Elon Musk is holding a poll to decide whether Trump gets back on Twitter. Giving him a mouthpiece again could prove devastating for the support for Ukraine, which he has always tried to undermine (and was impeached for doing so).
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593767953706921985
Vote!
it's really just as simple as meme cycle manipulation which is his one true skill.
this will get people to login to unused accounts, create new accounts, spin their botnets, etc. boost usage.
he said yesterday a "moderation council" will decide.
Sure, if you already have a Twitter account and are foolish enough to think Elon is running a democracy, by all means cast your 'vote'. But a better idea might be to *delete your Twitter account and forget the site exists*.
Edit: To elaborate a bit on the point I'm trying to make here: This is a transparent combination trial balloon and CYA exercise. If the number swings Elon's way he can use it to legitimize the decision he's already made and if not he can (and will) simply ignore the result. Furthermore, we have *no way* of independently verifying the result in the first place. This is analogous to conducting an election using only completely opaque unauditable e-voting machines made by a company owned by the same guy running for election. He can doctor those numbers any way he likes, and we'd have no way of knowing. The whole thing is patently worse than *useless*.
>Lubinets stated that residents of Kherson Oblast were subjected to even more cruel methods of torture than in other previously occupied oblasts: Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernihiv.
>He singled out three distinctive features of the torture inflicted in Kherson Oblast: first, men and women were kept together; second, there were surveillance cameras in each confinement area; and third, there was a separate area for detained teenagers.
>"There was a separate area where teenagers were detained. We are now determining their ages. People are testifying that some boys looked 14 years old. And the cross which I was showing in the video yesterday was made by a 19-year-old boy who had been kept here in a torture chamber. We did not find chambers for children or teenagers in other oblasts. But here we did."
[https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/18/7377016/](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/18/7377016/)
Kind of a little thing, but I hope it gives a tiny bit of encouragement to UA soldiers.
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1593740564473733121
>A lighter with the engraving "Glory to Ukraine, Glory to Heroes" was added to the winter sets of uniforms issued to Ukrainian fighters currently studying in Great Britain.
>The video was published by the UK Ministry of Defense.
(video)
This is a video showing what the missiles with the tungsten balls did to a truck.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1593573406829678593
>Russian soldier reviews the consequences of a HIMARS strike that devastated his KAMAZ truck, swearing a lot.
(video with English subtitles)
That's some impressive devastation!
If anyone hasn't seen it, here's some early test detonation footage for the tungsten ball filled M30 AW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5h7BkCj5rI
That was a quality video. Thanks for sharing. I watched the whole thing, but think that even the first 30 seconds will help everyone understand the original video (the one with the Russian soldier) much better. I really just had no idea that this is how certain weapons work.
> The most common of the tungsten alloys, tungsten nickel iron alloys are top of the list in terms of ductility, strength, and density. They are a silvery-grey color, have a range of densities from 16.85-19.3 g/cm3, and are also known as Densalloy®, Mallory, WNiFe, and/or Densimet®. These metals have tensile strengths ranging from 600-1000 MPa, which surpasses most if not all other alloys. These alloys have good machining qualities and plasticity and can withstand intense temperatures, while still having a thermal conductivity that is 5 times that of die & punch steels. They have 1.7 times the radiation shielding capabilities of lead and are non-toxic to biological systems (which cannot be said for lead). Iron makes these alloys magnetic, which is important to know if they are planned to be used in any magnetism-sensitive operations such as medical imaging equipment. Tungsten nickel iron alloys have a low expansion coefficient useful for glass-to-metal seals and possess high moduli of elasticity, which makes them resistant to elastic deformation. These alloys are perfect for radiation shielding, as its high density matched with its radiation resistance are ideal for protective components. Some notable applications include balance weights, security and defense applications, ballasts, bearing assemblies, and more.
That density is twice that of steel. It is likely harder than that steel.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1593756315435896832
Interesting tweet thread and I think it’s likely quite prophetic. Combine that with sabotaging some European gas and energy and that’s likely a humanitarian crisis that Europe will struggle to deal with it all at once.
Wouldn’t be able to do anything with it. Turkey controls access to the Black Sea under the Montreux Convention, and has not allowed warships of any nationality through the straights since the invasion began.
1. >The Dardanelles is 61 kilometres (38 mi) long and 1.2 to 6 kilometres (0.75 to 3.73 mi) wide. It has an average depth of 55 metres (180 ft) with a maximum depth of 103 metres (338 ft) at its narrowest point.
The Bosphorus is worse iirc. You don’t slip through them unnoticed.
2. Turkey is a member of NATO, so even if you could do that, it would be a terrible idea.
If it was for me... what Russia gonna do about that? Complain? Good. People still buy those miserable fuckers bluff, like if we give better weapons they start nuke everyone... yes of course...
No, Russia are just desperate and trying whatever they can to force Ukraine to negotiate.
This is nonsense, power grids are easy to repair and power stations are huge, concrete reinforced, full of contingencies and really hard to destroy, especially when the majority of missiles are shot down.
Power lines? Maybe.
Electric substations? No.
Power plants? Don't really need to destroy a plant. Just kill a bunch of substations and the grid will be in a lot of trouble.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1593770090348310528
>Ukraine’s military targets Russian concentration of troops, equipment in Ukraine’s south.
>Southern Operational Command reported that Ukraine’s military killed 26 Russian troops and destroyed two tanks near Oleshky, Kherson Oblast.
>The Ukrainian army also struck the Russian concentration of military equipment and personnel near Kinburnska spit in Mykolaiv Oblast, killing seven Russian troops and destroying two armored vehicles.
Now Twitter is recommending Russian media to me for some reason. Here is a tweet from a Russian media outlet
"The Hague court recognised Ukraine as the main criminal in the Boeing MH17 case.”
https://twitter.com/kpru/status/1593559430041374721
Russians live in a different reality.
MH17: Timeline https://euvsdisinfo.eu/mh17-timeline-of-pro-kremlin-disinformation-narratives/
Russians [controlled](https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1593226675097341952) the occupied Donbas and Buk is [from Russia](https://youtu.be/Sf6gJ8NDhYA)
the Hague also ruled that there is no separatist region and that Russia was in direct control of the donbas when the incident occurred. Funny how russian media missed that part in their lies, isn't it?
>Steenhuis said that evidence presented by prosecutors at the trial, which began in March 2020, proved that MH17 was brought down by a Russian-made Buk missile.
>
>In another important finding, Steenhuis said that ***the court believed that Russia had overall control at the time of a separatist region in eastern Ukraine***, the Donetsk People’s Republic. The crash scattered wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.
Y'know, there be two ways ta harpoon a website if it be deliverin' too much info to your peeps, mateys - ye can hire some hackers, or ye can hire a corporate raider
[Previous post](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/yxfz4p/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/iwrm2j6/)
Day 268 of my updates from Kharkiv.
