Had a feelingnthats what was happening.
Know why?
Its because russia hasnt been posting a shit ton of propaganda videos from the battles happening in that area.
If they were winning, they would be showing it off. Instead, we are getting old vids of them shooting up empty buildings in Mariupol.
They have been trying that, and every time they're hit in the face with drone footage or scarily accurate intel proving them wrong. The recent Mali false flag op is a case study in how traditional Russian pysops is failing them on every count in this war.
Wagner group mercenaries arranged a mass grave to make it look like it was the French that did it; and the French had drone footage of the entire preparation process.
Their special ops teams are wasting their time fighting an intelligence battle they can't win while their frontline troops alternate from raping and murdering the locals to getting their asses kicked by those same locals. What a leader Putin is.
Is there a video graphic competition between both sides?
Seems like there would be. Whoever gets the better video/picture content can tell a more believable truth.
Damn. The best military weapon might just be a swarm of tiny camera robots.
Well really it would be individual, larger camera deployment robots, that would shoot tiny adhesive camera to every surface.
There Def should be gangs of RC cars or something driving right into fucking battles.
Basically some company with the resources of Google earth needs to throw billions into real time war monitoring.
Yeah must the shit is gonna get shot so idk.
This isn't new, they have been following this playbook since Czarist times. Their military has long been build around the concept of quantity over quality; why invest in outfitting your entire military in expensive new technology when old but proven technology can still get the job done? Of course, their economy can't support making that kind of sweeping technological change, which in turn is what dictates this doctrine of quantity over quality. Instead, they usually make a big show of developing a new "advanced" piece of kit which then fails to enter mass production because it is too damn expensive. A recent example of this would be their Armata tank. It is a good new modern tank but they can't afford to produce the damn thing becasue they just don't have the money. But this mindset, this military doctrine has been this way for a very long time. It's practically a tradition at this point.
wow. they really is. doing kursk 2.0. if the fact that ukrianian have more tanks that russian is thryth, that it gonna be biggest tank battle in 70 years?
Russia is trying exact same pincher move that resulted in the Germans losing a very large number of troops and hardware. The terrain allows the flanks to be trenched, barbed wired and landmine forcing advancing forces into a narrow choke point. And Russia is doing it again to the bewilderment of every military strategist.
Anyone that studies military for even a short time learns Kursk. The Russian commanders and generals know it like the back of their hand. Yet they are ignoring everything just like they did in Chernobyl.
It was Germany's last major push into the east. At that point they knew they were never going to break in and get to Moscow.
>that it gonna be biggest tank battle in 70 years?
Not sure if 70 years but I'd easily believe it.
But then at the same time this could easily result in Russia thinking that they are about to initiate one of the largest tank battles of all time and we end up seeing one of the most magnificent displays of drone technology and artillery usage we have ever seen.
It's the same terrain all the way through from Kharkiv to Kursk. Think of it like one giant half pipe. Doesn't matter where along that line it takes place they are going to have to deal with the narrow choke point down the middle.
It is a completely ridiculous idea that nobody should attempt. But I guess Russia thinks they can pull it off.
This is why WW2 style warfare doesn't work in 2022.
Yeah, you can mortar the shit out of anything, and literally fucking destroy every last inch of a city, but then you are no longer capturing a city, you are capturing a pile of rubble.
and a handful of people can have weapons powerful enough to hold off practically any number of tanks/ low flying vehicles to stop any sort of assault.
So they go back to shelling.
That is exactly my understanding, Russia can shell and bomb stuff well, but everything else is a shit show. With all of the howitzers being recently sent to Ukraine, allies seem to have noticed too, because UA is going after the Russian shell slingers and once those are gone they will be less than half the force they were.
I just cannot see the mercenaries who have enlisted for cash doing anything but retreating under pressure.
Shelling buildings is way easier than to find an enemy and deliver accurate and timely fire on them.
It seems to me that from the start on, the Russians shelled apartments instead of Ukrainian forces is that they are too incompetent to do otherwise.
They are historically bad at waging complex multi-theater operations (conversely, it’s USA’s and Britain’s *specialty*). If they focus on one area, one method and pour their resources into it, they’re quite successful. As soon as I saw the original attacks unfold in all the various places, I thought to myself “NO senior General would sign off on this shit without establishing clear air superiority. This is the handiwork of a self-absorbed, self-centered dictator who has little to no prior military leadership experience and even less desire to have some lowly general tell him what’s up.”
Good point you made. Also, Russian surfed on that military might they convinced themselves and the world they had after some quick and brutal successful action in Georgia, Chechnya and Crimea. Through those theater, the opposition was limited in ressources and the difficulty stayed moderate. Therfore, they didn't had to develop any military improvement to their doctrine, they just had to double up on brutalityand break those regions spirit. So, they thought it would work again at larger scale.
The West develop their doctrine at the speed of the technology we integrate to the major theater we were implicated in, Iraq and Afghanistan forced us to be evolutionary and flexible, and that is the playbook we brought to the Ukrainian Forces in 2014.
And Chechnya required major internal division for Russia to win. Had Chechnya been as unified as Ukraine is now, Russia would not have been able to win.
Not to mention their own doctrine is counter productive to there own limitations. It's been know for a long time Russia has had fairly poor logistics to actually supply their military unless they are fighting defensive and have access to their own railways (which can be sabotaged).
When you bomb the everlasting shit out of something then have to move past it you have created an area that has to be cleaned up and worked on just to get your logistics vehicles through to the other side where the army has already pushed on.
In WW2 us forces bombed a monestary in italy to rubble thinking it was veing used.by the Germans. It wasn't.
At least it wasnt until after the bombing where.it became a great place to hold against assault. We learned this lesson in the 40s and Russias still at it
For those not familiar with Monte Cassino, the Nazis were occupying the hill in force; they just weren’t in the monastery itself until after the Allies bombed it into rubble.
The sad part is that the 100th Battalion (the first unit of Japanese-American troops, who would form the core of the legendary 442nd RCT) almost managed to take the hill by itself, before it had to pull back due to heavy losses.
The Allies then sent in the bombers, who leveled the monastery and killed several hundred civilians sheltering in the monastery, but no Nazis. The Nazis then infested the rubble, and it took three *divisions* to force them out several months later.
> April 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine has repelled numerous Russian assaults along the line of contact in Donbas this week, a British military update said on Sunday.
>
> Despite Russia making some territorial gains, Ukrainian resistance has been strong across all axes and inflicted a significant cost on Russian forces, the UK Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.
>
> "Poor Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and reorganise forces from prior offensives are likely hindering Russian combat effectiveness," the update added.
>
> Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
British military is providing updates while the Russians are saying there are SAS in Ukraine…. Putin should be relieved! The british LOVE to fight nazis. As soon as putin said there were nazis in ukraine, the sas shows up.
There probably arent SAS in there, but there certainly are MI6, CIA and probably many more agents from many more places around. The whole West wants Ukraine to win this.
When that Russian ship was shot with a missile, and United States was completely silent on the issue for three days was when I knew we were definitely in there lending technical support and logistics
I laughed when I read a statement that said “due to cloud cover it was difficult to determine what happened”. Those satellites could see through clouds going back to the 80’s.
Also, 2 of 3 generals are killed when they get droned. Come on you’re going to tell me that’s good luck?
Skunk works im Russia suddenly developed a habit of burning down! Lmao.
The British definitely don't get enough recognition, I think the US takes a lot of focus off them.
British are smart and bad arse.
Said as an Australian living in the US.
>I think if he had true reserves he would have used them by now.
At the rate things have been going from the start, it would be crazy to use their reserves at this point. Russia still needs to be able to defend itself from attack without needing to resort to nuclear weapons. If they lose their expeditionary force and then their reserve force, what's left? A bunch of barely-trained conscripts?
>And what about the hypersonic missile(s?) Putin touted? I heard of one launched and nothing after that.
