Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Milchshake]

Sorry Putin, Will Smith upstaged you and started WW3 on the Oscars.

A million gifs were born tonight.

**Ukraine flag slaps Putin**

[Thekri]

My impression is that the Russian think this will be a repeat of the 2014 invasion - relatively easy and quick war, and minimal western sanctions.

I remember reading an article about a war game conducted by Rand Corporation which concluded a bleak outcome in case of a repeat invasion. However, the result was not inevitable, if certain measures were taken. Apparently, Ukraine read the study and implemented those measures, while the Russian probably used it to wipe their collective butts.

Those "Minimal western sanctions" that seem to be the consensus of pundits were anything but minimal. The 2014 Occupation of Crimea nearly destroyed Russia, and still might have done so, everything Russia has done since 2014 is directly related to trying to wriggle out from under those sanctions.

Take a look at the value of the Ruble from 2010-Present.

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/currency

The value of Russian currency collapsed in those sanctions, and has never recovered. Most of the oligarchs were able to move much of their wealth into foreign currencies, but the standard of living in Russia collapsed. GPD per Capita collapsed from a terrible $15k USD equivalent per year to an embarrassing 10k a year, and again, it hasn't recovered. The Market Cap of all Russian companies combined was halved in the same period, which again, seems to be permanent.

Somehow the idea that the Obama administration was weak on Russia has caught hold, and is just being accepted as fact now. But that was Russian propaganda from the beginning, as they pretend they weren't absolutely strangling under the weight of those sanctions. Everything they did in foreign elections, military engagements, and pressuring their neighbors was part of desperate attempts to claw back some semblance of prosperity. But because Putin does not learn, he doubled down on failure, because he knew Russia wasn't getting any stronger, it was only getting weaker. Its industrial base is gone, is financial structure is a sham, and its labor force is untrained and impoverished, with anyone competent leaving for the west. The west damn near killed Russia in 2014, but it is a slow death that is still ongoing.

[Breccia]

Will Smith upstaged you and started WW3 on the Oscars.

Smith also knows how to back away from starting a stupid fight, in a few hours. Putin hasn't learned that in a month.

[Dontrike]

To me that just means Ukraine gets destroyed. However long that takes. Which is quite sad.

"Being right" isn't great replacement for losses of heavy equipment that keep piling up.

Will Russia suddenly get new tanks and more experienced conscripts all of a sudden to win?

You are right though "being right" is definitely not a replacement for equipment losses. How much equipment does Russia keep losing again?

[Omians]

[Kaleredar]

Will Russia suddenly get new tanks and more experienced conscripts all of a sudden to win?

You are right though "being right" is definitely not a replacement for equipment losses. How much equipment does Russia keep losing again?

If being right and losing equipment is bad, I can only imagine how bad being wrong and still losing equipment is.

Maybe Russia can tell us.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

You want a Scarlet Witch? Cuz that's how you get a Scarlet Witch.

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Smith also knows how to back away from starting a stupid fight, in a few hours. Putin hasn't learned that in a month.

And the Oscar for Best "Fuck Around and Find Out" goes to Chris Rock and Will Smith

[Iphie]

Talk of an off-ramp for Russia, of a negotiated deal may not really be an option when you have Russian state TV pushing messages like this - that any deal will be seen as a defeat of Russia in the eyes of its people, its army and its allies.. Then you have Russian politicians saying that they will build cities in Siberia (aka gulags) and deport millions of Ukrainians to them to 'de-nazifiy' them. The message still being pushed is total victory. Any change of that message is going to have a real 'Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia' vibe to it.
.

I mean, the state media just follows what the Government says, so if Putin says this is a victory the state media will change it's tune and hail him as a shrewd dealmaker and victor.

[PhaelixWW]

The Guardian: The drone operators who halted Russian convoy headed for Kyiv

One week into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia massed a 40-mile mechanised column in order to mount an overwhelming attack on Kyiv from the north.

But the convoy of armoured vehicles and supply trucks ground to a halt within days, and the offensive failed, in significant part because of a series of night ambushes carried out by a team of 30 Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes, according to a Ukrainian commander.

The drone operators were drawn from an air reconnaissance unit, Aerorozvidka, which began eight years ago as a group of volunteer IT specialists and hobbyists designing their own machines and has evolved into an essential element in Ukraine’s successful David-and-Goliath resistance.

However, while Ukraine’s western backers have supplied thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment, Aerorozvidka has been forced to resort to crowdfunding and a network of personal contacts in order to keep going, by getting hold of components such as advanced modems and thermal imaging cameras, in the face of export controls that prohibit them being sent to Ukraine.

The unit’s commander, Lt Col Yaroslav Honchar, gave an account of the ambush near the town of Ivankiv that helped stop the vast, lumbering Russian offensive in its tracks. He said the Ukrainian fighters on quad bikes were able to approach the advancing Russian column at night by riding through the forest on either side of the road leading south towards Kyiv from the direction of Chernobyl.

