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That is what the Commonwealth of Poland had in common. It was like going to Australia or Canada and commenting they have a whisky and eat bacon, and have a heretical religion that was even more absolutist in its prime than the most fanatical Catholicism ever was.

If Polish culture is Western, then I am a monkey's uncle.

It can't be all "central" Europe, Iron.....and there are differences, not only geographically!

Maybe you think "eastern" Europe is some kind of insult, a blemish? Maybe it once was....western Europeans used it like that...hell, some western Germans still like to use it like that for eastern Germans. But it still exists nonetheless, and it can be tomorrow a badge of honour!

....and the way the West goes the time to be proud of being a "eastern" European, looking down your nose at these "Westerners", might come sooner than you think. :)

Hmm... as a marxist you are supposed to believe that you come from monkeys, so the family connection is a possibility there ;)

As for Polish culture, Iron is right that it is Western but it also exceeds Western (as understood today)... it's uber-Western if you will. Moreover, it was uber-Western 500 years ago. The Glorious Rzeczpospolita was in fact a protoplast of the European Union. Polish culture is - at its very core - the culture of Republican Rome, and the Sarmatian ideal was just that: republican Roman freedom ideal.

That's it in a nutshell but if you want an essay, I can write it.


Not looking down on anyone but there was a time when Schwabians, Lombardians, Picardians and whatnot came to settle in Poland and saw it as an improvement in their lives.

....you lack the vowels!!!

*runs*

Well, I'm not going to dispute your lineage, you know better.
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Look I was first and quick to assert such terminology for political and propaganda use. However, you need to know with what kind of Ironside you are talking about.
Is that Ironside talking politicks or is Ironside being sarcastic or is Ironside being factual?
Right now Ironside talks about the factual meaning of the term Eastern Europe and its connotations.
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Vowels are overrated. :)

Who are you? 🤔

Good for you. However, it is a fact that despite odds Ukrainians kick Russian asses and that is the reality.
Might Russia be unable to take over Ukraine with all its military might and little help from its friends? I wonder if not for mobilisations and millions of men at their disposal what would this war look like?
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What do you mean? I'm factual Ironside for today.

The point is clearly to humiliate Putin and pressure him politically, not militarily. Maybe pressure him into sending draftee kids to fight, and the potential social reaction. Maybe pressure him into further mobilization, and the potential social reaction.
Nobody is taking Kursk, thats absurd. 5000 people won't take a city of 1+ million population, full of steel reinforced concrete towers. I am sure exactly zero people involved with this think that city is in danger. Ukraine is just waving its dick in front of Putin's face, reducing the authority of the autokrat, maybe getting him to snap, maybe encouraging potential political opponents.

So it is a PR campaign. But for a Russian audience, not Western.

How are the North Nigerians going to cross 180 km of empty fields with no air support and basically defenseless against missiles and drones ? Their only opinion is to crawl on their bellies.

The obsession with Pokrovsk shows the 19th century mentality of the NNs. Putler has obviously told someone that this modest market town has to be captured and that the reward or punishment for not doing so will be great.

Meanwhile their own country is invaded, their Western stooges look foolish, airports, refineries and ships are destroyed seemingly at will.

Pokrovsk will be captured, but after many weeks and at the cost of a few thousand more farm boys. After that they have to hold the booby trapped ruins which will make them sitting ducks

running old ladies out of their homes makes you happy?

why is everything that makes you happy revolting?

x.com/olliecarroll/status/1826581790426816923

Danke.


In Russian - we have a saying... "If Grandma had a penis, she would be Grandpa".


What makes me happy, is that Ukraine continues to make mistakes. After an initial period of seemingly endless Russian mistakes, this is a welcome change.

Our proverb is not that sexist - If grandma had a mustache, she'd be a grandpa.

Meanwhile, the oil depot in Proletarsk is still on fire and the flames are getting close to the kerosene tanks....

x.com/DakdaR22/status/1826924073424650698

If they blow the whole depot is history......

It could have been running normally and money from oil sales could have been used to invest in infrastructure and make life better for everyday russians.... but bombing children's hospitals and running old ladies out of their homes are more important... apparently.