Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

The United said:
Our own bubble means we only hear from one side of the conflict mostly. I mean it is not exactly hard to understand what I mean there.

And, I am talking about the combat and war news specifically.
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I'd say most of what is discussed in here concerning the war is at least contrasted with ukranian and russian sources from the front before published. Of course there are exceptions.

Concerning ammo and striking capabilities, I don't remember any war ending because of one side running out of them. Bullets and missiles always find a way as long as someone is willing to pay for them. If anyone thought so, it was a naive take.

As far as I know wars end for 3 main reasons:
A) One side accomplishes all of its goals, B) One side has a crushing superiority so the other sues for peace in order to not get crushed, and C) war fatigue from one or both sides result in peace talks. IMO Russia haven't got A, has failed in achieving B and is now bombing mainly to get C going.
 
VorZakone said:
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Am I missing something here or is Ukraine now in the business of stealth technology , or they have found some backdoor for the C-x00 SA radars. Because if what they say is true, the Bairaktars couldn't make it through the networked defences in the later stage of the war, but here a UAV managed to hit a fecking strategic base hundreds of km intro Russia. Either way, unbelievably embarrassing for Putin.
 
The Firestarter said:
Am I missing something here or is Ukraine now in the business of stealth technology , or they have found some backdoor for the C-x00 SA radars. Because if what they say is true, the Bairaktars couldn't make it through the networked defences in the later stage of the war, but here a UAV managed to hit a fecking strategic base hundreds of km intro Russia. Either way, unbelievably embarrassing for Putin.
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Russia claims that they actually shot down the drones and that it was just some debris that damaged the parked planes. Considering the apparently small damage this seems plausible to me.

In this case it was most likely a bit of Russian incompetence, they simply didn't expect such strikes and reacted a bit to slow to fully prevent damage.
 
Krakenzero said:
I'd say most of what is discussed in here concerning the war is at least contrasted with ukranian and russian sources from the front before published. Of course there are exceptions.

Concerning ammo and striking capabilities, I don't remember any war ending because of one side running out of them. Bullets and missiles always find a way as long as someone is willing to pay for them. If anyone thought so, it was a naive take.

As far as I know wars end for 3 main reasons:
A) One side accomplishes all of its goals, B) One side has a crushing superiority so the other sues for peace in order to not get crushed, and C) war fatigue from one or both sides result in peace talks. IMO Russia haven't got A, has failed in achieving B and is now bombing mainly to get C going.
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We rarely presented news from Russian sources, let alone any credible sources.

@harm had to debunk many of them that were posted here. Then there are those who believe that the Russians will tell the world that they are having 1000 of them getting killed or injured every day, and things get complicated.

And according to the sources we read, you would get a picture of a million UKR soldiers fighting against 500k Russians, with 600 of them or so losing every day over there for 10 months. You would wonder how the Russians could even stay there at all, let alone do whatever they are doing now.

I agree with your points. It is just that people don't seem to like it when you question the common sense of some of the overblown figures.

Don't get me wrong, I would get excited if those figures were true because it means the war can be over soon. It is just that after awhile, it looks like this thread is filling up with feel-good stuff only.
 
The United said:
We rarely presented news from Russian sources, let alone any credible sources.

@harm had to debunk many of them that were posted here. Then there are those who believe that the Russians will tell the world that they are having 1000 of them getting killed or injured every day, and things get complicated.

And according to the sources we read, you would get a picture of a million UKR soldiers fighting against 500k Russians, with 600 of them or so losing every day over there for 10 months. You would wonder how the Russians could even stay there at all, let alone do whatever they are doing now.

I agree with your points. It is just that people don't seem to like it when you question the common sense of some of the overblown figures.

Don't get me wrong, I would get excited if those figures were true because it means the war can be over soon. It is just that after awhile, it looks like this thread is filling up with feel-good stuff only.
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Bar the guy who admitted tens of pages ago that is blatantly doing propaganda for Ukraine, I'd say that the rest of the sources posted here come from either official international media or Twitter accounts that verify their own information through cross check with russian sources and/or visual confirmation. In a modern war this is as good as it gets regarding information, and that's why I come here to get it.