The Ukrainian soldiers were equipped with night vision goggles, sniper rifles, remotely detonated mines, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras and others capable of dropping small 1.5kg bombs.

“This one little unit in the night destroyed two or three vehicles at the head of this convoy, and after that it was stuck. They stayed there two more nights, and [destroyed] many vehicles,” Honchar said.

The Russians broke the column into smaller units to try to make headway towards the Ukrainian capital, but the same assault team was able to mount an attack on its supply depot, he claimed, crippling the Russians’ capacity to advance.

“The first echelon of the Russian force was stuck without heat, without oil, without bombs and without gas. And it all happened because of the work of 30 people,” Honchar said.

The Aerorozvidka unit also claims to have helped defeat a Russian airborne attack on Hostomel airport, just north-west of Kyiv, in the first day of the war, using drones to locate, target and shell about 200 Russian paratroopers concealed at one end of the airfield.

“That contributed largely to the fact that they could not use this airfield for further development of their attack,” Lt Taras, one of Honchar’s aides, said.

Not all the details of these claims could be independently verified, but US defence officials have said that Ukrainian attacks contributed to the halting of the armoured column around Ivankiv. The huge amount of aerial combat footage published by the Ukrainians underlines the importance of drones to their resistance.

The unit was started by young university-educated Ukrainians who had been part of the 2014 Maidan uprising and volunteered to use their technical skills in the resistance against the first Russian invasion in Crimea and the Donbas region. Its founder, Volodymyr Kochetkov-Sukach, was an investment banker who was killed in action in 2015 in Donbas – a reminder of the high risks involved. The Russians can latch on to the drone’s electronic signature and quickly strike with mortars, so the Aerorozvidka teams have to launch and run.

Honchar is an ex-soldier turned IT marketing consultant, who returned to the army after the first Russian invasion. Taras was a management consultant, who specialised in fundraising for the unit and only joined full-time as a combatant in February.

In its early days, the unit used commercial surveillance drones, but its team of engineers, software designers and drone enthusiasts later developed their own designs.

They built a range of surveillance drones, as well as large 1.5-metre eight-rotor machines capable of dropping bombs and rocket-propelled anti-tank grenades, and created a system called Delta, a network of sensors along the frontlines that fed into a digital map so commanders could see enemy movements as they happened. It now uses the Starlink satellite system, supplied by Elon Musk, to feed live data to Ukrainian artillery units, allowing them to zero in on Russian targets.

The unit was disbanded in 2019 by the then defence minister, but it was hastily revived in October last year as the Russian invasion threat loomed.

The ability to maintain an aerial view of Russian movements has been critical to the success of Ukraine’s guerrilla-style tactics. But Aerorozvidka’s efforts to expand, and to replace lost equipment, have been hindered by a limited supply of drones and components, and efforts to secure them through defence ministry procurement have produced little, partly because they are a recent addition to the armed forces and still considered outsiders.

Furthermore, some of the advanced modems and thermal-imaging cameras made in the US and Canada are subject to export controls, so they have resorted to crowdfunding and asking a global network of friends and supporters to find them on eBay or other websites.

Marina Borozna, who was an economics student at university with Taras, is exploring ways of buying what the unit needs and finding routes to get the supplies across the border.

“I know there are people who want to help them fight, people who want to do a bit more than the humanitarian aid,” Borozna said. “If you want to address the root cause of this human suffering, you’ve got to defeat the Russian invasion. Aerorozvidka makes a huge difference and they need our support.”

Her partner, Klaus Hentrich, a molecular biologist in Cambridge, is also helping the effort, drawing on his experience as a conscript in the German army.

“I was in an artillery reconnaissance unit myself, so I immediately realised the outsized impact that Aerorozvidka has. They effectively give eyes to their artillery,” Hentrich said. “Where we can make a difference is to rally international support, be it financial contributions, help to get harder-to-find technical components or donations of common civilian drones.”

The unit is also looking at ways to overcome Russian jamming, part of the electronic warfare being waged in Ukraine in parallel to the bombs, shells and missiles. At present, Aerorozvidka typically waits for the Russians turn off their jamming equipment to launch their own drones, and then it sends up its machines at the same time. The unit then concentrates its firepower on the electronic warfare vehicles.

Honchar describes these technological battles, and Aerorozvidka’s way of fighting, as the future of warfare, in which swarms of small teams networked together by mutual trust and advanced communications can overwhelm a bigger and more heavily armed adversary.

“We are like a hive of bees,” he said. “One bee is nothing, but if you are faced with a thousand, it can defeat a big force. We are like bees, but we work at night.”

[Shalcker]

Where is the money to build the new pipelines to access other energy markets coming from?