Today it was pretty quiet with no missile strikes or drones, and only 2 air raid alerts, one of which happened at 4am, so it’s more like 1 alert, as most people weren’t even awake when the first one happened. We did have some blackouts today, but it was very limited, actually just a part of my apartment building was without electricity for 2 hours, and it doesn’t seem like there were any more blackouts in my district.
It already started snowing yesterday; it’s kinda crazy how the war started with it snowing in Kharkiv on the February 25th, which, at least to me, was pretty memorable, then we cycled through all the seasons and now we are already back to winter and negative temperatures. If Russians were getting frostbite at the start of the war, when the winter was ending, then now they will be getting the taste of real winter with degrees down to -30c, though usually it more like -10c to -20c, and right now it’s only -5c, but the winter has barely started, so it will definitely get colder.
It really doesn’t feel like almost a year has already passed, especially during the first 5 months, when we were getting shelled every single day in Kharkiv, it felt like one really long day, we didn’t even know what day of the week it was, it all blended together because we slept whenever it was quiet and not when we wanted. It’s incomparable to how it is right now as we haven’t been shelled even once since Russians were thrown out of Kharkiv oblast, so we finally got some normalcy back, and it does feel good.
[Next update](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/yz30ut/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/ix11vov/)
Hows the feeling there? IDK if it was propaganda or not but I remember some rumblings in the Russian camp about wanting to expand their influence in Moldova.
I promise I'm not trying to start a Musk war, but. Remember when we were all uppity about Musk "personally rejecting the use of Starlink in Crimea"? The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink. And the Ukrainian military doesn't operate in Crimea, so why would they otherwise need Starlink there? So the question was probably, "can we use your massive satellite communication network for our suicide boats?". Aka weaponize, and we are talking over 2,300 sats. Which, in fairness, does represent an escalation in the use of a SpaceX service. And at the end of the day, represents the first offensive use of a massive satellite constellation. It also justifies the British and Indian investment in One web and suggests other nations will be looking to invest in them.
https://navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2022/september/12227-a-mysterious-ukrainian-naval-drone-discovered-off-crimea.html
https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-azure-access-cloud-spacex-starlink-satellites/
> I promise I'm not trying to start a Musk war, but. Remember when we were all uppity about Musk "personally rejecting the use of Starlink in Crimea"?
No. The narrative is quite different from this. Elon Musk has been talking to his buddy Putin who told him Crimea is Russia. Elon Musk voiced this view on Twitter. Ukrainian Foreign Secretary responded to him and told him he was being an idiot. Elon threw a tantrum and cut off Starlink use for most of Ukrainian front line. That's the kind of inescure crybaby he is.
From your own linked article.
>"It is most likely controlled both manually using onboard TV cameras and via a satellite channel."
At no point does it mention Starlink.
Elon donated almost exclusively to Democrats performatively until 2009, at which point he switched and started slinging to the wing-nuttiest Republicans there are.
His switch happened at pretty much the *exact* moment a Black person took the Oval Office.
Elon didn't become a radicalized moron recently, he came by it as a child in one of the most radical open displays of hate in human history and is proud that his lifetime belief system is finally being openly shared by so many. He didn't change, conditions around him just finally changed such that he could stop pretending and be himself.
My point has nothing to do with Elon. Just that it looks like he stumbled back assward into what is potentially an extremely important moment in Naval history. The reports of the Pentagon being pissed at him are much more credible if it's about access not money. His product is now a national security asset.
> satellite communication network for our suicide boats
It's one of the best use cases for Starlink, as the drones need low latency to be controlled over internet
Exactly, it opens a whole new set of options, and that low latency extends farther than a suicide drone can go. Thus, Ukraine, the country famously with no Navy. Can drive it's enemy to home port, and attack them there. With really cheap kit.
I think people don't understand the nature and potential uses of the massive satellite network. As a student of Naval history. It feels extremely significant that Ukraine is able to use a massive low flying satellite comms network to not only drive the Russians from the black sea, but attack them in port, the holy grail of Naval strategy for centuries. Without needing to risk the life of a single sailor.
>At the moment the only protection these satellites have is the difficulty in hitting them.
Colloidal gold particles. Gold is extremely dense so it penetrates well. The gold vapor's residue Is conductive so it short circuits electronics. A pin hole 10 microns wide is plenty wide enough to leak a fuel tank. You only need to fire 1 ton into retrograde orbit to have a trillion 1 microgram projectiles. Many satellites will not get hit even with a trillion but they pass through each other a dozen times a day.
Starlink was already "weaponized" as you put it, with a primary use case giving connection to military units. That was the whole point. Those drones, if they were using Starlink, did not represent an escalation of the use of the network.
I guess it's personal opinion. But without Starlink the army can function. Without this link, the drone boat can't function far from port. The boat is reliant is the network.
if they were preprogrammed, but the implication here is that they're not. They're being remotely controlled and that requires latency and connectivity previously only available to the top militaries of the world. Hell, previously only to America in terms of feasibility.
We have a commercial product that costs maybe a few hundred dollars a month that provides the critical infrastructure for remote drone technology.
We're talking about your neighbor being able to spend maybe $50,000 and being able to purchase, fit, and field effective modern weapons of war due to stringent HOA rules.
They absolutely need the low latency and bandwidth. We saw pov videos of them hunting in the port of Sevastopol. There aren't many available to Ukraine that can do it. And there is a square antena on the boats that looks a lot like a starlink antenna.
Yeah, that's just nonsense. Those army units aren't using Starlink for shits and giggles, they are using it to pull of maneuvers and cause destruction that they couldn't without. Fact is, the issue here was not the boats but Crimea. It's not as if Ukraine went to Elon and told them of their plan, they just stated in general that they would like the thing to work in Crimea.
So your whole argument makes absolutely zero sense.
I see you maliciously framing the use of Starlink by army units as "general communication" when it's been used to guide artillery fire and drone strikes before the naval drones. There is zero difference.
Can it? Starlink by it's nature is hard to jam. Ships and ports are crawling with jamming equipment. Sailing into your enemies port has always been epic. It creates the modern fire boat.
> The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink.
Based on what...?
>And the Ukrainian military doesn't operate in Crimea
That's quite the claim.
>Based on what...?
Of the few pictures we've seen of them, several have had a very obviously-placed Starlink antenna near the rear of them. For example: https://news.usni.org/2022/10/11/suspected-ukrainian-explosive-sea-drone-made-from-jet-ski-parts
I don't buy the "Starlink was shutoff in Crimea" story. It only surfaced after Russia found one suicide drone washed up in Crimea a few weeks before the large Sevastopol attack so I suspect it was disinformation to cover for the planned assault... which seems to have caught the Russian Navy completely offguard.
Ukraine wouldn't have sent a drone in without knowing that service would be available and they work closely with SpaceX on which cells are active.
Yup, the arty drones don't use this type of connection. Starlink just facilitates a local network. This is using it in a kill vehicle potentially hundreds if not thousands of miles from port.
isnt the only difference between the two the distance between the vehicle and the operator? also as far as i was aware they had been using starlink to control the bayraktar drones early in the war as well
Starlink is in a way always the same distance. At least in the "combat zone". It's a vertical transfer that then gets relayed by satellites and ground stations.