On death counts: there are reasonably credible sources that the russian death count in places like Bahkmut is pretty high. In any case, I think actions are stronger than words and the fact that Russia ordered a partial mobilization of their civilians about 6 months after going to war with about 200,000 soldiers speaks for itself.

I don't think there are a million ukranian soldiers, as the official number before the war I think was about 200,000. However, I do think there's at least 1 million ukranians actively working in defending their territory. Lots of them are probably engineers, doctors, truck drivers or provide logistics/resources in some other way. When you are fully mobilized defending your country from the beginning these kind of things matter. That's an advantage that Russia doesn't have and it probably reflects in the battlefield and in the death count.

If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that the UA would have 35.000 to 40.000 KIA (about 120-150 a day) and the RA 80.000 to 100.000 (about 300-350 a day). That is considering both the invader/invadee ratio, the way both armies fight (RA with a more direct approach while the UA is understandably more cautious and attrition based) and armies only (no civilians, which would of course vastly increase Ukraine's death count). However, these numbers don't tell the whole story as there are a lot of other factors in play, like Russian military reserves being considerably bigger (meaning they can keep losing forces at a higher rate for a longer time), UA having the home advantage in being able to recruit, heal the wounded, regroup and mobilize forces faster than the RA, etc.

It's easy to lose perspective, but what the UA has been doing is incredible. In February almost no one thought they would last longer than a month, let alone have a good shot at winning. And they have kept beating the odds every step of the way. Not even a couple of months ago the discussion was if Kherson could be liberated by Christmas, before the really cold winter. And it happened seven (!) weeks earlier. Maybe that's why is so easy to get carried away. And that was not a feel good story, that's just what happened. Hopefully the good news keep coming.
 
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Krakenzero said:
Bar the guy who admitted tens of pages ago that is blatantly doing propaganda for Ukraine, I'd say that the rest of the sources posted here come from either official international media or Twitter accounts that verify their own information through cross check with russian sources and/or visual confirmation. In a modern war this is as good as it gets regarding information, and that's why I come here to get it.

On death counts: there are reasonably credible sources that the russian death count in places like Bahkmut is pretty high. In any case, I think actions are stronger than words and the fact that Russia ordered a partial mobilization of their civilians about 6 months after going to war with about 200,000 soldiers speaks for itself.

I don't think there are a million ukranian soldiers, as the official number before the war I think was about 200,000. However, I do think there's at least 1 million ukranians actively working in defending their territory. Lots of them are probably engineers, doctors, truck drivers or provide logistics/resources in some other way. When you are fully mobilized defending your country from the beginning these kind of things matter. That's an advantage that Russia doesn't have and it probably reflects in the battlefield and in the death count.

If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that the UA would have 35.000 to 40.000 KIA (about 120-150 a day) and the RA 80.000 to 100.000 (about 300-350 a day). That is considering both the invader/invadee ratio, the way both armies fight (RA with a more direct approach while the UA is understandably more cautious and attrition based) and armies only (no civilians, which would of course vastly increase Ukraine's death count). However, these numbers don't tell the whole story as there are a lot of other factors in play, like Russian military reserves being considerably bigger (meaning they can keep losing forces at a higher rate for a longer time), UA having the home advantage in being able to recruit, heal the wounded, regroup and mobilize forces faster than the RA, etc.

It's easy to lose perspective, but what the UA has been doing is incredible. In February almost no one thought they would last longer than a month, let alone have a good shot at winning. And they have kept beating the odds every step of the way. Not even a couple of months ago the discussion was if Kherson could be liberated by Christmas, before the really cold winter. And it happened seven (!) weeks earlier. Maybe that's why is so easy to get carried away. And that was not a feel good story, that's just what happened. Hopefully the good news keep coming.
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Agreed. And, they keep surprising everyone with their creativities and capabilities.
 