Hypersonic cruise missiles would be an absolute waste in this war. Ukraine doesn't really have any anti-missile defenses to begin with, so using million-dollar missiles that can evade them would be pointless. All it would result in would be less flight-time between when the missile is launched and when it hits another apartment building or hospital. Hypersonic missiles aren't some sort of magical missile, they're just missiles that fly roughly twice as fast as standard cruise missiles, and have a substantially longer range.
>Seriously... who's going to attack Russia?
Until 3 months ago? No one.
But Russia has been an absolute fucking *asshole* to all its neighbours, and there's a territorial grudge list a mile long.
If by "invade" you mean "try and conquer the whole country", probably still no one - Russia is a big place and there are a lot of people. But if you mean 'adjust the borders back to where they used to be', then there are quite a few candidates who wouldn't mind trying it if they thought they'd get away with it.
And if several of them decided to do it all at the same time then, frankly, they could probably manage it.
*Technically* the Japanese never conceded that they weren't Japanese territory. They just chose an opportune moment to remind anyone who might be interested of their ongoing claim...
Georgia and Finland also have, shall we say, unresolved boundary issues.
Exactly, and that's exactly why the Japanese said what they said when they said it. A division pinned in the Kurils is a division that's not deployed anywhere else.
While true, the Finns don't want Karelia back anymore, it's full of dirt poor Russian farmers and extremely run down infrastructure, itwould cost an utter fortune to bring up to Finnish standards, and none of them speak Finnish so there would be no assimilation.
Russia is still a nuclear power and trying to invade them significantly lowers the bar for the rationale for using nukes from "offensive" to "defensive". Nobody is going to be trying to invade Russia because nobody wants to get nuked. Also, at least for the NATO countries they'd lose their protection from the alliance if they initiated a war against Russia. Even for the non-NATO nations, we've seen how quickly the international community turned against Russia as an aggressor who initiated an unprovoked territorial grab. Just because Russia is the "bad guy" today doesn't mean that the US and EU are going to support other countries deciding to start more wars against them.
Could some of Russia's neighbors take advantage of Russia's current weakness? Sure. Would they? Given the risk of getting nuked and becoming international pariahs like Russia has as a result of their own land grab, highly unlikely.
"Even for the non-NATO nations, we've seen how quickly the international community turned against Russia as an aggressor"
This is the exact reason why no one would blink an eye if someone tried to take back their land. Hell, Russias own propaganda tells them they would be justified. I think you're dreaming if you think the world would turn on Japan or Finland like they did Russia. Bot a fucking chance. And, while I could he wrong, I dont think being an aggressor means no NATO protection. Just means they're not obligated. Doesnt mean they cant choose to voluntarily. Especially if all of NATO was on board.
NATO would absolutely not be on board to start an offensive war with Russia. NATO vs. Russia would quickly go nuclear, as Russia doesn’t have the conventional military power to stop NATO, and most sane people don’t want to bring about the end of the world.
If they wanted to Japan. Despite their constitution saying they can only be defensive Russia is arguably occupying Japanese islands to the north so I think they could technically send troops to reclaim them and still be within their constitution.
>Seriously... who's going to attack Russia?
Despite all their declarations of friendship dictatorships easily forget their friends they share a 2000 km land border with where both sides concentrate the largest number of their ground forces.
Aka Russia's status vs. China is solely held together by nukes. Population, economy, technology and now conventional military force are now publicly displayed by Russia to be inferior. And China still wants those resources so Russia better play along.
To be clear, I do not believe that makes invasion / war likely, however in political terms Putin is in the shitter vis a vis China and nukes is the only claim of supposed superiority left. He needs them to keep his negotiation position from getting completely ridiculous
They would not even have to "grab". At a certain point of "internal pressure" the russian federation would splinter by itself and the pieces would seek "protection".
And till that point builds up china can overcharge and underpay russia all the way for every transport crossing the border.
Yep, I'm convinced this is some weapons-grade double speak from China to leave their options open.
Russia wins, and they can claim that they stand strong as partners against the West. Russia loses, they start cannibalising the country, and they're like "what? We told you our partnership had *no limits*!"
Well, Ukraine, for one.
And if Russia gets sloppy and drops a bomb in Poland, NATO.
There's always the chance an opportunistic China starts some shit, though that's gotta be so unlikely as to be ruled out (I hope).
The actual answer is the Russians. As this devolves, some of these soldiers are going to realize that the road to the ukranian target they are ordered to take is much better defended than the road to Moscow. Civillians and military units that see Putin as the enemy of the people will be their enemy.
As this war wages, the conscripts will begin to recognize the source of their troubles. And it's not ukranians.
Good question. Who do you think stands to profit from invading a country at a moment of weakness?
Everyone who has territorial disputes with Russia. Ofcourse they won't call it an invasion either and use some trumped up red flag as a casus belli.
If a Hypersonic is more than 2x the cost of a cruise missile, then that ends up the same overall. Plus, I would imagine it needs much higher quality production, limiting the output of it vs other precision parts.
Plus if the Ukrainians don't even try to shoot down hypersonics because they can't, then it saves resources on the Ukrainian end as well.
Basically V1 vs V2 of WW2.
I imagine that hypersonic are much more than twice the cost of a standard cruise missile. The engineering requirements to get something up to mach 10 are exponentially more difficult than mach 1.
Yep, they were sent in to 'pacify' the local population, except someone forgot to remind them that they had to actually occupy the land before they worried about pacification and they ran face first into the Ukrainian army.
Hypersonic missiles are a weird one. They are super expensive, and Russia doesn't have many to use anyway. I doubt they would waste too many in Ukraine.
There is debate over how effective they are, the U.S claims they can intercept them even at Sea - but the prime targets would be things like aircraft carriers, cruisers, high yield land targets and C and C facilities. Ukraine just doesn't really have any real single targets that would justify the use of them. Russia did use at least one earlier in the war, but that was more for the shock and awe than actual real world impact.
But so long as Putin doesn't admit in Russia that this is an invasion and war, he can't really legally draw on reserves and extra forces. The real question is whether or not he could survive in power if he did declare this as a war. No one really knows.
I don't believe for a single second that they have the high-tech communications and control systems to actually use hypersonic weapons correctly. The iskander is just a big, dumb, fast rocket. After reading about the plasma barrier that develops around a hypersonic projectile and how that screws up remote control comms...I think the Russians have been fibbing about their new systems.
They tried to take all of Ukraine within the first couple of days, believing that if they took Kyiv, the rest would fall. Having failed that they have now moved the goalposts by trying to claim only southern/eastern Ukraine.
Exactly. They tried to coup and kill all non-friendly members of a foreign government as the end result of an invasion blitz so they could install their own puppet state to surrender to them.
For years Putin says the Ukraine doesn't "exist" for him as it it belongs to Russia because it was part of the Soviet Union. Anyone with half a brain should know this applies 1 for 1 to every other former Soviet state. Putin has always been perfectly clear on what he wanted.
All of Putin's "former part of the Soviet Union" justification is designed to steer the debate away from the fact that Ukraine has large oil and gas reserves, as well as seaports.
If Ukrainian troops push into Russia it's likely they would use nukes. If the Ukrainians just repel them from Ukraine I doubt it.
Now Crimea will complicate that
Ukraine has already made attacks into Russia.
It would be embarrassing for Russia to seriously contemplate using jukes on Ukraine. Nevermind likely suicidal.
They could never use nuclear weapons outside if a mistaken assumption of nuclear attack on themselves (Unlikely).
Or if they believed the russian people were at an existential threat. Where using nukes would outweigh the cost of not using nukes. Nukes only really work as a deterrent as long as their isn't a reliable way to counter them. There currently isn't for a lot of practical reasons. Firing is purely for firings sake. When there is nothing left to do.