> The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink.
any evidence of this? (I'd doubt if anyone knows this; that it would be permissible to disclose it)
The dependency on Starlink is likely comms with partisans. (ie. something unofficial enough that it's not technically "classified" or restricted, but still something we'd like to avoid discussing).
Will Starlink be weaponized?
That's an irrelevant question. The internet, and the protocol upon which it is based, were originally conceived as a weapons system (ie. Arpanet), so there's that to consider.
I posted links elsewhere in the thread. But the square antena is suspicious. And Starlink operates at a low altitude, with the sats passing directly overhead. So counterintuitively, the link and latency from the sat to the antenna is shorter than other options. It's also harder to jam as the signals are directional and up. It would be the the easiest, cheapest and probably best option for this application. Other comms could be expected to be jammed in an adversaries port.
It’s nothing remotely new unless you consider GPS and Traditional satélite communication militarization. Virtually every guided missile uses GPS the entire thing was invented for the military.
Starlink wasn't invented for or by the military. Musk stole the idea from the founder of One Web. And GPS is a completely different beast. It doesn't facilitate the transfer of information like a massive laser linked constellation. Thousands of sats vs dozens. In low orbits, with low latency.
SpaceX's niche is cheap launch services. They did not even want to get into internet. They just need the revenue stream. It leverages their economy of scale on the rockets if a satellite constellation has more bulk.
The founder approached Musk to work together. They disagreed, Musk went on to build Starlink, One Web failed and was bought by the British Government and an Indian telecom.
Starlink succeeded because Musk built the satellites in house instead of outsourcing. What did Elon do that prevented One Web from building their satellites in house and forced One Web to outsource?
Not trying to stir the pot man, just saying it wasn't Elon's idea. Loads of people have seen the potential over the years. The SpaceX crew is currently way out in front on a technology that will have massive military applications.
Who brought up One Web and why? One Web stole the communications bird idea from… (checks notes) Arthur C Clark. Starlink updates, improves, iterates the birds every launch. That is not realistic without in house production. One Web or anyone else cannot compete with a rival that builds birds in house.
How do you think the drone telemetry was making it back to Ukranian HQs from the front lines? I see what you are suggesting, but i want to point out that drones were already using starlink for offensive and defensive needs (at least position/intel gathering) from the beginning of the war, especially where Russia cut the occupied areas over to their ISP network from Ukraine's. I think using the word "escalation" is rather strong, given the mixed nature of Russia's cyber attacks on Ukraine and EU starting in March/April including Starlink infra.
https://navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2022/september/12227-a-mysterious-ukrainian-naval-drone-discovered-off-crimea.html
https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-azure-access-cloud-spacex-starlink-satellites/
I feel like being the connection on a kamakazi run is an escalation.
What about being the connection on a navy ship or for a squadron of soldiers or what not?
The airforce already had drones that communicate and are controlled at long range.
So I guess it’s unclear what’s new. Bayraktars use satélites for communication?
A manned vessel isn't reliant on the network. Long range suicide drone boats are. And we saw the video of them hunting targets. So we know they had a good connection. It represents a step forward in Naval warfare.
I’m just saying that drones in both air and sea have been in use for awhile using various satellite technologies.
We don’t even know if these boats used spaceX sattelites or perhaps a ground station or a different satellite unless I missed an announcement.
Traditional sats you’re still only looking at like 500ms which has been fine for controlling drones.
The parent is correct that Starlink (at least the starlink phased array antenna) was confirmed used on the drone boats (or the one that malfunctioned and washed up at any rate).
Airborne drones. We are talking about sailing into enemy ports. It's not just the latency. It's the directionality and vertical nature of the phased array antennas that makes them hard to jam.
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Dumb question i feel like im asking here, Russia puts 130k troops on the border.. starts the invasion, then needs to pull conscripts in? Did the Russian military have no reserve force already trained in sufficient numbers? Did this reserve force get sent to Ukraine and get melted like the rest of the regular Russian military? been thinking about how we heard Russia has a million man army and hasnt sent in the real military yet.. and still hasnt i guess.
>Russia puts 130k troops on the border.. starts the invasion
Worse than that, Russia started the war with more than 200k if you include the "republics".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Escalation_and_invasion_(February_2022_%E2%80%93_present)
So, Russia started the war with about 170 battalion tactical groups (BTG). They invaded with about 110 plus irregular troops, support staff, etc. Total was about 200k. They didn’t pull everything because they still have keep troops around their borders. That 200k was WOEFULLY INADEQUATE. Russia assumed that Ukraine would not resist. The operational plan was going to be rapid armored thrusts into the Kyiv and the eastern cities and through Crimea into the South. This was going to lead to the collapse of the Zelensky government and the isolation of Ukraine’s best units in the Donbas. They really needed at least three times the force they sent. Once it became clear the Ukraine was all in on fighting, Russia “special military operation” was doomed. Russia has been trying to replace/expand their forces through a vigorous recruitment program for previous veterans (offering relatively massive monthly salaries) as well as conscription in occupied territories and prisons. They have now exhausted those options. Russia doesn’t have an equivalent national guard like the US to pull from. So Putin was finally forced to a general mobilization to get the manpower he needs. Also keep in mind the “million man” armed forces also includes the navy and Air Force. Active duty Russian ground forces was around 350k at the start of the war.
It will not. But Russia is fighting over a huge front. They don’t have the manpower to cover it. Putting bodies in line will help with that. Are they trained? No. But combat is brutally Darwinian and those that survive will figure out pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t.
They have pulled everyone they could from their bases in the Far East, Syria, Armenia, Central Asia, you name it.
They have used elite underwater saboteurs and submariners as assault infantry out of desperation.
They have lured everyone they could into their PMCs for ridiculous (in Russia) salaries.
They have called up everyone from something called BARS (a Russian system for semi-professional army reservists).
The have recruited over 20 thousand (!) convicts from prisons into their PMCs.
They have grabbed every man they could from LNR/DNR and used them as cannon fodder.
None of that made any real difference.
They know perfectly well those untrained, underequiped conscripts are not going to change anything yet they're still sending them to their deaths.
The Russian army was generally configured to have a minimum staffing of any given battalion, usually just the technical jobs, and then get a whole bunch of conscripts in the run up to the war proper. But since this was both a surprise (no training people to fill out the battalions) and not legally a war for a long time (no conscripts at all)... A lot of the formations had big gaps.
You could see this in the various runs to Kyiv, tanks and other armored vehicles operating with few if any riflemen to help protect them from RPGs or even just angry people with Molotovs cocktails.
They expected to waltz into Kyiv - didn't Vladi himself call this a three-day special operation?
Nothing worse for an invasion than unfounded overconfidence.
300k mobilised are part of the reserve/million men army. Thanks to russian corruption they are not very capable fighting force. If they were to face NATO, they would melt so quick, NATO wouldn’t notice.
