Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Elegiac]

And you not agreeing shows that you do not understand this whole mess, you do not understand Ukraine and Russia. Of course "not all of local Russians", no major place would ever have 100% support for literally anything. And there is no "might be a majority of Russian speakers", it is IS a majority of Russian speakers. 80% in 2013, before takeover.

"Might be" as in the English turn of phrase saying "there is a majority of russian speakers, however". Sorry I was unclear.

And I spoke incorrectly anyway since the number I was referring to is actually the ethnic makeup, not the linguistic one. Only about 65% of Crimeans are ethnic Russians, there just happen to be a lot of bilingual Ukranians and Tatars. It's still not a given that there was automatically a majority in favor of annexation.

Referendum would not have happened because Ukraine would not have ever allowed it. 1994, there was another referedum, without Russian soldiers enforcing it. Remember how that one ended? No central goverment would ever allow something like that unless they had no other choice.

I do remember. I also remember the USSR collapsed less than half a decade prior and that political opinions have shifted significantly since then. What was true in 1994 is not necessarily the case in 2014.

Omfg, pure memes and stereotypes. I guess Iskanders and Kalibrs are the exception because... reasons? Vinnitsa airport, like 1h ago, probably do not think so now.

Iskander and Kalibr (i.e. short term disposable munitions) existing is an absolute non sequitur when discussing long term maintenance of auxiliary vehicles. Or nuclear warheads for that matter, many of which are hardwired to their specific delivery platform and involve a highly expensive refurbishing process every decade or so.

[Grapemask]

I didn't think this site had enough traffic to warrant this many Russian propagandists.

I know right? I'm still laughing at the guy who claimed he didn't know what RT was, while linking to RT as his sources.

[Joszef Kiprich]

I know right? I'm still laughing at the guy who claimed he didn't know what RT was, while linking to RT as his sources.

And then we had this one, who went off topic:

Your whole argument fell flat when you assumed I'm an antivaxxer. Idiot. Bye.

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So, Australia not only fucked up robbing people of its freedom during the covid times, they are now sending $50mil worth of WEAPONS, not aid for the civilians, but WEAPONS to Ukraine.
What a nightmare country. That government needs to be replaced.

[Draco-Onis]

I see only claims by both sides because it serves them both. Russia bad and all that, but take realistic view on the ground and realities of war. One nervous tired dude with shitty trigger finger can easily start fire exchange escalating into something much bigger.

That's a really bad take considering we have plenty of evidence saying otherwise, I doubt it was one shitty trigger finger dude that was responsible for attacking a nuclear power plant. You can also see the videos of government buildings and schools it's pretty clear what is happening here. Putin's war is not going as planned I don't think any of us imagined Ukraine would last this long he now wants to break them at any cost.

And the realistic view on the ground is still the fact that Russia has overwhelming force there is no way this is a one dude or both sides type of things.

[Breccia]

There were false Z flags already, even edited videos from 2014, showing "destroyed Russian equipment".

Previously-existing fake videos does not mean this video is fake. Previously-existing false flag vehicles does not mean these are.

Also not all equipment is marked with Z, V, and so on.

You don't know that, you can't see the top of the vehicles. We've seen the tops of lots of Russian vehicles with a Z on them.

I'm also curious what this is:



That looks like the M149 A2 to me, and I'm a big believer in form following function, plus the dark green is kind of hard to miss. Obviously they're towed containers of some kind, duh, but if I'm right those contain 400 or so gallons of liquid. My first thought is water, although they'd need a ton. 400 gallons is 100 people for a week. Could just as easily be fuel, or of course, food, ammo, sleeping gear, etc.

[Fencers]

Zelensky's social media game is so on point it will be historically noteworthy. Especially in contrast to the embarrassing social media propaganda of Russia.

[zorkuus]

Especially in contrast to the embarrassing social media propaganda of Russia.

It doesn't take much to beat that though. Like fishing from a bowl.

[Easo]

"Might be" as in the English turn of phrase saying "there is a majority of russian speakers, however". Sorry I was unclear.

