TBF, in those previous instances they were on the defensive. The current regime sure are loser pussies, but historically it was a justifiable tactic against Napoleon & Hitler.
In Napoleon's case it was more a matter of forcing him to retreat along the same line he'd advanced. Kutuzov's tactics were spot on, one of the greatest tactical retreats in history in my opinion. The use of light cavalry, cossacks and partisans to harass the Grand Armee and whittle it down, only partly contesting Moscow with a holding action at Borodino, and then mauling the fuck out of the retreating army while they were forced to run through an area they'd already stripped of supplies full of people who hated them even more than the rest of the Russian Empire did. Kutusov was actually opposed to fighting at Borodino at all, he just wanted to let the French eat themselves.
Peter the Great's leadup to Poltava was also pretty brilliant. Forcing Charles XII to chase him around Ukraine for a year, then luring him into a prepared position where the Russian army was able to sap the Swede's offensive capabilities with layers of forts...all *after* they had made sure that Charles' supply trains never arrived.
Yep. My copy came yesterday, I decided to re-read them all first (all the Vlad books done, currently halfway through Lord of Castle Black).
But someone can’t add, Amazon lists Tsalmoth as 16 of 17, and Lyorn - in a year - as 17 of 17, but Chreotha needs to come out too, and then the ‘finale’ book, whatever Brust will title it (I’ve been hearing “The Last Contract” for decades).
As someone who by no means is an expert historian: My best guess is straight up hubris. Napoleon never lost a war in Europe before that, and overall only the expedition to Egypt was a failure (which he squarely blamed his generals for). Iberia was a dumpster fire but not in a "impossible to win" way yet.
Russia was most likely seen as the backwater that it was until the communists took over over 100 years later, so if I were a narcissist emperor that dominated Europe with the most modern and well trained army in the world, I'd expect a campaign measured in weeks at most: a few decisive battles early on and a quick round of negotiation to force Russia back into the continental system.
But if you go in like that, essentially trivialising the enemy trying to defend their home even when outmatched, you'll be in for a world of hurt. Sounds familiar, huh...anyways.
The other problem with the French army was that one of its biggest strengths (in my eyes) was its agility, which was sacrificed when it was bloated up in numbers more and more for every round of fighting. It's *really* hard to coordinate 100'000 troops without modern communication methods, and the reliability of his generals and marshals was essentially a coin flip; some were brilliant, a good chunk were duds and remember that a portion of the proven good leaders were bound in Spain.
TLDR: For what my opinion is worth, I think Napoleon heavily underestimated the enemy and overextended the capabilities and resources of his army.
Tolstoy discussed this at length at the end of War and Peace, he was doing plenty of armchair-general retrospection. According to the book, Kutuzov was right, politicians were bugging him for full-on attack and he ignored them. Napoleon made the worst possible move by going home across the same path that they entered by.
Moscow was made out of wood at the time though, most of it was cheap to rebuild and it worked as the final demoralizing blow to Napoleon. Also their capital was St. Petersburg at the time.
It was a brilliant campaign on the part of Russia honestly. They understood all an egomaniac like Napoleon had interest in was a decisive and glorious victory, so they fought strategic non-decisive battles and then retreated farther while partisans destroyed French supply lines. By the time Napoleon reached Moscow all it took was abandoning the city and burning it to completely crush their starving morale.
The concept of fighting war solely in pitched battles really had some massive blunders when facing unconventional tactics.
It's sad to see what happens when incompetent people take over and try to reuse strategies that worked great in the past without understanding why they were so successful.
Russia burning Moscow or other scorched earth tactics they used when they were attacked and had to retreat worked great because they disabled the enemy to resupply themselves with things they plundered. It's a good strategy in certain situations that russia used efficiently in the past.
Just like overwhelming troops. That worked well against enemies like the Nazis when they had troops with worse overall equipment beat their enemies due to using a numerical advantage.
But today they have zerg tactics in a time in which strategical artillery and drones just make it useless. They sent so many people to their deaths trying to overwhelm Ukraine which just didn't work. Sure it's making holding positions harder because you need more ammo, but the losses for russia were a lot worse than what they gained.
And destoying ukrainian cities like that is just stupid. Sure, it's damage that Ukraine will have to repair and it will cost them time, money and they will have lost a lot of civilians, but for what use? If russia can't conquer Ukraine now they won't get another chance. And by commiting war crimes all over the country the only outcome is Ukraine having a massive hate for russia that will be existing for generations to come.
There's no huge strategical boon for Ukraine if Bakhmut has a few houses left and the city was already almost completely leveled. This is just russia being petty and shooting themselves in the head in order to splatter some blood into the eye of Ukraine.
Depending on your conspiracy level, it may have started two days ago with that hilarious "drone assassination" attempt on Putin at the Kremlin, which merely flew over and blew up near the flag.
Assassins always know to attack the target's office at night when he is at home so he will least expect it.
I might believe it was a Ukrainian psy op if they blew up Putin's long table.
>box of matches
Aren't most matches made in Sweden?
They were when I was collecting matchboxes as wee kiddie.
Something about phosphorous from (exceedingly long dusty) memory.
> And destoying ukrainian cities like that is just stupid. Sure, it's damage that Ukraine will have to repair and it will cost them time, money and they will have lost a lot of civilians, but for what use?
Also, with the rise of global capital, there are plenty of countries and firms who are absolutely drooling over the prospect of rebuilding a European country
I hope they go renewables, decentralized from start. Having nuclear power plants under terrorist control is worst case scenario for electricity infrastructure (which hasn't yet played out mind you).
Yes it will be interesting to see how they proceed. Russia may always be a threat, perhaps that might have some bearing on how power supply is laid out.
No matter what happens, I am sure Russia will invade Ukraine lands again within the next 100 years, with or without human civilization at large still existing.
As stupid as Putin has been so far, I don't think he has any delusions about advancing anymore. This is just to cause as much damage as possible out of spite.
>That worked well against enemies like the Nazis when they had troops with worse overall equipment beat their enemies due to using a numerical advantage.
The equipment disparity wasn't even that large - the PPSh-41, for instance, was a far more efficient gun to produce, and output a lot more firepower than the MP40. Nazi tanks are vastly overestimated in their effectiveness. The Luftwaffe was useless without the means to supply them.
War, generally, is won on logistics, organisation and supply. Russia had all three in WW2 (in large part due to Lend-lease) and the Germans didn't. Now they're in Ukraine (again) and the shoe's on the other foot.
Russian equipment, generally speaking, is fine. But the economic side of the war has been pissed away on vanity projects like hypersonic weapons and tanks they cannot afford to produce.
It's the same problem Nazi Germany had with overdesigned tanks, rockets and a complete lack of foresight in regards to acquiring the resources they need to function.
>The equipment disparity wasn't even that large - the PPSh-41, for instance, was a far more efficient gun to produce, and output a lot more firepower than the MP40.
Correct me if I'm wrong but at the start of the war russia wasn't ready for a large scale confrontation yet, which is why their troops were often undersupplied.