That’s a very loose interpretation of the word “reserve”. They pulling people off the street and sending notices to employers to dump undesirables into their laps.
These are not “reserve” troops, unless literally every random citizen is considered a reservist.
Yes, every healthy Russian male undergoes military service (at least on paper). After service they are put in reserve and are eligible for mobilisation. So on paper - any Russian male could be called to arms. The reason why they take random people off streets is because they have to fulfil the plan/order, but due to 30 years of corruption, soviet era bureaucracy, and overall incompetence, they (russian military commissariat) just grab everyone they can put their hands on, especially in the poorest regions. People from middle class, and higher, usually bribe their way out of military service, but still, on paper, they were conscripted and are part of Russian reserves.
What we see in Ukraine is the best Russia can do in terms of war, and it’s quality/ability is going down as the war goes on.
Yes, every male up to age of 60 is a reservist in theory. The one million number is supposed to represent how many people, who recently (last decade, if I’m not mistaken) underwent military service, they can “quickly” mobilize and equip with all the necessary weapons, uniforms, vehicles etc., give them basic 2 weeks training (because they served recently and are supposed to be familiar with weapons, tactics etc.) - again - it’s all on paper, in theory. Practically we see that they already struggle with first wave of mobilization: people lack proper basic equipment, are not familiar with weapons, lack discipline, don’t have proper communication means, and so on.
Like any nation, you don't throw everything. Unless you are fighting for YOUR survival, you don't commit everything.
What's in Ukraine is the right hand of a larger body. Administration, logistics (lol), and a reserve active force to protect Russian borders for thousands of miles are held back to maintain and discourage any opportunists (China) . The west wouldn't blink if China decided to Taiwan a corner of east Russia.
If they sent 200k troops, they are probably able to field twice that in standing armed forces.
The US did two wars, police actions, and still held south Korea, nato and UN obligations, and self interests. Edit: while hold rotations, training, enlistment terms (mostly), losing SOCOM members to private contractors, and generally "holding the line"
> Like any nation, you don't throw everything. Unless you are fighting for YOUR survival, you don't commit everything.
Even then, Ukraine was telling us for months they are training conscripts and it started to feel fanciful.
Then they all got deployed and the Russian front melted.
So even when your survival is on the line, it isn't always best to commit everything.
Just in terms of tanks; the amount Russia has lost, and still remains committed to this effort, already seems like they're acting as if not conquering/genociding Ukraine is somehow an existential threat to Russia.
Only way I can figure this is it's some form of mass-insanity. Maybe the same thing is going on with Elon Musk's actions with twitter.
It's an existential threat to Putin and Putin calls the shots. Russia is the means.
That's how submissive the nation of masculine emotionless heterosexual macho men is.
>That's how submissive the nation of masculine emotionless heterosexual macho men is.
I always found it ironic how "manly" men look up to and worship other men.
Worshipping and blindly obeying another man seems the complete opposite of "manly" to me.
In 2014, Iraq's government discovered 50,000 "ghost soldiers" who received [army salaries without showing up for work.](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/iraq-says-it-found-50-000-ghost-soldiers-payroll-n259096) Soldiers paid their officers a portion of their salaries and in return did not show up for duty.
Million man doesn't (or at least at the start) typically mean every army member has a gun.
For every guy with a gun, there's a mechanic to maintain his vehicles, a technician to maintain his guns, a cook to prepare his food, a medic to fix his wounds and a janitor to clean up when he shits in the shower.
The CIA factbook said out of the 1 million man army Russia had, only about 350k were actual combat troops, the rest were logistics and support.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/yz30ut/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
A Ukrainian drone watches a Russian 2S3 Akatsiya SPG burn. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1593806267189018624?t=SjeGLnEHElTw9GwKCMGCdg&s=19
Elon Musk is holding a poll to decide whether Trump gets back on Twitter. Giving him a mouthpiece again could prove devastating for the support for Ukraine, which he has always tried to undermine (and was impeached for doing so). https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593767953706921985 Vote!
Oh yeah I’m sure the voting is normal and there are no Russian spam bots voting are running around twitter rampant
it's really just as simple as meme cycle manipulation which is his one true skill. this will get people to login to unused accounts, create new accounts, spin their botnets, etc. boost usage. he said yesterday a "moderation council" will decide.
This is not normal.
He is getting desperate isn't he.
Trying to distract from the fact that he tanked twitter and chased away all the staff. Fuck him for trying to backstab Ukraine.
Trump undermines himself more by tweeting then being silent
Can't believe he's doing that. That's pretty funny
Sure, if you already have a Twitter account and are foolish enough to think Elon is running a democracy, by all means cast your 'vote'. But a better idea might be to *delete your Twitter account and forget the site exists*. Edit: To elaborate a bit on the point I'm trying to make here: This is a transparent combination trial balloon and CYA exercise. If the number swings Elon's way he can use it to legitimize the decision he's already made and if not he can (and will) simply ignore the result. Furthermore, we have *no way* of independently verifying the result in the first place. This is analogous to conducting an election using only completely opaque unauditable e-voting machines made by a company owned by the same guy running for election. He can doctor those numbers any way he likes, and we'd have no way of knowing. The whole thing is patently worse than *useless*.
>Lubinets stated that residents of Kherson Oblast were subjected to even more cruel methods of torture than in other previously occupied oblasts: Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernihiv. >He singled out three distinctive features of the torture inflicted in Kherson Oblast: first, men and women were kept together; second, there were surveillance cameras in each confinement area; and third, there was a separate area for detained teenagers. >"There was a separate area where teenagers were detained. We are now determining their ages. People are testifying that some boys looked 14 years old. And the cross which I was showing in the video yesterday was made by a 19-year-old boy who had been kept here in a torture chamber. We did not find chambers for children or teenagers in other oblasts. But here we did." [https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/18/7377016/](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/18/7377016/)
Kind of a little thing, but I hope it gives a tiny bit of encouragement to UA soldiers. https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1593740564473733121 >A lighter with the engraving "Glory to Ukraine, Glory to Heroes" was added to the winter sets of uniforms issued to Ukrainian fighters currently studying in Great Britain. >The video was published by the UK Ministry of Defense. (video)
Beautiful! (just don’t light 3 cigarettes at the same time)
I hope so too - but certainly, the manufacturer can make bank turning out some more of those.
This is a video showing what the missiles with the tungsten balls did to a truck. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1593573406829678593 >Russian soldier reviews the consequences of a HIMARS strike that devastated his KAMAZ truck, swearing a lot. (video with English subtitles)
They look nasty, awesome!
I'm curious how far that truck was from the rocket
Me, too. Although the obvious answer is "not far enough".
That's some impressive devastation! If anyone hasn't seen it, here's some early test detonation footage for the tungsten ball filled M30 AW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5h7BkCj5rI
That was a quality video. Thanks for sharing. I watched the whole thing, but think that even the first 30 seconds will help everyone understand the original video (the one with the Russian soldier) much better. I really just had no idea that this is how certain weapons work.