And I spoke incorrectly anyway since the number I was referring to is actually the ethnic makeup, not the linguistic one. Only about 65% of Crimeans are ethnic Russians, there just happen to be a lot of bilingual Ukranians and Tatars. It's still not a given that there was automatically a majority in favor of annexation.



I do remember. I also remember the USSR collapsed less than half a decade prior and that political opinions have shifted significantly since then. What was true in 1994 is not necessarily the case in 2014.



Iskander and Kalibr (i.e. short term disposable munitions) existing is an absolute non sequitur when discussing long term maintenance of auxiliary vehicles. Or nuclear warheads for that matter, many of which are hardwired to their specific delivery platform and involve a highly expensive refurbishing process every decade or so.

Clear about the "might be".

When Ukrainians speak Russian at home it makes them veeeery close to Russians in more ways than one.

See, political opinions did not shift much over there. Without Russia's base in Sevastopol they would all be even more poor. Ukraine was not exactly doing a great job to convince them otherwise.

Those disposable munitions are high end, expensive ones. Technically all missiles are disposable, but no one is really calling Tomahawks disposable, are they? Nuclear warheads can be and as far as I know are moved from delivery system to delivery system (example - US tactical nukes), actually, and you should know that Russia is indeed renewing their nuclear arsenal - currently with Yars, from Topol-2M's, which too are not exactly ancient, especially if you look at Minutemans...
Everyone does this, no need to think Russia is incapable.

That's a really bad take considering we have plenty of evidence saying otherwise, I doubt it was one shitty trigger finger dude that was responsible for attacking a nuclear power plant. You can also see the videos of government buildings and schools it's pretty clear what is happening here. Putin's war is not going as planned I don't think any of us imagined Ukraine would last this long he now wants to break them at any cost.

And the realistic view on the ground is still the fact that Russia has overwhelming force there is no way this is a one dude or both sides type of things.

So far most of the evidence is he said she said. Mariupol has the "Azov" in it, nothing would surprise me at this point if they all lied. I am almost sure both sides could not stop themselves for an actual local ceasefire.

I can also see the realistic views of goverment and school buildings used for organizing and gathering the militia, who then go and post that shit on social media. Yes, that does make them a military target. I have talked about this before at least couple fo times.

Previously-existing fake videos does not mean this video is fake. Previously-existing false flag vehicles does not mean these are.

You don't know that, you can't see the top of the vehicles. We've seen the tops of lots of Russian vehicles with a Z on them.

I'm also curious what this is:

I never said the video is fake, I was talking about those with destroyed ones + trophees. Consider that both sides, at least partially, have the same equipment, making it easy to make some photo ops. In general the occurence seems to be rare, though.

I meant that not all vehicles involved in the war have those markings, in general, not that just this train. As per internet, reinforcements coming in have them even less.

That thing in your picture looks like a field kitchen, imo.

[Draco-Onis]

So far most of the evidence is he said she said. Mariupol has the "Azov" in it, nothing would surprise me at this point if they all lied. I am almost sure both sides could not stop themselves for an actual local ceasefire.

I can also see the realistic views of goverment and school buildings used for organizing and gathering the militia, who then go and post that shit on social media. Yes, that does make them a military target. I have talked about this before at least couple fo times.

Am I reading this wrong or are you excusing war crimes? I don't want to put words in your mouth because by your logic everything is justified as a target since people can gather anywhere. You also just brushed away Russia targeting power plants or are those videos fake too? I just want to make sure not to misinterpret you.

[Breccia]

That thing in your picture looks like a field kitchen, imo.

I would believe that it's a grill or generator or something. Russian military tech is hardly my specialty. I just went with "they have no food, water, or gas" as my first guess.

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Looks like an Army water buffalo.

Hah, so it wasn't just me, nice

[Elenos]

Blinken confirms that F-16's for MiG-29's deal is being actively discussed.
28 planes in total. It still leaves no less questions than before about logistics of the whole thing.

Likely Ukraine will use them from their air bases in Western Ukraine, and they have the capability of flying them.

