Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Edge-]

The Russia-NK romance isn't going suuuuuper well.

Mostly has to do with Lavrov being a drunkard shithead. Don't get me wrong, they still ended up putting on a nice show for the camera afterwards, but it's probably not all roses and unicorn farts behind the scene.

Either a weirdly staged act for domestic consumption, or both nations diplomatic services are incompetent. Russian diplomats should have known better, NK officials should not have allowed them in the room if that's the case.

Either seem equally likely.

[Belize]

Either a weirdly staged act for domestic consumption, or both nations diplomatic services are incompetent. Russian diplomats should have known better, NK officials should not have allowed them in the room if that's the case.

Either seem equally likely.

Russia must be especially desperate if one of the conditions NK gave them was "act like a bitch on the international stage".

I'm leaning towards their diplomats both being shitheads that server a dictator and that those kinds of egos just don't work well together.

[Elder Millennial]

Romania just donated a whole ass Patriot battery to Ukraine.

They are asking for some kind of temporary alternative from the US to cover the gap. Probably the US could station one of theirs in Ukraine, or deploy some jets there.

https://www.politico.eu/article/roma...er%20the%20gap.

At least on Twitter there are some rumors that the system is actually already in Ukraine, they were just holding off with the announcement, but take that one with a pinch of salt.

The Ukrainians have been blowing up a lot of Russian anti-air, the F16 are there *soon* and now this...all lining up to an interesting summer for the Russians, they might just get a taste of what it is like to fight an opponent with air superiority.

[Corvus]

The US is reportedly is pausing all patriot and amraam delivers to focus entirely on supplying Ukraine. Which makes sense. Other European nations only need them to defend against russia.

And a Ukrainian air force officer said the pilots training on f16s were training to use 160km range missiles, which would be later model amraams. At that range they could safely threaten russian glide bombers from well behind their own lines.

- - - Updated - - -

Pootie is now 'warning' South Korea about supplying weapons to Ukraine. I know who wins out of weapon supplies from North Korea or South Korea - SK is one of the very few western nations who has prepared for a full scale conventional war, has vast stockpiles of weapons and ammo and is miles ahead technologically compared to its northern neighbour. They even have a number of T80s and BMP3 that russia sent to pay off old debts.

[Elder Millennial]

South Korea

The bigger thing about South Korea is not what they have, but what they can make.

Somehow, they seem to be one of the very few countries out there who actually have industrial capacity just sitting around ready to go to churn out ammo, armor and everything in between.

Guess having a next door neighbor with nukes and missiles who shells border areas with artillery every couple of months is a great motivator.

If you look into the topic a bit, when the S. Koreans built out their defense industry they focused heavily on using it as an educational system for industrial expertise and on a lot of dual-purpose research, meaning much of the stuff they developed had civilian applications, so their defense industry is heavily embedded into their civilian industry. So the same guys who make cell phones and cameras can make military optics and sensors, the guys who make fertilizer can make explosives etc.

Like their self propelled artillery and tanks are built by Kia, Samsung and Hanwa.

[Iphie]

If you look into the topic a bit, when the S. Koreans built out their defense industry they focused heavily on using it as an educational system for industrial expertise and on a lot of dual-purpose research, meaning much of the stuff they developed had civilian applications, so their defense industry is heavily embedded into their civilian industry. So the same guys who make cell phones and cameras can make military optics and sensors, the guys who make fertilizer can make explosives etc.

Like their self propelled artillery and tanks are built by Kia, Samsung and Hanwa.

Dual purpose and civilian construction capacity is not that uncommon, I mean Saab, Sisu, Fokker and so on? (Granted some of these are historic)

[Elder Millennial]

Dual purpose and civilian construction capacity is not that uncommon, I mean Saab, Sisu, Fokker and so on? (Granted some of these are historic)

It seems to be a feature of smaller economies that can't afford the degree of specialization and consolidation that happened in the US.