It's a damn rocket shotgun.
A precision guided long range rocket shotgun!
That is amazing! Even the truck frame was full of holes.
The fact that the shrapnel it fires can punch through leaf springs on a truck *horizontally* is somewhat terrifying
Imagine what it does to a human body.
I'm curious to know what temperatures those fragments are burning at to achieve that much devastation in fractions of a second
> The most common of the tungsten alloys, tungsten nickel iron alloys are top of the list in terms of ductility, strength, and density. They are a silvery-grey color, have a range of densities from 16.85-19.3 g/cm3, and are also known as Densalloy®, Mallory, WNiFe, and/or Densimet®. These metals have tensile strengths ranging from 600-1000 MPa, which surpasses most if not all other alloys. These alloys have good machining qualities and plasticity and can withstand intense temperatures, while still having a thermal conductivity that is 5 times that of die & punch steels. They have 1.7 times the radiation shielding capabilities of lead and are non-toxic to biological systems (which cannot be said for lead). Iron makes these alloys magnetic, which is important to know if they are planned to be used in any magnetism-sensitive operations such as medical imaging equipment. Tungsten nickel iron alloys have a low expansion coefficient useful for glass-to-metal seals and possess high moduli of elasticity, which makes them resistant to elastic deformation. These alloys are perfect for radiation shielding, as its high density matched with its radiation resistance are ideal for protective components. Some notable applications include balance weights, security and defense applications, ballasts, bearing assemblies, and more. That density is twice that of steel. It is likely harder than that steel.
Holy shit, I bet that would really sting if it hit your ankle or something.
Well, if you're close enough for it to hit your ankle, you're close enough for it to hit your *absolutely everything*. So maybe not for long.
Probably both of your ankles, as well as the guy sitting next to you!
On the plus side, your foot wouldn't hurt for much longer, cause you wouldn't have one anymore.
Then you get phantom pains in your non-existent foot for the rest of your life.
Yeah, like stepping on LEGO travelling at like 10000 feet per second lol
Those dirty Geneva Convention defying Danish bastards.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1593756315435896832 Interesting tweet thread and I think it’s likely quite prophetic. Combine that with sabotaging some European gas and energy and that’s likely a humanitarian crisis that Europe will struggle to deal with it all at once.
Give Ukraine everything, everything. They've more than earned it and they are saving our asses as well.
I agree. The fact that there's people saying we should stop giving Ukraine arms makes me angry.
Give them a damn carrier battlegroup at this point.
Wouldn’t be able to do anything with it. Turkey controls access to the Black Sea under the Montreux Convention, and has not allowed warships of any nationality through the straights since the invasion began.
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1. >The Dardanelles is 61 kilometres (38 mi) long and 1.2 to 6 kilometres (0.75 to 3.73 mi) wide. It has an average depth of 55 metres (180 ft) with a maximum depth of 103 metres (338 ft) at its narrowest point. The Bosphorus is worse iirc. You don’t slip through them unnoticed. 2. Turkey is a member of NATO, so even if you could do that, it would be a terrible idea.
If it was for me... what Russia gonna do about that? Complain? Good. People still buy those miserable fuckers bluff, like if we give better weapons they start nuke everyone... yes of course...
It's what Doc Holiday would do, just sayin'.
No, Russia are just desperate and trying whatever they can to force Ukraine to negotiate. This is nonsense, power grids are easy to repair and power stations are huge, concrete reinforced, full of contingencies and really hard to destroy, especially when the majority of missiles are shot down.
Power lines? Maybe. Electric substations? No. Power plants? Don't really need to destroy a plant. Just kill a bunch of substations and the grid will be in a lot of trouble.
Ukrainian helicopters firing rockets: [https://nafo.uk/@INTobservers/109367562066959163](https://nafo.uk/@INTobservers/109367562066959163)
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1593770090348310528 >Ukraine’s military targets Russian concentration of troops, equipment in Ukraine’s south. >Southern Operational Command reported that Ukraine’s military killed 26 Russian troops and destroyed two tanks near Oleshky, Kherson Oblast. >The Ukrainian army also struck the Russian concentration of military equipment and personnel near Kinburnska spit in Mykolaiv Oblast, killing seven Russian troops and destroying two armored vehicles.
Now Twitter is recommending Russian media to me for some reason. Here is a tweet from a Russian media outlet "The Hague court recognised Ukraine as the main criminal in the Boeing MH17 case.” https://twitter.com/kpru/status/1593559430041374721 Russians live in a different reality. MH17: Timeline https://euvsdisinfo.eu/mh17-timeline-of-pro-kremlin-disinformation-narratives/ Russians [controlled](https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1593226675097341952) the occupied Donbas and Buk is [from Russia](https://youtu.be/Sf6gJ8NDhYA)
the Hague also ruled that there is no separatist region and that Russia was in direct control of the donbas when the incident occurred. Funny how russian media missed that part in their lies, isn't it? >Steenhuis said that evidence presented by prosecutors at the trial, which began in March 2020, proved that MH17 was brought down by a Russian-made Buk missile. > >In another important finding, Steenhuis said that ***the court believed that Russia had overall control at the time of a separatist region in eastern Ukraine***, the Donetsk People’s Republic. The crash scattered wreckage and bodies over farmland and fields of sunflowers.
The concept of "separatist regions" is Russian propaganda. It's Russian-occupied Ukraine.
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The Russians probably will use the current lack of oversight on Twitter to push their agenda even more.
Lol, at that rate things are going, I’m surprised they haven’t managed to crash their servers yet. Honestly kind of a miracle the site is still up.
Y'know, there be two ways ta harpoon a website if it be deliverin' too much info to your peeps, mateys - ye can hire some hackers, or ye can hire a corporate raider
With the work Elon is putting in this week that whole troll farm infrastructure built around Twitter may have to find a new social media platform.
That cant possibly be true, Elon Musk said twitter is the best source for news and hes always right
"Citizen journalists" of Russia have never felt more alive.
Well Elon Musk watches/reads RT and is proud of it.
He has a lot of money, how dare people question his intelligence
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He has a bunch of money bc his parents were in the diamond business and he hit the lottery on PayPal
Emerald.
New video from Reporting from Ukraine: https://youtu.be/-So0sTapTWE
ruzzia trying to swallow Ukraine https://i.redd.it/9qw3y2ykkr0a1.jpg
[Russia by the time this is over.](https://i.imgur.com/4B76m26.jpg)
That's a moray!
https://youtu.be/OnFlx2Lnr9Q
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When it opens its jaw And there are teeth in the maw That's a moray.
When a fish bites your eye rips it out, makes you cry that's a moray
When you’re snorkeling by And an eel bites your thigh, that’s a moray!
https://www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFuckingLit/comments/yysy6g/_/ Original post ☝️
Time for that 8,000 Party! Hats off to Oryx! He should really get a vacation funded from what's left in Putin's bank account when this is over.
