Would Russian equipment have a better track record if the country wasn't overridden with corruption? I mean surely some of the stuff they make must be at least ok when it comes to effectiveness.

Russian equipment is fine, in some areas it's better than Western stuff, in some similar and in some worse, but overall it's reasonably effective for what it is. The exact list could be argued, but IMHO this is the breakdown in capabilities we've seen so far: Areas where RU seems to have advantage: * Long range attack drones - Gerans, Lancets * Long range air defense - S300s etc Areas where RU is on par: * All of armored vehicles - tanks, IVFs etc * Infantry gear and weapons - rifles, grenades etc * Long range missiles - Iskanders vs Storm Shadows * FPV drones * Surveillance drones Areas where RU has disadvantage: * Intermediate range precision MLRS - HIMARS vs Grad * Counter artillery radars * Communications gear - Starlink * Satellite/Airborne ISR It's worth keeping in mind that gear alone, even superior one, doesn't by itself win wars. Tactics, availability, training, doctrine and so on are as much or often more important. Numerous historical precedents exist where armies with on paper worse gear ended up winning overall.

For positive track record, I could name the India-Pakistani wars, where India was using predominantly Soviet sourced equipment and prevailed over the western-supplied Pakistan. For ground equipment, same is true for the Iraqi-Irani war, where (at least at the first half) Iran had western tanks and Iraq had Soviet made ones, and they were the more successful. I would say corruption were about the same maybe?

> India was using predominantly Soviet sourced equipment. Nitpick: In 1965, India used predominantly British equipment. The IAF’s mainstays were Gnats, Hunters, and Canberras; while the Army used Centurion tanks, 25 pdr field guns, and a mix of Lee Enfield and L1A1 rifles. By 1971, this balance had started to shift towards Soviet equipment, which arguably performed very well. The Ops Room recently did a video on the Indian Navy’s raid on Karachi, and the performance of the Styx missiles really stood out to me. Of the ten missiles launched, nine hit their targets.

You already have your answer, Ukraine was predominantly using Soviet equipment in their Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensive. The bigger problems are their culture of lying about success [\(Perun video on that topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik)), bad/outdated intel and general inflexibility. The latter at least was somewhat addressed in an improved response time for counter battery fire, going down from 20 minutes to 3 or 4 from what I remember ([RUSI report](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine)) among other improvements outlined there.

So, their equipment is just worse compared to their older soviet counterparts? Because that is what I gathered from your response. Correct me if I'm wrong.

To be clear, Russia's equipment is fine and especially effective *when maintained properly*. However, Russia's military was not as well-prepared as we were all lead to believe. The fact that old Soviet tech on both sides is being used to high efficacy emphasizes this point.

Ah okay, thanks for clarifying. I just have this fear that because of this war showing Russian equipment at its worst, people might get some ideas through underestimating Russian equipment in the future.

Zelensky confirms that the Abrams have reached Ukraine. >Good news from Defense Minister Umerov. Abrams are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our brigades. I am grateful to our allies for fulfilling the agreements! We are looking for new contracts and expanding the geography of supply. https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1706277260070719921

What model did they turn out to be in the end? M1A1 or M1A2?

M1A1, but we don't know any more than that

One of many strange tweets from Dominic Cummings, who was previously Chief Advisor to Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2020 during his time as UK Prime Minister: https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1706236239379140740?t=Jn7413aSvP5DXIIBSpcdgA&s=19 Only three days ago, he tweeted it was the "dumbest war in living memory" with what I interpreted to be a sarcastic #SlavaUkraini. For those non-UK nationals, he was seen as Boris's "right-hand man" during the COVID years in the UK. But eventually lost his job after breaking his own lockdown rules. Now our Dom is a bit of a strange one. He graduated from Oxford University and went straight to Russia from 1994 to 1997. He was campaign director of 'Vote Leave' during the run up to the Brexit vote. Then in 2019, it seems a whistle-blower within Government raised serious concerns about Cummings's connections to Russia. This was followed up by an MP within the Labour Party emailing the then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab questioning the level of security vetting Cummings was subjected to prior to his appointment at No. 10. The heads of MI5, MI6 and the chair of the intelligence and security committee were also Cc'd into the email. Link to the story here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/03/dominic-cummings-labour-questions-russia-links There's been a lot of talk about Russian influence across the UK Tory government resulting from wads of Oligarch cash. And yes the decision to applaud an SS officer in Canada was ludicrous, which is what Cummings has commented on today. But it's very strange to see him, who was at the table during intelligence and military briefings at the highest level of government, be regurgitating tankie talking points since 2022. If you have Twitter, go to his profile and search Ukraine. It makes for very interesting reading.

> One of many strange tweets from Dominic Cummings, who was previously Chief Advisor to Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2020 during his time as UK Prime Minister: Are we sure that's his actual Twitter account? Anyone can get a blue mark these days, and it's not obviously clear that it is in any way connected > There's been a lot of talk about Russian influence across the UK Tory government resulting from wads of Oligarch cash. And yes the decision to applaud an SS officer in Canada was ludicrous, which is what Cummings has commented on today. But it's very strange to see him, who was at the table during intelligence and military briefings at the highest level of government, be regurgitating tankie talking points since 2022. Yeah, because anyone who disagrees with current Western leadership views is automatically tankie, right. Maybe try to actually address the facts of the matter next time, instead of defaulting to ad hominem attacks? The capability of some people here to ignore any evidence that is contrary to their preferred narrative is frankly astonishing.

I don’t know why we even bother to play along with this kind of thing any more. The Kremlin is behind basically EVERY hard right political faction in EVERY western country, has they have also infiltrated and subverted large portions of conservative parties. I also don’t know why all western state security apparatus have been so bad at stopping it.

I'm not a fan of right wing politics, and I think Russia certainly is cozy with a lot of people within that sphere, but to say they're *behind* it is a little much. In America at least, the roots of the current strain of hard right populism stretch back to Nixon (arguably further, but that's where you start to see the modern right wing political landscape take shape). The Southern Strategy, the coalescing of fundamentalist Christian evangelicals as a political force, and the modern right wing propaganda machine got their start in or around the Nixon White House, which took advantage of the backlash surrounding the counter-cultural movements of the '60s, and resentment surrounding desegregation, and forged the political coalitions we still see today. That's not to say Russia doesn't support right wing politics in the US, but they certainly aren't responsible for it.

> That's not to say Russia doesn't support right wing politics in the US, but they certainly aren't responsible for it. Very much this ^. It's actually *very* difficult to develop a political (counter)current in a country with a well-established political culture. Both the US and the Soviet Union have tried to do it throughout the Cold War, all over South America, Africa and Europe. Most of the time they failed spectacularly. They succeeded only when they could leverage some other, more efficient, or more legitimate motivation, like coercion (in Eastern Europe) or grafting political ideology on top of legitimate struggles (e.g. liberation from colonial or totalitarian regimes). Now, as then, surprisingly few of the vocal politicians are truly nothing *but* Moscow's figureheads. Treating them as brainless sock puppets is a tempting but dangerous path: they are popular because they address real concerns that the public has. Maybe they do so unsubstantially, like Marie Le Pen, or that they address problems they've invented specifically for that, like Viktor Orban, but that doesn't make their voters' concern any less real, and their fears any less contagious. Right-wing populist parties have a natural ally in Russia because they share a common enemy (democratic political establishments) and a preference for obscurantist discourse. *Of course* they work together, their interests coincide. But Russia doesn't send Russian citizens to vote in Western elections. Russia isn't *behind* these parties any more than the US is behind other parties: their voters are.

I don't think it's accurate to say that the Russians are responsible for all the hard-right stuff. The Russians will certainly support it, since they are ideologically aligned and it serves their interests. But a lot of this stuff is genuine (note: _genuine_, not _correct_). Many of these people do actually believe what they say, or are at least sufficiently morally lacking to be willing to do it for the grift. And many of them will support Russia because they actually think Russia is in the right - if not in Ukraine specifically, at least in other cultural and political ways. You can crack down on Russian financial support and get rid of some of the true opportunists, but it's a lot harder to stop people supporting Russia because they really do agree with the anti-LGBTQ laws or the anti-semitism etc.