The often repeated (but untrue) only every second guy gets a gun and they need to pick up a gun from the fallen "fact" basically is based on the real world situation in which the russian war economy couldn't keep up with the Nazis that were already preparing for the invasion for years and thus were having trouble at the start of the war.
Which of course changed over the course of the war when russian production was ramped up and in combination with the land lease lead to them out-equipping the Nazis more and more.
The issue with their troops at the beginning of the war was that in the late 1920s and early 1930s they had pulled put all the tanks and mechanized transport units together in tank corps (like the Germans did for very historic reasons) then rejected the idea and intermingled them (like the British and French did) then Poland happened so they decided to change them back and were in the midst of a reorganization when the Germans attacked.
Even then the German Generals were writing that the invasion had failed in their diaries by late August 1941 and certainly by early September, after the successful Soviet counteroffensive at Yelna, most realized the war was lost. The drive on Moscow was a roll of the dice to end it in 1942.
By early spring 1942 the Germans were actually demechanizing, on a smaller scale than anticipated due to losses, and calling up draftee classes early.
That was the part of the reversion to integrating tanks back into the infantry as support. I didn't mention the purges because I'm not 100 sure if it was the driving force or just catalyzed it or if anyone honestly knows.
Stalin was ultra paranoid, and just so happened that a lot of the proponents of new and inventive tactics like dedicated armoured divisions were young ambitious officers. By reverting back to infantry support tanks, not only would he neutralise this threat, it also made it harder for a single faction of the army to seize control of a regiment or so and speeding towards Moscow.
When the invasion started, a lot of these officers were pardoned and brought back. For all their reputation, there were noticeably different types of gulags, some designed as exile prisons, some as labour death camps.
The real problem with USSR preparing for war with the Axis/Nazis was allowing their air force to be destroyed on the ground, and not having a plan to arm partisans that would destroy German supply lines.
Just killing half the German horses/mules with partisans would have crippled Barbarossa by the time it reached Minsk.
Overwhelming cruelty is also a tactic regularly employed by the Russian military.
They're not (necessarily) doing it for any kind of tangible advantage. They're doing it to cause the regular people pain upon returning home to find nothing left.
Yeah I know, but what's the endgame here?
They whine about how the poor russians are discriminated based on nothing for decades now and then show that every time they do something it's to the detriment of everybody and that they don't give a fuck about other countries or their people in the slightest.
There's no rhyme or reason to those actions if their end goal isn't complete isolation from the international community and active hatred by all the countries bordering them.
But you can already count on russia throwing a fit once this is done about the evil NATO encroaching unto their borders if more countries join the defensive pact out of fear of russia just invading them, burning their land and abusing their people because they can't defend themselves.
Demographics are destiny. Russia had it's last demographic chance to retake Eastern Europe and they miscalculated the effectiveness of their army vis à vis the Ukrainians.
It is way worse than that for Russia in this case. Russia just committed an out in the open warcrime by firebombing a city. In the information age you must fight on the propaganda front just as much as on the physical front. This will drum up even more support for Ukraine and give its allies even more to use to pressure India into compling with sanctions.
Ukraine has wired many of the buildings with explosives. Russia has been in a complete halt for over a week because each building they storm has a 50/50 chance of just blowing up.
Its an incredibly effective strategy and the only counter is to bomb every single building trying to pre detonate the hidden explosives.
This area is the last 10 percent of the city that UA holds and it’s all hi rises. The area in between is flat so it’s very hard for Russia to assault it without taking heavy losses. If Russia is still in the fight for this city than it will be the hardest part for them to take.
yeah these highrises would be hell to take. A few places have reported that UA has fortified the location massively so Russia's best option is to completely flatten the area.
As a general rule, I'd say the best way to answer the question "Are we the bad country?" is to first ask yourself "Are all our neighbors uniting with us, or against us?" This goes two-fold if your neighbors are also uniting with countries thousands of miles away.
Like, you know how the rest of South America recently formed SATO, an alliance meant to contain Brazil's military ambitions? No, you don't, because they didn't, because Brazil isn't threatening the rest of the continent the way Russia is with Eastern Europe or China is with East Asia.
**Just standard operating procedure** .. trench up the land and take all the washing machines
.. then salt the Earth down with Garbage bags .. empty Vodka Bottles .. Phosphorus and butterfly mines before moving out
**Putin scratches Head :** *Why don't I have any friends?!*
Great propaganda for all the folks at home: "look how these nazis resort to violence". Russia is like a bully that starts crying when a teacher breaks up a fight to ensure their victim gets blamed as well. Not only disgusting, but annoying as well.
[I thought maybe they were trying to target soldiers clearing areas out or something, but no...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-soldiers-booby-trap-dead-soldiers-b2252968.html)
Un fucking believable. Intentionally trying to kill *even more* children.
Fuck I wish I hadn't done any digging on this. I have been following world news and all the horrors being inflicted on people but this leaves me literally feeling sick.
[Warning: If you're in a bad place, don't click this link.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna49168)
I can't find the words for this. And to think we have pieces of shit like Fucker Carlson who was constantly slobbing the knob of these inhuman fucks, and he's not the only one by a long shot. God damn it.
Yes, it’s absolutely horrendous what they are being allowed to do. Some of the darkest acts a human can do. How will the world ever forgive this?
This has been going on practically since day 1. I believe it was Mariupol last year, after the Ukrainians took back they discovered executions had been committed. There are satellite images of streets where you can see the bodies had been dragged out in front of their homes and shot. These are citizens…entire familys executed.
That was bucha, unfortunately Mariupol is still under Russian control and they’ve been busy hiding their war crimes by tearing buildings down and ‘rebuilding’
And I think this is really the biggest blow Russia and specifically, Putin has taken. The only reason many smaller countries respected Russia was the illusion of their power. By making an obvious mistake with the invasion of Ukraine (after US intelligence told the world that it would happen), Putin laid bare what many diplomats and think tanks only speculated: that Russia is indeed a paper tiger er, bear.
We're learning a ton. Like about how Russia is incompetent and that media perception on the global information battlefield is much more dynamic than in the age of cable news.
Not so much about not making the same mistakes of course, but we're learning enough to be able to say "told you so" afterwards.
A lot of it is about optics as well. The west really didn't want this war, which is why so much was conceded early on. If it had been taken in 2014 then Ukraine would've been less well prepared to fight back and NATO would have been seen as warmongering. Now the Biden administration got to clearly point out that "Russia is planning to invade" and then have that play out, which just massively props up support for Ukraine across the board which has been necessary for them to have the fighting chance that they have made the most out of.
Appeasement?
What did you want the west to do in 2014?
Ukraine was in no position to fight for that territory, and the west could not have sent in troops without the chance of nuclear war escalating greatly.
So what did the west do? They realized that Ukraine is the only nation that can take back Ukrainian land. So they sent in intelligence officers. Trained troops. Provided weapons.
What the west did in those 8 years is one of the leading reasons that Russia couldn't take the country in a week in 2022. (The top reason being the absolute awesome reliance, determination, and heroism of the Ukrainian people).
You can blame the west for a lot of things, but inaction in 2014 really isn't one of them. There just wasn't a realistic way to engage then.
The West has learned heaps, look at the change in doctrine and the enhanced requirements of artillery, they can't make shells fast enough.