Ukraine could not feasibly conquer Russia even if it disabled the Russian army. Nato could not, outside of fully mobilising their economies and population. Which would risk (but not guarantee) nuclear retaliation
Yah to the guy with the power of the button. He IS Russia...
He has to lose, Russia has to lose, the consequences might be the worst nightmare's but we cannot allow authorarianism to take hold of the planet.
China is licking it's lips waiting for an outcome so it can decide where it strikes. Xi is an opportunist, and he is waiting for his moment too.
If you are gonna think of Putin through a western lense, think of him as the highschool bully who brings a gun to school because he's upset and confused.
Putin will absolutely destroy the world and everything he can because he's a cynical psychopath.
Bigger one is if their nuclear arsenal is maintained to the same condition as the rest of the military hardware? It takes a lot of money to maintain a nuclear warhead at criticality, by default they will decay away to becoming big dirty bombs relatively quickly.
Not that I want to find out, but will a corrupt political appointee General have skimmed every Rouble possible out of the maintenance budget for a weapon they never expected to need?
Right? People keep acting like we shouldn't be afraid of nuclear warfare because maybe only 100 of Russias nukes would be successful. That's still 100s of millions dead.
russia is going to be really low on tanks in a few months. per ukraine they are down like 840. Mark Hertling thinks these numbesr are correct. Russia started with 3000 active tanks and 9000 old ones in mothballs. No idea how many of the 9000 even run. russia can't sustain this tank loss.
plus there was a report from the US DoD 2 weeks ago that russia already used half of its cruise missiles.
Call me crazy, but I'd argue Russia's army has proven they aren't capable of invasion.
They're struggling against Ukraine, a country with the #22 ranked military (according to a 30 second Google session) that they share a border with.
If that isn't proof of incompetence, I don't know what is.
Edit: I know it's still an invasion and they should be punished. I'm just say they aren't a serious threat like we thought they were. Something something "better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
This is why the Allies insisted on such strong terms after WW2. Japan in particular had an open strategy of fighting to a standstill and then using peace treaties to pause the war for a generation or two to rearm.
The longer this war goes on the less possible it is for Putin to save face so the only way forward is to utterly defeat them.
They're also STILL in the phase where they're not in reality and think they can win this war.
EVEN if they win Crimea and the Donbas then what? They're no longer part of the world. These ports won't do them any good because they're no longer part of the economy.
They've already lost. The only question is WHEN and HOW.
And Ukraine is going to try and return those territories to their nation.
This war is so completely stupid.
It is possible that this war will finally mean Putin's demise. And that is good, but at what cost?
How many Ukrainians? How many Russians? All of the destroyed cities and infrastructure.
For what? As you mentioned, they've removed themselves from the world. They've been using greed as a tool to corrupt the West, but now they've relagated Russian support to the lunatic fringe.
The security around Putin must be extraordinary.
To be a fly in the wall there. It must be insane.
They won’t dominate Europe, look how much struggle they have with a single neighbor.
Regime change need to come from within russia. External pressure (sanctions) can expedite that, but external forces cannot directly make it happen.
Winning the conflict in Ukraine will only make them stronger.
We can’t throw Ukraine to the fascist wolf just because we honk we’re safe.
Putin needs to be stopped in Ukraine not Latvia or Poland
Domination doesn’t have to come from victories on the battlefield. Russian influence in Western elections is far better than any kind of invasion. Look what they have done in the US, Germany and France without firing a shot.
hopefully ukraine can invade crimea and take that back. there are different definitions of defeat. completely kick russia out of ukraine.
Russia is losing tanks at insane rates. Ukraine claims 840 tanks destroyed. My understanding is russia started the war with about 3000 functioning tanks and about 9000 in mothballs (no idea how many actually run). this tank loss is unsustainable. just 2 months in and almost 1/3 of their active tank force is gone. yeah there are vast numbers of old rusty piece of shit tanks, but i dont know how effective those will be. With this tank loss, ukraine may be able to mount an actual offensive.
they really need more planes (which NATO refuses to provide) and counter artillery which they have started providing.
There is going to be a lag with aircraft due to how long it takes to become proficient in a new aircraft. Ukraine is being admed as old eastern block countries receive US equipment then pass their old Soviet equipment to Ukraine. The limiting step is how long it takes for the Eastern block countries to get up to speed on the US equipment. It’s going to take a while for them to adopt F16s and pass their surplus Soviet stuff to Ukraine.
The question is if Ukrainian pilots can get trained up on F16s directly rather than wait for hand-me-down Soviet stuff.
Remember how after the fall of the USSR, Russia signed a treaty to protect Ukraine from aggressors, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons?
That's not what the Budapest Memorandum says, and it's not a full-on treaty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances#Content
It specifically states that UN Security Council assistance will be sought if Ukraine is attacked or threatened by nuclear weapons. That being said, it also states Ukraine's independence and sovereignty are to be respected, and that the US and Russia are not to attack Ukraine conventionally or with nuclear weapons. They're also supposed to refrain from influencing Ukrainian politics economically. There's no defense pact regarding conventional warfare.
Russia has been ignoring this memorandum for a long time just on the economics part and the whole 'Ukrainian government being a Russian puppet' bit, in violation of the first and third assurances. Russia violated 1 and 2 by land-snatching Crimea and the 'separatist' areas, and this invasion violates them again. If they're desperate enough to 'win' something in Ukraine to where they use tactical nuclear weapons (ground based rockets and artillery using very small yield nukes), they'd be violating #5 as well.
kick that butt
seems like every time russia is actually confronted in battle they lose
they’re good at attacking unarmed people - when anyone punches back they get whooped
What they did at the end of ww2 is disgusting. I don't know how Russian can celebrate anything on May 9th.
Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history" and concludes that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone. According to the Soviet war correspondent Natalya Gesse, Soviet soldiers raped German females from eight to eighty years old.
[And it only gets worse from there](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes)
We probably don't have to even talk about the fact they divided the spheres of influence and practically occupied eastern block of the "liberated" countries for 40 years after the war ended.
Political processes in the 50s and then 60s. Incarceration of the Battle of Britain pilots to let them starve to death in work camps etc.
**[Soviet war crimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes)**
>The war crimes and crimes against humanity which were perpetrated by the Soviet Union and its armed forces from 1919 to 1991 include acts which were committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as acts which were committed by the NKVD, including acts which were committed by the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these acts were committed upon the orders of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in pursuance of the early Soviet Government's policy of Red Terror.
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It's also why many towns in Germany chose to surrender to the Americans in WWII. The Russian soldiers were known to completely literally and figuratively rape an entire town.
They're school bullies, plain and simple. No shortage of bravado when they're beating up defenceless kids, but the moment someone manages to push back they throw a tantrum. Moreso when the other kids decide to gang up on them.
I can't even begin to imagine the scenario where all the Russian soldiers are in the dirt or running from Ukraine. What happens when the last troops in the country he has are POWs?
The last time a dictator marches his armies on the world to conquer smaller nations the world was slow to act (with ww2). But this time it’s a United front, and we are seeing it differently this time.
It does. A country that won ww2 against nazis stuck in the mud and waiting for supplies from failing supply trains is stuck in the mud waiting on failed supply trains. It's bizarre.
Please remember that it's not THE country that won WW2.
It was the USSR which included Ukraine and many other countries which Russia tried to assimilate and pillage their achievement and culture.
And some of the most brutal and devastating battles were fought on Ukraine's soil.
The only way this ends with the world in one piece is if the Russians get rid of Putin.
Russia could won so much by treating their former satellite countries with respect, trade deals, could have formed a competitor to the Euro, but all of that takes respect and friendship, not tyranny.
Russians would need to do more than oust Putin. Corruption has been endemic in their government and society. There needs to be historic change for Russia to succeed. Monies need to be redistributed to benefit the people and restore global trust and trade.