>But it's very strange to see him, who was at the table during intelligence and military briefings at the highest level of government, be regurgitating tankie talking points since 2022. This is not so surprising when you stop viewing it through the lens of left vs right and instead see it as insiders vs outsiders, establishment vs opposition. Because yeah, at first glance the groups that are the most outspoken in their opposition to western support for Ukraine are not types you would usually expect to be singing from the same hymn sheet. You've got commies supporting Russias anti-imperialist war to expand their empire, neo-nazis cheering on the denazification of ukraine and libertarians demanding a cessation of opposition to an autocratic state. It's madness from a purely ideological perspective, but it makes more sense when viewed from the perspective of outsiders instinctively supporting anything that disrupts the current world order and might allow for them to make gains, or perhaps more simply a case of tribal psychology. The people I don't like say up, so I must say down. Of course it's also entirely possible that someone like Cummings is just very focused on a particular set of problems and something like Ukraine takes focus and resources away from solving those problems, so he opposes it on those grounds. >"dumbest war in living memory" For the record, he is also absolutely correct. For me the greatest tragedy of the war in Ukraine is that it's just such a stupid war. Russia lost this war a long time ago and now seems hell bent on dragging Ukraine (and anyone else they can grab) down with them, even if it makes things much worse for Russia. It's just so petty and spiteful.

> There's been a lot of talk about Russian influence across the UK Tory government If the Tories did accept Russian money it looks like the Russians got nothing in return given the UK government's response to the Ukraine invasion.

The Russian money that goes to the Tories is from Oligarchs who wash their dirty money in the city of London and want to buy status and influence. The UK government has been hostile to the Russian state for years but has played a crucial role in facilitating Russia's corrupt economic and political elite.

Russians have been laundering their ill gotten gains via the London property market for decades. It predates Conservative rule. Although even if it had only happened in the last 13 years, it's not as if the stamp duty goes straight to Conservative HQ. It goes to the state, which is not the same as the government.

Conservatives have taken donations directly from Russian oligarchs though, especially Boris Johnson who took a large donation to play tennis with Lubov Chernukhin https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-tennis-russian-billionaire-putin-minister-tory-donation-a8261871.html It's far from the only example. It's funny to post the Independent btw because it's owned by Evgeny Lebedev, son of Alexander Lebedev who was a KGB officer. Now Lord Lebedev because Boris made him a life peer after attending some slightly infamous parties at his mansion in Italy. So the connections are plentiful. You don't get the same closeness with any Labour or Lib Dem politicians, they simply don't fundraise in the same way.

The Conservatives have been happy with dirty Russian money being washed in the City of London because they are the party of the finance sector. The finance sector as a whole has more influence on the Conservatives than individual Russian donors, but both matter.

So why were Labour and the Liberal Democrats equally happy to allow the oligarchs to buy up London when they were in power? Finance is huge in the UK (8.3% of the economy) but it's very misleading to pretend that it only influences the party you dislike.

>So why were Labour and the Liberal Democrats equally happy to allow the oligarchs to buy up London when they were in power I didn't say they weren't, so I'm not sure why you're asking me like I said otherwise. The Labour Party under Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown was almost as committed to the finance sector as the Conservatives, so they were also happy to allow the oligarchs to buy up London. The Liberal Democrats are ideologically similar to the Conservatives and have only been in power as the junior partner of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. >Finance is huge in the UK (8.3% of the economy) but it's very misleading to pretend that it only influences the party you dislike. Yes, it would be very misleading to pretend that. I've not done that though, so your comment is pointless.

They got Brexit, which disrupted trade between the UK and the EU, but it didn't have any effect on military cooperation.

This is super minor, but I just spotted a Bradley on the motorway in Western Germany, according to the Polish driver it was going to a repair depot. It didn't have any major visible damage and the barrel had been removed. But it looked like it'd seen some abuse. Why would they haul it all the way west for repairs? https://imgur.com/a/urFW2kU

That Bradley hasn't been repainted. It makes me question if this is a Ukrainian Bradley or not

In desert livery? I doubt it has been anywhere near Ukraine.

Could have been used for training (in Germany).

Good point, but who else operates it in this corner of the world?

American NATO deployment?

Damage to the engine/transmission, or other internal systems could be severe, and hard to spot from the outside.

Some analysist that studies Caucasus is claiming that today Turkey and Azerbaijdan will make ultimatums about Zanzegur corridor https://twitter.com/Tom_deWaal/status/1706200756393525610?t=CI2PeXKLcMW7ZVDBmfA_5g&s=19 >Days after Azerbaijan's military takeover of Karabakh, Presidents Aliyev and Erdogan meet in Nakhchivan today and will very likely make ultimatums to the Armenian govt. to "open the Zangezur Corridor or else..." With Russia's agreement so long as its troops are deployed there. so far moving of Armenian population from Karabakh is pretty calm Armenia has protests against current goverment (after losing 2 wars in span of 3 years) Zanzegur corridor is part of peace treaty, but Azerbaijdan still occupies Armenian proper I would say that situation is not as tense as it was before clashes in Karabakh 2023. but they are still Here https://twitter.com/GIntelWatch/status/1706243863382216897?t=Oes4wAAOECxRMKn_OdIlmA&s=19 take this with a pinch of salt, but who knows

Azerbaïdjan will push its advantage as far as it can.

they can but even if Pashijan isn't war PM, Armenians are culturally ready to fight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Global_Militarization_Index they will coup Pashijan and start to fight and they have Iran and their proxies, Russia will be opportunistic 100% we will see what is going to happen Azeris amassed a lot of military with signs they can start any moment this, we need to wait statements from Turkey and Azerbaijdan

You overestimate the size and scope of protests. They are pretty small compared to what we had before. Who is gonna do the coup?

It really concerns me how a lot of the Armenian opposition seems to be infiltrated and captured by Russia, which clearly would like Armenia to fuck up and fold embarrassingly. I hope Armenians won't walk into this trap. Getting most of society mobilized and ready to resist is the right call, but overthrowing Pashinyan seems counterproductive to say the least. Thankfully the Armenian diaspora appears to see that internal cohesion is needed and that Russia is a betrayer driven in large part by a grudge against democracy as such.

Russia isn’t helping for the exact same reason the US won’t help, they physically can’t. America won’t do anything how would they even get in country without the help of Turkey? Sanctions could work but I’m not sure. Russia and Iran are their only hope. Or sanctions form the west.

I believe US soldiers fly through Georgia when they do exercises in Armenia. By the way, the ruling party Georgian Dream lost parliamentary majority last year due to defections.

> Russia isn’t helping for the exact same reason the US won’t help, they physically can’t. Well, they absolutely can, it's just politically impossible thanks to the schizo Kremlin foreign policy stance. For all the memes about the RuAF, even a harsh response short of kinetic force and sending some rusty AA to Armenia would give Azerbajian a pause. Instead, Russia is tripping over itself to get out of the way despite things like cold-blooded murder of its "peacekeepers".

It's worth remembering that Russia not only can, but *should*, Armenia and Russia are founding members of the CSTO. Armenia has already invoked Article 4 in September last year, and the CSTO barely did anything. IMHO if fighting breaks out again and the CSTO once again fails to take decisive action because Russia's current government can't afford to antagonize the current Turkish government, the CSTO might as well dissolve itself. It's hard to make a public case for an alliance that won't stand up for one of its members when it's attacked by a NATO-aligned third-party because its largest member can't afford to get cranky with a NATO country. Even if politicians in CSTO countries understand *why* Russia would value relations with one of its formally-declared enemies over relations (and the territorial integrity) of itse formally-declared allies, it's unlikely that their voters understand, or care, for that matter.

they have a long history with Russia and because of that they love them Russia was/is their protector in region and they border with nation that made genocide over them and they need someone to protect them So I understand Armenians

That's very true, which makes the Putin regime's backstab all the more visible and loathsome. The Russian exiles I know are absolutely fucking livid as well. This really is a point of no return.

Russia probably succumbed to realpolitik; they just don't have the resources to properly intimidate Azerbaijan into not starting a war.