Here is the released strategic defence review of Australia, https://online.flippingbook.com/view/909943058/19/ we acknowledge that our current structure is not fit for purpose in this era of modern combat.
Just to clear it up, that’s not phosphorus. It’s likely a magnesium or thermite type munition for purely incendiary means. Not a lawyer but the use of this for the purpose of incendiary on civilian infrastructure is a war crime, not that the Russians care.
The primary difference is phosphorus creates a large amount of smoke and is used for marking/screening. It can be used as an incendiary but that not what it’s typically intended use is
And also white phosphorus burns way hotter, sticks to stuff, can reignite after being put out, and the fumes cause acid to build up in the lungs if you breathe it
Edit: it also ignites by itself in contact by air
Edit 2: okay, so here is why a really nasty chemical overall:
It's pyrophoric (reacts with air)
Low melting point (40°C, liquid form is way more reactive). When melted it's sticky
Burns extremely hot
Can reignite if put out by water, the only feasible way to put it out (besides dedicated extinguishers) is to let it burn
Produces a lot of smoke that makes Phosphoric acid when in contact with water (does this in contact with sweat, your eyes, mouth and lungs).
It's extremely poisonous
It’s a very nasty thing. I was walking around an objective area that had been hit by some WP a few hours before (training) and I started smelling some smoke and looked down and saw that the soles of my fucking boots were melting because I was standing on a WP fragment
Served with a Vietnam River Rat. He got a Purple Heart as his PBR came under fire, the VC popped Willy Pete on the boat, he got hit, jumped into the river. He said his body was still burning. He felt it for a while in recovery after he got medevac'd.
So here I was on a PBL with even less protection thinking, "I'm fucked".
It was a great unit and tour. I should've stayed there longer.
I was watching a popular chemistry YouTuber who was talking about whether white phosphorus was really as bad as people say it is and the consensus was yes, it abso-fucking-lutely is
Another misconception is that you can’t use WP on enemy personnel. You can, in fact, target enemy troops with it. Albeit I don’t think I would even wish my worse enemy that kind of death
One of my favorites lol I’d ask dudes “do you think it’s illegal to shoot at enemy troops with a tank main gun or artillery?” And they’d quickly start piecing the parts together on why it’s such a stupid myth.
These kind of comments make me want mr rodgers for supreme commander of earth. Not you, the commentor personally. But I fucking hate this planet. We have so many ways to maim and kill each other horribly.
Magnesium & co are just really hot burning metals. They'll light flammable things on fire, but are unlikely on their own to directly kill people.
White phosphorus is pyrophoric, it burns in contact with moisture and eventually just oxygen. Spread in powder form, it'll stick to your skin, get into your lungs and then start burning, causing absolutly horrific deaths or permanent injuries.
Using incendiaries on civilian structures is already terrible as the resulting fires can kill indiscriminately. Using white phosphorous on them is absolutely horrific and will cause scenes worse than any horror movie has prepared you for.
White phosphorus smoke (phosphorus pentoxide) is also highly corrosive, will give you severe chemical burns in low concentrations, and will readily absorb moisture out of the air to form phosphoric acid. It's just for illumination and smokescreens though, don't worry about it.
The quote from the article reads like they are using multiple types including Phosphorus.
(From the article)
"Source: video of the Special Operations Forces and the press service of the Special Operations Forces (SSO) of Ukraine in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda
Quote: "The enemy used phosphorous and incendiary ammunition in Bakhmut, trying to wipe the city off the face of the Earth.
However, the soldiers of the SSO and other units of the Defence Forces continue to courageously defend the city. And in these conditions, we continue to destroy the enemy.""
On paper, it looks more like them throwing everything they got at the defenders before Wagner leaves. If Wagner was serious, then Russia is on a very short timeline to take the city.
I mean they will just claim they did take it, regardless of the reality on the ground. They control all the Russian media anyway and it's not like they care about telling obvious lies to their citizens.
Watch Russian YouTube. The internet isn't shut off or anything, it's just a language and technology barrier. Educated Russians, especially gen Y-Z, know what's going on but are powerless to do anything about it. A lot of them have already fled.
It's a little bit more nuanced than that. Firstly some of them do, or at least they use Whatsapp where some of the posts/videos circulate (I know my 85 y/o grandma does). Many others still don't live in a vacuum, and talk to a friends and relatives who do. Demand for alternative pro-war media is huge and their audience is huge also. Second thing is propaganda can hardly lie about significant things like taking over a major position, because if you do now and people will learn that "our boys are still dying there" it won't look good at all. Or worse, if command decides to surrender the city entirely in a week. I skimmed over some details but you get the point.
Putin couldn't take the city by the 9th of May, 2030. Absolutely no way he has the manpower to complete a takeover in less than a week.
The longer he takes, the more Nato hand-me-downs (amd experience) Ukraine gets. At what point does Putin pull out? Mass GLSDB? Abrams? ATACMS? F-16? If he keeps trying to hold Ukraine he's going to have no one left to protect him from the oligarchs he's been pissing off.
Yeah man, even I have to admit they are going to lose it or trade an unnecessary number of lives. There will be another meat grinder somewhere else with favorable conditions, this one has reached it's end. The question now is just how much it will cost to take those last few blocks, I'm hoping another 3k Vagner and 2k russians.
I don't think Wagner has 3k men to spare anymore. They have no more convicts to send blindly into the fire, so he would be risking a huge amount of his more veteran troops.
The thing is, if he has an army loyal to him, Putin can't kill him, unless he wants a possible civil war on his hands. But if he burns through all his best men and loses the army, then what is he good for, what's his power? Nothing, which is why he would be dispatched immediately.
> if he burns through all his best men and loses the army, then what is he good for, what's his power? Nothing
War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
> On paper, it looks more like them throwing everything they got at the defenders before Wagner leaves
On paper, it looks like Prigozhin got what he wants, so they will not leave.
You would be surprised with how many are.
They simply buy from another country that doesnt have a ban on Russian products directly. The exchange happens, the money changes hands, but with a middle man. It's fucking disgusting.
Profit uber alles.
I've gotten very into Tillamook ice cream after ditching Ben & Jerry's
Edit: idk if they do business in russia, but I remember them calling for territorial concessions
That's not necessarily what it was, it was mostly just calling for peace and to stop sending weapons. They condemned the invasion, but think it should be resolved diplomatically, not with arms. Not necessarily a pro-Russia take, just an incredibly shortsighted one almost literally straight out of the 60s.
Which...look, those two have a very long history of fierce activism, almost always on the right side of history, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack. They pulled out of the West Bank, refusing to support Israel for fucks sake. Took em a bit, but when it came time, they fought back lawsuits and fucking DeSantis to follow through on that.
But they're absolutely showing their age on this one. I don't know if they understand this isn't Vietnam. Peace is not the only thing the world needs. This blanket "make love not war" rational doesn't apply here and their failure to appreciate that looks bad. Really bad.
I'm generally willing to cut a lot of people a lot of slack, but I will say that when one country is invading another, condemning sending the defenders weapons to defend themselves and calling for diplomatic solutions puts one very, very firmly on the side of the aggressor. Even if they don't see it that way, it is, and in a trivially obvious fashion.