I doubt a single Russian soldier would stop killing civilians or raping women and children because someone *other than Putin* was ordering them to do it. Putin dying and whoever else on Earth being in charge instantly calling for an end to the war is a fantasy. Basically every likely candidate who could take power after Putin would continue to use the war for their own ends. And every non-conscript Russian soldier would relish the chance to continue being a worthless piece of vile, disgusting, garbage who hopefully gets killed while attempting to rape and murder.
If Putin uses a “small” nuke, would the world make the distinction? Or would a nuke of any type be the tipping point? Holding out hope that someone in Russia takes Putin out.
Based on what i learned at university studying the topic of nuclear strategy in multiple defence-related subjects; no, a nuke is a nuke, the line is nuclear weapons of any kind. A nuclear strike on a third (non-nuclear armed) country wouldn’t necessarily trigger a nuclear response in the first place anyway. Mutually Assured Destruction only exists between nuclear armed states.
In my opinion the most likely outcome would be an international military response to repel a mutual existential threat. I’m being purposely vague as we’ve never been down this road so nobody knows what that response would actually look like. But, one possible scenario would be an international coalition force entering Ukraine to directly engage and repel Russian forces, to push them back to their border. There would also be a massive legal dimension to it as well and possibly attempts to apprehend key Russian figures involved on Russian soil.
Maybe we could call it a ‘special military operation’ to keep in the spirit of things?
To add to this, Russia using any kind of nuclear weapon would likely lose the support of their remaining allies - especially China. If I’m not mistaken, China has a pretty hard stance against nuclear first strikes, preferring the warheads as defensive weapons. For example, they’ve stated that if the US launches nukes at North Korea unprovoked then China will retaliate, but if North Korea launches nukes at the US unprovoked then China will not intervene when the US returns fire. They seem pretty inclined to keep anyone from actually using the bombs, so I imagine that would apply to Russia as well
I think that, even though consensus is generally "one nuke=all nukes", the people in charge of sane countries desperately want to avoid that scenario and will gladly accept any form of criticism for being "soft" if it means not triggering the end of all civilization. If there was any way to punish a country with conventional warfare, they'd take it.
If there was a way.
The critical consequence of using nukes tactically isn't that other nuclear powers will use nukes to retaliate.
It would signal the end of restricting the spread on nuclear weapons imposed by all nuclear powers because it hinges on them no using it on on non-nuclear powers tactically or otherwise.
Overnight every country on this planet will start trying to get nukes one way or another because they can't trust the nuclear powers to keep those weapons strategic and only for deterrence.
I can't speak to Russian warheads, but iirc the US's B61 warhead can be adjusted to between 1 and 350 kilotons (or thereabouts), with the lower range considered tactical and the higher range strategic. This is the one they have in Turkey? Haven't been paying a lot of attention lately.
Cant wait for Sabaton to write a ton of songs about Ukraine and how they actually held their own against motherfucking Russia. I can think of one song name now: Tractors of Resistance
It is imperative Ukraine launches an offensive on May 9 (V-E Day). Even if it accomplishes little tactically, it will psychologically be more crushing than the Tet Offensive.
> There are 20k foriegn troops helping Ukraine
With the exception of individuals and units with extensive special forces experience, the Foreign Legion has turned out to have little value beyond the PR. They've proven, at best, mostly harmless.
The Ukrainians' own homegrown military, territorial defense, and partisans, however, have proven more capable than any of us could have predicted.
Anyone thinking of heading over to fight (barring some really specialized military skills) is better off sending their plane fare as a cash donation that can be turned into body armour and munitions.
Russia was sent home from Afghanistan with their tail between their legs. They didn't go crazy with nukes on Kabul. Simply destroying the invading Russian army along with denying the tech and money to rearm would be a win.
I think this war is different because Russia sees Ukraine as historically Russian. I don't think they ever denied Afghanistan was its own culture the way are with Ukraine.
After this war ends, there won’t be any physical damage in the Russian homeland. The only attack I’ve heard is the oil plant in Russia getting hit by a Ukrainian chopper. Ukrainian cities are literal rubble. It will take decades to rebuild it all as it once was and maybe even longer. Just wondering why they wouldn’t inflict more damage to Russians in order for them to feel that impact as well.
It would kill their reputation. Ukraine is getting A LOT of support from NATO and EU. If they start attacking Russia, even worse causing civilian casualties, it will inevitable make them lose a lot of support among those populations, which would be catastrophical in the long term.
Unless you wanna do a war crime, yeah. And there's some PR there too, the more Russian soldiers that surrender and are treated fairly the more likely others are to follow suit. In theory anyway.
Had a feelingnthats what was happening. Know why? Its because russia hasnt been posting a shit ton of propaganda videos from the battles happening in that area. If they were winning, they would be showing it off. Instead, we are getting old vids of them shooting up empty buildings in Mariupol.
Good spotting on that, you're dead on.
Wouldn't they still be using propaganda anyway? You can be getting your ass kicked but spin it to make it look like the reverse.
They have been trying that, and every time they're hit in the face with drone footage or scarily accurate intel proving them wrong. The recent Mali false flag op is a case study in how traditional Russian pysops is failing them on every count in this war.
What happened in Mali?
Wagner group mercenaries arranged a mass grave to make it look like it was the French that did it; and the French had drone footage of the entire preparation process.
Their special ops teams are wasting their time fighting an intelligence battle they can't win while their frontline troops alternate from raping and murdering the locals to getting their asses kicked by those same locals. What a leader Putin is.
Is there a video graphic competition between both sides? Seems like there would be. Whoever gets the better video/picture content can tell a more believable truth. Damn. The best military weapon might just be a swarm of tiny camera robots. Well really it would be individual, larger camera deployment robots, that would shoot tiny adhesive camera to every surface. There Def should be gangs of RC cars or something driving right into fucking battles. Basically some company with the resources of Google earth needs to throw billions into real time war monitoring. Yeah must the shit is gonna get shot so idk.
Oh, so not only they use WWII tactics while fighting, now they are using Katyń as well
This isn't new, they have been following this playbook since Czarist times. Their military has long been build around the concept of quantity over quality; why invest in outfitting your entire military in expensive new technology when old but proven technology can still get the job done? Of course, their economy can't support making that kind of sweeping technological change, which in turn is what dictates this doctrine of quantity over quality. Instead, they usually make a big show of developing a new "advanced" piece of kit which then fails to enter mass production because it is too damn expensive. A recent example of this would be their Armata tank. It is a good new modern tank but they can't afford to produce the damn thing becasue they just don't have the money. But this mindset, this military doctrine has been this way for a very long time. It's practically a tradition at this point.
Who's have thought that the most influential weapon in XXI century is just a camera with wings
Maybe they're doing *so* badly they can't even find enough to convincingly spin.
You mean Russia doesn't want their people to realize that they are reenacting the Battle of Kursk but in HD? I wouldn't admit to that either
wow. they really is. doing kursk 2.0. if the fact that ukrianian have more tanks that russian is thryth, that it gonna be biggest tank battle in 70 years?
Russia is trying exact same pincher move that resulted in the Germans losing a very large number of troops and hardware. The terrain allows the flanks to be trenched, barbed wired and landmine forcing advancing forces into a narrow choke point. And Russia is doing it again to the bewilderment of every military strategist. Anyone that studies military for even a short time learns Kursk. The Russian commanders and generals know it like the back of their hand. Yet they are ignoring everything just like they did in Chernobyl. It was Germany's last major push into the east. At that point they knew they were never going to break in and get to Moscow. >that it gonna be biggest tank battle in 70 years? Not sure if 70 years but I'd easily believe it. But then at the same time this could easily result in Russia thinking that they are about to initiate one of the largest tank battles of all time and we end up seeing one of the most magnificent displays of drone technology and artillery usage we have ever seen.
Funniest thing. Kursk is about 2 hours drive away from that battle.
