Russian invasion of Ukraine

[snebb]

Source for those 2? Because Google is coming up empty handed for both of those searches.

AFAIK, it's misunderstanding/communications.
I understand it as they are not sending in NATO aircraft to close Ukrainian airspace, but they still are gifting aircrafts to Ukraine.

[Barzotti]

Ever heard of an exception doesn't make the rule?

So we're going from "the rules were very strict no matter how much you all want to dream of US soldiers committing war crimes" to "it was an exception". We're progressing

[MCMLXXXII]

if Ukranian soldiers are innocent, so are the Iraqi soldiers that where killed.


The Iraq invasion was no different than the Ukrainian one.

Personally I haven't fired a bullet in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sadly if someone shoots at you, you shoot back. That's kinda how war works. If that makes someone guilty or innocent is beyond that. But that doesn't mean you can't feel empathy with the other side.

[Crispin]

Is this the “Iraq war was shit” thread? If not then stfu and stay on topic. This “But the US buhuu” shit, is irrelevant to Russia invading Ukraine.

[JohnBrown1917]

Personally I haven't fired a bullet in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sadly if someone shoots at you, you shoot back. That's kinda how war works. If that makes someone guilty or innocent is beyond that. But that doesn't mean you can't feel empathy with the other side.

This whole chain started over what Russian invaders deserve, so I don't think you should be aiming that at me.

[korijenkins]

Kyiv will fall before weekend is over.

Weekend is over.

[JohnBrown1917]

Is this the “Iraq war was shit” thread? If not then stfu and stay on topic. This “But the US buhuu” shit, is irrelevant to Russia invading Ukraine.

I don't really care about the forums rules that much, If somebody is defending the Iraq war i'm not going to just ignore it.

[MCMLXXXII]

This whole chain started over what Russian invaders deserve, so I don't think you should be aiming that at me.

I'm not aiming at anyone. Just my two cents.

[Barzotti]

Personally I haven't fired a bullet in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sadly if someone shoots at you, you shoot back. That's kinda how war works. If that makes someone guilty or innocent is beyond that. But that doesn't mean you can't feel empathy with the other side.

Of course, but the argument "you shoot back if you're attacked" is kinda moot considering how much Iraqi civilians were killed.

[Mihalik]

Weekend is over.

Kiev will fall by Tue..I mean Thurs...I mean next Monday.

Russia Stronk!

[MCMLXXXII]

Kiev will fall by Tue..I mean Thurs...I mean next Monday.

Russia Stronk!

Is YUPPIE back?

[Barzotti]

"Rules get broken" isnt the revelation you think it is..

No, of course. I doubt your commanders asked you to kill as many civilians as possible and go full Duke Nukem. But the result is still hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Irak. Even if that wasn't ordered, the result remains.

[Breccia]

Few things.

1) If the only thing you have to support your point is a video game cutscene, you don't have a point. You have a meme.

2) Western military experts are amazed how poorly Russia is doing.

Multiple Western military sources who spoke to VICE News on background and on the condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak with the media, say their opinion of Russia’s military abilities has gone down.

“What I’m seeing is unbelievable,” said a source involved in the special forces community. “I think this is why they pivoted so hard toward influence operations,” they added, referring to Russia’s well-established meddling and troll farms used against Western democracies in recent years.

Gonna pause here and point out the bolded is why I'm posting this. It's quite possible Russia knew very well their failing infrastructure and scrap-metal military wasn't capable of sustaining an actual war. Which is why their soldiers are out of gas, out of bullets, out of food, and mumbling things about Ukrainian Nazis while what's left of them stumble back towards the border. Zelensky's Jewish, by the way.

In the last several days, Russian forces have continued to hammer both the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv and the capital Kyiv with heavy bombing, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Russian troops have sustained at least 4,500 casualties. Ukraine’s defence forces, bolstered by civilian volunteers, have managed to keep Russian forces from overrunning Ukraine’s two biggest cities, although the on-the-ground fighting has moved closer to those locations. Ukraine has claimed it has severely damaged Russia’s supply lines, slowing the advance. Russian misinformation is laughably bad, easily identifiable by the stench of rotting turnips, but at least it doesn't require much effort to ship.

Another military source told VICE News that officials and analysts within the U.S. military were “psyched” to see what types of weapons and hardware their Russian adversaries are using and how their airstrike tradecraft and radar systems work. The brutal war, which has already claimed thousands of lives since it began last Thursday, also offers the chance to gain intelligence about Russian military operations and how they’ve evolved in recent years.

“We haven’t seen them in a war like this in years,” a source said. “Even Syria wasn’t the same. This is a huge sample size.”

Though Russia recently sent troops to the war in Syria—mostly special operations forces and airpower—and in the war in Donbas (in a covert and unofficial capacity)—the current invasion of Ukraine has involved hundreds of thousands of troops and everything in the tool kit of the Russian military. As one source noted, Russia has gotten to watch and take notes over two decades of NATO wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

Russia hasn’t fought a war of this magnitude since the war in Chechnya, which occurred in 1994, several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But President Vladimir Putin has poured money and resources into the Russian military in a bid to modernize it as a modern fighting force capable of going up against any NATO military coalition.