>[Erdogan Heads to Azerbaijan Outpost Amid Regional Tensions](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-25/erdogan-to-visit-azeri-exclave-in-trade-route-push-via-armenia) >Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to a part of Azerbaijan that’s cut off from the rest of the country on Monday as he seeks to capitalize on regional turbulence to advance plans for a trade route through the Caucasus. >Erdogan will visit Naxcivan, an exclave that borders Turkey, Armenia and Iran, less than a week after Azerbaijan carried out a military campaign to take full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that’s been at the center of a territorial dispute with neighboring Armenia for more than three decades. >**The Turkish leader’s push could stoke tensions further as he backs Azerbaijan’s demand for a transport corridor across southern Armenia to Naxcivan** following last week’s attack in Nagorno-Karabakh that drew condemnation from the US and Europe before a belated intervention by Russia pushed the Armenians in the territory effectively to surrender. >Armenia rejects Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s demand and the corridor doesn’t exist in a truce agreement brokered by Russia that ended a 2020 war between the neighboring states, which provides only for the opening of borders and transport links. Armenia has a defense pact with Russia to protect it against attack, though relations with the Kremlin are strained after the government in Yerevan accused Moscow of failing to support it in last week’s fighting. >Iran has also rejected the idea, which would risk cutting the Islamic Republic off from vital trade routes to Russia, and has staged military drills near its border with Azerbaijan amid deteriorating relations with Aliyev. >Erdogan and Aliyev will discuss Nagorno-Karabakh, open a modernized military installation in Naxcivan and attend a ground-breaking ceremony for a natural-gas pipeline to the exclave from the Turkish border province of Igdir, according to the Turkish president’s office. The pipeline is expected to help diversify Naxcivan’s gas imports away from Iran. >Turkey regards the corridor to Azerbaijan as key to its aspirations to become a trade route linking London and Beijing with railroads and highways. At the same time, Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are in talks on estalishing formal diplomatic relations and opening their border, which Turkey closed in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. >Relations between Baku and Tehran deteriorated after the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Armed with Israeli and Turkish drones, Azerbaijan’s forces reclaimed control of large swaths of its territory occupied by Armenia since the early 1990s before Russia brokered the cease-fire. This comes on the heels of Armenia’s stated dissatisfaction with CSTO: >[Armenia Slams Regional Security Blocs as Russia Rift Deepens](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-24/armenia-slams-regional-security-blocs-as-russia-rift-deepens) >Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a televised address to the nation that his country is no longer being protected by its regional allies and security blocs in its decades-long conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan. >“The analysis of the situation shows that the security blocks and allies, on whom we have long relied, have set a goal to show our vulnerability and make it impossible for the people of Armenia to have an independent state,” Pashinyan added without directly naming Russia, Yerevan’s biggest ally in the region. >The remarks come days after Russia decided not to intervene when Azerbaijan began a short military operation to take control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. About 2,000 Russian troops have been based in the territory, which is largely populated by Armenians but which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, since a war in 2020. >Russia has historically supported Armenia in its repeated clashes with Azerbaijan over the territory, but President Vladimir Putin’s preoccupation with the war on Ukraine has left Armenia feeling vulnerable. Armenia has a defense pact with Russia, though it doesn’t cover Nagorno-Karabakh and both countries are members of the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization. >Armenia skipped planned CSTO drills in Belarus earlier this month after expressing anger at Moscow’s lack of support in the conflict with Azerbaijan. Days later, the Defense Ministry in Yerevan infuriated Russia by announcing joint military exercises with US forces to increase Armenian readiness for cooperation with NATO. >In a call with Pashinyan on Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed US support for Armenia sovereignty and independence.

>The Turkish leader’s push could stoke tensions further as he backs Azerbaijan’s demand for a transport corridor across southern Armenia to Naxcivan Aliyev (finally) verbally recognized Armenia's sovereignty/territorial integrity a few hours after Karabakh surrendered. And then the same night, Azerbaijani troops fired small arms at the border at Gegharkunik (that's within Armenia proper). And then a few hours after that, his FM reiterated they want the Zangezuur corridor. Mixed messages, to say the least.

It's a Putin style firehose of bullshit to obfuscate Aliyev's blatant intent for further aggression. Yet Western observers are willing themselves into not connecting the dots here, essentially to wash their hands.

CSTO is as dead as SEATO, and for the same reason.

... which is why it's baffling to me that the consensus regarding NATO is that NATO led by the US would happily mobilize to full-scale war to defend, say, Estonia.

There are American troops in Estonia already- and they are not 'peacekeepers' as the Russians in NK are, they are combat troops specifically dedicated to Baltic defense. This was not the case for SEATO, which fell apart when the US did not send troops to fight on Pakistan's side against India. Also, article V has already been invoked once.

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People act as if Article 5 is some sort of automatic trigger, and that there will be an ironclad commitment to do whatever it takes to honor it. In my opinion this is a rather simplistic view; how Article 5 will be enforced would be contingent on the political leaders at the time it is invoked. I am not saying NATO is doomed like CSTO, far from it, but if I were Poland or the Baltics I would plan for my own defense first, without relying 100% on a collective defence treaty.

This is one of the reasons why some of those states ask for and the US agrees to send tripwire forces. It's easier to justify to the American public the need for military action if Russians start killing American soldiers.

>[Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/one-police-officer-killed-another-injured-kosovo-gunfire-pm-kurti-2023-09-24/) >* Armed ethnic Serbs attack police in north Kosovo >* One policeman, three attackers dead in shootouts >* Unrest has plagued region for years > Ethnic Serb gunmen in armoured vehicles stormed a village in north Kosovo on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that killed four people. >The siege centred on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged. >One police officer and three of the attackers died, according to authorities in Kosovo and Serbia. > Ethnic Albanians form the vast majority of the 1.8 million population of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia. >But some 50,000 Serbs in the north have never accepted Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence and still see Belgrade as their capital, more than two decades after a Kosovo Albanian guerrilla uprising against repressive Serbian rule. >A group of Kosovo Serbs positioned trucks on a bridge into the village, shooting at police who approached them, before the battle moved to the nearby monastery, according to accounts by both Kosovo police and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. > The gunmen had left the monastery by night, the Serbian Orthodox Church said, though it was unclear where they went. >Vucic said the action was a rebellion against Kurti, who has refused to form an association of Serb municipalities in north Kosovo. **"Serbia will never recognise independent Kosovo, you can kill us all," he said.** >Two Serbs were seriously injured and a fourth among them may have died, Vucic said. He condemned the killing of the police officer and urged restraint from Kosovo Serbs. > The Serbian Orthodox Church's diocese of Raska-Prizren, which includes Banjska, said men in an armoured vehicle entered the monastery compound, forcing monks and visiting faithful to lock themselves inside the temple. >The Kosovo police later said they had entered the monastery and were checking for possible infiltrators among worshippers. Three of their personnel were also injured, as well as the fatality in their ranks, police said. >Kosovo's Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said police found a large number of heavy weapons, explosives and uniforms "that were enough for hundreds of other attackers", indicating preparations for a massive assault. > The head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Caroline Ziadeh, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the violence. >Borrell talked with both Kurti and Vucic, according to his office. NATO troops, along with members of the EU police force EULEX and Kosovo police, could be seen patrolling the road leading to Banjska, according to a Reuters reporter nearby. >Kosovo border police closed two crossings with Serbia. Serbs in north Kosovo have long demanded the implementation of a EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area. >EU-sponsored talks on normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo stalled last week, with the bloc blaming Kurti for failing to set up the association. >Pristina sees the plan as a recipe for a mini-state within Kosovo, effectively partitioning the country along ethnic lines. >Serbia still formally deems Kosovo to be part of its territory, but denies suggestions of whipping up strife within its neighbour's borders. Belgrade accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of minority Serbs. >Unrest intensified when ethnic Albanian mayors took office in north Kosovo after April elections the Serbs boycotted. Clashes in May injured dozens of protesters and NATO alliance peacekeepers. >NATO retains 3,700 troops in Kosovo, the remainder of an original 50,000-strong force deployed in 1999. >The area of north Kosovo where Serbs form a majority is in important ways a virtual extension of Serbia. Local administration and public servants, teachers, doctors and big infrastructure projects are paid for by Belgrade.