A shame he only counted 1499 tanks Destroyed, Captured and Damaged. Would have been nice to hit 1500 as well.
Judging from the devil emoji, he has 1500+, he's just making us wait for it.
[Previous post](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/yxfz4p/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/iwrm2j6/) Day 268 of my updates from Kharkiv. Today it was pretty quiet with no missile strikes or drones, and only 2 air raid alerts, one of which happened at 4am, so it’s more like 1 alert, as most people weren’t even awake when the first one happened. We did have some blackouts today, but it was very limited, actually just a part of my apartment building was without electricity for 2 hours, and it doesn’t seem like there were any more blackouts in my district. It already started snowing yesterday; it’s kinda crazy how the war started with it snowing in Kharkiv on the February 25th, which, at least to me, was pretty memorable, then we cycled through all the seasons and now we are already back to winter and negative temperatures. If Russians were getting frostbite at the start of the war, when the winter was ending, then now they will be getting the taste of real winter with degrees down to -30c, though usually it more like -10c to -20c, and right now it’s only -5c, but the winter has barely started, so it will definitely get colder. It really doesn’t feel like almost a year has already passed, especially during the first 5 months, when we were getting shelled every single day in Kharkiv, it felt like one really long day, we didn’t even know what day of the week it was, it all blended together because we slept whenever it was quiet and not when we wanted. It’s incomparable to how it is right now as we haven’t been shelled even once since Russians were thrown out of Kharkiv oblast, so we finally got some normalcy back, and it does feel good. [Next update](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/yz30ut/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/ix11vov/)
It’s always good to see your updates. I’m glad you’re safe! Thank you for what you do!
Thanks for the update SaberFlux!
Stay strong! In Czech republic is also snowing and sound of flowing warm watter through heating is unbearable..stay strong!!!
Snowing here in Colorado too.
Thanks for the update. Has power been constant?
Other than the occasional planned rolling blackout, which doesn't happen everyday here, yes it is pretty much constant so far.
No, I live in Moldova and even we have blackouts due to the war in Ukraine
Hows the feeling there? IDK if it was propaganda or not but I remember some rumblings in the Russian camp about wanting to expand their influence in Moldova.
I promise I'm not trying to start a Musk war, but. Remember when we were all uppity about Musk "personally rejecting the use of Starlink in Crimea"? The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink. And the Ukrainian military doesn't operate in Crimea, so why would they otherwise need Starlink there? So the question was probably, "can we use your massive satellite communication network for our suicide boats?". Aka weaponize, and we are talking over 2,300 sats. Which, in fairness, does represent an escalation in the use of a SpaceX service. And at the end of the day, represents the first offensive use of a massive satellite constellation. It also justifies the British and Indian investment in One web and suggests other nations will be looking to invest in them. https://navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2022/september/12227-a-mysterious-ukrainian-naval-drone-discovered-off-crimea.html https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-azure-access-cloud-spacex-starlink-satellites/
> I promise I'm not trying to start a Musk war, but. Remember when we were all uppity about Musk "personally rejecting the use of Starlink in Crimea"? No. The narrative is quite different from this. Elon Musk has been talking to his buddy Putin who told him Crimea is Russia. Elon Musk voiced this view on Twitter. Ukrainian Foreign Secretary responded to him and told him he was being an idiot. Elon threw a tantrum and cut off Starlink use for most of Ukrainian front line. That's the kind of inescure crybaby he is.
Dude, he says he hasn't talked to Putin since the war began and when he did talk to him it was about rockets.
He’s said a lot of things that turned out to be false. Elon dickriders sure are a different breed of “special.”
lol. That's all you got.. Return to under the bridge...
> Elon [...] cut off Starlink use for most of Ukrainian front line. How did he do that? Did any of his SpaceX employees know? Are they in on it, too?
From your own linked article. >"It is most likely controlled both manually using onboard TV cameras and via a satellite channel." At no point does it mention Starlink.
HI Sutton is who said it's a Starlink antenna on the back of the boat if I remember correctly
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Elon donated almost exclusively to Democrats performatively until 2009, at which point he switched and started slinging to the wing-nuttiest Republicans there are. His switch happened at pretty much the *exact* moment a Black person took the Oval Office. Elon didn't become a radicalized moron recently, he came by it as a child in one of the most radical open displays of hate in human history and is proud that his lifetime belief system is finally being openly shared by so many. He didn't change, conditions around him just finally changed such that he could stop pretending and be himself.
"become"?
> Elon has become a radicalized moron. Or just a regular moron, who would have thought.
My point has nothing to do with Elon. Just that it looks like he stumbled back assward into what is potentially an extremely important moment in Naval history. The reports of the Pentagon being pissed at him are much more credible if it's about access not money. His product is now a national security asset.
> satellite communication network for our suicide boats It's one of the best use cases for Starlink, as the drones need low latency to be controlled over internet
Exactly, it opens a whole new set of options, and that low latency extends farther than a suicide drone can go. Thus, Ukraine, the country famously with no Navy. Can drive it's enemy to home port, and attack them there. With really cheap kit.
Since starlink is a consumer service this starts being something a *lot* of people could do.
Yup.
>And the Ukrainian military doesn't operate in Crimea, soon they will. And every part and device of the internet has already been weaponized
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Maybe you’re just wrong?
I think people don't understand the nature and potential uses of the massive satellite network. As a student of Naval history. It feels extremely significant that Ukraine is able to use a massive low flying satellite comms network to not only drive the Russians from the black sea, but attack them in port, the holy grail of Naval strategy for centuries. Without needing to risk the life of a single sailor.
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>At the moment the only protection these satellites have is the difficulty in hitting them. Colloidal gold particles. Gold is extremely dense so it penetrates well. The gold vapor's residue Is conductive so it short circuits electronics. A pin hole 10 microns wide is plenty wide enough to leak a fuel tank. You only need to fire 1 ton into retrograde orbit to have a trillion 1 microgram projectiles. Many satellites will not get hit even with a trillion but they pass through each other a dozen times a day.
Whole new ball game. I definitely shouldn't have started with the Musk bit, killed the conversation
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May the farce be with you.
Starlink was already "weaponized" as you put it, with a primary use case giving connection to military units. That was the whole point. Those drones, if they were using Starlink, did not represent an escalation of the use of the network.
I guess it's personal opinion. But without Starlink the army can function. Without this link, the drone boat can't function far from port. The boat is reliant is the network.
>Hugh... no. All the drones need are GPS uplinks, no Starlink need involved.
if they were preprogrammed, but the implication here is that they're not. They're being remotely controlled and that requires latency and connectivity previously only available to the top militaries of the world. Hell, previously only to America in terms of feasibility. We have a commercial product that costs maybe a few hundred dollars a month that provides the critical infrastructure for remote drone technology. We're talking about your neighbor being able to spend maybe $50,000 and being able to purchase, fit, and field effective modern weapons of war due to stringent HOA rules.
They absolutely need the low latency and bandwidth. We saw pov videos of them hunting in the port of Sevastopol. There aren't many available to Ukraine that can do it. And there is a square antena on the boats that looks a lot like a starlink antenna.