The sources pointed out just how shocked many in the broader NATO military community were at how incompetent Russian soldiers appeared, especially the officer and non-commissioned officer corps. Many described the professionalism and efficiency of the entire Russian military operations in Ukraine as unimpressive and sloppy.

I mean, just compare the two leaders. Zelensky is in body armor asking for bullets. Cruz fled to the south to...shit, wrong article. Putin is hiding so far at the end of a...how was it put?

Big Batman "pass the salt" vibes.

That or he doesn't want anyone to get within arms reach because he's that paranoid now.

For crying out lout, you gotta be Keaton me with those jokes. That one-liner was so low-rent I should call it a Base-zinger. Just Gough on outta here and take that reference with you. I'll even throw in bus fare, here's your Nichol, son.

But yes, Putin should be afraid of his allies. They're turning on him.

3) Just one day after Putin invaded, the 39 richest Russians lost $39 billion. Two in particular spoke out.

Mikhail Fridman, who founded Russia's largest private bank and currently runs LetterOne, a private equity firm, said "war can never be the answer" in a letter to employees first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday.

"I do not make political statements, I am a businessman with responsibilities to my many thousands of employees in Russia and Ukraine," the Ukrainian-born investor wrote, per the FT. "This crisis will cost lives and damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years."

Fridman is one of Russia's richest men, and is the 183rd richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

While he currently is not personally targeted by US sanctions, Fridman was sanctioned by the EU on Monday.

The other is friend of these forums, you know him, you know to hate him, it's Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska, who made his billions from Russian aluminum company Rusal, said "peace is very important" in a Telegram post on Sunday, adding that peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia should begin "as fast as possible."

The Russian oligarch has been personally named on the US sanctions list since 2018, when the US Treasury designated him as having connections to the Russian government and state energy sector.

He sued to have the sanctions repealed, after they "devastated" his wealth and business reputation, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"Surely you can't oppose this. I thought you liked diplomatic solutions?"

I do, yes. I just love the context. Putin's increasingly less-rich friends are begging for peace, because Putin's war is taking all their money.

4) Of course, who can blame them? Putin is acting irrational. The head of German intelligence was caught so by surprise he was in Ukraine when Russia invaded. The head of MI6, who was also surprised,

The idea that Putin was actually going to invade the whole of Ukraine, topple the Kyiv government, and occupy the whole country, for years to come—I never thought that that was a realistic prospect

belives Putin has entered a war that's unwinnable. Yes, he knows about the convoy, he's the head of MI-fucking-6. These people are not idiots. And even they were caught by surprise by Putin's actions...and their subsequent disastrous failures.

But you know who wasn't surprised?

5) President Joe Biden. As FOX News reports with faux outrage and pearl clenching, US Intel saw Putin coming and basically told everyone. "How dare he give that information away!" FOX News screams into the camera, "the information might get back to Putin, who of course already had it! The only person allowed to give classified intel to Putin is Trump, who did it directly while we cheered!"

The coordinated world effort to shut down Russia, which is working pretty damn well, oh wait one more

6) The ruble is down to 0.009 dollars now. That's a 10% drop from my last post, which in turn was like 48 hours ago, when I posted it was 0.013 dollars two weeks prior.

5 again) The coordinated world effort to shut down Russia is something I'd say "victory lap" over had I not just recently posted that F1 canceled because Russia. But his efforts are being felt. Russia is running out of currency and Putin is running out of satisfied allies.

7) Putin has basically three options.

One, escalation. Putin challenged Zelensky to a dick-measuring contest on the world stage and was several inches short. Angry, frustrated, and laughed at the world 'round, one option that seems viable is to throw more of his failing tanks and demoralized troops into Ukraine until he just wins by sheer numbers.

Two, holding peace talks and pretending he scored a victory. Which I hope is the case to avert more pointless death. Putin will hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner and withdraw his relieved army, or most of it anyhow, before he suffers yet more losses when the former superpower is turned back by changed road signs and potholes.

Three, he could go so completely insane that one of his own men shoots him. Putin's men know what kind of man Putin was, but might be surprised at the kind of man Putin is. And if Putin, frothing at the mouth, orders something beyond what they're willing to accept -- such as nuking their upwind neighbor or shutting off the pipeline -- well, it's not like people who hang out with Putin find assassination unacceptable, do they? Even if they can't physically find the man, it could be the case of just cutting off his communications. Operation Valkyrie is public knowledge, its flaws are fixable.

I do not acknowledge "Putin withdraws in disgrace" as an option for Putin.

[Mihalik]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Ladies and Gentleman. Thanks to a typical Russian fuckup, here we have what the original Putin intention was behind this little war.

