Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd #350 — Ukraine War Update + Poilu (Patreon)

Published:
2022-10-20 16:23:07
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Recorded: October 18, 2022

Latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia's change in strategy targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure with Shahed-136s, coinciding with naming new Russian war commander, "General Armageddon" Sergei Surovikin... Nordstream pipeline sabotage mystery...Ukraine's military-intel chief Kirill Budannov... Lastly, the Nerd discusses Louis Barthas' posthumously published WWI memoir, Poilu...

Intermission music by Brendon Anderegg

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Total time: 1:41:19

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Files

Comments

THEKILLERWHALE

You mention those WWI monuments in the Commonwealth having more names than current population. It is the same here in France. It is pretty astonishing to come to some corner in the middle of nowhere and see a war monument with dozens or hundreds of names. The big question I always ask myself is whether this is 20th century migration to urban areas (implying these places had a much higher historical population base) or evidence of the bloodiest damn war you can imagine?

William

Things are definitely starting to change in Ukraine - hard to see how they stop the growing strength of the Russian forces. People kept waiting to see where Ukraine would strike with it's swelling armies; first they said Zaporizhizhia but now it's Kearson

Robert Rowe

WWI was on the cusp of a demographic transition from man and horse powered agriculture to internal combustion engine power, tractors and trucks, from locally grown food to refrigerated freight train cars. The need for people on the land to grow the food and process it changed a great deal. That, and a farmer in a Catholic/no birth control country who grew his labor force at home had suddenly lost a lot of that "equipment" to the war & a lot of the survivors had seen there was more to the world than their village and being a farmer/vintner/ostler.

NYCM&AHole

Ukraine attacks Nordstream 2, then Germany invokes Nato article 5

William

Gotta say, General Armageddon is a pretty sick name, but also kind of average too. Feels like the Michael Bay movie of nicknames

Lojban Chauvinist

Apparently the Montenegrins were some of the shortest people in Europe back a couple hundred years ago. I read that somewhere, but still have a hard time believing it. I doubt Cyrillic is going anywhere. John is probably looking at signage in Croatian or Slovenian. The Serbs and Bulgarians aren't going to switch to Latin anytime soon.

Lojban Chauvinist

Re: Geran-2 drones, (1) Why is it "embarrassing" or as the Guardian says, a "sign of weakness" that Russia is using these clearly excellent weapons – who cares if they had to buy them? (2) Dumb question, maybe, but how do you know they weren't domestically produced from Iranian schematics?

Ross Kiro-Ward

If you want to know the story of the Bayraktar in Ukraine, the Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus can help with that. Turkish-made Bayraktar drones have no combat effectiveness due to their extreme vulnerability to air defense systems, Ukrainian official Sergey Pashinsky said in a mock interview with Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus. Pashinsky thought he was speaking to former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. During the call he apparently admitted that “there is more PR and corruption in Bayraktar than combat use,” according to a video published by the duo on their Telegram channel which appears to have been recorded sometime earlier this month. The politician, who heads the Association of Defense Enterprises of Ukraine, went on to say that the Turkish drones, which Western and Ukrainian media have hailed as a game changer on the battlefield in the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, are “first and foremost a PR project.” “I was personally against it, because they are extremely vulnerable to air defense systems,” Pashinsky said, adding that Ukraine had a lot of Bayraktars before fighting broke out and that “they were all shot down within a week.” He further explained that the drone is “not a self-sufficient weapon” it cannot work by itself as it “gets shot down by air defense systems in a flash and has no combat effectiveness at all.” The reason there’s no more talk about Bayraktars is because they are used as surveillance drones these days.

Anil Nair

I always had trepidation on which side to support in this war. Despite the so called alleged Nazis in Ukraine, it seems the worst of the worst among the far right in the West and far left support Russia. It also has been fascinating watching the Radio War Nerd guys get it wrong consistently, and I am convinced that even if Russia committs genocide, the Russia stand will still make excuses for it.