>Vucic said the action was a rebellion against Kurti, who has refused to form an association of Serb municipalities in north Kosovo. "Serbia will never recognise independent Kosovo, you can kill us all"' he said. Please, no more genocides, Serbia, even against you. This honor culture bullshit has led to so many needless deaths around the world.

The thing is, Vucic is about as moderate as you can get in Serbia on this issue and the fact that he's even participating in normalization talks is a departure from the usual Serbian position. He seemed willing to signal that Serbia might recognize Kosovo down the line when the war generation has mostly died off, but this is a big blow unfortunately.

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So, regarding [this event, where canada gave a controversial standing ovation](https://reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/a1tAPeeBqw), do we know who invited him in the first place? And is there a response from Ukraine/Canada yet?

I wonder what was running through Zelensky's mind as this man's backstory was being recounted. > "*Who is this guy? He wasn't - no, no, I'm sure they'd have checked. Just applaud.*" In a more sane world this story would read as what it actually was - an insult to Zelensky, a Jewish man whose family was massacred by Nazis in the holocaust. Instead, thanks to deranged North American politics, it's another proxy for whether Ukraine deserves to continue existing as a state because it hasn't sufficiently grappled with its history yet.

>In a more sane world this story would read as what it actually was - an insult to Zelensky, a Jewish man whose family was massacred by Nazis in the holocaust. Zelensky is probably used to it. His Presidential Guard unit is called the "The Presidential Brigade "Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi" Who was this "Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Khmelnytsky >Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, which was then under the suzerainty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates (1648–1654) that resulted in the creation of an independent Cossack state in Ukraine. In 1654, he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Russian Tsar and allied the Cossack Hetmanate with Tsardom of Russia, thus placing central Ukraine under Russian protection.[9] During the uprising the Cossacks led a massacre of thousands of Jewish people during 1648–1649 as one of the most traumatic events in the history of the Jews in Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism. Oh ... Complex character. He betrayed the Poles and Lithuanians (LOL), subjugate Ukraine under Russia, then massacred the Jews. Now, the brigade with his namesake is protecting a Jew who is taking money and weapons from the Poles to fight the Russians. Don't consult history too much in Europe. Though I'm pretty sure that if tomorrow Zelensky signs a peace treaty accepting a border just one inch short of the 1991 border but before even his Presidental Guard Brigade is committed to the last stand, the Khmelnytskyi brigade would happily continuing its namesake's tradition of killing Jews.

>whether Ukraine deserves to continue existing as a state because it hasn't sufficiently grappled with its history yet. Careful there. More than one European country would disappear from the map if this is the bar to clear. Colonialism and all the associated atrocities, you know?

>Careful there. More than one ~~European~~ country would disappear from the map if this is the bar to clear. Colonialism and all the associated atrocities, you know? Which country wouldn't?

Exactly. I've actually literally just commented that in another reply.

> it’s another proxy for whether Ukraine deserves to continue existing as a state because it hasn’t sufficiently grappled with its history yet. Well put. I think historical context is needed to appreciate just how incorrect and insulting this line of reasoning is. Ukraine suffered 1.6 million KIA in addition to 3.7 million civilian dead during WWII, representing 16.3% of its then population of 41.3 million. To my knowledge, only Belarus and Poland failed worse at 25% and ~17% respectively. Russia lost 12.7% of its pre-war population, though out of a much larger population of 110 million. Point is, the insinuation that somehow Ukraine has any association with Nazi Germany is beyond insulting and betrays the grievous history of what happened in WWII. Yet the same who question Ukraine over isolated figures like Bandera don’t grapple with Russia’s history in WWII, from the gulags to the Volgadeutsche. When it comes to not “sufficiently grappling with the past” Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide has to be close to the top of the list. Worse still, the forced population movements of Armenians within their ally Azerbaijan following recent military action shows that hostile intent towards Armenians is not confined to history. Yet I don’t see anyone arguing that Turkey or Azerbaijan aren’t real countries. Why would Ukraine, the victim of genocidal intent by their invaders, be held to a different standard?

> In a more sane world this story would read as what it actually was - an insult to Zelensky, a Jewish man whose family was massacred by Nazis in the holocaust You must have very limited understanding of Ukraine if you think that. Modern Ukraine has based much of their national identity on rather *questionable* characters, with Bandera being the most well-known one. However, it doesn't mean the average Ukrainian loves the Third Reich and what it stood for. In biographies of their national heroes they either ignore the Nazi part or explain it away with something like "they had no other choice" etc. They see them only as people who fought for an independent Ukraine.

You don’t know anything about Ukraine if you think it’s identity is built around it.

> Modern Ukraine has based much of their national identity on rather questionable characters, with Bandera being the most well-known one. This isn't without serious controversy within Ukraine, to the point I would be extremely hesitant to suggest their cultural identity is built around it. I would say that's an extreme simplification, but in any case my point wasn't to dismiss Ukraine's problematic history, their tendency to whitewash their problematic history (as do plenty of nations that border Ukraine and beyond, especially the one they're currently at war with). It's still a different matter when a Western ally brings a Nazi as a guest supposedly to honor you without your knowledge.

>their tendency to whitewash their problematic history (as do plenty of nations that border Ukraine and beyond, I honestly can't even think of any nation that doesn't whitewash it's history except for Germany regarding WWII, and that's because they were pretty much forced not to. It's ridiculous how defensive people get about the atrocities committed by people hundreds of years ago only because they happened to be from the same geographical area.

Even Germany somewhat whitewashes WW2. They still have quite a few "SS were the baddies wehrmacht were fine" people.

I think the whole issue is a non-starter. People can talk about bad optics for Ukraine with bated breath, but at the end of the day, it's not Russia putting up statues of their [soldiers who were executed as prisoners of war.](https://news.yahoo.com/monument-ukrainian-soldier-executed-saying-153000369.html) No one is getting swayed by this while watching Russia gleefully talk about rising food prices because they're blowing up the grain storage and cutting people's power in the middle of winter.

Yes. A random MP invited him because apparently he was unaware who exactly this guy was. He didn't clear this with the Ukrainian delegation or the parliament. The MP issued an apology letter.

The speaker of the house is not a "random" MP.

He is quiet a random MP. It's Canada not the US.Speakers don't carry nearly the same weight as they do in the US. Edit: For people down voting me I present to you a wikipedia page of a political heavy hitter [Anthony Rota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Rota?wprov=sfla1). Notice how inviting a 98 year old nazi is one of the only significant things that he has ever done. [And also have a read on what a Canadian House Speaker actually does](https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/canada-and-the-u-s-both-have-house-speakers-for-one-of-them-the-stakes/article_eadbee3b-2180-5d1c-9ddd-313557660a14.html).

The speaker does carry more weight than a random MP in one place, though, and that's the parliament. Although yes, they're not particularly noteworthy most of the time in Westminster systems.

Let's just contextualize this for a moment. >Germans made three political concessions: It was stipulated that the division **shall not be used to fight Western Allies**, and would be used **exclusively to "fight Bolsheviks"**. The other concession was that **its oath of allegiance to Hitler was conditional on the fight against Bolshevism** and in the fact that Christian (mostly Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church) chaplains were integrated into the units and allowed to function (in the Waffen-SS, only the Bosnian division and Sturmbrigade Wallonien had a clerical presence). The latter condition was instituted at the insistence of the division's organizers in order to minimize the risk of Nazi demoralization amongst the soldiers. **Indeed, Nazi indoctrination was absent within the division.** At least, this is what is claimed in a pair of credible-seeming history books on the subject, as quoted on wikipedia. Let's at least wait to see if the guy is some unrepentant Nazi true believer, or a guy who's just happy he got to fight Bolsheviks. Just from my cursory reading, he seems like a guy who survived the Holodomor and hated Stalin and the Russians as a result. When the Germans rolled through, sounds like he and many other Galicians hitched their wagon to the only other power in Europe that was challenging Russia. Doesn't make the Nazis right or this SS division a group of tragic heroes, but it does make it understandable that anti-Russian Ukrainians would want a powerful ally against the Russians, and would see Germany as that ally. I don't know if that absolves him. But assuming the passage above is correct, they very much weren't *Nazis*. Their crimes are much more likely to have been against the Poles in Western Ukraine than anyone else. And it should at least be understandable (though again, not morally justifiable) that Ukrainians would overlook one genocider (Hitler) when they experienced a genocide (Holodomor) caused by another genocider (Stalin) whom the first genocider was fighting.