VorZakone said:
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Maybe instead they should lobby to provide more advanced weapons that can end this war faster without needing to engage into this artillery war? Or they expect soldiers with rifles to liberate territories by going up against artillery shells? It’s literally a byproduct of their nonsensical constraints they have put on Ukraine.
 
Rajma said:
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While Latvia can do anything it wants in its country I can’t stress enough how idiotic this decision is if we consider the eventual defeat of Putin’s regime (not only in Ukraine but in Russia as well) as our collective global goal. Same as with the Russian branch of BBC — they keep creating bureaucratic issues for its journalists (and if they’ll have to relocate to, say, London, they’ll have to drastically cut the staff down).

TV Rain should’ve been more thorough, they do make a lot of technical mistakes (maybe it’s because they’re short on staff) and the things like Crimea’s map, while being an obvious oversight, rightly provoke a reaction from Ukraine & all the powers that support it. But they’ve been covering this war 24/7, exposing Russia’s lies, its war crimes etc., they’re not some hidden agents of Putin’s propaganda.
 
harms said:
While Latvia can do anything it wants in its country I can’t stress enough how idiotic this decision is if we consider the eventual defeat of Putin’s regime (not only in Ukraine but in Russia as well) as our collective global goal. Same as with the Russian branch of BBC — they keep creating bureaucratic issues for its journalists (and if they’ll have to relocate to, say, London, they’ll have to drastically cut the staff down).

TV Rain should’ve been more thorough, they do make a lot of technical mistakes (maybe it’s because they’re short on staff) and the things like Crimea’s map, while being an obvious oversight, rightly provoke a reaction from Ukraine & all the powers that support it. But they’ve been covering this war 24/7, exposing Russia’s lies, its war crimes etc., they’re not some hidden agents of Putin’s propaganda.
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I think you’re wrong, the goal shouldn’t be to defeat Putin regime instead we need to defeat a fundamental element Russizm on which the Putin regime and country has been built and for that you need to be showing hard truths about their society and not caring for the conditions of “their boys” in the trenches under Bakhmut.
 
First satellite pictures seems to confirm that at least 1 TU-95 was damaged in the strike on Engels airbase.





This sounds like they used laser guidance for the terminal phase.



The big question still is how they where able to fly a missile/UAV designed in the 70s 700km into enemy territory without getting intercepted.
 
the hea said:
First satellite pictures seems to confirm that at least 1 TU-95 was damaged in the strike on Engels airbase.





This sounds like they used laser guidance for the terminal phase.



The big question still is how they where able to fly a missile/UAV designed in the 70s 700km into enemy territory without getting intercepted.
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So that’s 2-3 strategic bombers out of action which are worth of 100M USD a piece and Russia has no way to replenishing them as production is simply not there. Looks very good return for a price of few drones.
 
I was anti NATO until Russia decided to launch a baseless invasion of its neighbour.
The idea that it is Russia that needs security guarantees is asinine.
They are the ines with a history of invading neighbouring countries.
 


Now a strike on an airforce base in Kursk is reported. Three strikes deep into Russia in two days is quite impressive, despite the apparently limited effectiveness.
 
Rajma said:
So that’s 2-3 strategic bombers out of action which are worth of 100M USD a piece and Russia has no way to replenishing them as production is simply not there. Looks very good return for a price of few drones.
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Yes, the TU-95 mentioned above and this TU-22M at the Dyagilevo airbase that was confirmed yesterday.

 
MTF said:
I dunno... they're already a significant supply route for NATO weapons getting delivered to Ukraine. They're a full NATO member too, so they wouldn't quite be doing it on their own.
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The Romanian government confirmed that they will not be getting involved even if Moldova is attacked, as far as I remember. I am confident this includes shooting down russian missiles over Moldavian territory. Especially since it's the second incident in the last 5 weeks with russian missiles flying through our airspace before.
 