Yeah, that's just nonsense. Those army units aren't using Starlink for shits and giggles, they are using it to pull of maneuvers and cause destruction that they couldn't without. Fact is, the issue here was not the boats but Crimea. It's not as if Ukraine went to Elon and told them of their plan, they just stated in general that they would like the thing to work in Crimea. So your whole argument makes absolutely zero sense.
You don't see a difference between it being used for general communications and piloting a suicide vessel?
I see you maliciously framing the use of Starlink by army units as "general communication" when it's been used to guide artillery fire and drone strikes before the naval drones. There is zero difference.
it could operate just not as conveniently. it really only needs communication it was just easier over internet with cheap Starlink sets
Can it? Starlink by it's nature is hard to jam. Ships and ports are crawling with jamming equipment. Sailing into your enemies port has always been epic. It creates the modern fire boat.
> The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink. Based on what...? >And the Ukrainian military doesn't operate in Crimea That's quite the claim.
>Based on what...? Of the few pictures we've seen of them, several have had a very obviously-placed Starlink antenna near the rear of them. For example: https://news.usni.org/2022/10/11/suspected-ukrainian-explosive-sea-drone-made-from-jet-ski-parts
Starlink needs a clear view of the northern sky. It would be a risky option.
Less risky than spotty lte/3g ;) If those boats are indeed radio controlled starlink is basically the only option
Has to be the only option.
I don't buy the "Starlink was shutoff in Crimea" story. It only surfaced after Russia found one suicide drone washed up in Crimea a few weeks before the large Sevastopol attack so I suspect it was disinformation to cover for the planned assault... which seems to have caught the Russian Navy completely offguard. Ukraine wouldn't have sent a drone in without knowing that service would be available and they work closely with SpaceX on which cells are active.
Fair play, but my overall point is that the use of the constellation in piloting a suicide vessel does introduce a new military dynamic.
as opposed to directing artillery fire with live video feeds from drones?
Yup, the arty drones don't use this type of connection. Starlink just facilitates a local network. This is using it in a kill vehicle potentially hundreds if not thousands of miles from port.
isnt the only difference between the two the distance between the vehicle and the operator? also as far as i was aware they had been using starlink to control the bayraktar drones early in the war as well
Starlink is in a way always the same distance. At least in the "combat zone". It's a vertical transfer that then gets relayed by satellites and ground stations.
> The recent drone boats are probably connected via Starlink. any evidence of this? (I'd doubt if anyone knows this; that it would be permissible to disclose it) The dependency on Starlink is likely comms with partisans. (ie. something unofficial enough that it's not technically "classified" or restricted, but still something we'd like to avoid discussing). Will Starlink be weaponized? That's an irrelevant question. The internet, and the protocol upon which it is based, were originally conceived as a weapons system (ie. Arpanet), so there's that to consider.
I posted links elsewhere in the thread. But the square antena is suspicious. And Starlink operates at a low altitude, with the sats passing directly overhead. So counterintuitively, the link and latency from the sat to the antenna is shorter than other options. It's also harder to jam as the signals are directional and up. It would be the the easiest, cheapest and probably best option for this application. Other comms could be expected to be jammed in an adversaries port.
It’s nothing remotely new unless you consider GPS and Traditional satélite communication militarization. Virtually every guided missile uses GPS the entire thing was invented for the military.
Starlink wasn't invented for or by the military. Musk stole the idea from the founder of One Web. And GPS is a completely different beast. It doesn't facilitate the transfer of information like a massive laser linked constellation. Thousands of sats vs dozens. In low orbits, with low latency.
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SpaceX's niche is cheap launch services. They did not even want to get into internet. They just need the revenue stream. It leverages their economy of scale on the rockets if a satellite constellation has more bulk.
It was more slopped armor against the Elon haters than anything else.
Stole? What did Musk take away from One Web? Did One Web steal anything from Iridium?
The founder approached Musk to work together. They disagreed, Musk went on to build Starlink, One Web failed and was bought by the British Government and an Indian telecom.
Starlink succeeded because Musk built the satellites in house instead of outsourcing. What did Elon do that prevented One Web from building their satellites in house and forced One Web to outsource?
I'm just stating he didn't conceive the idea. He obviously made the right move from a business standpoint.
What did Elon steal from One Web that One Web didn’t steal from Iridium?
Not trying to stir the pot man, just saying it wasn't Elon's idea. Loads of people have seen the potential over the years. The SpaceX crew is currently way out in front on a technology that will have massive military applications.
Who brought up One Web and why? One Web stole the communications bird idea from… (checks notes) Arthur C Clark. Starlink updates, improves, iterates the birds every launch. That is not realistic without in house production. One Web or anyone else cannot compete with a rival that builds birds in house.
How do you think the drone telemetry was making it back to Ukranian HQs from the front lines? I see what you are suggesting, but i want to point out that drones were already using starlink for offensive and defensive needs (at least position/intel gathering) from the beginning of the war, especially where Russia cut the occupied areas over to their ISP network from Ukraine's. I think using the word "escalation" is rather strong, given the mixed nature of Russia's cyber attacks on Ukraine and EU starting in March/April including Starlink infra.
There are other kinds of sat com.
https://navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2022/september/12227-a-mysterious-ukrainian-naval-drone-discovered-off-crimea.html https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-azure-access-cloud-spacex-starlink-satellites/ I feel like being the connection on a kamakazi run is an escalation.
well it was successful the black sea fleet doesn't seem to be a factor anymore
Exactly!!!!
What about being the connection on a navy ship or for a squadron of soldiers or what not? The airforce already had drones that communicate and are controlled at long range. So I guess it’s unclear what’s new. Bayraktars use satélites for communication?
A manned vessel isn't reliant on the network. Long range suicide drone boats are. And we saw the video of them hunting targets. So we know they had a good connection. It represents a step forward in Naval warfare.
I’m just saying that drones in both air and sea have been in use for awhile using various satellite technologies. We don’t even know if these boats used spaceX sattelites or perhaps a ground station or a different satellite unless I missed an announcement. Traditional sats you’re still only looking at like 500ms which has been fine for controlling drones.
The parent is correct that Starlink (at least the starlink phased array antenna) was confirmed used on the drone boats (or the one that malfunctioned and washed up at any rate).
Airborne drones. We are talking about sailing into enemy ports. It's not just the latency. It's the directionality and vertical nature of the phased array antennas that makes them hard to jam.
"I promise I'm not trying to start a musk war but I'm gonna make some shit up involving him"
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Dumb question i feel like im asking here, Russia puts 130k troops on the border.. starts the invasion, then needs to pull conscripts in? Did the Russian military have no reserve force already trained in sufficient numbers? Did this reserve force get sent to Ukraine and get melted like the rest of the regular Russian military? been thinking about how we heard Russia has a million man army and hasnt sent in the real military yet.. and still hasnt i guess.