Interesting that Poland is basically giving up it's entire fleet of Mig-29s, or an enormous part of it at any rate.

[snebb]

Interesting that Poland is basically giving up it's entire fleet of Mig-29s, or an enormous part of it at any rate.

Poland has been modernizing it's fleet for over a decade now. They are open to this option of passing a large portion over to Ukraine as they are scheduled to receive 32x F-35s in 2024. From what I understand, the idea of a backfill from US is to fill the gaps until then.

[Yunru]

Just a question, but was there any deepfake happening betwen Ukrain and Russa so far?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

Russans could use a Deepfake of Ukrain president saying they are surrendering for example.


A lot of people would probaly buy it since they dont understand languange.

[Thekri]

I never said the video is fake, I was talking about those with destroyed ones + trophees. Consider that both sides, at least partially, have the same equipment, making it easy to make some photo ops. In general the occurence seems to be rare, though.

I am going to skip the rest of the silliness in this post, and just focus on this one, because it gets repeated a LOT. The theory goes, that Ukraine is showing pictures of its own destroyed equipment or staging the whole thing, to make it look like Russia is losing more then they are. Now there is a tiny grain of truth here, social media does immediately assume equipment is Russian, and down-votes anyone who points out the Ukrainian markings on them. The vast majority of these do show Russian tanks though, and faking that is basically impossible. Russia does not use the same equipment as Ukraine, it uses the same hulls and basic vehicles, but the equipment on those vehicles is unique and painted different. The paint on tanks is not spray paint, it is a coating that is both non-magnetic and sheds chemical attacks. To paint a tank requires specialized facilities, and disassembling the tank to make sure all the parts are covered. If you don't do that, the tank rusts apart from the inside, to see examples of this, look at museum tanks. For someone who knows what they are looking for it is extremely clear if the tank is originally Russian green or not. the "Z" is irrelevant.

However, specific examples in war can almost always be dismissed as meaningless. Intelligence officers speak in "trends", because it is impossible to know if a specific report is true, but if you see a large number of reports starting to trend in a single direction, that is meaningful. Think of it as polling. The trend is that Russia is absolutely collapsing in Ukraine. It isn't completely finished yet, but it is in an unrecoverably bad position. It isn't like a sports game where they can just give a good locker room talk and come back and win, no they are fucked. Russia skipped the basics, like training, maintenance, and logistics, and the basics are what take decades to fix. If it was just a problem with tactics, or issues with their high tech stuff, they could fix it. But you can't fix this shit.

[Easo]

Something something now there are talks regarding peace process that Ukraine will not apply for any block for the next 10-15 years
@Yunru
About deepfakes - internet yesterday was overcome with Putler's hand going through the microphone. Not exactly what you wanted, but internet actually believed Putler was edited in - except until actual HD source was reviewed to prove the opposite.
Deepfakes are "not that good yet", but I certainly expect them to be a huge headache in the future. People don't need much to believe in something.

Am I reading this wrong or are you excusing war crimes? I don't want to put words in your mouth because by your logic everything is justified as a target since people can gather anywhere. You also just brushed away Russia targeting power plants or are those videos fake too? I just want to make sure not to misinterpret you.

War crimes? Tell me, are Ukrainian tanks in Odessa's streets hiding between buildings a war crime? Yes/No.
I already saw some quite high ranking people talking about warcrimes because cluster ammunition is banned. Except it is not banned in both Russia and Ukraine, because they never signed that treaty.
I want only two things, nothing more, nothing less - war ending and people taking a realistic, not onesided look. Once more, "Russian tank crushing civilian car" bullshit is something I want gone, not reposted on every headline.

No one targeted nuclear power plants. The only thing on fire was a training facility. Battle was fought with small elements of Russian army vs local milita + I think some troops from Ukraine's National Guard. Reactors themselves were never in any actual danger, stupid as the whole event was.
Did someone expected Russia to leave a town behind their lines controlled by Ukraine's military and never touch it? Seriously?