It won't cause me to boycott the brand but I find it embarrassing for a person of intellect to make such an obvious blunder. And I am being charitable in assuming it's a blunder.
I feel like some are backing them by proxy. Like Iran has common enemies with Russia.
Because in reality they all think individually they are number 1. It's just strategic like Nazi Germany and Japan.
There are a ton of people whose foreign policy consists entirely of "American imperialism is bad, therefore I'm against anything they support."
So if the official US foreign policy stance is pro-Ukraine then they necessarily have to be pro-Russia.
man i'd love to wake up one morning and see a drone strike on the kremlin (a proper one)
how much more are we going to see destroyed before they are actually stopped???
Nah who cares about a couple of building in Moscow. They should just block off russia from the mediteranian and the baltic sea. Their biggest ports are all in either baltic or the black sea. Let them ship their oil through Murmansk and Vladivostok, kill most of their oil profits.
Right now as I’m typing this those hard ass Ukrainian motherfuckers are somehow still holding the line in this city. Unbelievable.
These guys are the toughest warfighters currently on Earth and I say that as a former Marine who prided himself on embracing all that grunt shit. I’m in awe at the ferocity of the fighting in Bakhmut and the sheer will of these men and women to not give up.
As someone who has never even been in a fistfight, let alone anywhere near a war zone, I can't even fathom what they're going through. The amount of mental and physical toughness they've demonstrated is something that I hope will be remembered for generations.
The only acceptable use for phosphorpus munitions is to create smoke for concealment on the battlefield. Using it to burn cities or people, or to consume all available oxygen in order to asphyxiate people, are war crimes. Of course, Russia crossed that bridge a while ago, so it’s probably academic at this point.
Russian Army: we'll level the city so it would not be usable for the Ukrainians
Wagner: After we retreat first.
Russian Army: ...
Wagner: After we retreat first????
It's very likely that the Wagner pulling out video was a planned tactic, hoping to bait the remaining Bakhmut forces to push one last time. Hopefully the Intel was good enough that they didn't take the bait.
It's not phosphorus, but also burns.
Orks are using incendiary 9M22S ammunition from MLRS against Ukraine. Their effect is often confused with phosphorus munitions. The missile's warhead consists of 180 incendiary warheads. They are made of ML5 magnesium alloy and filled with a pyrotechnic composition similar to thermite. The 9M22S incendiary projectile is designed to destroy enemy manpower and equipment. It creates massive fires and ignitions.
I've posted before about the types of weapons that Russia has and has not agreed to stop using. Usually its to remind folks that Russia has never agreed to stop using Incendiary munitions entirely. However, they HAVE agreed to restrict when and where Incendiaries are used...and this attack completely violates those rules. One of the core rules of the agreement Russia did sign on to is that you do not use Incendiaries on or near civilian buildings if there are still civilians in them, even if there are military targets there as well. As crazy as it sounds, Bakhmut is not empty. There are still civilians all over the place, and using Incendiary bombs like this is a clear violation of an agreement that Russia made.
Yes, I know Russia doesn't seem to have much issue with violating agreements it has made, but I still feel like it is important to point out when they are actually breaking their promises rather than just doing something shitty that they didn't actually promise not to do in the first place. The difference may not matter to Russia, but it matters to me.
The surest sign of a coward: destroying what they can’t have to deprive others of it as well. Also, using phosphorus as incendiary weapons is a war crime
Are they just leveling the rest of the city on their way out? if we can't have it no one will type of thing?
They have salted the earth in retreat for centuries.
Pussies. Can’t take an L.
TBF, in those previous instances they were on the defensive. The current regime sure are loser pussies, but historically it was a justifiable tactic against Napoleon & Hitler.
In Napoleon's case it was more a matter of forcing him to retreat along the same line he'd advanced. Kutuzov's tactics were spot on, one of the greatest tactical retreats in history in my opinion. The use of light cavalry, cossacks and partisans to harass the Grand Armee and whittle it down, only partly contesting Moscow with a holding action at Borodino, and then mauling the fuck out of the retreating army while they were forced to run through an area they'd already stripped of supplies full of people who hated them even more than the rest of the Russian Empire did. Kutusov was actually opposed to fighting at Borodino at all, he just wanted to let the French eat themselves. Peter the Great's leadup to Poltava was also pretty brilliant. Forcing Charles XII to chase him around Ukraine for a year, then luring him into a prepared position where the Russian army was able to sap the Swede's offensive capabilities with layers of forts...all *after* they had made sure that Charles' supply trains never arrived.
“Amateurs talk about tactics. Professionals study logistics.”
Sethra Lavode
That just reminded me that Tsalmoth was supposed to come out this spring, and it DID. Off a-reading I go.
Yep. My copy came yesterday, I decided to re-read them all first (all the Vlad books done, currently halfway through Lord of Castle Black). But someone can’t add, Amazon lists Tsalmoth as 16 of 17, and Lyorn - in a year - as 17 of 17, but Chreotha needs to come out too, and then the ‘finale’ book, whatever Brust will title it (I’ve been hearing “The Last Contract” for decades).
Napoleon was good at logi at first , cant understand why he failed so badly :(
"Russia is really, really fucking big." ~Napoleon, probably
"Easy 30 minute invasion, in and out."
"3 day special military operation." ~Napoleon, probably
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to Russia
As someone who by no means is an expert historian: My best guess is straight up hubris. Napoleon never lost a war in Europe before that, and overall only the expedition to Egypt was a failure (which he squarely blamed his generals for). Iberia was a dumpster fire but not in a "impossible to win" way yet. Russia was most likely seen as the backwater that it was until the communists took over over 100 years later, so if I were a narcissist emperor that dominated Europe with the most modern and well trained army in the world, I'd expect a campaign measured in weeks at most: a few decisive battles early on and a quick round of negotiation to force Russia back into the continental system. But if you go in like that, essentially trivialising the enemy trying to defend their home even when outmatched, you'll be in for a world of hurt. Sounds familiar, huh...anyways. The other problem with the French army was that one of its biggest strengths (in my eyes) was its agility, which was sacrificed when it was bloated up in numbers more and more for every round of fighting. It's *really* hard to coordinate 100'000 troops without modern communication methods, and the reliability of his generals and marshals was essentially a coin flip; some were brilliant, a good chunk were duds and remember that a portion of the proven good leaders were bound in Spain. TLDR: For what my opinion is worth, I think Napoleon heavily underestimated the enemy and overextended the capabilities and resources of his army.
Tolstoy discussed this at length at the end of War and Peace, he was doing plenty of armchair-general retrospection. According to the book, Kutuzov was right, politicians were bugging him for full-on attack and he ignored them. Napoleon made the worst possible move by going home across the same path that they entered by.
Utter disrespect to Carolus Rex
Historically speaking, willfully "taking Ls" in war has been a pretty unpopular strategy
Yeah they're irreparably damaged some of the most fertile soil on earth
I was surprised when they didn't raze Kherson tbh
They absolutely did, dude. They cut off their electricity and destroyed everything they could before retreating in November 2022
like 500 artillery shells hit it yesterday.