So next time someone fucking moans about NATO expansion provoking the Russians they can go read this and shove it up their own asses.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/brave-new-...on-of-ukraine/

[Yunru]

Few things.

1) If the only thing you have to support your point is a video game cutscene, you don't have a point. You have a meme.

2

I do not acknowledge "Putin withdraws in disgrace" as an option for Putin.

Speaking of video games. I have seen people making false war videos with them:


(that is ARMA btw -- but people who dont know video games may think its real)

[korijenkins]

Few things.

Two, holding peace talks and pretending he scored a victory. Which I hope is the case to avert more pointless death. Putin will hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner and withdraw his relieved army, or most of it anyhow, before he suffers yet more losses when the former superpower is turned back by changed road signs and potholes.

Three, he could go so completely insane that one of his own men shoots him. Putin's men know what kind of man Putin was, but might be surprised at the kind of man Putin is. And if Putin, frothing at the mouth, orders something beyond what they're willing to accept -- such as nuking their upwind neighbor or shutting off the pipeline -- well, it's not like people who hang out with Putin find assassination unacceptable, do they? Even if they can't physically find the man, it could be the case of just cutting off his communications. Operation Valkyrie is public knowledge, its flaws are fixable.

I do not acknowledge "Putin withdraws in disgrace" as an option for Putin.

Options 2 or 3 are very (most?) likely. Though I consider an option 4 possible (Ukraine's government pulls back to the west before Kyiv falls, east occupied by Russia).

Putin can't acknowledge defeat or admit it. That's just not an option at this point. The war is becoming harder and harder to sustain. The giant convoy they're trying to move into Kyiv apparently stalled out and hasn't moved in a day (probably a fuel issue again). They had the forces ready for this invasion, but not the logistics. By dicking around for so long they've given the Ukrainian military time to fortify where they already are and distribute the weapons being delivered to them.

Look at Kharkiv. Literally next to Russia, still standing. The last major attack I heard about was just soldiers walking into the city with no armored support and immediately being crushed. Kyiv hasn't been at risk of capture in days. The cities in the west of the country haven't even been threatened with an attack yet. Even the nearly unchecked invasion in the South stalled out quickly fighting over two cities in the southwest and one city in the southeast.

The plan was to blitz the cities. It failed. Then the plan became blitzing Kyiv. It failed. Now they have no plan at all. They're just throwing in more of their forces equally unprepared and undersupplied.

[CostinR]

Looking at the current situation @Breccia a certain picture emerges, a picture military analysts are painting about the situation.

It was widely expected that Russia's military forces would decimate Ukraine within a matter of hours/days. Clearly they have not. Why? Because apparently based on the Pentagon and other sources they did not deploy the totality of the forces they had amassed against Ukraine for the invasion. Even now a week in they have only deployed 75% of the troops into Ukraine.

Clearly they also did not have the supplies prepared for a full blown invasion force. It isn't that Russia doesn't have the munition stocks, rations etc. but they weren't sent to the Ukrainian frontlines in sufficient numbers before the invasion.

So what we've gotten so far for a number of days is Russia sending in about only a third of it's forces initially, even less then that perhaps, taking ground, territory, but clearly not delivering the knockout blows we've expected. They sent in more troops when it became clear a few VDV battalions would not conquer Kiev, but still not enough.

Ukraine is losing the war, they've lost a large amount of territory already and have had their military damaged. Without western ammo/equipment they would simply collapse in 1-2 weeks. Even so they likely won't last much longer.

I don't mean to disparage Ukraine. They've fought far, but it can only go so far.

Putin has basically three options.

Or option four, which is happening as we speak: Russia deploys the munitions, supplies, set ups the proper logistical chain it should have before the invasion and takes the gloves off in terms of targeting urban areas. This is not going to happen overnight, likely days if not weeks, but once Russia sorts itself out they will wipe out Ukraine in a fairly brutal fashion.

We're seeing reports of vacuum bombs and other heavy munitions and Russia is warning people in Kiev to get out. Likely because they've made the decision to make Kiev another Grozny.

I think the major lesson Russia and other military powers will take from this is that you don't launch a war with limited resources with the goal of conquering another country. You either go all in or go out.

Russia tried to do Iraq 2003 2.0, but Ukraine was never the Iraqi army and the US deployed a LOT more back then to achieve that win.

[Daymanmb]

basically this.

you turned it into that lmao

[Shrouded]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Ladies and Gentleman. Thanks to a typical Russian fuckup, here we have what the original Putin intention was behind this little war.

So next time someone fucking moans about NATO expansion provoking the Russians they can go read this and shove it up their own asses.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/brave-new-...on-of-ukraine/

I saw this the other day and I'm surprised it has only gained mild traction. Minor notices at the most on news sites - it's a pretty damning and chilling read both at once.

[Breccia]

Or option four, which is happening as we speak: Russia deploys the munitions, supplies, set ups the proper logistical chain

"Escalation".