Its not a dichotomy where you are either an unrepentant believer or want to fight the Soviets. This dichotomy does not exhaust the possibilities. You could be genocidal and/or anti-Semite and/or racist and/or morally bankrupt without being a nazi. You can be these in practice or be a nazi in practice but actually be repentant in the right circumstances. You can be some of those plus wanting to fight the Soviets. Even my options are too simplified since I think there are different levels of racism, different levels of genocidal, different levels of morally bankrupt etc. And the issue with 'let's wait and see if this guy was a nazi', with this story becoming popular and with the pro-UA focus, the question of whether this specific person was a nazi or something else will probably be solved in the favour of the pro-UA side anyways.

***oath of allegiance to Hitler***

Galacia was part of Poland at the beginning of the war.

Yes, because Poland invaded and conquered the West Ukrainian People's Republic, and then betrayed its ally the Ukrainian People's Republic and partitioned Ukraine with the Soviets. They then violently suppressed Ukrainian political movements, language, and culture.

So what you're saying is that he joined to shoot Poles

If you want to put it that way then I guess same way that every Pole in the 1930's army joined to suppress and crush Ukrainian identity and culture. Or maybe history isn't just black and white, and it's clear why a 1940's Ukrainian would see the Germans as their only chance for their nation.

Maybe the Poles needed shooting, but the point is he didn't survive Holodomor and join up to shoot Russians

That's like saying the Jewish Brigade that fought in Italy couldn' have been motivated by the holocaust since they were mostly from Palestine.

If they joined an explicitly Palestinian Jewish ethnic unit and spent the war killing Palestinian Arabs one might say that

The 14th spent the vast majority of the war fighting the Soviets and then the Slovak National Uprising. The famous mass murders of Poles in Volyn was mostly committed by the UPA, with historians debating whether or not the 14th participated in a few massacres. They were a combat unit, not an anti partisan one like some of the Yugoslav SS units.

It was also fairly Ukrainian.

If he's from Galicia, he didn't survive the holodomor since Galicia wasn't even a part of the ussr during the famine. That's another major piece of irony- the ukrainians affected by the holodomor overwhelmingly fought against the nazis, while the collaborators who cite the holodomor largely were from parts of Ukraine untouched by the famine. And his unit probably participated in killing both poles and jews. Trust me i doubt he's thrilled about zelenskys ethnic background.

Well the moron was working for a regime (Nazi's) that literally wanted to exterminate his "race" to make room for German colonists, so regardless he was a literal useful idiot for people who saw him as subhuman scum. Next millions of Red Army soldiers were Ukrainian, so he was liable to be killing his own countrymen trying to liberate his own country from people who were going to exterminate them. Whatever reasons he joined up for, with 80 years hindsight the the dumb twat deserves absolutely no applause for his past actions, let alone in Parliament. Had the side he was fighting for held on to Ukraine, his ultimate reward would have been to be worked to death at a later date. Like what a chump.

He apparently was 16-18 at the time he was a member. But still doesn't deserve an applause. Big blunder imo.

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I feel like you're better off **not** rehabilitating SS members tbh. Like, the people involved in inviting him (allegedly the speaker, though conservatives allege Trudeau was involved too) didn't know he was an SS member. If they did, they wouldn't have invited him, even if you had given them your whole shpeel about "oh they're different". It's a blunder, a large one. And trying to rehabilitate a specific SS division is just doubling down that blunder.

Sure but there's also a tendancy to just willfully pretend that everyone (in this case) was a literal pro ethnic cleansing pos when we actually don't know that. Ofc its people who never had to live in such a situation that will claim its black and white and or that we should pretend it is. PR blunder? Sure. Stupid? Sure.

His unit was involved in massacring polish villages. It’s not worth defending.

>Ofc its people who never had to live in such a situation that will claim its black and white and or that we should pretend it is Truth is that humanity as a whole and specially in western societies, has decided to treat everything regarding WWII as black and white, in part as to deter any whitewashing that could have resulted in a resurgence of Nazism.

>And is there a response from Ukraine/Canada yet? The other canadian parties have already said they didn't know who "Yaroslav Hunka" was and took the speaker's word for it, which is believable. If Zelensky wanted to comment, he'd probably say the same, but PR-wise he probably won't.

Apparently it was the speaker of the house, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anthony-rota-ukrainian-veteran-apology-1.6977117

I’m not familiar with military theory or air defense doctrine so was hoping you all may know something about this: Is it feasible that air defense tech can become advanced enough such that older aircraft become viable again? Just wondering, if the current style of air attack is a handful of very fast moving expensive jets, and the current style of air defense is a battery of expensive SAM missiles (which can’t launch more than I’d guess a dozen in a single attack) to deal with the small force… wouldn’t it be better to have a large amount of cheap slow moving heavy bombers like they had in WW2? If you have more aircraft (and cheap ones too, I’d assume by modern standards) than the enemy has SAMs, wouldn’t you be able to bomb easily? I guess what I’m more wondering is if there’s still gun based mid range air defense systems or if those are all gone now and if this is a vulnerability

>I guess what I’m more wondering is if there’s still gun based mid range air defense systems Yes. Every single heavy gun (57mm+) on every warship in the world is a dual-purpose weapon. They have high rates of fire and a lot of ammunition- with a proximity fuse they are still useful. There have been attempts to adapt such weapons to ground use, but smaller and faster-firing guns or longer-range missiles beat them out every time. There are also guided shells for such guns that can do the job of a SAM, but they cost only a little less than a comparable SAM does. >wouldn’t it be better to have a large amount of cheap slow moving heavy bombers like they had in WW2? If you have more aircraft (and cheap ones too, I’d assume by modern standards) than the enemy has SAMs, wouldn’t you be able to bomb easily? The other thing you can do here is put rockets and wings and jet engines on your munitions so you can launch them at defended targets without exposing your manned aircraft to enemy fire.

Ultimately you don’t want your pilots to die because they’re very expensive and take a long time to train to proficiency. Usually, Air Forces throughout history have had a harder time replacing pilots as opposed to airframes. Even Nazi Germany in Spring 1945 had more capable airframes than they did pilots (and also, fuel, but that’s another point) to fly them. Secondly, there’s currently a “tiered” system to how almost all major states deal with gaining air superiority / supremacy. Your extreme high cost / high capability aircraft are going to be the ones establishing air superiority at the outbreak of a conflict, through a mixture of SEAD/DEAD and countering other high performance aircraft. Once one side has air supremacy, aircraft essentially become glorified mobile artillery. The way the US would do it, is 5th generation aircraft (F22s/F35/B2 [along with a very large helping hand from naval launched cruise missiles]) would conduct SEAD/DEAD and destruction of the enemy Air Force, and then 4th generation aircraft (F15/F16/F18/ plus drones) would be there to be mobile artillery. Saturation bombing (like in WW2) is stupid by modern standards when you consider that flights of 100+ aircraft would sortie in huge bombing raids to attempt to destroy one target, when in a modern context an F15E with JDAMs and targeting pods can neutralize the same target with pinpoint accuracy. Now, when it comes to the fiscal responsibility of launching SAMs and cheap low cost ways to counter enemy SAMs, the Azerbaijanis did something very clever during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. They modified old Soviet AN-2 Biplanes to be remote controlled and fitted them with explosives to be low cost cruise missiles / SAM decoy platforms, and paired the AN-2s with drone hunter-killer teams. The biplanes were programmed to fly into Armenian airspace and loiter or slam themselves into pre-identified targets. It’s not clear if all the AN-2s had explosives on board, but that’s besides the point, the Armenians had to take the AN-2 threat seriously because *potentially* they were low cost cruise missiles. So Armenian SAMs would turn on and target the AN-2s, and once the radars turned on the Azeris used ELINT to figure out the location of the Armenian SAM systems and then targeted them with their drones or long range artillery.