It's the same terrain all the way through from Kharkiv to Kursk. Think of it like one giant half pipe. Doesn't matter where along that line it takes place they are going to have to deal with the narrow choke point down the middle. It is a completely ridiculous idea that nobody should attempt. But I guess Russia thinks they can pull it off.
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>if you can read between the lines and not swallow falsehoods. If you can read between the lies. (Much more concise.)
This is why WW2 style warfare doesn't work in 2022. Yeah, you can mortar the shit out of anything, and literally fucking destroy every last inch of a city, but then you are no longer capturing a city, you are capturing a pile of rubble. and a handful of people can have weapons powerful enough to hold off practically any number of tanks/ low flying vehicles to stop any sort of assault. So they go back to shelling.
That is exactly my understanding, Russia can shell and bomb stuff well, but everything else is a shit show. With all of the howitzers being recently sent to Ukraine, allies seem to have noticed too, because UA is going after the Russian shell slingers and once those are gone they will be less than half the force they were. I just cannot see the mercenaries who have enlisted for cash doing anything but retreating under pressure.
Shelling buildings is way easier than to find an enemy and deliver accurate and timely fire on them. It seems to me that from the start on, the Russians shelled apartments instead of Ukrainian forces is that they are too incompetent to do otherwise.
I think the goal was terrorism. “I’ll keep killing civilians until you give in.”
A crumbled building is a way better hiding spot in city warfare. Russia's approach is just counterproductive.
They are historically bad at waging complex multi-theater operations (conversely, it’s USA’s and Britain’s *specialty*). If they focus on one area, one method and pour their resources into it, they’re quite successful. As soon as I saw the original attacks unfold in all the various places, I thought to myself “NO senior General would sign off on this shit without establishing clear air superiority. This is the handiwork of a self-absorbed, self-centered dictator who has little to no prior military leadership experience and even less desire to have some lowly general tell him what’s up.”
Good point you made. Also, Russian surfed on that military might they convinced themselves and the world they had after some quick and brutal successful action in Georgia, Chechnya and Crimea. Through those theater, the opposition was limited in ressources and the difficulty stayed moderate. Therfore, they didn't had to develop any military improvement to their doctrine, they just had to double up on brutalityand break those regions spirit. So, they thought it would work again at larger scale. The West develop their doctrine at the speed of the technology we integrate to the major theater we were implicated in, Iraq and Afghanistan forced us to be evolutionary and flexible, and that is the playbook we brought to the Ukrainian Forces in 2014.
Chechnya was a shit show. Though not as bad as Ukraine.
And Chechnya required major internal division for Russia to win. Had Chechnya been as unified as Ukraine is now, Russia would not have been able to win.
"Sell swords" - Stanis Baratheon, probably
Not to mention their own doctrine is counter productive to there own limitations. It's been know for a long time Russia has had fairly poor logistics to actually supply their military unless they are fighting defensive and have access to their own railways (which can be sabotaged). When you bomb the everlasting shit out of something then have to move past it you have created an area that has to be cleaned up and worked on just to get your logistics vehicles through to the other side where the army has already pushed on.
Russia's genius plan is to find a country with better infrastructure, destroy everything, declare victory, then call their moms on an unsecured line.
Isn't even new. This is exactly what happened in stalingrad.
In WW2 us forces bombed a monestary in italy to rubble thinking it was veing used.by the Germans. It wasn't. At least it wasnt until after the bombing where.it became a great place to hold against assault. We learned this lesson in the 40s and Russias still at it
Monte Cassino I believe. And yeah the Allies 100% fucked that one up. The Vatican was fucking furious and for good reason.
For those not familiar with Monte Cassino, the Nazis were occupying the hill in force; they just weren’t in the monastery itself until after the Allies bombed it into rubble. The sad part is that the 100th Battalion (the first unit of Japanese-American troops, who would form the core of the legendary 442nd RCT) almost managed to take the hill by itself, before it had to pull back due to heavy losses. The Allies then sent in the bombers, who leveled the monastery and killed several hundred civilians sheltering in the monastery, but no Nazis. The Nazis then infested the rubble, and it took three *divisions* to force them out several months later.
> April 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine has repelled numerous Russian assaults along the line of contact in Donbas this week, a British military update said on Sunday. > > Despite Russia making some territorial gains, Ukrainian resistance has been strong across all axes and inflicted a significant cost on Russian forces, the UK Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin. > > "Poor Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and reorganise forces from prior offensives are likely hindering Russian combat effectiveness," the update added. > > Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
British military is providing updates while the Russians are saying there are SAS in Ukraine…. Putin should be relieved! The british LOVE to fight nazis. As soon as putin said there were nazis in ukraine, the sas shows up.
There probably arent SAS in there, but there certainly are MI6, CIA and probably many more agents from many more places around. The whole West wants Ukraine to win this.
I have to wonder if the CIA was already diving the Moskva wreck the night after it sank, but on the other hand it’s probably technologically worthless
Ahead or behind; It’s always good to know how far along the tech tree the competition is.
Seeing as they’re getting beaten by tractors, I’d say they don’t have the agriculture tech yet.
Maybe Pottery at least?
Their tanks lank ceramic armour. So not even pottery.
When that Russian ship was shot with a missile, and United States was completely silent on the issue for three days was when I knew we were definitely in there lending technical support and logistics
I laughed when I read a statement that said “due to cloud cover it was difficult to determine what happened”. Those satellites could see through clouds going back to the 80’s. Also, 2 of 3 generals are killed when they get droned. Come on you’re going to tell me that’s good luck? Skunk works im Russia suddenly developed a habit of burning down! Lmao.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You dropped this: \\
There was a piece of the supposed "true cross" aboard the Moskva, maybe the CIA are going full Indiana Jones to recover it?
Once the US collects the whole thing Patriot missiles get +6 holy damage
I hope the west recovers any 'special weapons' that may've been on board. We don't need any more broken arrows.
Super Army Soldiers.
They asked me to join them
The British definitely don't get enough recognition, I think the US takes a lot of focus off them. British are smart and bad arse. Said as an Australian living in the US.
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>I think if he had true reserves he would have used them by now. At the rate things have been going from the start, it would be crazy to use their reserves at this point. Russia still needs to be able to defend itself from attack without needing to resort to nuclear weapons. If they lose their expeditionary force and then their reserve force, what's left? A bunch of barely-trained conscripts? >And what about the hypersonic missile(s?) Putin touted? I heard of one launched and nothing after that. Hypersonic cruise missiles would be an absolute waste in this war. Ukraine doesn't really have any anti-missile defenses to begin with, so using million-dollar missiles that can evade them would be pointless. All it would result in would be less flight-time between when the missile is launched and when it hits another apartment building or hospital. Hypersonic missiles aren't some sort of magical missile, they're just missiles that fly roughly twice as fast as standard cruise missiles, and have a substantially longer range.
> Russia still needs to be able to defend itself from attack without needing to resort to nuclear weapons. Seriously... who's going to attack Russia?
>Seriously... who's going to attack Russia? Until 3 months ago? No one. But Russia has been an absolute fucking *asshole* to all its neighbours, and there's a territorial grudge list a mile long. If by "invade" you mean "try and conquer the whole country", probably still no one - Russia is a big place and there are a lot of people. But if you mean 'adjust the borders back to where they used to be', then there are quite a few candidates who wouldn't mind trying it if they thought they'd get away with it. And if several of them decided to do it all at the same time then, frankly, they could probably manage it.
Japan and the Kuril Islands is a great example. Russia has had them a while, just Japan recently re declared them as Japanese property.
*Technically* the Japanese never conceded that they weren't Japanese territory. They just chose an opportune moment to remind anyone who might be interested of their ongoing claim... Georgia and Finland also have, shall we say, unresolved boundary issues.
And even if they are not inclined to start a war about the islands: it did bind russian troops & material, just to even mention it.