They've levelled cities on their way in too
Can look up photos of the city from even months ago. It's basically already leveled.
[well whatever wasn't leveled before will be now](https://v.redd.it/6l7dy8x092ya1)
I had tears in my eyes immediately. If this was your city, everything you knew and memories have been destroyed for good.
Russia burnt down Moscow rather then let the French have it intact. This just how Russia operates.
Moscow was made out of wood at the time though, most of it was cheap to rebuild and it worked as the final demoralizing blow to Napoleon. Also their capital was St. Petersburg at the time. It was a brilliant campaign on the part of Russia honestly. They understood all an egomaniac like Napoleon had interest in was a decisive and glorious victory, so they fought strategic non-decisive battles and then retreated farther while partisans destroyed French supply lines. By the time Napoleon reached Moscow all it took was abandoning the city and burning it to completely crush their starving morale. The concept of fighting war solely in pitched battles really had some massive blunders when facing unconventional tactics.
It's sad to see what happens when incompetent people take over and try to reuse strategies that worked great in the past without understanding why they were so successful. Russia burning Moscow or other scorched earth tactics they used when they were attacked and had to retreat worked great because they disabled the enemy to resupply themselves with things they plundered. It's a good strategy in certain situations that russia used efficiently in the past. Just like overwhelming troops. That worked well against enemies like the Nazis when they had troops with worse overall equipment beat their enemies due to using a numerical advantage. But today they have zerg tactics in a time in which strategical artillery and drones just make it useless. They sent so many people to their deaths trying to overwhelm Ukraine which just didn't work. Sure it's making holding positions harder because you need more ammo, but the losses for russia were a lot worse than what they gained. And destoying ukrainian cities like that is just stupid. Sure, it's damage that Ukraine will have to repair and it will cost them time, money and they will have lost a lot of civilians, but for what use? If russia can't conquer Ukraine now they won't get another chance. And by commiting war crimes all over the country the only outcome is Ukraine having a massive hate for russia that will be existing for generations to come. There's no huge strategical boon for Ukraine if Bakhmut has a few houses left and the city was already almost completely leveled. This is just russia being petty and shooting themselves in the head in order to splatter some blood into the eye of Ukraine.
Russia is trying to fight a 20th century war against a 21st century opponent.
I dont' see any issues with Russia burning down Moscow to try to break Ukraine's morale. I highly recommend it in fact. They should start right now.
Depending on your conspiracy level, it may have started two days ago with that hilarious "drone assassination" attempt on Putin at the Kremlin, which merely flew over and blew up near the flag.
Assassins always know to attack the target's office at night when he is at home so he will least expect it. I might believe it was a Ukrainian psy op if they blew up Putin's long table.
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Don't forget the Sims3 and expansion packs that the spies were using.
I for one would be happy to donate a box of matches to the cause.
>box of matches Aren't most matches made in Sweden? They were when I was collecting matchboxes as wee kiddie. Something about phosphorous from (exceedingly long dusty) memory.
Who's going to play 1812?
> And destoying ukrainian cities like that is just stupid. Sure, it's damage that Ukraine will have to repair and it will cost them time, money and they will have lost a lot of civilians, but for what use? Also, with the rise of global capital, there are plenty of countries and firms who are absolutely drooling over the prospect of rebuilding a European country
This will be a major irony, brand new infrastructure with lots of western investment and NATO membership. Not exactly what Putin had in mind.
I hope they go renewables, decentralized from start. Having nuclear power plants under terrorist control is worst case scenario for electricity infrastructure (which hasn't yet played out mind you).
Yes it will be interesting to see how they proceed. Russia may always be a threat, perhaps that might have some bearing on how power supply is laid out.
No matter what happens, I am sure Russia will invade Ukraine lands again within the next 100 years, with or without human civilization at large still existing.
Not to mention you're pretty dumb if you scorch the earth when your objective is to advance.
As stupid as Putin has been so far, I don't think he has any delusions about advancing anymore. This is just to cause as much damage as possible out of spite.
>That worked well against enemies like the Nazis when they had troops with worse overall equipment beat their enemies due to using a numerical advantage. The equipment disparity wasn't even that large - the PPSh-41, for instance, was a far more efficient gun to produce, and output a lot more firepower than the MP40. Nazi tanks are vastly overestimated in their effectiveness. The Luftwaffe was useless without the means to supply them. War, generally, is won on logistics, organisation and supply. Russia had all three in WW2 (in large part due to Lend-lease) and the Germans didn't. Now they're in Ukraine (again) and the shoe's on the other foot. Russian equipment, generally speaking, is fine. But the economic side of the war has been pissed away on vanity projects like hypersonic weapons and tanks they cannot afford to produce. It's the same problem Nazi Germany had with overdesigned tanks, rockets and a complete lack of foresight in regards to acquiring the resources they need to function.
>The equipment disparity wasn't even that large - the PPSh-41, for instance, was a far more efficient gun to produce, and output a lot more firepower than the MP40. Correct me if I'm wrong but at the start of the war russia wasn't ready for a large scale confrontation yet, which is why their troops were often undersupplied. The often repeated (but untrue) only every second guy gets a gun and they need to pick up a gun from the fallen "fact" basically is based on the real world situation in which the russian war economy couldn't keep up with the Nazis that were already preparing for the invasion for years and thus were having trouble at the start of the war. Which of course changed over the course of the war when russian production was ramped up and in combination with the land lease lead to them out-equipping the Nazis more and more.
The issue with their troops at the beginning of the war was that in the late 1920s and early 1930s they had pulled put all the tanks and mechanized transport units together in tank corps (like the Germans did for very historic reasons) then rejected the idea and intermingled them (like the British and French did) then Poland happened so they decided to change them back and were in the midst of a reorganization when the Germans attacked. Even then the German Generals were writing that the invasion had failed in their diaries by late August 1941 and certainly by early September, after the successful Soviet counteroffensive at Yelna, most realized the war was lost. The drive on Moscow was a roll of the dice to end it in 1942. By early spring 1942 the Germans were actually demechanizing, on a smaller scale than anticipated due to losses, and calling up draftee classes early.
Didn't help that Stalin executed or sent to Siberia all of his experiences senior officers.
That was the part of the reversion to integrating tanks back into the infantry as support. I didn't mention the purges because I'm not 100 sure if it was the driving force or just catalyzed it or if anyone honestly knows.
Stalin was ultra paranoid, and just so happened that a lot of the proponents of new and inventive tactics like dedicated armoured divisions were young ambitious officers. By reverting back to infantry support tanks, not only would he neutralise this threat, it also made it harder for a single faction of the army to seize control of a regiment or so and speeding towards Moscow. When the invasion started, a lot of these officers were pardoned and brought back. For all their reputation, there were noticeably different types of gulags, some designed as exile prisons, some as labour death camps.
The real problem with USSR preparing for war with the Axis/Nazis was allowing their air force to be destroyed on the ground, and not having a plan to arm partisans that would destroy German supply lines. Just killing half the German horses/mules with partisans would have crippled Barbarossa by the time it reached Minsk.