Jon

Some points on Russia buying drones - Justin Bronk of RUSI has talked about Russia keeping around 50% of its cruise missile stock in hand in case of NATO attack. They used a considerable number in the Kerch Bridge reprisal attacks and with around a 50% intercept rate it's not very cost effective for them to use the missiles whereas the drones cost more to shoot down than they do to produce

Jon

It's been clear since around May that Russia is very short on available stocks of true cruise missiles and Iskanders - as a result they have been using anti-ship missiles and even reprogrammed S-300 missiles to attack ground targets which is very inefficient There is an excellent interview with Justin Bronk here: https://youtu.be/JfSy_6ihdgI

Alex

Leaving Ukraine's critical infrastructure relatively intact seems consistent with Russia's stated aims since the beginning of the war, which were never to overrun and occupy all of Ukraine, but to demilitarize and "de-nazify" (whatever that means). Since the beginning they've claimed to want self-determination for the Russian speaking separatist regions of Ukraine, and to remove any question of Ukraine joining NATO, which was never really a possibility, as you have pointed out on this show. US analysts presume, essentially without basis, that the Russians have some sort of colonial designs on Kiev, or a desire to remove the current Ukrainian regime and install a more pro-Russian one in its place, but that seems like a bit of projection on the part of CIA analysts and journalists who take as fact the assumptions of the American war makers of the last decades. Indeed, it's plausible that if the Ukraine-Russia negotiations hadn't been repeatedly sabotaged by British and US meddling in the early months of the war, the gamble probably would have worked. But now, with the (obviously US-directed) sabotage of the Nord Stream II pipeline, peace talks just aren't in the cards, hence the escalation.

Drake Myers

No need to support either, I just hope the war ends as soon as possible and don't care which oligarch clique ends up in control of what lands. I worry about the people a lot and escalation.

Anil Nair

You mean, you worry about the Ukrainian people. They are the ones who are suffering through this. They are the ones bearing the cost unanimously for Russian fantasies about their lost empire. Their constant obsession about their former soviet colonies. No wonder the ultra nationalists in India and China constantly praise Putin. They have the same backward looking ideology of when their respective nations were great, and disguise their bellicose nationalism as western anti-imperialism. I am surprised when so called western anti-imperialist parrot russian imperial propaganda. I do care which of your so called oligarchical clique comes to power. At least the Ukrainian ones are just corrupt. The Russian ones constantly threaten their neighbours.

xxx

How do you figure the Nord Stream 2 destruction was "obviously US-directed"?

Armand

So happy to have been invited to be a pedantic Ling Nerd in the comments! At the end of the day, all the Slavic languages have diverged from Old/Proto- Slavic for the same amount of time and have all diverged from the "parent" language in various ways to a degree that I have a hard time taking anyone who would strongly assert which is the most conservative very seriously. I suspect any argument to declare Slovenian the most conservative would be based heavily on the fact that it conserves a certain feature that fells very salient due to it's rarity: preservation of the dual number. So, for example, there is a distinct (nominative) dual form "roki" (two hands/both hands) alongside the singular "roka" (hand), and plural "roke" (hands [e.g. of an octopus or multiple people]). On the other hand, if you were to focus on other features of the language you might come to very different conclusions about which is most conservative. Looking at the sound system, you could focus on the fact that Polish conserves nasal vowels. Focusing on grammar you could point out that Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian preserve more of the old noun case system, or that Bulgarian/Macedonian have kept the tense system more intact. Undoubtedly if you start looking at regional dialects there are a ton more rabbit holes you could go down. Long story short: don't pay attention to old-school linguistic nationalism. It's almost always complete BS