Gas and oil still gets sold, even while war is ongoing. More then ten billions $ each month.

Cost of building entire Nord Stream 2 - 1,222 km (759 mi) in length - underwater pipeline was ~11 billions $. With all associated infrastructure.

Russian budget was balanced around 44$ oil price. Current Urals price is 94$.

I'm pretty sure I read a couple of weeks ago that your pipelines to them were already running at max capacity.

Yes, current pipelines to China are running at capacity, with planned increases. More pipelines were already planned before war - like route going through Mongolia.

I know you and China think the west is falling, but all the petty bickering we tend to do amongst ourselves has stopped for now and you have our full attention.

"Getting full attention" doesn't let you deny reality of world energy markets being largely zero-sum and unable to replace Russia anytime soon.

Especially with investors not being sure how long your war fervor will last and when you'll be back to "let's reduce carbon emissions" and nix fossil fuels, with oil and gas production already suffering from years of underinvestment.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I mean, the state media just follows what the Government says, so if Putin says this is a victory the state media will change it's tune and hail him as a shrewd dealmaker and victor.

Sure, but what that also means is that this is how Putin feels about "off-ramps" currently. It might change in the future...but right now...Putin still wants to push for the W.

[Zaydin]

The funny thing is that anything short of 'total victory' is going to be seen as a humiliating defeat for Russia due to failing to outright defeat an army that on paper it outnumbered and outgunned. I just wonder whether it will be an ultimately fatal blow to Vladof Putlers grip on power in Russia or not.

[Shalcker]

Will Russia suddenly get new tanks and more experienced conscripts all of a sudden to win?

Assessment of deployed Russian forces was "around 90% power remaining" by Pentagon estimates at two weeks; four weeks in Pentagon estimate was "slightly below 90%". And then there is still potential for "everything we actually have" rather then just 150k deployed to Ukraine.

Armor gets repaired over time; there are reports of trains coming back to Russia with them.

Meanwhile every Ukrainian military build or repair facility gets missile strikes.

You are right though "being right" is definitely not a replacement for equipment losses. How much equipment does Russia keep losing again?

It can afford a lot more then Ukraine.

[Kallisto]

Idk, they’re shifting goalposts by claiming their push west was just to weaken Ukraine so they could more easily annex Donbas. Seems like what counts as a W is a moving target.

Tbh when you have full control of the media like Putin does then pretty much anything can be twisted to a W.

Hell tomorrow he could send the invasion force home and go "We destroyed the Azov group. Ukraine has been denazified as a result. Job done." and the Russian media and parliament will proclaim it to be the biggest post soviet Russian victory.

[Zaydin]

It can afford a lot more then Ukraine.

No it can't. Russia is predicted to start defaulting on its debts by mid-April.

[Kaleredar]

Assessment of deployed Russian forces was "around 90% power remaining" by Pentagon estimates at two weeks; four weeks in Pentagon estimate was "slightly below 90%"); and then there is still potential for "everything we actually have" rather then just 150k deployed to Ukraine.

Armor gets repaired over time; there are reports of trains coming back to Russia with them.

Meanwhile every Ukrainian military build or repair facility gets missile strikes.

It can afford a lot more then Ukraine.

"Russia might be fucked, but not as fucked as Ukraine probably will be!" is not the sterling sentiment you think it is.

[Kallisto]

"Russia might be fucked, but not as fucked as Ukraine probably will be!" is not the sterling sentiment you think it is.

Especially if the war ends Ukraine will almost certainly be Marshall planned into a swift recovery. Russia will not.

[Dontrike]

Armor gets repaired over time; there are reports of trains coming back to Russia with them.

Do you think armor repairs itself like bone? If you mean by people there's not enough supplies for that, either way what you said was stupid.

It can afford a lot more then Ukraine.

Do you believe any of the crap you post or are you made to do it in the hopes to be employee of the month? Ukraine keeps getting equipment by the day Russia......is using shit from WW2 museums.

[Shalcker]

And you seem to be under the further delusion that the damage to Russia hasn't already been done, and that it wont continue to unfurl. The rest of Europe has massively shifted forwards its timeline to cut its dependence on Russian energy, and this has given them the perfect reason to keep pursuing that.

That timeline is still way beyond time "Ukraine gets absolutely f****d" even by most optimistic analysts if Russia doesn't actually decide to leave.

Half or more of a country becoming refugees is well within realm of possibility.

The moment a ceasefire is drawn either because an agreement was reached or Ukraine surrendered, the rest of the world doesn't go "well, back to business as usual!" as you seem to suspect and just let Russia keep doing their thing, same as before all this started. Why should the sanctions be removed? Because it mildly inconveniences some European countries? Why should they go back to using Russian energy sources? Just because some money invested got flushed down the drain?