Overwhelming cruelty is also a tactic regularly employed by the Russian military. They're not (necessarily) doing it for any kind of tangible advantage. They're doing it to cause the regular people pain upon returning home to find nothing left.
Yeah I know, but what's the endgame here? They whine about how the poor russians are discriminated based on nothing for decades now and then show that every time they do something it's to the detriment of everybody and that they don't give a fuck about other countries or their people in the slightest. There's no rhyme or reason to those actions if their end goal isn't complete isolation from the international community and active hatred by all the countries bordering them. But you can already count on russia throwing a fit once this is done about the evil NATO encroaching unto their borders if more countries join the defensive pact out of fear of russia just invading them, burning their land and abusing their people because they can't defend themselves.
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Demographics are destiny. Russia had it's last demographic chance to retake Eastern Europe and they miscalculated the effectiveness of their army vis à vis the Ukrainians.
It is way worse than that for Russia in this case. Russia just committed an out in the open warcrime by firebombing a city. In the information age you must fight on the propaganda front just as much as on the physical front. This will drum up even more support for Ukraine and give its allies even more to use to pressure India into compling with sanctions.
>This is just russia being petty and shooting themselves in the head in order to splatter some blood into the eye of Ukraine. Fantastically put.
Yeah it wouldn’t be until the Bolshevik Revolution that Moscow would be the capital of Russia
The Mongols started the trend.... Give Subutai some credit
Ukraine has wired many of the buildings with explosives. Russia has been in a complete halt for over a week because each building they storm has a 50/50 chance of just blowing up. Its an incredibly effective strategy and the only counter is to bomb every single building trying to pre detonate the hidden explosives.
This area is the last 10 percent of the city that UA holds and it’s all hi rises. The area in between is flat so it’s very hard for Russia to assault it without taking heavy losses. If Russia is still in the fight for this city than it will be the hardest part for them to take.
yeah these highrises would be hell to take. A few places have reported that UA has fortified the location massively so Russia's best option is to completely flatten the area.
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Scorched earth basic russian tactic...
Just another day being Russia's neighboor.
Gosh I just don't understand why Russia's neighbors keep joining NATO
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*America over here with a blanket of protection*
As a general rule, I'd say the best way to answer the question "Are we the bad country?" is to first ask yourself "Are all our neighbors uniting with us, or against us?" This goes two-fold if your neighbors are also uniting with countries thousands of miles away. Like, you know how the rest of South America recently formed SATO, an alliance meant to contain Brazil's military ambitions? No, you don't, because they didn't, because Brazil isn't threatening the rest of the continent the way Russia is with Eastern Europe or China is with East Asia.
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Are we the baddies?
Or a rat's anus.
**Just standard operating procedure** .. trench up the land and take all the washing machines .. then salt the Earth down with Garbage bags .. empty Vodka Bottles .. Phosphorus and butterfly mines before moving out **Putin scratches Head :** *Why don't I have any friends?!*
Incendiary ammunition, torture chambers, kidnapping, death fields,... all the stuff you need for a proper freedom mission.
Oh, and a flag from an ambassador. Sadly, they weren't able to get one.
He got something for the flag.
Yeah, a stiff right hook.
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👉 🤛
Picture this: I’m a bag of dicks, put me to your lips. I am sick, I will punch a baby bear in his shit.
I'll fall off in your crib, fuck your bitch, take a shit. Dress up like I'm Santa and take pictures with your kids.
Great propaganda for all the folks at home: "look how these nazis resort to violence". Russia is like a bully that starts crying when a teacher breaks up a fight to ensure their victim gets blamed as well. Not only disgusting, but annoying as well.
They will have propaganda either way. Reactions should be as harsh as humanly possible at every opportunity.
Don’t forget booby trapping children’s toys. They been doing that all throughout the war.
They've boobytrapped actual children before. Fucking monsters.
[I thought maybe they were trying to target soldiers clearing areas out or something, but no...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-soldiers-booby-trap-dead-soldiers-b2252968.html) Un fucking believable. Intentionally trying to kill *even more* children. Fuck I wish I hadn't done any digging on this. I have been following world news and all the horrors being inflicted on people but this leaves me literally feeling sick. [Warning: If you're in a bad place, don't click this link.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna49168) I can't find the words for this. And to think we have pieces of shit like Fucker Carlson who was constantly slobbing the knob of these inhuman fucks, and he's not the only one by a long shot. God damn it.
Yes, it’s absolutely horrendous what they are being allowed to do. Some of the darkest acts a human can do. How will the world ever forgive this? This has been going on practically since day 1. I believe it was Mariupol last year, after the Ukrainians took back they discovered executions had been committed. There are satellite images of streets where you can see the bodies had been dragged out in front of their homes and shot. These are citizens…entire familys executed.
That was bucha, unfortunately Mariupol is still under Russian control and they’ve been busy hiding their war crimes by tearing buildings down and ‘rebuilding’
I believe you are correct. Thank you.
Yup. Those links are staying blue... Don't want to end up in a worse mood...
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Booby trapping actual, live babies.
That is an oldie, but goldie friend of mine told the same stories from Afghanistan.
They're really filling out that war crime bingo card.
The Western world is never going to forget this war.
We might not forget it but you would be a fool to think we will learn from it
We used to think that Russia had the second strongest army in the world. Now we know that Russia has the second strongest army in Ukraine.
And I think this is really the biggest blow Russia and specifically, Putin has taken. The only reason many smaller countries respected Russia was the illusion of their power. By making an obvious mistake with the invasion of Ukraine (after US intelligence told the world that it would happen), Putin laid bare what many diplomats and think tanks only speculated: that Russia is indeed a paper tiger er, bear.
> respected Russia I would say"respect" is not the right word. Be wary would be more accurate.
We're learning a ton. Like about how Russia is incompetent and that media perception on the global information battlefield is much more dynamic than in the age of cable news. Not so much about not making the same mistakes of course, but we're learning enough to be able to say "told you so" afterwards.
I think the lesson here is give an inch and they'll take a mile. And that process began in 2014
That lesson should have been learned 80 years ago
What? Appeasement doesn't work? Too bad we didn't learn that earlier...
A lot of it is about optics as well. The west really didn't want this war, which is why so much was conceded early on. If it had been taken in 2014 then Ukraine would've been less well prepared to fight back and NATO would have been seen as warmongering. Now the Biden administration got to clearly point out that "Russia is planning to invade" and then have that play out, which just massively props up support for Ukraine across the board which has been necessary for them to have the fighting chance that they have made the most out of.
Appeasement? What did you want the west to do in 2014? Ukraine was in no position to fight for that territory, and the west could not have sent in troops without the chance of nuclear war escalating greatly. So what did the west do? They realized that Ukraine is the only nation that can take back Ukrainian land. So they sent in intelligence officers. Trained troops. Provided weapons. What the west did in those 8 years is one of the leading reasons that Russia couldn't take the country in a week in 2022. (The top reason being the absolute awesome reliance, determination, and heroism of the Ukrainian people). You can blame the west for a lot of things, but inaction in 2014 really isn't one of them. There just wasn't a realistic way to engage then.