pod accoster

Interesting discussion of the NS sabotage. The hypothesis in the episode could also be consistent with the order of the explosions. NS2 was sabotaged 17 hours before NS1. Perhaps you would want to verify that the pressure drop was minor enough to indicate reparable damage of NS2 before detonating a larger section of NS1. The idea that Langley has motive still makes sense as well to me. US covert operations focus a lot on creating favorable political environments for supportive politicians--which governments are in power seems very important when you are finding a way to manage other public democracies. Cooperation of European politicians is solid, but support for those politicians has been vulnerable to the worsening conditions of the winter. A political environment that endangers the offices of our biggest allies due to their support for the gas shut off seems like a crucial liability Langley would be interested in. The US had opportunity in undersea drone exercises, apache flights, the p8a with the missing flight records, but perhaps the Kremlin could have timed explosives accordingly if they had a chance to install them during building of the pipeline or otherwise. It sounds like it would be a risky area for the Kremlin to do such a thing and not get caught after building, but maybe there's a way. I would also think that Russia would assume that they would be blamed by the international community and leadership automatically for NS sabotage, undermining willingness to bargain regarding NS2/public pushback and risking global war if caught. The stakes don't seem as high for the US getting caught. As Zakharov said as she tried to implicate Swedish vessels, they are aware that the standard of evidence seems higher for the NATO allies. The risk of triggering a wider war with the wronged parties seems slim for the US. Whoever it was must have felt big risks were safe enough or the only option.

William

It's just media spin

Ross Kiro-Ward

Nordstream 2 had far more leverage being left alone, albeit non-operational, for Russia, rather than it now does being in pieces. In my opinion Mark contradicted his own argument when he explained Putin as using the destroyed pipeline against Germany in an attempt to coerce them. It was far, far, far more valuable to Putin as a kind of “temptation” for Germany while it was intact. Now it’s useless. So why blow it up to only then use it as a bargaining chip? It makes zero sense. Also, think about when winter hits in Germany. When people are freezing in their homes, and industry comes to a halt it would have been a lot harder to justify what is going on when a perfectly good pipeline is sitting unused. Now, like I said, the temptation is gone and so has any possible internal conflict in Germany about negotiating any kind of compromise with Russian gas. This has not turned out in Russia’s favour, and has done quite the opposite in fact. Just my opinion, though.

J P 3

My assumption is that the Russians left critical infrastructure in place in Ukraine, because of mistaken assumptions about the course of the war. e.g. from the beginning, there was clearly an assumption that Zelenskyy was unpopular, that the government would collapse, and that the Russian army would be welcomed as liberators. It's easier for a puppet government to win hearts and minds if the power is still on. Destroying critical infrastructure may be necessary to win a conventional war. However, destroying critical infrastructure also makes any kind of a long-term occupation untenable -- it is just one more factor that will fuel an insurgency (a lesson that the U.S. could share from its experience in Iraq). With respect to Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2 my assumption is that it was probably an F-you by Russia to western Europe. e.g. some of the damage to one of the lines was done just outside of Denmark's territorial waters. My assumption is that if the U.S. had actually been responsible, you would have heard NATO countries pushing more in the direction of the damage being an unfortunate accident, rather than an act of sabotage. The incident also happened at a time when Russia was just starting to do its mobilization, after Ukraine had made significant gains in the east.

Animals in Motion

I don't know of course, but it makes no sense to me that Russia would blow up the NS pipeline, for the reasons already mentioned. Another reason why is that all the governments "investigating" this are very very circumspect and cautious, in a way that makes me suspicious.

Alex

The US and its proxies in Ukraine are the only entities who stand to gain anything from destroying Nord Stream II. Against all logic, Europe is now buying LNG from the United States, which has to be shipped across the Atlantic ocean in tankers and deposited at harbors with LNG-specific infrastructure, many more of which will have to be constructed in order to meet demand. They're going to pay multiple times what they otherwise would have for something they absolutely can't go without, and for which they already had a pipeline specifically constructed to deliver. It'd be interesting to see who wins the contracts to build these terminals, not to mention who loans them the money to get it done. And, even if the Europeans don't make the USA their sole supplier of LNG, there are currently major pipelines through Ukraine which are still functioning, and from which the Ukrainians make billions of dollars in transaction fees annually. You'd think if Putin were going to destroy a pipeline, he'd have destroyed one in the country he's already invading.

Patrick

I haven't read his book but I did find an interview with the "Donbas Cowboy" from earlier this year and he goes into some greater detail about his background. I think he posted regular videos from the front to Youtube for a while but his channel seems to have disappeared. Here's a link to the interview if anyone is interested. Thought of it because he talks about how after going back to the front briefly he now does mainly media stuff for the militia due to his age and (presumably) language/background. An interesting character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AIGtl8aS4o

xxx

Whenever I hear "General Armageddon" I just think about that shitty fuckin' movie.