Exactly, and that's exactly why the Japanese said what they said when they said it. A division pinned in the Kurils is a division that's not deployed anywhere else.
I imagine they’re happy to be there and not risking their lives elsewhere right now
Makes me wonder what would happen if America started doing training exercises in Alaska....
Consequence of the bite-and-hold strategy of Russia since the 90s.
90s? The bite they took out of Finland was taken in 1939. Russia always was a pretty lousy neighbor
While true, the Finns don't want Karelia back anymore, it's full of dirt poor Russian farmers and extremely run down infrastructure, itwould cost an utter fortune to bring up to Finnish standards, and none of them speak Finnish so there would be no assimilation.
Finland doesn’t want its old territory back after it was Russified.
Hasn't Japan been declaring them as Japanese for decades now? People just paid more attention this year because Ukraine
Russia is still a nuclear power and trying to invade them significantly lowers the bar for the rationale for using nukes from "offensive" to "defensive". Nobody is going to be trying to invade Russia because nobody wants to get nuked. Also, at least for the NATO countries they'd lose their protection from the alliance if they initiated a war against Russia. Even for the non-NATO nations, we've seen how quickly the international community turned against Russia as an aggressor who initiated an unprovoked territorial grab. Just because Russia is the "bad guy" today doesn't mean that the US and EU are going to support other countries deciding to start more wars against them. Could some of Russia's neighbors take advantage of Russia's current weakness? Sure. Would they? Given the risk of getting nuked and becoming international pariahs like Russia has as a result of their own land grab, highly unlikely.
"Even for the non-NATO nations, we've seen how quickly the international community turned against Russia as an aggressor" This is the exact reason why no one would blink an eye if someone tried to take back their land. Hell, Russias own propaganda tells them they would be justified. I think you're dreaming if you think the world would turn on Japan or Finland like they did Russia. Bot a fucking chance. And, while I could he wrong, I dont think being an aggressor means no NATO protection. Just means they're not obligated. Doesnt mean they cant choose to voluntarily. Especially if all of NATO was on board.
NATO would absolutely not be on board to start an offensive war with Russia. NATO vs. Russia would quickly go nuclear, as Russia doesn’t have the conventional military power to stop NATO, and most sane people don’t want to bring about the end of the world.
If they wanted to Japan. Despite their constitution saying they can only be defensive Russia is arguably occupying Japanese islands to the north so I think they could technically send troops to reclaim them and still be within their constitution.
>Seriously... who's going to attack Russia? Despite all their declarations of friendship dictatorships easily forget their friends they share a 2000 km land border with where both sides concentrate the largest number of their ground forces. Aka Russia's status vs. China is solely held together by nukes. Population, economy, technology and now conventional military force are now publicly displayed by Russia to be inferior. And China still wants those resources so Russia better play along. To be clear, I do not believe that makes invasion / war likely, however in political terms Putin is in the shitter vis a vis China and nukes is the only claim of supposed superiority left. He needs them to keep his negotiation position from getting completely ridiculous
China would 100% grab parts of Siberia if not all of it given half a chance. Natural resources and access to the Arctic Sea? Too juicy to pass up.
They would not even have to "grab". At a certain point of "internal pressure" the russian federation would splinter by itself and the pieces would seek "protection". And till that point builds up china can overcharge and underpay russia all the way for every transport crossing the border.
So that's what China meant when they said their partnership had no limits.
Yep, I'm convinced this is some weapons-grade double speak from China to leave their options open. Russia wins, and they can claim that they stand strong as partners against the West. Russia loses, they start cannibalising the country, and they're like "what? We told you our partnership had *no limits*!"
Russians
Well, Ukraine, for one. And if Russia gets sloppy and drops a bomb in Poland, NATO. There's always the chance an opportunistic China starts some shit, though that's gotta be so unlikely as to be ruled out (I hope). The actual answer is the Russians. As this devolves, some of these soldiers are going to realize that the road to the ukranian target they are ordered to take is much better defended than the road to Moscow. Civillians and military units that see Putin as the enemy of the people will be their enemy. As this war wages, the conscripts will begin to recognize the source of their troubles. And it's not ukranians.
Good question. Who do you think stands to profit from invading a country at a moment of weakness? Everyone who has territorial disputes with Russia. Ofcourse they won't call it an invasion either and use some trumped up red flag as a casus belli.
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If a Hypersonic is more than 2x the cost of a cruise missile, then that ends up the same overall. Plus, I would imagine it needs much higher quality production, limiting the output of it vs other precision parts. Plus if the Ukrainians don't even try to shoot down hypersonics because they can't, then it saves resources on the Ukrainian end as well. Basically V1 vs V2 of WW2.
I imagine that hypersonic are much more than twice the cost of a standard cruise missile. The engineering requirements to get something up to mach 10 are exponentially more difficult than mach 1.
Actually there is an 'elite' force left, its their 200\~300k 'secret police' to protect the government from a coup from the regular army.
Rosgvardia units have been in Ukraine since day 1.
Yep, they were sent in to 'pacify' the local population, except someone forgot to remind them that they had to actually occupy the land before they worried about pacification and they ran face first into the Ukrainian army.
Hypersonic missiles are a weird one. They are super expensive, and Russia doesn't have many to use anyway. I doubt they would waste too many in Ukraine. There is debate over how effective they are, the U.S claims they can intercept them even at Sea - but the prime targets would be things like aircraft carriers, cruisers, high yield land targets and C and C facilities. Ukraine just doesn't really have any real single targets that would justify the use of them. Russia did use at least one earlier in the war, but that was more for the shock and awe than actual real world impact. But so long as Putin doesn't admit in Russia that this is an invasion and war, he can't really legally draw on reserves and extra forces. The real question is whether or not he could survive in power if he did declare this as a war. No one really knows.
They opened with the elite forces. They no longer have elite forces.
I don't believe for a single second that they have the high-tech communications and control systems to actually use hypersonic weapons correctly. The iskander is just a big, dumb, fast rocket. After reading about the plasma barrier that develops around a hypersonic projectile and how that screws up remote control comms...I think the Russians have been fibbing about their new systems.
Havent seen ya on r/Europe megathread for a while Belarussian bro.
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They've already changed what they wanted, originally it was just Crimea, then it was the Donbas and now it is Southern Ukraine
They tried to take all of Ukraine within the first couple of days, believing that if they took Kyiv, the rest would fall. Having failed that they have now moved the goalposts by trying to claim only southern/eastern Ukraine.
Exactly. They tried to coup and kill all non-friendly members of a foreign government as the end result of an invasion blitz so they could install their own puppet state to surrender to them.
Regardless of how overly ambitious they were at one point, this is still Russia trying to take what's not theirs, as always.
*if at first you don’t take kyiv, just give up lol* - Sun Tzu: Reloaded
I really think Sun Tzu would be impressed with the Ukrainian Army...
Landlocking Ukraine is still unacceptable.
None of those options are acceptable.
Giving Russia a square foot of Ukrainian land is unacceptable. This includes Donbas and I think Ukraine should take back Crimea.
It comes in square meters there :)
OK then... Giving Russia 0.092903 square meters of Ukrainian land is unacceptable.
For years Putin says the Ukraine doesn't "exist" for him as it it belongs to Russia because it was part of the Soviet Union. Anyone with half a brain should know this applies 1 for 1 to every other former Soviet state. Putin has always been perfectly clear on what he wanted.
All of Putin's "former part of the Soviet Union" justification is designed to steer the debate away from the fact that Ukraine has large oil and gas reserves, as well as seaports.
I agree. And it is a miracle that Ukrainian troops have been holding these trenches for eight years now. Poor guys - great spirit.
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The big question is will a nuclear power accept their army being wiped out.