Because for several years they don't have a choice. It's not "mildly inconveniences", it's "hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk, entire industries would be on the brink", and you freeze in winter too.

And you forget Russian side of it - why should Russia sell you gas and oil if you refuse to sell what it needs in turn and try to freeze reserves made out of those sales?

World isn't going to be "back to business as usual" even with every sanction removed.

Putin has shown just how bad an actor Russia can be, and moreover exposed the ways in which he thinks he can keep the world dependent upon him.

Likewise EU and US have tipped their hand, and world - especially Asia - is paying attention.

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Do you think armor repairs itself like bone? If you mean by people there's not enough supplies for that, either way what you said was stupid.

As i've written, damaged tanks and the rest of equipment gets shipped back to Russia and repaired. Cycle isn't very fast and not everything will be restored but it will not be zero either.

Do you believe any of the crap you post or are you made to do it in the hopes to be employee of the month? Ukraine keeps getting equipment by the day Russia......is using shit from WW2 museums.

Ukraine keeps getting infantry equipment while losing everything heavier.

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No it can't. Russia is predicted to start defaulting on its debts by mid-April.

Russia was already predicted "to start defaulting" immediately as war started; still didn't happen.

And so far most scenarios aren't "Russia refuses to pay because it lacks money" - it's "West refuses to proceed with Russian transaction".

[Kaleredar]

That timeline is still way beyond time "Ukraine gets absolutely f****d" even by most optimistic analysts if Russia doesn't actually decide to leave.

Half or more of a country becoming refugees is well within realm of possibility.

And again, if that happens... how has Russia "succeeded?"

Because it seems to me like you're the ones on the ticking clock in actuality. You need a convenient, feel-good victory wrought from Ukraine so you can pull out before sanctions ruin your country beyond the decades of damage it's already inflicted in the hope that you can claw some sense of normalcy back. And that hope shrinks with every week that Ukraine persists.

But you haven't scared Ukraine into surrendering yet. And, as another poster wryly pointed out, the only shock and awe you've affected is how shocked and awed the rest of the world is at your military's blinding incompetence.

Because for several years they don't have a choice. It's not "mildly inconveniences", it's "hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk, entire industries would be on the brink", and you freeze in winter too.

And you forget Russian side of it - why should Russia sell you gas and oil if you refuse to sell what it needs in turn and try to freeze reserves made out of those sales?

World isn't going to be "back to business as usual" even with every sanction removed.

And the entire world is much more able to pivot, and is indeed pivoting as we speak one month in, to move away from Russia.

Russia cannot afford to have the world pivot away from it. We're seeing that already.

I have nothing but confidence that the EU and the US can rely heartily on themselves and others. After all, they're not at war, sending their young men to die, facing down sanctions that are crippling their economies to the core. They just lost a trading partner. Surely some number of the 194 other countries in the world can fulfill whatever void Russia creates.

More oil needs to be pumped? Russia doesn't have a monopoly on oil. I'm sure other countries like the US and SA are licking their chops at the prospect of sinking new wells and selling to interested buyers. Lots of wells closed in the United States or had construction halted due to the 2020 pandemic, and you've presented a perfect reason for them to reopen those. And the more forward thinking countries will be taking this time to pivot away from fossil fuels altogether.

Your constant appeal here is "don't think of Ukraine, think of yourselves! Just let Russia do what Russia's going to do! It doesn't concern you!"

"Don't think of Poland, think of yourselves! Just let Germany do what Germany is going to do! It doesn't concern you!"

The rest of the world has learned better than to let tin-pot dictators with delusions of grandeur run rampant throughout Europe. Putin thought they hadn't, or thought they wouldn't care. Putin thought wrong.

Likewise EU and US have tipped their hand, and world - especially Asia - is paying attention.

They really haven't. The US in particular really is sitting pretty on this one. Literally nothing is at risk for them here, and they've been given the perfect opportunity to smack Russia upside the head with international support. A position, worth reiterating, that Russia put itself in.

Nigh every person in the United States, outside of a special handful of Russian shills like the deplatformed Trump and his increasingly irrelevant toadies, seems pretty happy with the sanctions levied against Russia.

You actually unintentionally united both the democrats and republicans, in that both groups overwhelmingly (70%+) support the US banding together with its allies in support of Ukraine. The majority of the US also supports crushing sanctions levied against Russia, and many think that the US should be doing more.

Again, perhaps Putin believed he had cleaved enough of the country into Trump's idiotic camp such that it would be a hot button issue in the US. It really isn't. Even Trump had to backpeddle away from his initial praising of Putin.

In fact take that as a lesson. Because, just like China, Trump is in it for himself as well. And if these are the kinds of alliances you think you're creating, you're gonna get burned pretty bad when push comes to shove and they abandon you for their own self interests.

We've got historical precedent on that, too. The USSR thought it had a friend in Germany in WW2. Until they didn't.