Rory Flaherty

Poiliu is an excellent book. Read it a few years ago. One of the few memoirs written by an enlisted man instead of an officer and it shows.

Doug Cartel

As far as I can tell (speaking from what I've heard on the internet so god knows how accurate it is) it seems like Russian tactical leadership is at least better than the strategic leadership, drawing forces into salients and then blasting them, but then that's not a super complicated move and it's easier to defend than to attack, both from a tactical POV and morale-wise.

Doug Cartel

aw man I just remembered all that talk from defense contractors mid-2000s about how their goal was to make their hardware operate with "off the shelf" parts, which if I remember right had to do with making it easier to repair/replace stuff rather than having to rely on bespoke technicians for everything.

Kevin Walsh

I believe the easiest way for Russia to have blown up the pipeline would be with a pipeline maintenance drone (I understand they're called pigs). The problem with that method is that it would presumably have been immediately obvious to investigators that the explosion came from inside the pipe rather than outside, which would have limited the suspects to Russia. Explosions could have been laid anywhere along the pipelines at any point in the years since they were laid, but one would have thought that the American military exercise which was testing how to detect undersea mines exactly where the pipelines blew up would have found those explosives. Edit: On listening to the "East is a Podcast" episode about the pipeline destruction, apparently such a drone could only have come from Russia, because they don't have any motors, and are just pushed by the gas flow. I think this eliminates it as a destruction method, myself.

Michael

Is it baffling that civilian infrastructure has been largely untouched until now? Putin was aiming for a repeat of the invasion of Georgia 2008 but this was a massive miscalculation. By imposing military costs on Ukraine the Kremlin hoped to force Zelensky to the negotiating table in a matter of weeks and secure guarantees over security, NATO, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Targeting civilian infrastructure would’ve made productive talks less likely and made the war a harder sell for the Russian public. Stiff Ukrainian resistance and Western backing has ended any possibility of Russia being in a position of negotiating on their terms. Russia’s war aims are now obscure. The West aim to bleed the Russia military in a protracted conflict and Russia have found themselves in a lose lose position where both a withdrawal and a continuation of the war will come at huge political, economic and military costs.

Viro Mia

Russia might do something stupid like destroy their own pipelines, but I feel you didn't really consider enough that the US would be stupid enough to destroy it as well. The motive would be to make sure Germany cannot go back once winter hits. Cause sure the government is for it now, but as we all should be aware of by now things surrounding this war can change rapidly. Of course we cannot know for sure who did it right now, but it would seem more likely the Russians would just leave the gas off and hope Germany comes crawling back to them for energy, and the US would obviously not want that. Biden has also sus comments about the pipelines. I agree we cannot know for sure who did it but I do not believe there would be more evidence for Russia doing it. Maybe it is some 4D chess move to get Nordstream 2 up, maybe its to ensure Germany stays in line during winter. Time will tell.

Ander Pierce

Haha I like hearing the city-content War Nerd

Christian Carrillo

Et tu RWN? Not the "Russians are bombing themselves" again guys. Like at ZNPP? Come'on? Then why are the Swedes not sharing the results of their enquiry? If they had evidence of it being done by the Russians it would be published everywhere now!

PW

Dated a tall gal from Trieste in Nashville. Worked out so well we never speak anymore. True story.

Dies Irae63

You guys are guessing, like everyone else. You’re great on some of the tactical stuff, war history , nationalist motives etc. and Mark’s knowledge of Russian language and urban sociology makes him a better analyst than most western pundits. But for two intelligent, well-informed and skeptical commentators, you don’t seem to be interested in the larger current geo-economic upheaval of which this conflict is a symptom. The US trying to knock the eur out of Eurasian economic integration might be worth a mention.

j

Best type of infiltration, when they don’t realize they have been infiltrated…. Second best they don’t know how long they have been infiltrated…

Hans Anders

Frankly, the war is partly about a second Nord Stream more than about Nord Stream 2. Having half of Nord Stream 2 while not having Nord Stream 1 is not a victory for Russia, except in the most petty sense possible.