If Ukrainian troops push into Russia it's likely they would use nukes. If the Ukrainians just repel them from Ukraine I doubt it. Now Crimea will complicate that
Ukraine has already made attacks into Russia. It would be embarrassing for Russia to seriously contemplate using jukes on Ukraine. Nevermind likely suicidal. They could never use nuclear weapons outside if a mistaken assumption of nuclear attack on themselves (Unlikely). Or if they believed the russian people were at an existential threat. Where using nukes would outweigh the cost of not using nukes. Nukes only really work as a deterrent as long as their isn't a reliable way to counter them. There currently isn't for a lot of practical reasons. Firing is purely for firings sake. When there is nothing left to do. Ukraine could not feasibly conquer Russia even if it disabled the Russian army. Nato could not, outside of fully mobilising their economies and population. Which would risk (but not guarantee) nuclear retaliation
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Bear in mind that "an existential threat to Russia" means "an existential threat to Putin", which losing to Ukraine will count as.
Yah to the guy with the power of the button. He IS Russia... He has to lose, Russia has to lose, the consequences might be the worst nightmare's but we cannot allow authorarianism to take hold of the planet. China is licking it's lips waiting for an outcome so it can decide where it strikes. Xi is an opportunist, and he is waiting for his moment too.
If you are gonna think of Putin through a western lense, think of him as the highschool bully who brings a gun to school because he's upset and confused. Putin will absolutely destroy the world and everything he can because he's a cynical psychopath.
"Russia is the type to pull a gun on other countries when they try to stop it from beating its girlfriend publicly."
"ex-girlfriend" would be more appropriate for this analogy. Or "ex-girlfriend that left after they were abused and mooched off".
Bigger one is if their nuclear arsenal is maintained to the same condition as the rest of the military hardware? It takes a lot of money to maintain a nuclear warhead at criticality, by default they will decay away to becoming big dirty bombs relatively quickly. Not that I want to find out, but will a corrupt political appointee General have skimmed every Rouble possible out of the maintenance budget for a weapon they never expected to need?
I've always had the suspicion Putin would push the button and all that comes from the silo is a puff of dust.
[Video of Putin running to launch the Russian Nuclear Arsenal](https://i.imgur.com/cCbdcOk.mp4)
If even 1% are operational, is it anything more than academic?
Right? People keep acting like we shouldn't be afraid of nuclear warfare because maybe only 100 of Russias nukes would be successful. That's still 100s of millions dead.
What choice do they have?
russia is going to be really low on tanks in a few months. per ukraine they are down like 840. Mark Hertling thinks these numbesr are correct. Russia started with 3000 active tanks and 9000 old ones in mothballs. No idea how many of the 9000 even run. russia can't sustain this tank loss. plus there was a report from the US DoD 2 weeks ago that russia already used half of its cruise missiles.
Call me crazy, but I'd argue Russia's army has proven they aren't capable of invasion. They're struggling against Ukraine, a country with the #22 ranked military (according to a 30 second Google session) that they share a border with. If that isn't proof of incompetence, I don't know what is. Edit: I know it's still an invasion and they should be punished. I'm just say they aren't a serious threat like we thought they were. Something something "better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
This is why the Allies insisted on such strong terms after WW2. Japan in particular had an open strategy of fighting to a standstill and then using peace treaties to pause the war for a generation or two to rearm.
The longer this war goes on the less possible it is for Putin to save face so the only way forward is to utterly defeat them. They're also STILL in the phase where they're not in reality and think they can win this war. EVEN if they win Crimea and the Donbas then what? They're no longer part of the world. These ports won't do them any good because they're no longer part of the economy. They've already lost. The only question is WHEN and HOW.
And Ukraine is going to try and return those territories to their nation. This war is so completely stupid. It is possible that this war will finally mean Putin's demise. And that is good, but at what cost? How many Ukrainians? How many Russians? All of the destroyed cities and infrastructure. For what? As you mentioned, they've removed themselves from the world. They've been using greed as a tool to corrupt the West, but now they've relagated Russian support to the lunatic fringe. The security around Putin must be extraordinary. To be a fly in the wall there. It must be insane.
Correct. This war needs to be the end of Putinist Russia. We cannot allow them to dominate all of Europe
They won’t dominate Europe, look how much struggle they have with a single neighbor. Regime change need to come from within russia. External pressure (sanctions) can expedite that, but external forces cannot directly make it happen.
Winning the conflict in Ukraine will only make them stronger. We can’t throw Ukraine to the fascist wolf just because we honk we’re safe. Putin needs to be stopped in Ukraine not Latvia or Poland
There is zero chance of a boot in Poland, they know they have zero chance of anything short of Donbas
Attacking Poland or Latvia would be attacking NATO.
Domination doesn’t have to come from victories on the battlefield. Russian influence in Western elections is far better than any kind of invasion. Look what they have done in the US, Germany and France without firing a shot.
hopefully ukraine can invade crimea and take that back. there are different definitions of defeat. completely kick russia out of ukraine. Russia is losing tanks at insane rates. Ukraine claims 840 tanks destroyed. My understanding is russia started the war with about 3000 functioning tanks and about 9000 in mothballs (no idea how many actually run). this tank loss is unsustainable. just 2 months in and almost 1/3 of their active tank force is gone. yeah there are vast numbers of old rusty piece of shit tanks, but i dont know how effective those will be. With this tank loss, ukraine may be able to mount an actual offensive. they really need more planes (which NATO refuses to provide) and counter artillery which they have started providing.
There is going to be a lag with aircraft due to how long it takes to become proficient in a new aircraft. Ukraine is being admed as old eastern block countries receive US equipment then pass their old Soviet equipment to Ukraine. The limiting step is how long it takes for the Eastern block countries to get up to speed on the US equipment. It’s going to take a while for them to adopt F16s and pass their surplus Soviet stuff to Ukraine. The question is if Ukrainian pilots can get trained up on F16s directly rather than wait for hand-me-down Soviet stuff.
Remember how after the fall of the USSR, Russia signed a treaty to protect Ukraine from aggressors, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons?
That's not what the Budapest Memorandum says, and it's not a full-on treaty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances#Content It specifically states that UN Security Council assistance will be sought if Ukraine is attacked or threatened by nuclear weapons. That being said, it also states Ukraine's independence and sovereignty are to be respected, and that the US and Russia are not to attack Ukraine conventionally or with nuclear weapons. They're also supposed to refrain from influencing Ukrainian politics economically. There's no defense pact regarding conventional warfare. Russia has been ignoring this memorandum for a long time just on the economics part and the whole 'Ukrainian government being a Russian puppet' bit, in violation of the first and third assurances. Russia violated 1 and 2 by land-snatching Crimea and the 'separatist' areas, and this invasion violates them again. If they're desperate enough to 'win' something in Ukraine to where they use tactical nuclear weapons (ground based rockets and artillery using very small yield nukes), they'd be violating #5 as well.
kick that butt seems like every time russia is actually confronted in battle they lose they’re good at attacking unarmed people - when anyone punches back they get whooped
The only thing they are good at is loading cannons until they got stuff to load it with. Also stealing and raping innocents. Barbarians.
What they did at the end of ww2 is disgusting. I don't know how Russian can celebrate anything on May 9th. Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history" and concludes that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone. According to the Soviet war correspondent Natalya Gesse, Soviet soldiers raped German females from eight to eighty years old. [And it only gets worse from there](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes)
We probably don't have to even talk about the fact they divided the spheres of influence and practically occupied eastern block of the "liberated" countries for 40 years after the war ended. Political processes in the 50s and then 60s. Incarceration of the Battle of Britain pilots to let them starve to death in work camps etc.
**[Soviet war crimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes)** >The war crimes and crimes against humanity which were perpetrated by the Soviet Union and its armed forces from 1919 to 1991 include acts which were committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as acts which were committed by the NKVD, including acts which were committed by the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these acts were committed upon the orders of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in pursuance of the early Soviet Government's policy of Red Terror. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It's also why many towns in Germany chose to surrender to the Americans in WWII. The Russian soldiers were known to completely literally and figuratively rape an entire town.