Theoretically GM and Boeing should be these types of companies too, but in reality the separation between their defense and civilian divisions are massive.

[Iphie]

Seems one of the sources of the Czech shells might have been located

Now, Serbia will deny this, and this is a Kosovar account so take it with a grain of salt but it would align with the secrecy surrounding the Czech sources.

[Makabreska]

We are most likely out of Euro, but hey! Polish fans decided to "visit" Russian embassy in Berlin.

[D Luniz]

Hahahaha. Musk's AI is cooking.



Unironically tho...it's a good answer.

Poor Grok, about to get sent to the reprograming camp when Musk notices

[YUPPIE]

you know, despite the north korea thing and putin subsequently making numerous public tirades including one outright threatening south korea, it seems no one is really taking it seriously.

By contrast, the news broadcast I'm watching of it only makes fun of him throwing a tantrum.

[Xyonai]

Because he is.

To reiterate: He's stalled out in a land war against a neighboring country that - at one point - had a much weaker and less equipped military and is now threatening probably the single-most Militarily Ready nation in all of east Asia because he's now buddies with their shitty, despotic neighbors.

And South Korea, in response, is considering just cutting out the middleman and sending weapons to Ukraine.

[shimerra]

you know, despite the north korea thing and putin subsequently making numerous public tirades including one outright threatening south korea, it seems no one is really taking it seriously.

By contrast, the news broadcast I'm watching of it only makes fun of him throwing a tantrum.

Because no one goes to North Korea for war supplies unless you're desperate and okay with about a 50% change instead of shooting the enemy nothing will happen at all or itll blow up in your own face. This is a desperation play from a guy who told us the whole thing would be over in less than a week with Russia's crushing victory and him trying to spin it into a big win will only possibly play at home where he can threaten you and your family to keep your mouth shut if you don't think it's the next best thing since sliced bread.

The only other threat from NK is a nuclear response and quite frankly NK's tiny arsenal is basically a zit on the ass of an elephant, assuming they get zits, when compared to the already much larger and better Russian arsenal in play.

[YUPPIE]

The only other threat from NK is a nuclear response

no it's not. North Korea has enough artillery shells aimed to conventionally annihilate Seoul in a crossfire. That's why I find the prospect of recent tensions flaring up and an alliance with Russia to be terrifying.

[Benggaul]

Oh boy, scaremongerer is back. Thread is useless for the next few pages again.

[Corvus]

The threat to Seoul is vastly overstated. Only a very small amount of nk artillery even has the range to hit it and we've seen that nk shells are vastly substandard. Even the russian troops have been complaining about them. Not to mention when nk shelled an island a few years back only a third of the shells fired even hit it.

And that is before sk and us counterbattery fire and airpower start hitting back. Nk artillery won't get to fire much before it is gone.

[Iphie]

Orban needs to step up, a new contender for pooties toadie in Europe appears

Weakening the armed forces in this way, contrary to the constitution, cannot be described in our political dictionary as anything other than treason," Robert Kalinak said in comments reported by the Czech news outlet iROZHLAS.

[Kaleredar]

Orban needs to step up, a new contender for pooties toadie in Europe appears

And from whom is he expecting imminent invasion of his country? Cuz near as I can figure there's only really one country invading another in Europe, right now.

[Iphie]

And from whom is he expecting imminent invasion of his country? Cuz near as I can figure there's only really one country invading another in Europe, right now.

Yeah, and being in NATO and the EU is apparently not counting for anything...

I mean a country can be completely lacking any armed forces or have a token crew as long as they are within NATO it doesn't exactly matter.

[Gabriel]

no it's not. North Korea has enough artillery shells aimed to conventionally annihilate Seoul in a crossfire. That's why I find the prospect of recent tensions flaring up and an alliance with Russia to be terrifying.

Why is it terrifying? If they fuck around, they will find out what finding out actually means, and they have an inkling on what it means so they don't want to find out.