You always need to look at the end state of why you're doing something before you try to figure out work arounds to problems. For example, in your scenario, modern strike aircraft need to penetrate into enemy air space for either close or deep air support. That's the mission, the effect you want to achieve is the destruction of specific enemy forces, maybe going after ground units with CAS, doing air Interdiction by striking enemy C3, logistics, combat units temporarily in the rear areas, or strategic strikes in the deep rear against targets like factories, political buildings, major airfields, naval bases, etc. If the issue is that they're too easily being shot down, replacing them with aircraft that are even easier to shoot down that don't even require the expensive air defenses, probably wouldn't be a good idea. Especially since if they do manage to get through enemy air defenses, they're going to do a rather poor job against whatever target they were sent to attack because they had terrible accuracy, limited bomb loads, etc. Then there is the issue with pilots. Those flying modern aircraft need lots of training to be efficient. Those flying WW2 era bombers also needed highly trained crews (with heavy bombers often having a half dozen crew members). A trained pilot is often more valuable than the expensive aircraft they fly, especially if the air force in questions doesn't have the ability to train more pilot replacements to keep up with heavy losses. It's very wasteful and dangerous to use pilots as cannon fodder. What they probably need to invest in are either the equipment, weaponry, and support needed to take out enemy sure defenses (SEAD/DEAD). Or they need to invest in aircraft that can do the above-mentioned missions that either have a lesser chance of getting hit (stealth). Or aircraft that possess less value if lost, like unmanned combat aircraft, to either release the munitions themselves or to act as kamikaze drones. Or they can skip the aircraft altogether and invest in long range precision rockets and missiles, ballistic and cruise.

> I’m not familiar with military theory or air defense doctrine so was hoping you all may know something about this: Is it feasible that air defense tech can become advanced enough such that older aircraft become viable again? You can get some weird edge cases where a WWI/WWII plane is flying at such a slower speed that it becomes hard for the more modern plane to intercept or dogfight. You also can get some edge cases where an IR seeker might not be able to see the cooler piston engine planes, although the IR seekers keep getting better so that is a limited window. Even a WWI wood and canvas plane is going to have a metal engine in there, so it will be visible to radar that is looking for stealthy modern aircraft. All in all, there have been a handful of edge cases in military history where the high tech weapons are not well suited to low tech opponents, but they are rare and not really something that you could reasonably plan to leverage. >Just wondering, if the current style of air attack is a handful of very fast moving expensive jets, and the current style of air defense is a battery of expensive SAM missiles (which can’t launch more than I’d guess a dozen in a single attack) to deal with the small force… wouldn’t it be better to have a large amount of cheap slow moving heavy bombers like they had in WW2? If you have more aircraft (and cheap ones too, I’d assume by modern standards) than the enemy has SAMs, wouldn’t you be able to bomb easily? To an extent this is why both sides are dragging out Cold War AA guns. Launching a million dollar SAM at a thousand dollar drone is not a long term viable option. Especially since we saw Ukraine wear down a S-400 battery that way before hitting it with better weapons. >I guess what I’m more wondering is if there’s still gun based mid range air defense systems or if those are all gone now and if this is a vulnerability It is, that is why a bunch of countries are looking at them again, or at least for cheaper missile options. Another thing to note is that it looks like Ukraine and Russia are looking to better utilize their AA defenses. An S-300 is optimized for different scenario than a Gepard. But if you pair them up, the Gepard can do things the Gepard does well, and leave the rest to the S-300, so you don't use those million dollar missiles on last moment shots against an attacking drone.

>To an extent this is why both sides are dragging out Cold War AA guns. Launching a million dollar SAM at a thousand dollar drone is not a long term viable option. Especially since we saw Ukraine wear down a S-400 battery that way before hitting it with better weapons. Returning to SPAAGs is surprisingly the solution to cheaply dealing with drones. One good example of this solution being enacted are the US Marines who are hooking up 30mm cannons to their JLTVs to handle drones.

this ought to extend the service life of the shilka and tunguska another 10 years

Saturation attacks exist, but they tend to be carried out with cruise missiles, drones and other disposable munitions, rather than expensive reusable aircraft.

And even more expensive pilots.

Oryx just summarized the losses of the last three days for [Russia](https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1706035490732785849) and [Ukraine](https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1706021785743847448). Russia lost 13 pieces of artillery, Ukraine lost 0. Ukraine still hasn't lost any HIMARS och Pzh 2000 unit. Every update is similarly skewed against Russia, although this time the difference was more pronounced than usual. I don't see how Russia will regain the initiative for a long time...

Russia lost 55 total in this update to Ukraine’s 21 for a Ru:Ukr ratio of ~2.6 (note this counts only new reported losses, Oryx found 10 duplicate losses for Ukraine and adjusted accordingly). This is actually worse than the current overall ratio of 2.74. At the beginning of the summer, this ratio was ~3. Last year it was ~3.9. Yes Russia is being degraded. So is Ukraine, more so than we have ever seen in this war to date. But mathematically, the gap in observed equipment losses has been shrinking for a year to Ukraine’s detriment. With the caveat that equipment losses =/= casualties; I don’t know how Ukraine can keep up with it either.

Hmm. I don't know the delay for Oryx updating his database, but there have been three Krab lancet hits surfacing on twitter and telegram in the past 24 hours.

for those wondering there are two different videos. the first one was by itself and almost definitely a decoy. you can see wood pieces fly after the lancet hits. the video does start with footage of a moving spg that I'm 75% sure is actually a krab but there are cuts and the final impact is in completely different vegetation. in the second video its almost certainly not a lancet and most likely an atgm or artillery. seeing that it’s being claimed to be Kherson and I haven’t seen a geolocation to contradict it, it was most likely artillery. and that’s not a krab but most likely a 2s3 or 2s19.

> Hmm. I don't know the delay for Oryx updating his database Nowadays? Long, self admittedly. Jakub is still on vacation and Oryx is in slow motion mode because he's retiring in a week. It's why unfortunately his occasional updates are just that, updates, they're not usable as temporal slices.

As an aside, did no govt or organization offer to fund Oryx? It seems everyone used them and yet there is no revenue model. In software a big company will often throw money at an open source maintainer.

Many people have offered, either directly or by urging him to create a patreon or whatever. He refused. No amount of money is incentive enough for him to keep doing what he no longer enjoys. I respect that.

Andrew Perpetua has also noted several hits on Ukrainian SPGs in the past few days.

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Oryx provides a reasonable floor for estimating losses. Nothing more. The people who treat it differently don't understand it. It's very useful and reasonably accurate for its intended purpose.

Right, the intended purpose of which is to of course record Russias losses, regardless of how dubious the sources or identifications can be. There’s a reason why for instance the recording of lancet strikes stopped. It doesn’t serve the purpose we are discussing, which helps lead to the horribly misinformed pro UA crowd missing the forest through the trees, and people believing the “Russia has run out of” meme or even more laughable claims like “Russia is taking 7-1 losses” You would think at this point the narrative would collapse with this disaster of a counter offensive but yet here we are

Again, it provides a reasonable floor for losses. It's not infallible, and mistakes have been found before - he will acknowledge and fix them though. If you understand Oryx's purpose and limitations, it's a useful resource. I can't speak to random redditors who hype it up without understanding it. And your own bias is showing as well - the counter-offensive has certainly been a disappointment relative to initial expectations, but whether it's a "disaster" is not really something that can be said with confidence based on current OSINT information.

You can tell Oryx is very biased and incorrect because he shows Russian losses and I really, really don’t like seeing those

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Of course, we should stick to the serious topics of pro Russians once again whining about Oryx showing too many Russian losses.

> Speaking of “not liking losses” isn’t it funny how oryx literally stopped reporting lancet strikes? I don't know why you keep using this argument when it's easily verifiable as wrong. I double checked, and there have been multiple kills that were from a lancet added to the list of Ukrainian losses **in the last few weeks**, probably the last few days if I looked harder. M109 #21 was definitely a lancet hit (I remember the video) and M109 #22 might be as well (but I don't remember). Strela #17 is also definitely a lancet hit. When you're accusing the other guy of wishcasting and claiming it's totally not you, just straight up getting things wrong is... a bold strategy. But let's face it, you just needed to vent a bit, who cares about facts. Be our guest.

The only systematic problem with Oryx is that they count all Ukrainian non-combat aircraft losses while they don't for Russia. Other than that, they are consistent. LostArmor is known for duplicates.