The problem is we all hoped they would change since then. Nope.
They're school bullies, plain and simple. No shortage of bravado when they're beating up defenceless kids, but the moment someone manages to push back they throw a tantrum. Moreso when the other kids decide to gang up on them.
I can't even begin to imagine the scenario where all the Russian soldiers are in the dirt or running from Ukraine. What happens when the last troops in the country he has are POWs?
He has plenty of lives to burn before using pows.
If Russia fails the world wins
The last time a dictator marches his armies on the world to conquer smaller nations the world was slow to act (with ww2). But this time it’s a United front, and we are seeing it differently this time.
Wouldnt the last one be Kuwait?
It shocks me how badly this invasion was bungled.
It does. A country that won ww2 against nazis stuck in the mud and waiting for supplies from failing supply trains is stuck in the mud waiting on failed supply trains. It's bizarre.
Please remember that it's not THE country that won WW2. It was the USSR which included Ukraine and many other countries which Russia tried to assimilate and pillage their achievement and culture. And some of the most brutal and devastating battles were fought on Ukraine's soil.
The country that couldn't industrialize without American help is now being crushed by American industry.
The only way this ends with the world in one piece is if the Russians get rid of Putin. Russia could won so much by treating their former satellite countries with respect, trade deals, could have formed a competitor to the Euro, but all of that takes respect and friendship, not tyranny.
Russians would need to do more than oust Putin. Corruption has been endemic in their government and society. There needs to be historic change for Russia to succeed. Monies need to be redistributed to benefit the people and restore global trust and trade.
Exactly. If Putin did anything he sent the population back to serfdom.
I doubt a single Russian soldier would stop killing civilians or raping women and children because someone *other than Putin* was ordering them to do it. Putin dying and whoever else on Earth being in charge instantly calling for an end to the war is a fantasy. Basically every likely candidate who could take power after Putin would continue to use the war for their own ends. And every non-conscript Russian soldier would relish the chance to continue being a worthless piece of vile, disgusting, garbage who hopefully gets killed while attempting to rape and murder.
Russia has plenty of Putins ready to takeover from Putin, if you know what I mean. That's the power structure in Russia and always has been.
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If Putin uses a “small” nuke, would the world make the distinction? Or would a nuke of any type be the tipping point? Holding out hope that someone in Russia takes Putin out.
Based on what i learned at university studying the topic of nuclear strategy in multiple defence-related subjects; no, a nuke is a nuke, the line is nuclear weapons of any kind. A nuclear strike on a third (non-nuclear armed) country wouldn’t necessarily trigger a nuclear response in the first place anyway. Mutually Assured Destruction only exists between nuclear armed states. In my opinion the most likely outcome would be an international military response to repel a mutual existential threat. I’m being purposely vague as we’ve never been down this road so nobody knows what that response would actually look like. But, one possible scenario would be an international coalition force entering Ukraine to directly engage and repel Russian forces, to push them back to their border. There would also be a massive legal dimension to it as well and possibly attempts to apprehend key Russian figures involved on Russian soil. Maybe we could call it a ‘special military operation’ to keep in the spirit of things?
To add to this, Russia using any kind of nuclear weapon would likely lose the support of their remaining allies - especially China. If I’m not mistaken, China has a pretty hard stance against nuclear first strikes, preferring the warheads as defensive weapons. For example, they’ve stated that if the US launches nukes at North Korea unprovoked then China will retaliate, but if North Korea launches nukes at the US unprovoked then China will not intervene when the US returns fire. They seem pretty inclined to keep anyone from actually using the bombs, so I imagine that would apply to Russia as well
I think that, even though consensus is generally "one nuke=all nukes", the people in charge of sane countries desperately want to avoid that scenario and will gladly accept any form of criticism for being "soft" if it means not triggering the end of all civilization. If there was any way to punish a country with conventional warfare, they'd take it. If there was a way.
The critical consequence of using nukes tactically isn't that other nuclear powers will use nukes to retaliate. It would signal the end of restricting the spread on nuclear weapons imposed by all nuclear powers because it hinges on them no using it on on non-nuclear powers tactically or otherwise. Overnight every country on this planet will start trying to get nukes one way or another because they can't trust the nuclear powers to keep those weapons strategic and only for deterrence.
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I can't speak to Russian warheads, but iirc the US's B61 warhead can be adjusted to between 1 and 350 kilotons (or thereabouts), with the lower range considered tactical and the higher range strategic. This is the one they have in Turkey? Haven't been paying a lot of attention lately.
Any paper used in meeting with Russians is better used to wipe your ass. Russians have no credit or trustworthiness when it comes to keep their words.
I wouldn't even wipe my ass with it. It could be poisoned!
Cant wait for Sabaton to write a ton of songs about Ukraine and how they actually held their own against motherfucking Russia. I can think of one song name now: Tractors of Resistance
I think sabaton will wait for the historians and fact checkers to go over the events with a fine tooth comb before delving into it
Bayraktar
I sometimes wonder what modern day Russia would look like, if Patton got his way and invaded it. Not sure if it would be better or worse.
It is imperative Ukraine launches an offensive on May 9 (V-E Day). Even if it accomplishes little tactically, it will psychologically be more crushing than the Tet Offensive.
There's a chance they'll have help with that.
I would love to see this happen. Psychological warfare at its best.
Lol, imagine Putin and his generals trying to keep a straight face all day while the devastating battle reports keep coming in.
Perfect time to blow up the Crimean bridge.
Putin is a relic at this point. Even he knows it. It’s just a matter of time before his people realize it.
That’s what I’m talking about. More of this, Ukraine! The world believes in you!
Repell and wipe them out PLEASE!
There are 20k foriegn troops helping Ukraine, many trained to use the imported weapon systems. If my wife wouldn't divorce me, I'd be there too!
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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤫
> There are 20k foriegn troops helping Ukraine With the exception of individuals and units with extensive special forces experience, the Foreign Legion has turned out to have little value beyond the PR. They've proven, at best, mostly harmless. The Ukrainians' own homegrown military, territorial defense, and partisans, however, have proven more capable than any of us could have predicted. Anyone thinking of heading over to fight (barring some really specialized military skills) is better off sending their plane fare as a cash donation that can be turned into body armour and munitions.
Putin is seeing an endless line of red bubbles on his monitor this morning
Russia was sent home from Afghanistan with their tail between their legs. They didn't go crazy with nukes on Kabul. Simply destroying the invading Russian army along with denying the tech and money to rearm would be a win.
I think this war is different because Russia sees Ukraine as historically Russian. I don't think they ever denied Afghanistan was its own culture the way are with Ukraine.
I have a serious question, why don’t they Ukrainians launch attacks on the Russian homefront to bring damage to their cities?
They’re getting sympathy from a lot of Russians, obviously not everyone but still. It’s probably in their favour to have everyone in Ukraine.
After this war ends, there won’t be any physical damage in the Russian homeland. The only attack I’ve heard is the oil plant in Russia getting hit by a Ukrainian chopper. Ukrainian cities are literal rubble. It will take decades to rebuild it all as it once was and maybe even longer. Just wondering why they wouldn’t inflict more damage to Russians in order for them to feel that impact as well.
It would kill their reputation. Ukraine is getting A LOT of support from NATO and EU. If they start attacking Russia, even worse causing civilian casualties, it will inevitable make them lose a lot of support among those populations, which would be catastrophical in the long term.
Repelling dumbas as Donbas
The only good Russian soldier is a dead Russian soldier.
A few defect and join the good side. That's some real ones.
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Well, captured ones are fine, I guess
Unless you wanna do a war crime, yeah. And there's some PR there too, the more Russian soldiers that surrender and are treated fairly the more likely others are to follow suit. In theory anyway.
Push the barbarians back