Likely Ukraine will use them from their air bases in Western Ukraine, and they have the capability of flying them.

Interesting that Poland is basically giving up it's entire fleet of Mig-29s, or an enormous part of it at any rate.

As I noted those bases are vulnerable. Technically there are bunch of small airfields they could base from, but logistics, again.

That fleet is old and without upgrades. Has been a hot potato for a long time, IIRC, with questionable availability. Better than nothing for Ukraine, I guess, considering theirs have ceased to exist as a fighting force.

I would believe that it's a grill or generator or something. Russian military tech is hardly my specialty. I just went with "they have no food, water, or gas" as my first guess.

Could be. I am more into armored vehicles than supply ones.

I am going to skip the rest of the silliness in this post, and just focus on this one, because it gets repeated a LOT. The theory goes, that Ukraine is showing pictures of its own destroyed equipment or staging the whole thing, to make it look like Russia is losing more then they are. Now there is a tiny grain of truth here, social media does immediately assume equipment is Russian, and down-votes anyone who points out the Ukrainian markings on them. The vast majority of these do show Russian tanks though, and faking that is basically impossible. Russia does not use the same equipment as Ukraine, it uses the same hulls and basic vehicles, but the equipment on those vehicles is unique and painted different. The paint on tanks is not spray paint, it is a coating that is both non-magnetic and sheds chemical attacks. To paint a tank requires specialized facilities, and disassembling the tank to make sure all the parts are covered. If you don't do that, the tank rusts apart from the inside, to see examples of this, look at museum tanks. For someone who knows what they are looking for it is extremely clear if the tank is originally Russian green or not. the "Z" is irrelevant.

However, specific examples in war can almost always be dismissed as meaningless. Intelligence officers speak in "trends", because it is impossible to know if a specific report is true, but if you see a large number of reports starting to trend in a single direction, that is meaningful. Think of it as polling. The trend is that Russia is absolutely collapsing in Ukraine. It isn't completely finished yet, but it is in an unrecoverably bad position. It isn't like a sports game where they can just give a good locker room talk and come back and win, no they are fucked. Russia skipped the basics, like training, maintenance, and logistics, and the basics are what take decades to fix. If it was just a problem with tactics, or issues with their high tech stuff, they could fix it. But you can't fix this shit.

I specifically said - the occurence seems to be rare.

Same equipment - I meant same basic model, up to the same actual variants. To the absolute majority of the internet a picture of burning T-72B (No, not B3's, the good old B model) is going to look exactly the same as those used by Russia, while it might have been Ukrainian one. And yes, Russia even dragged some old crap out (someone noticed T-72AB), while they have ~2k of T-72B3's and B3M's, because they can afford to loose some old units. Both Ukraine and Russia has old T-80BV's in this conflict as well, not just modernized versions.
Then there are the equipment from both "republics" - which mostly is exactly the same Ukraine used before (and it has not managed to modernise everything they have, old Soviet made vehicles still remain). Now includes things like T-64BV's Model 2017, in trophees, or Kazak APC's.

Paint will not always help and can be done relatively fast.

And if Russia's offense would be collapsing they would not be advancing. But they are, each day Ukraine looses more and more land. Why? Because contrary to the internet Russia's logistics have not collapsed.

[Slant]

Zelensky's social media game is so on point it will be historically noteworthy. Especially in contrast to the embarrassing social media propaganda of Russia.

Zelensky has the advantage that he's on the good side and also he doesn't need to lie a whole lot. Oh, he's fudging stuff to make his side look better, like everyone, but by and large, he is already on the winning side. And as we know, it's easier to kick someone who's already down.

In this case, though, keep kicking... if the guy on the ground is still biting, he's obviously not had enough, yet.

Edit: So, r/Ukraine is not only the top growing reddit today, it's also full of Russian protests against the war. Is that propaganda? Is it new or has it always happened? is this the start of Putin's end? I just looked into that reddit for the first time today, so I have no idea if this is sporadic propaganda that has been pushed since the war began.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/com..._has_taken_up/

LOL, I love the spirit.