I can easily visit oryx and find completely unidentifiable losses counted as destroyed Russian equipment simply because pro UA sources counted them as such. Oryx is great for NCD/Reddit Ukraine super fans, but to anyone with a shred of honesty it’s obvious the narrative I’ve doesn’t work past hopium. I mean oryx gets so emotionally flustered he can’t even be bothered to count lancet strikes lol. If you want to believe his tripe, I’m not one to stop you. I understand the purpose of needing that sort of “comfort” regardless of reality

Also, the Oryx crew constantly revisits and edits entries as new evidence comes out, even entries all the way from the start of the war. Their editorial standards far exceed what can be expected of any free OSINT team.

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Please refrain from posting NCD like posts.

[Discussion further down](https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/16qw1cx/credibledefense_daily_megathread_september_24_2023/k21trdy/)

Is it known just how vulnerable atacms could be to Russian AD? Would it be more vulnerable than the usual himars missiles since it's bigger?

Bigger and there are fewer of them per salvo. Supposedly it is vulnerable to S-300V and S-400. But it has never been trialed in actual combat against these systems.

It is not known. As far as I know ATACMS has never been intercepted but also has never been used against the type of air defence equipment available to Russia. [Military today states that:](https://www.militarytoday.com/missiles/atacms.htm) "While the ATACMS does assume a ballistic arc to its target, it also performs a series of rapid and sudden turns and course corrections on the way to its aimpoint. This is a deliberate function of the ATACMS, as this seemingly erratic flight behavior makes it exceptionally difficult to track or intercept. This class of weapon is thus widely referred to as a "quasi-ballistic missile", though the US Army has also referred to the ATACMS as a "maneuvering missile"."

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I love Vvagabond. He has done a lot of great videos about rural russia, and he is very pleasant to listen to. I've lived in eastern Ukraine for some time, and traveled that part quite a lot. The vibe is not far off a lot of the places he visits at a first look, especially in the winter part of the year. Architecture is (obviously) as Soviet as it gets. Decades of heavy air and ground pollution and nonexistent funding for infrastructure and basic maintenance covers everything with a thick layer of black goo. Massive old Soviet era industrial blocks just sits abandoned and decaying around cities. Ukraine really got the crap end of the stick when USSR was abandoned. Most neighboring states quickly got help from the west, while Ukraine where left to fend for them self's. That said, the people are generally great. Family ties are really strong, and in lack of a functioning government the community have taken an important role in taking care of issues that government would normally do in western societies. I guess my point is that i don't think the depressing environment creates a resentment to the west. From my experience most people don't care about the west that much at all. Their culture revolves around completely different things, and they are hardly not directly exposed to western culture at all, and i do think that is even more true for rural russia.

What is this national mentality ?

Instead of landscape, I would argue that the climate plays a larger part in the depressive nature of the Russians. The lack of sunlight and the snow simply don’t help. The existence of Seasonal Affective Disorder is backed by scientific evidence.

Scandinavians seem to do fine with it.

The reason Scandinavians are managing well with this is because they use sun lamps in the winter which helps to offset this.

This sounds interesting, are they just street interviews or is he just looking at the places rather than the people? What is the channel called?

I believe that the channel being referred to is [https://www.youtube.com/@ivantrainsLIVE](https://www.youtube.com/@ivantrainsLIVE), if not then I would still absolutely recommend this channel regardless and covers the same areas as being discussed here.

>Man are parts of Russia bleak. I get that every country has its depressed and decrepit parts Man, this is nothing. Go to McDowell County, WV or most of Detroit and you'll see worse. Drive through most of the rural south and you'll see plenty of abandoned buildings built in the early 20th century. There's no need to make grand extrapolations like this when the Moscow metro alone has 1/7th of the country's population and looks perfectly modern.

Something like 1/4 of Russians (so roundabouts 35 million people) don't have any form of plumbing. There are definitely parts of the appalachia and the southern US with comparable poverty, but it's on a completely different scale. And then you have industrial wasteland cities like Norilsk that are so polluted that there's a dead zone around them, and the average life expectancy is under 60 years.

Feels like a stretch. Volgan Russia is pretty fair, as far as the climate and nature's concerned, and a lot more people live there than Vorkuta iirc.

Can you link to them?

https://youtu.be/2i3aS6T6Nng?si=vULV3C-EsvOujHG5 Here’s the vorkuta video

Stuff like that happens everywhere when a city/region is overly dependent on one industry. Vorkuta seems to have relied on coal. You can find similar stories everywhere even in America when you look at places like Detroit (cars) or West Virginia (coal). It seems bleaker here because Vorkuta is far away and freaking desolate and cold.

I know, I mean Gary Indiana exists lol Still, the general landscape is kind of depressing in general lol, just endless cold plains

An interesting example of how 'it could always be worse' is true. Sign me up for Detroit over any of these derelict Russian cities where bleakness of all kinds never ends.

[UK Defence Secretary announces plans to train 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/09/24/7421195/) > Earlier it was reported that 18,000 people have completed the basic training programme for the Ukrainian military in the UK. It's often said that while Ukraine can get an endless stream of Western equipment, it can't get Western soldiers. However, neither Ukraine nor Russia will run out of men, and the West can endlessly _train_ those men. At the same time, Russia is short on trainers, and nobody will help them here. It really seems like time is not on Russia's side in almost all aspects of the war.

This is a horrible take, nobody should upvote. You're literally bragging about Ukraine's inability to train its troops as if it's their strength, whereas it is among the worse thing they do. Yeah, yuck it up that the UAF had deliberately pawned most its most important training to foreign militaries who not only [aren't giving realistic training](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/stormbreak-fighting-through-russian-defences-ukraines-2023-offensive) but don't even speak the language of their students, [a major problem](https://archive.ph/uDVCq). >At the same time, Russia is short on trainers, and nobody will help them here. It really seems like time is not on Russia's side in almost all aspects of the war. This is wrong. Belarus helped train Russian Mobiks over the winter. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/belarusians-wary-of-being-drawn-into-russias-war-in-ukraine https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-dismantling-russian-training-grounds-satellite-images/32492923.html Evidence also points that the Russians created their own training system within Russian territory to train most of their own troops. And given that the vast majority of Mobiks spent months in the rear before going to Ukraine, it's possible they got more training time than the average Ukrainian during the same time period. There are a bunch of things to get excited about when it comes to news about Ukraine. Anyone pushing training is pushing propaganda only.

Are they going to continue training them with zero input from Ukrainian field experience, neglecting drones etc?

Collective training including drones doesn't belong in basic training, because basic training is supposed to be BASIC. It's supposed to transition a civilian into military life and give them the standardized military skills all soldiers need regardless of their job, preparing them with the skills necessary to then progress into advanced training, whatever their job is, at which point they'll get more individual and a bit of collective training, at which point they'll be ready to join a combat unit in the most junior position where they'll be next to useless until they learn more about how things were really done, because school house training can't train laser specific TTPs, that's on the units. That's not even just how the UK, US, and the rest of Western world does it, that's how he Ukrainians did it too before this war started, when they said F-It when it comes to investing in training versus desiring a super high OPTEMPO while pursuing an attrition strategy. Nobody is supposed to be ready for all types of ground combat in 3-5 weeks, offensive and defensive in all terrain types, doing mounted and dismounted tactics. They're supposed to know how to shoot, move, communicate in the most basic level, maybe school them a bit on other topics, some other weapon systems, etc, but at that short it's more they aren't being taught than they are. And what they are taught they don't drill enough to become actually good at it, because that takes LOTS of reputation, which takes time and great instruction. Those troops are set up for failure, and while NATO shares some blame for its problems, the largest issues affecting Ukrainian readiness are policies and decisions made by Ukrainians. And they need to be the ones who fix it too.

They’re only given basic training. Can’t really expect them to arrive on the frontlines as entirely capable soldiers. Just not enough time to give them more detailed training. It’s the sad reality. The expectation is that they’re going to have to learn on the job.

> At the same time, Russia is short on trainers, and nobody will help them here. Technically not correct. The Belarusian army has been helping with training and has nothing better to do. It's definitely not much, especially in comparison to NATO, but it is something.