Jelle Haandrikman

A nice movie about France at the end of WW1 and more across the Interbellum is: See You Up There (Original title: Au revoir là-haut) It starts with the meatgrinder of WW1 and then tried to handle the aftermath of that war. It does show the French as heroic soldiers doing their best. But only because it's French movie. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5258850/

Professor Jokes

You think the kremlin blew up ns1 and 2.... But don't explain why

Knut L

I’m somewhat disappointed to hear on RWN this nonsense about maybe it was the Russians themselves who blew up a pipeline they spent decades and billions in making, and which could have been turned on again at any moment given the political will, rather than the country that has been protesting against the construction of these pipelines at every step, sanctioned companies involved in it, announced it would not move forward, and whose war ships performed a manoeuvre in the location around the time it happened. This is lazy and insulting.

Matthias Höck

Russia did try to destroy the Ukrainian Internet, but Elon Musk's Starlink made it nearly invulnerable (unless Elon "Space Karen" Musk throws another hissy fit). The German cyber security guy was axed only after German comedian Jan Böhmermann exposed his dealings. That was probably left out in the international Reports.

Aditya V

NS pipelines. There is only one party that clearly mentioned they wanted to scrap it. The German Green Party. Amazing that no one talks about their motivations. Natural gas was the cleanest energy available short of Nuclear power plants, which too the Greens don't want. Who exactly are the Green Party backers and why did they want to scrap NS. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-greens-nord-stream/germanys-greens-vow-to-scrap-russian-gas-pipeline-after-election-idUSKBN2BB0ZS

Aditya V

The talk from UA intelligence chief about Russian regions peeling off (breakup of Russia) is not new. Comes straight from WSJ, ATlantic, thinktanks etc etc Look at the timeline https://arc.ua/en/mapping-russias-devolution/ https://www.ponarseurasia.org/time-to-question-russias-imperial-innocence/ https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/events/decolonizing-russia https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/russia-putin-colonization-ukraine-chechnya/639428/ https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/verkhovna-rada-recognizes-the-chechen-republic-of-ichkeria-as-temporarily-occupied-by-russia/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-crimes-of-colonialism-putin-ukraine-war-empire-eurasia-lavrov-africa-soviet-union-11660076835 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-twilight-of-the-last-russian-empire-putin-kremlin-russian-federation-republics-war-ukraine-russification-mobilization-collapse-11666270992

Jon

There have been numerous S-300 failures, but there's also been some reportage on Russia using what are probably older S-300 missiles against softer targets such as entrenched/manoeuvring troops, mostly on the Kherson/South West front

Mark Ames

Don't forget to tip the waitresses

Mark Ames

But the Georgia war lasted 5 days. Somehow it took Putin 8 months and an endless series of colossal losses to figure this out.

Mark Ames

I dunno, I thought I made it clear that there's a lot of stupid going around and Langley is as capable of self-harm stupid as anyone. Difference now is that when the pipeline was attacked, things were going well for Team Langley, whereas Russia was looking to rearrange the board again.

theSmokingGun

Denmark, Germany, and Sweden have all ended their investigation and won't release the findings.... seems pretty open and shut to me that the west is behind this. I also not sure Ukraine would be allowed to screw Germany like that without some sort of agreement from the US. If we let Ukraine get away with something like this and they got caught then the same blowback would exist w.r.t. our allies perception of us. So the idea we wouldn't do it but let Ukraine proceed seems incorrect. The US or Ukraine and the US are behind this imho. The reason why there is no consistent media message coming from Europe or these investigations is because we went behind their back to do this. I think in geopolitics it's considered bad form to ask another country if you can use them for a false flag operation. So the investigations are in real time seeing evidence of US or at the very least a lack of evidence of Russia, and don't know how to explain that to their civilian populations without admitting they are client states of the US.

HarshMalarkey

"The missle air-field, whatever happened there-" "WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE?!"

Hans Anders

According to the guest in that episode it does. After all, since no gas was flowing, a pig wouldn’t be able to get there at all.

William

It seems like the cheap loitering munitions are a huge development against all sorts of material in the same way that the anti-tank missile was for the tank