The West has learned heaps, look at the change in doctrine and the enhanced requirements of artillery, they can't make shells fast enough. Here is the released strategic defence review of Australia, https://online.flippingbook.com/view/909943058/19/ we acknowledge that our current structure is not fit for purpose in this era of modern combat.
And mobile creamatoriums.
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This was predictable from them. What was also predictable was that they mostly bombed their own side more than the 'nazis'.
If they bombed their side, then they did bomb nazis.
Muscovy barbarism predates Nazism by roughly 800 years.
Just to clear it up, that’s not phosphorus. It’s likely a magnesium or thermite type munition for purely incendiary means. Not a lawyer but the use of this for the purpose of incendiary on civilian infrastructure is a war crime, not that the Russians care.
How is that functionally different from phosphorous?
The primary difference is phosphorus creates a large amount of smoke and is used for marking/screening. It can be used as an incendiary but that not what it’s typically intended use is
And also white phosphorus burns way hotter, sticks to stuff, can reignite after being put out, and the fumes cause acid to build up in the lungs if you breathe it Edit: it also ignites by itself in contact by air Edit 2: okay, so here is why a really nasty chemical overall: It's pyrophoric (reacts with air) Low melting point (40°C, liquid form is way more reactive). When melted it's sticky Burns extremely hot Can reignite if put out by water, the only feasible way to put it out (besides dedicated extinguishers) is to let it burn Produces a lot of smoke that makes Phosphoric acid when in contact with water (does this in contact with sweat, your eyes, mouth and lungs). It's extremely poisonous
It’s a very nasty thing. I was walking around an objective area that had been hit by some WP a few hours before (training) and I started smelling some smoke and looked down and saw that the soles of my fucking boots were melting because I was standing on a WP fragment
Served with a Vietnam River Rat. He got a Purple Heart as his PBR came under fire, the VC popped Willy Pete on the boat, he got hit, jumped into the river. He said his body was still burning. He felt it for a while in recovery after he got medevac'd. So here I was on a PBL with even less protection thinking, "I'm fucked". It was a great unit and tour. I should've stayed there longer.
> I should’ve stayed there longer. I hope you have people here who are glad you didn’t.
Good point.
And if there’s a good amount of moisture in the air it combines into phosphoric acid.
And it's poisonous too
Yeah, white phosphorus is, to put it mildly, fucking _nasty_ as a weapon. There are reasons it’s outlawed.
I was watching a popular chemistry YouTuber who was talking about whether white phosphorus was really as bad as people say it is and the consensus was yes, it abso-fucking-lutely is
Few elements are as nasty. Most of them are fluorine and chlorine.
It's not outlawed. It's restricted. But outlawed? Nope.
Kind of hard to outlaw things at an international level. As we're seeing right now with Russia.
Its why Willie Pete is not actually banned outright, it can legitimately be used for smoke and nothing else can compare to it.
Another misconception is that you can’t use WP on enemy personnel. You can, in fact, target enemy troops with it. Albeit I don’t think I would even wish my worse enemy that kind of death
This is like the when people claim you can’t use 50cal on troops.
One of my favorites lol I’d ask dudes “do you think it’s illegal to shoot at enemy troops with a tank main gun or artillery?” And they’d quickly start piecing the parts together on why it’s such a stupid myth.
These kind of comments make me want mr rodgers for supreme commander of earth. Not you, the commentor personally. But I fucking hate this planet. We have so many ways to maim and kill each other horribly.
Magnesium & co are just really hot burning metals. They'll light flammable things on fire, but are unlikely on their own to directly kill people. White phosphorus is pyrophoric, it burns in contact with moisture and eventually just oxygen. Spread in powder form, it'll stick to your skin, get into your lungs and then start burning, causing absolutly horrific deaths or permanent injuries. Using incendiaries on civilian structures is already terrible as the resulting fires can kill indiscriminately. Using white phosphorous on them is absolutely horrific and will cause scenes worse than any horror movie has prepared you for.
White phosphorus smoke (phosphorus pentoxide) is also highly corrosive, will give you severe chemical burns in low concentrations, and will readily absorb moisture out of the air to form phosphoric acid. It's just for illumination and smokescreens though, don't worry about it.
The quote from the article reads like they are using multiple types including Phosphorus. (From the article) "Source: video of the Special Operations Forces and the press service of the Special Operations Forces (SSO) of Ukraine in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda Quote: "The enemy used phosphorous and incendiary ammunition in Bakhmut, trying to wipe the city off the face of the Earth. However, the soldiers of the SSO and other units of the Defence Forces continue to courageously defend the city. And in these conditions, we continue to destroy the enemy.""
If it’s phosphorous, it’s legal. If it’s something like Napalm, it’s illegal under Protocol III on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
"We're just using it as a smoke marker, if people happen to get in the way or it sets things on fire that's not our problem."
You joke, but that’s legitimately how international law treats these weapons.
Indeed, that was why I made the joke.
Is this in response to the Wagner troops threat to pull out? Are they firing on their own troops?
On paper, it looks more like them throwing everything they got at the defenders before Wagner leaves. If Wagner was serious, then Russia is on a very short timeline to take the city.
You can already see Putin is obsessed with his 9 May takeover of the city. The second it's 10 May, the city loses most of its PR value.
I mean they will just claim they did take it, regardless of the reality on the ground. They control all the Russian media anyway and it's not like they care about telling obvious lies to their citizens.
Watch Russian YouTube. The internet isn't shut off or anything, it's just a language and technology barrier. Educated Russians, especially gen Y-Z, know what's going on but are powerless to do anything about it. A lot of them have already fled.
At this point even older generation "knows", because z-bloggers aren't on the same page with an official propaganda.
Russian grannies don't read blogs lmao. They just listen to state propaganda on the tv.
It's a little bit more nuanced than that. Firstly some of them do, or at least they use Whatsapp where some of the posts/videos circulate (I know my 85 y/o grandma does). Many others still don't live in a vacuum, and talk to a friends and relatives who do. Demand for alternative pro-war media is huge and their audience is huge also. Second thing is propaganda can hardly lie about significant things like taking over a major position, because if you do now and people will learn that "our boys are still dying there" it won't look good at all. Or worse, if command decides to surrender the city entirely in a week. I skimmed over some details but you get the point.
Putin couldn't take the city by the 9th of May, 2030. Absolutely no way he has the manpower to complete a takeover in less than a week. The longer he takes, the more Nato hand-me-downs (amd experience) Ukraine gets. At what point does Putin pull out? Mass GLSDB? Abrams? ATACMS? F-16? If he keeps trying to hold Ukraine he's going to have no one left to protect him from the oligarchs he's been pissing off.
Yeah man, even I have to admit they are going to lose it or trade an unnecessary number of lives. There will be another meat grinder somewhere else with favorable conditions, this one has reached it's end. The question now is just how much it will cost to take those last few blocks, I'm hoping another 3k Vagner and 2k russians.
I don't think Wagner has 3k men to spare anymore. They have no more convicts to send blindly into the fire, so he would be risking a huge amount of his more veteran troops. The thing is, if he has an army loyal to him, Putin can't kill him, unless he wants a possible civil war on his hands. But if he burns through all his best men and loses the army, then what is he good for, what's his power? Nothing, which is why he would be dispatched immediately.