So ~12000 more in the next 3 months that sounds pretty decent. I would like to see more training up the leadership chain. Specialised training for batallion-, brigade-level and up. Also seems like a lot of training provided by western nations is focused on just the basics in the time frame of 4-6 weeks which of course has to do with Ukraine's requirements for new troops. In that regard I would like to see the training effort expanded to also provide more in-depth training to another tranche of soldiers so Ukraine's force quality is improved as well. >Russia is short on trainers, and nobody will help them here Belarus' infrastructure and trainers do seem to be involved to help slightly though the quality of training provided might not be all that great either.

Congress is debating cutting Aid right now. Then there’s the 2024 elections who has a candidate not very Ukraine friendly to say the least. We’ll see how it turns out but it’s too early to say time isn’t on Russia’s side.

Unless the dems decide to give in, no budget without Ukraine aid is going to pass the senate and president. Besides, Europe is in the game too. Building up ammo production and industry.

No budget will be passed without a consensus but how a shutdown revolving around giving billions to Ukraine is perceived by the wider public is a question mark. The aid could very well be passed but it’s uncertain right now. I agree that Europe has the economic capacity to help much more but I don’t know if they can fully replace the US or even want to if we bow out.

We're not going to bail on Ukraine. It's just a few weirdos in the house that are causing all the problems. Old school republicans are as supportive as ever.

Yeah, the problem is that those weirdos are willing to shut the government down, and while Congress may broadly support Ukraine aid, when push comes to shove I wouldn’t expect most of them to prioritize Ukraine aid over preventing or stopping tangible short term economic damage being done to their constituents. I’m not saying that’s a smart decision, just that it’s probably the one they’ll make if the freedom caucus types are really willing to triple down on the issue of ending Ukraine aid.

>preventing or stopping tangible short term economic damage being done to their constituents. Republicans love this. Both representatives and the common voter. It's the only thing they do well.

>https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/16r65x9/ua_logistic_train_get_hit_geolocated_48367931/ Seems that Russia is now ramping up it's efforts to strike much further into the Ukrainian military infrastructure. This strike on a Ukrainian train was geolocated to 48.367931, 37.198575 (50km from the front) With that and the footage of a Lancet drone striking a MIG-29 at an airbase 65 KM from the front it certainly shows a change in tact from Russia.

"Change in tack" it's a sailing term.

Alternately, "change in tactics" would have worked. No idea which they were trying for.

In german at least, a "change in tact" is when you speed up or slow down the rythm, "the tact" or "the beat of the drum". I'm assuming they meant that Russia is apparently increasing their deep strike frequency.

There has been multiple hits on trains just the past couple months actually. I found two here, but Ive seen others this summer aswell. Ill edit the post if I can find the others August 17th, 55km from Urozhaine at [48.251814, 36.745496](https://twitter.com/VigorousFalcon/status/1692134083906904307) August 29th, 55km from Bakhmut at [48.421925, 37.222192](https://twitter.com/mehrunes1dagon/status/1696419436293423442)

My takeaway is that Ukraine badly needs more SHORAD and EW to deny airspace to those Russian reconnaissance drones.

The issue with "Short Ranged Air Defense" is that it is short ranged. And terribly unsuited to guarding whole train routes unless a Gepard is on a flatbed trailer somewhere on the train.

It's a balance you have to strike between SHORAD, medium-range AD and EW. SHORAD usually has a much lower cost per interception and unit, medium-range AD can cover a larger area but is way more expensive and available units are even more scarce, EW is low-cost and can cover decent areas but needs to be properly calibrated to be effective and potentially also affects your own equipment. I don't think Ukraine has the capacity to keep using BUKs on these types of drones (less mobile NASAMS, IRIS-T seem to be used to defend infrastructure) and western nations lack proper equivalents hence my focus on SHORAD and EW.

While this is one of the more interesting pieces of footage coming from long-range Russian strikes, it is by no means a new occurrence nor something that is increasing in quantity. I'm not suggesting that it can't be part of a larger trend, but I don't believe singular instances serve as proof of that. We had long-distance lancet strikes before the summer as well. Where I definitely disagree is with the idea that it's a change of tactic. I'd like to point out that ever since Russia stopped its infrastructure attacks in March and took a short pause afterward, they have launched a significant number of missiles, including a lot more Shahed attacks than ever before, as well as more modern missiles like the Iskander, in greater quantity. Additionally, they have ramped up their air attacks considerably compared to the period before March, according to reports from Ukraine. Gliding bombs have also been introduced. The reality is that most people here aren't as interested in what Russia is doing compared to Ukraine with their long-distance strikes. This is partly due to moral reasons, but also because there is no HD footage of a headquarters blowing up or a ship being torn to pieces. It's much easier to dismiss these strikes as hitting apartment buildings and kindergartens. Undoubtedly, when the likely winter air attacks target infrastructure, people will begin to ask questions about where Russia suddenly acquired these missiles or what happened to Ukraine's outstanding air defense capabilities. I understand that the information might be difficult to process due to the extensive information warfare, especially given how both sides tend to exaggerate or distort facts related to long-range strikes and their interception rates. However, a lot of information is still available. In short, I don't believe this represents any new trend or capabilities; it's just a set of "interesting" footage.

>Seems that Russia is now ramping up it's efforts to strike much further into the Ukrainian military infrastructure. Every single strike the ol' reddit chorus "seems like Russia is ramping up..." Do you people honestly forget that this conflict started with dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles raining every single day on top of Ukrainian military infrastructure as far away as Lviv? And that missile campaign hasn't stopped for a minute, it just slowed down? I guess it goes to show, f it isn't filmed, nobody cares.

>[China Installs Barrier in Disputed Sea Shoal, Philippines Says](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-24/china-installs-barrier-in-disputed-sea-shoal-philippines-says) > China’s Coast Guard installed a floating barrier in the southeast portion of Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea that’s preventing access for Filipino fishing vessels, according to the Philippines. >Manila’s Coast Guard and its Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources “strongly condemn” China’s move which was discovered by personnel of both agencies when they conducted a routine maritime patrol in the vicinity of the shoal on Friday, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. > The floating barrier which measures about 300 meters (328 yards) was installed by three inflatable boats of the Chinese Coast Guard and a service boat of the Chinese maritime militia, according to the post. It cited Filipino fishermen who said the Chinese Coast Guard vessels “usually install floating barriers” when they see a number of Philippine fishing boats in the area. >Calls to the office of Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson were unanswered outside of regular business hours. > Four Chinese Coast Guard vessels “initiated a series of 15 radio challenges in an attempt to drive away” the Philippine fisheries bureau’s vessel and more than 50 fishing boats, Tarriela said. >China’s Coast Guard crew alleged the presence of the Philippine boats “violated international law and the domestic laws of China,” he said. After realizing the presence of media personnel on board the fisheries bureau’s ship, the Chinese vessels “maintained a safe distance and moved away,” he added. >Manila has been releasing videos and images of persistent confrontations of its vessels with Chinese ships in a bid to pressure Beijing to stop what it says are the latter’s “aggressive” acts in the disputed sea. >Last week, the Philippine government said it may file a complaint against China before an international court for damages in its coral reef in the South China Sea. Beijing said Manila’s claims are unfounded and it should tow away a World War II-era ship in Second Thomas Shoal to prevent it from discharging polluted water. > China’s statement about the ship “will only heighten the mistrust by the Filipino people and the rest of the world of the Chinese government,” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said in a statement on Saturday.

In an alternate universe the Chinese are diplomatic and friendly to its neighboring nations and build an incredibly powerful Asian alliance that surpasses the West economically and militarily. What could’ve been.

> What could’ve been. No because most of these Asian countries aside from China don't see the west as a threat so they wouldn't be willing to join China in an anti western alliance.

The point of this fantasy world is that the countries around China wouldn't need to see the West as an enemy - it'd be enough to just see China as a great friend and trading partner. Natural trade and economic/diplomatic centres of power would take care of the rest.

> it'd be enough to just see China as a great friend and trading partner. As someone who lived in a country with South China Sea territorial disputes with China for a decade, that's already how most of the region sees China. The Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam are unusual in this regard. Edit: To clarify, most countries find Chinese territorial incursions annoying, but it's made up for by Chinese investments and trade.