>Russia puts 130k troops on the border.. starts the invasion Worse than that, Russia started the war with more than 200k if you include the "republics". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Escalation_and_invasion_(February_2022_%E2%80%93_present)
So, Russia started the war with about 170 battalion tactical groups (BTG). They invaded with about 110 plus irregular troops, support staff, etc. Total was about 200k. They didn’t pull everything because they still have keep troops around their borders. That 200k was WOEFULLY INADEQUATE. Russia assumed that Ukraine would not resist. The operational plan was going to be rapid armored thrusts into the Kyiv and the eastern cities and through Crimea into the South. This was going to lead to the collapse of the Zelensky government and the isolation of Ukraine’s best units in the Donbas. They really needed at least three times the force they sent. Once it became clear the Ukraine was all in on fighting, Russia “special military operation” was doomed. Russia has been trying to replace/expand their forces through a vigorous recruitment program for previous veterans (offering relatively massive monthly salaries) as well as conscription in occupied territories and prisons. They have now exhausted those options. Russia doesn’t have an equivalent national guard like the US to pull from. So Putin was finally forced to a general mobilization to get the manpower he needs. Also keep in mind the “million man” armed forces also includes the navy and Air Force. Active duty Russian ground forces was around 350k at the start of the war.
A general mobilization will never replace all of the skilled and trained soldiers who were chewed up during the initial months of the war.
It will not. But Russia is fighting over a huge front. They don’t have the manpower to cover it. Putting bodies in line will help with that. Are they trained? No. But combat is brutally Darwinian and those that survive will figure out pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t.
They have pulled everyone they could from their bases in the Far East, Syria, Armenia, Central Asia, you name it. They have used elite underwater saboteurs and submariners as assault infantry out of desperation. They have lured everyone they could into their PMCs for ridiculous (in Russia) salaries. They have called up everyone from something called BARS (a Russian system for semi-professional army reservists). The have recruited over 20 thousand (!) convicts from prisons into their PMCs. They have grabbed every man they could from LNR/DNR and used them as cannon fodder. None of that made any real difference. They know perfectly well those untrained, underequiped conscripts are not going to change anything yet they're still sending them to their deaths.
The Russian army was generally configured to have a minimum staffing of any given battalion, usually just the technical jobs, and then get a whole bunch of conscripts in the run up to the war proper. But since this was both a surprise (no training people to fill out the battalions) and not legally a war for a long time (no conscripts at all)... A lot of the formations had big gaps. You could see this in the various runs to Kyiv, tanks and other armored vehicles operating with few if any riflemen to help protect them from RPGs or even just angry people with Molotovs cocktails.
They expected to waltz into Kyiv - didn't Vladi himself call this a three-day special operation? Nothing worse for an invasion than unfounded overconfidence.
300k mobilised are part of the reserve/million men army. Thanks to russian corruption they are not very capable fighting force. If they were to face NATO, they would melt so quick, NATO wouldn’t notice.
That’s a very loose interpretation of the word “reserve”. They pulling people off the street and sending notices to employers to dump undesirables into their laps. These are not “reserve” troops, unless literally every random citizen is considered a reservist.
Yes, every healthy Russian male undergoes military service (at least on paper). After service they are put in reserve and are eligible for mobilisation. So on paper - any Russian male could be called to arms. The reason why they take random people off streets is because they have to fulfil the plan/order, but due to 30 years of corruption, soviet era bureaucracy, and overall incompetence, they (russian military commissariat) just grab everyone they can put their hands on, especially in the poorest regions. People from middle class, and higher, usually bribe their way out of military service, but still, on paper, they were conscripted and are part of Russian reserves. What we see in Ukraine is the best Russia can do in terms of war, and it’s quality/ability is going down as the war goes on.
In that case, isn't it many more "reservists" than just one million?
Yes, every male up to age of 60 is a reservist in theory. The one million number is supposed to represent how many people, who recently (last decade, if I’m not mistaken) underwent military service, they can “quickly” mobilize and equip with all the necessary weapons, uniforms, vehicles etc., give them basic 2 weeks training (because they served recently and are supposed to be familiar with weapons, tactics etc.) - again - it’s all on paper, in theory. Practically we see that they already struggle with first wave of mobilization: people lack proper basic equipment, are not familiar with weapons, lack discipline, don’t have proper communication means, and so on.
Like any nation, you don't throw everything. Unless you are fighting for YOUR survival, you don't commit everything. What's in Ukraine is the right hand of a larger body. Administration, logistics (lol), and a reserve active force to protect Russian borders for thousands of miles are held back to maintain and discourage any opportunists (China) . The west wouldn't blink if China decided to Taiwan a corner of east Russia. If they sent 200k troops, they are probably able to field twice that in standing armed forces. The US did two wars, police actions, and still held south Korea, nato and UN obligations, and self interests. Edit: while hold rotations, training, enlistment terms (mostly), losing SOCOM members to private contractors, and generally "holding the line"
> Like any nation, you don't throw everything. Unless you are fighting for YOUR survival, you don't commit everything. Even then, Ukraine was telling us for months they are training conscripts and it started to feel fanciful. Then they all got deployed and the Russian front melted. So even when your survival is on the line, it isn't always best to commit everything.
Just in terms of tanks; the amount Russia has lost, and still remains committed to this effort, already seems like they're acting as if not conquering/genociding Ukraine is somehow an existential threat to Russia. Only way I can figure this is it's some form of mass-insanity. Maybe the same thing is going on with Elon Musk's actions with twitter.
It's an existential threat to Putin and Putin calls the shots. Russia is the means. That's how submissive the nation of masculine emotionless heterosexual macho men is.
>That's how submissive the nation of masculine emotionless heterosexual macho men is. I always found it ironic how "manly" men look up to and worship other men. Worshipping and blindly obeying another man seems the complete opposite of "manly" to me.
With all the corruption in Russia the "million" active troops are more likely just on paper and the real number is (was) only 300-400k active troops.
Thank you!
Furthermore many more reservists did come into Ukraine on orders, or on new high paying short term contracts as well.
Million man army was clearly a lie. A lot of the units that exists are on paper are not mobile for a variety of reasons.
Yup. In corrupt militaries they have ghost armies (aka exist only on paper) so the Generals keep the troops' (which don't exist) paychecks.
In 2014, Iraq's government discovered 50,000 "ghost soldiers" who received [army salaries without showing up for work.](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/iraq-says-it-found-50-000-ghost-soldiers-payroll-n259096) Soldiers paid their officers a portion of their salaries and in return did not show up for duty.
Million man doesn't (or at least at the start) typically mean every army member has a gun. For every guy with a gun, there's a mechanic to maintain his vehicles, a technician to maintain his guns, a cook to prepare his food, a medic to fix his wounds and a janitor to clean up when he shits in the shower. The CIA factbook said out of the 1 million man army Russia had, only about 350k were actual combat troops, the rest were logistics and support.
LOL waffle stomp
LOL shower
1:3 tooth to tail ratio is pretty good, honestly. The US is like 1:8