[Easo]

Edit: So, r/Ukraine is not only the top growing reddit today, it's also full of Russian protests against the war. Is that propaganda? Is it new or has it always happened? is this the start of Putin's end? I just looked into that reddit for the first time today, so I have no idea if this is sporadic propaganda that has been pushed since the war began.

Propaganda is everywhere, but consider this - people will want to say their thoughts somewhere as Russian authorities have seemingly decided to ban everything that can be used to post actual losses and antiwar agitation. Plus, protests are happening in small numbers but police are arresting them without second thought.
So people will use sites like Reddit.

Putler's fall is far away. It could suddenly change if he decides to cut the losses and pull out, doing some kind of "weak" peace deal. Or the Russian economy actually does collapse in the nearest future.

[Breccia]

it's also full of Russian protests against the war. Is that propaganda?

the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause

The definition is quite vague, so technically, yes. However I'm glad to see the Russian people protesting, even as they know it can get them arrested or worse. That just proves how bad this is. Putin is using the Russian people as hostages, making it look like actions against him become actions against the Russian people. The person responsible for that, is Putin. If the lives of his people were that important, he wouldn't have invaded.

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"What would @Skroe do?" people keep asking. He would remind people that there was only one pro-NATO candidate in 2016.

Here's one from his greatest hits collection:

I have said on many occasions that I believe that the main geopolitical struggle in the 21st Century will be between the United States and China. On the line is the right to dictate the world order as we know it. The United States has tremendous advantages in this fight as the incumbent and _will_ win it, so long as we think with our brains and not our balls. Case in point, with the EU in disarray, the US is not strong enough to take on Russia, Islamic terrorism, Iran, North Korea and China, simultaneously, and alone. We need to tread very carefully and pick our battles one and two at a time. China is the biggest problem of that list. It is also the most long term.

North Korea will almost certainly have ballistic missile capability to strike the Western US next year. Unless we're going to drop a trillion dollars and invade and occupy North Korea, it will be China that we will pressure to clean up that mess.

Iran's non-nuclear assertiveness continues to be a problem, thanks to the feckless and delusional Obama Administration. It needs to be put back in it's place.

Russia is in a protracted, ruinous decline (don't let Putin's showmanship fool you). Rand Corp and STRATFOR identified the coming disruption in Russia and Central Asia as the key American geopolitical challenge of the 2020s. Don't be surprised if the Russian Federation goes the way of Yugoslavia in the next 10-15 years.

At the end of this gauntlet we must run, is our confrontation with China that will be Cold War II with a less expansive, but much more technologically advanced and economically powerful rival than the USSR was.

This is a key reason I voted for Hillary Clinton. She, as a member of the US foreign policy / security establishment KNEW this. Mattis knows this. Petraeus knows this. This is why the former head of Pacific Command described TPP as important to him as an Aircraft carrier. This is why the US Military is reluctant to do more than it is doing now versus ISIS, because every dollar spent hammering them is a dollar spent not modernizing the US military for conventional conflicts versus Russia and China, and potentially Iran and North Korea.

We need to tread very, very carefully. The United States is still the most powerful country in the world. In many ways it's never been as powerful as it is today, though it's relative power has somewhat declined thanks to the Rise of China (that is to say, the gap between The US+China and everyone else has widened considerably). But these problems are far more complicated than at any time during the Cold War and America's allies, while more numerous, are weaker today than they were 30 years ago. That will not be the case a decade hence, but in 2016, that is where we standing.

We think with our brains, we'll win the world. We think with our balls, and before the century is out, in all ways that matter, China will rule the Earth.

[jonnysensible]

cmon lads he would be tweeting about the wuhan virus and making mueller part 7 threads where trump is doomed but somehow easily gets away from it, he was an american supremacist republican and his brain got smoothed so hard from posting he got perma'd.

[s_bushido]

Am I reading this wrong or are you excusing war crimes?

Dude finds a way to justify basically everything Israel does to the Palestinians, so it would be par for the course here.