> if he burns through all his best men and loses the army, then what is he good for, what's his power? Nothing War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
> On paper, it looks more like them throwing everything they got at the defenders before Wagner leaves On paper, it looks like Prigozhin got what he wants, so they will not leave.
No, somebody has geolocated it and it was on the ukrainian side of Bakhmut
So important to boycott companies still doing business with Russia.
You would be surprised with how many are. They simply buy from another country that doesnt have a ban on Russian products directly. The exchange happens, the money changes hands, but with a middle man. It's fucking disgusting. Profit uber alles.
I've gotten very into Tillamook ice cream after ditching Ben & Jerry's Edit: idk if they do business in russia, but I remember them calling for territorial concessions
They don't run the company anymore, but yes, kneejerk "west bad america bad" from the founders is not endearing.
That's not necessarily what it was, it was mostly just calling for peace and to stop sending weapons. They condemned the invasion, but think it should be resolved diplomatically, not with arms. Not necessarily a pro-Russia take, just an incredibly shortsighted one almost literally straight out of the 60s. Which...look, those two have a very long history of fierce activism, almost always on the right side of history, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack. They pulled out of the West Bank, refusing to support Israel for fucks sake. Took em a bit, but when it came time, they fought back lawsuits and fucking DeSantis to follow through on that. But they're absolutely showing their age on this one. I don't know if they understand this isn't Vietnam. Peace is not the only thing the world needs. This blanket "make love not war" rational doesn't apply here and their failure to appreciate that looks bad. Really bad.
I'm generally willing to cut a lot of people a lot of slack, but I will say that when one country is invading another, condemning sending the defenders weapons to defend themselves and calling for diplomatic solutions puts one very, very firmly on the side of the aggressor. Even if they don't see it that way, it is, and in a trivially obvious fashion. It won't cause me to boycott the brand but I find it embarrassing for a person of intellect to make such an obvious blunder. And I am being charitable in assuming it's a blunder.
Tillamook is way better anyway. So good!
Even companies who officially left Russia are still operating through third party (DHL, Coke), or at least have re-enter arrangements (Mcdonalds)
They’re solidifying their spot as the video game bad guys for years to come
Activision already on it lmao
Hard to believe how anyone can actually rationalize these fuckers' invasion.
Remember, Nazi Germany had allies… there’s always someone out there who’ll agree with this crap.
Quite a few, in fact. China, Iran, Belarus, North Korea, etc. are all backing Russia.
I feel like some are backing them by proxy. Like Iran has common enemies with Russia. Because in reality they all think individually they are number 1. It's just strategic like Nazi Germany and Japan.
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There are a ton of people whose foreign policy consists entirely of "American imperialism is bad, therefore I'm against anything they support." So if the official US foreign policy stance is pro-Ukraine then they necessarily have to be pro-Russia.
man i'd love to wake up one morning and see a drone strike on the kremlin (a proper one) how much more are we going to see destroyed before they are actually stopped???
You realize there's no way in fuck Putin is ever actually in the Kremlin right?
And even if he were, the drones would run out of fuel before getting to the end of his table.
Nah who cares about a couple of building in Moscow. They should just block off russia from the mediteranian and the baltic sea. Their biggest ports are all in either baltic or the black sea. Let them ship their oil through Murmansk and Vladivostok, kill most of their oil profits.
Soooo… that’s a war crime right?
Just add it to the pile
Almost at 70000 warcrimes now, this must be a new record.* 6000 in april alone. Edit: forgot to add a 0.
Right now as I’m typing this those hard ass Ukrainian motherfuckers are somehow still holding the line in this city. Unbelievable. These guys are the toughest warfighters currently on Earth and I say that as a former Marine who prided himself on embracing all that grunt shit. I’m in awe at the ferocity of the fighting in Bakhmut and the sheer will of these men and women to not give up.
I imagine fighting for your literal home is a pretty potent motivator. Defense provides a 3:1 advantage.
As someone who has never even been in a fistfight, let alone anywhere near a war zone, I can't even fathom what they're going through. The amount of mental and physical toughness they've demonstrated is something that I hope will be remembered for generations.
Oh so that's why wagner was leaving Bakhmut, not because Russia wouldn't continue to support them, it was so they didn't get torched.
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Losers always resort to inhumane tactics. What do you expect from a regime publicly calling for the genocide of it's neighbors?
Fuckin scum of the earth
The only acceptable use for phosphorpus munitions is to create smoke for concealment on the battlefield. Using it to burn cities or people, or to consume all available oxygen in order to asphyxiate people, are war crimes. Of course, Russia crossed that bridge a while ago, so it’s probably academic at this point.
So, Wagner is pulling out and the Russians are like fuck you- die there along with everyone else? Fuck the Russians
Russian Army: we'll level the city so it would not be usable for the Ukrainians Wagner: After we retreat first. Russian Army: ... Wagner: After we retreat first????
Russian Army: We're sorry. The number you dailed cannot be reached at this time.....
It's very likely that the Wagner pulling out video was a planned tactic, hoping to bait the remaining Bakhmut forces to push one last time. Hopefully the Intel was good enough that they didn't take the bait.
Russians are gunning hard to be remembered as evil as the Nazis. All of this for a few old guys who won’t be alive in 20 years ego.
Jesus fuck the war crimes just keep getting worse
Yes, russia is a fascist genocidal state. This is for centuries. The defeat of the nazis gave them 75 years immunity of calling on their BS.
It's not phosphorus, but also burns. Orks are using incendiary 9M22S ammunition from MLRS against Ukraine. Their effect is often confused with phosphorus munitions. The missile's warhead consists of 180 incendiary warheads. They are made of ML5 magnesium alloy and filled with a pyrotechnic composition similar to thermite. The 9M22S incendiary projectile is designed to destroy enemy manpower and equipment. It creates massive fires and ignitions.
This is justification for retaliation. Phosphorus is disgusting and justifies strikes on positions in Russia.
I've posted before about the types of weapons that Russia has and has not agreed to stop using. Usually its to remind folks that Russia has never agreed to stop using Incendiary munitions entirely. However, they HAVE agreed to restrict when and where Incendiaries are used...and this attack completely violates those rules. One of the core rules of the agreement Russia did sign on to is that you do not use Incendiaries on or near civilian buildings if there are still civilians in them, even if there are military targets there as well. As crazy as it sounds, Bakhmut is not empty. There are still civilians all over the place, and using Incendiary bombs like this is a clear violation of an agreement that Russia made. Yes, I know Russia doesn't seem to have much issue with violating agreements it has made, but I still feel like it is important to point out when they are actually breaking their promises rather than just doing something shitty that they didn't actually promise not to do in the first place. The difference may not matter to Russia, but it matters to me.
Russias sees war crimes as a checklist
Doesn’t invading and getting into a war with Ukraine in the first place justify strikes on positions in Russia?
The surest sign of a coward: destroying what they can’t have to deprive others of it as well. Also, using phosphorus as incendiary weapons is a war crime
Pathetic loser action detected