What is going on in Kiev?

The Donetsk airport has had heavy fighting daily since the summer. The strategic value of the airport is long gone, now it's become a symbol in Ukraine. The Ukrainian squads holding it are lovingly called "cyborgs" by the rest of the country due to their seemingly inhumane ability to hold it all this time even though they have been basically surrounded by separatists for months (they had a narrow corridor through which to move reinforcements and wounded, the rest was controlled by pro-Russian forces. This weekend's push cleared away most of the separatist artillery positions and fortifications, reversing the situation).

The Donetsk airport is a meat-grinder for Russians. Recently Russian journalists started talking quietly about couple of hundred dead, all very high skill level soldiers, various special forces teams, all of them shipped from Donetsk. The total number of Russian dead in the airport alone might be from 1000 to 2000, no one knows for sure.

It is said that the proRussian commanders are sending troops like lemmings there because..profit. Each "volunteer" gets couple of thousand US dollars per month. If they die and the commander delays reporting it, they still get the money. There are talks that some of them have already become amassed 1-2 million dollars US. Although, they might be getting into trouble for it, there's been in-fighting, chechen fighters (policemen and soldiers from Chechnya, loyal to Kadirov, the Putin-puppet) didn't appreciate these tactics and were threatening to hang the commanders. Also, some commanders are being investigated by "misappropriating" the contents of "human convoys" from Russia. Big surprise all around.

It's also no surprise that Russian military are in the Ukraine. Ukranians have destroyed numerous armored vehicles that have never been used in Ukranian army so I don't know who can say that separatists liberated them from Ukranian bases and keep a straight face.
There are videos of Russian spetsnaz insignias seen in firefights in Donetsk airport. Last weekend a fricking Russian major-general was killed in Donetsk, last fall an FSB general was killed there. If they are all volunteers, bringing guns and tanks with them from their Russian bases, Russian army has serious problem, one would think.
It's theatre of the absurd.

Starting to sound a whole lot like Adventures in Finland.

Interesting. Putin does not seem to be as competent as Stalin was, which is surprising given his image. I can't imagine Stalin not having this solved by now, at the expense of his military command structure in the region.

This implies to me that while Putin talks a great game, he's actually got a balancing act going in his own command structure, and he can't go too far in handling it or it'll bite his hand off. Stalin worked for something over a decade to remove legitimate internal threats to his control. Putin just does not seem to be in his class.

One possibility: he's evil enough to scare people, but not evil enough to terrify them. That's a bad place to be.

Malor wrote:

One possibility: he's evil enough to scare people, but not evil enough to terrify them. That's a bad place to be.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/451138695274717184/i2NncpcC.jpeg)

Well, Russian society is not in the same headspace as it was in Stalin's time. Stalin really killed his opponents openly and by the thousands and even more just exiled in Siberia. Nowdays, for all the absurd trials against opposition and coercion and occasional unsolved killing of particularily pesky opposition, it's impossible to play such a game openly at the moment. Stalin's terror was based on simply fear of death which during the purges happened all around you every day.

Instead, Kremlin has opted for malleable reality approach, using TV and social media to create an alternate reality. Facts don't matter. Like, at all. In Russia nowdays the only thing you can trust on TV is weather and sports results. The rest can be a blatant lie and it's consistent throughout all the TV and newspaper sphere. Internet is harder but they've done astounding work there too, filling it with noise. Major social networks belong to Kremlin's oil circle, any dissenting forums groups or users are frequently banned while actual troll farms work on creating the emotional info background that fits Putin.
An independent Russian journalist managed to get herself hired for couple of weeks in one such "farm", it's through-the-looking-glass stuff. Not only political talking points are disseminated that way, the power circles also pursue economic agendas through those and fight each other.

In order to even approach the edge of understanding the famed "russian soul" one has to understand that Russians on average are much more nihilistic and cynical. Part of it might be the Soviet legacy, perhaps, I have no clue. Many of those people working for Kremlin's benefit don't care for reality and facts. Like..at all. And they can't imagine a single action that could be taken selflessly. It's always Western plot or some conspiracy or, the inevitable CIA op. Recently a soldier from Russia's military base in Armenia deserted. Took an AK, his belonging and just went away. Then he killed a family of armenians, husband, wife, kids, seven people in all (the one kid who managed to survive at first, died yesterday). Shot them and when he run out of ammo, bayonetted the last kid, two years old. He was caught on the border, he confessed. The whole Russian blogosphere lit up with stories of how it's a CIA plot immediately. They have "Ya Vanya" hashtags and images, akin "Je suis Charlie".

In Russia nowdays the only thing you can trust on TV is weather and sports results.

So just the sports results... which might have been fixed anyway?

An independent Russian journalist managed to get herself hired for couple of weeks in one such "farm", it's through-the-looking-glass stuff. Not only political talking points are disseminated that way, the power circles also pursue economic agendas through those and fight each other.

The same thing may be happening here, just less blatantly. The Pentagon has been allowed to engage in propaganda against American citizens for a number of years now, I'm thinking six or eight.

I'm sure it's much worse there, but it's not necessarily as unique to them as we might like.