Mihai said:
The Romanian government confirmed that they will not be getting involved even if Moldova is attacked, as far as I remember. I am confident this includes shooting down russian missiles over Moldavian territory. Especially since it's the second incident in the last 5 weeks with russian missiles flying through our airspace before.
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Understood, didn't realize Romania had made their own position public on this.
 
Rajma said:
I think you’re wrong, the goal shouldn’t be to defeat Putin regime instead we need to defeat a fundamental element Russizm on which the Putin regime and country has been built and for that you need to be showing hard truths about their society and not caring for the conditions of “their boys” in the trenches under Bakhmut.
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The goal of showing the real picture of how those troops lack basic supplies and are sent to death by thousands is not to improve the efficiency with which the Russian army can murder Ukrainians, its to prevent people from joining the army & to make (Russian) people question the idea of this war that has their loved ones freezing to death in the above-mentioned trenches under Bakhmut.

The idea that TV Rain sends any supplies to the Russian army isn’t just ridiculous because they’ve been openly against this war since the very beginning and never changed their stance but also because they’re struggling to maintain their own existence due to the unstable financial situation.

And yes, the mistake of showing Crimea as Russia on the map is inexcusable considering the circumstances but it’s not a Freudian slip that suddenly shows the true colors of TV Rain like the sources that you quote keep saying.
 
stefan92 said:
Now a strike on an airforce base in Kursk is reported. Three strikes deep into Russia in two days is quite impressive, despite the apparently limited effectiveness.
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I think calling it as limited effectiveness (given their cost) is a stretch when they put out of action a couple of strategic bombers which are priceless to Russia. Also putting a toll on the logistics by targeting oil depot near Ukrainian border.
 
Rajma said:
I think calling it as limited effectiveness (given their cost) is a stretch when they put out of action a couple of strategic bombers which are priceless to Russia. Also putting a toll on the logistics by targeting oil depot near Ukrainian border.
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True, but I just feel like the strikes were actually more or less failures/intercepted and did just a fraction of the possible damage, if they got a big warhead to explode correctly.
 
stefan92 said:
True, but I just feel like the strikes were actually more or less failures/intercepted and did just a fraction of the possible damage, if they got a big warhead to explode correctly.
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That’s true as well, Russia got really lucky could have been a real carnage to that fleet had one of those rockets have gone off.
 
TwoSheds said:
Not really surprising, need to identify what they're doing and fix the sanctions though.
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Exactly... considering that a typical trade unit for semiconductors is "1000 pieces" it shouldn't surprise anyone if they had significant stock to make a few hundreds
 
harms said:
The goal of showing the real picture of how those troops lack basic supplies and are sent to death by thousands is not to improve the efficiency with which the Russian army can murder Ukrainians, its to prevent people from joining the army & to make (Russian) people question the idea of this war that has their loved ones freezing to death in the above-mentioned trenches under Bakhmut.

The idea that TV Rain sends any supplies to the Russian army isn’t just ridiculous because they’ve been openly against this war since the very beginning and never changed their stance but also because they’re struggling to maintain their own existence due to the unstable financial situation.

And yes, the mistake of showing Crimea as Russia on the map is inexcusable considering the circumstances but it’s not a Freudian slip that suddenly shows the true colors of TV Rain like the sources that you quote keep saying.
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The problem is that TV Rain is still overtly pro-Russian (even if anti-Putin). Funnily enough they turned up to the meeting with the Latvian regulators without an interpreter and genuinely expected the meeting to be conducted in Russian.
 
TMDaines said:
The problem is that TV Rain is still overtly pro-Russian (even if anti-Putin). Funnily enough they turned up to the meeting with the Latvian regulators without an interpreter and genuinely expected the meeting to be conducted in Russian.
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The main goal of TV Rain and other Russian independent media in this mess is to influence the opinion of as many Russians as it can to sway them away from supporting the war. You’re not going to convince anyone Russian with anti-Russian messages. If you have examples of anti-Putin but pro-war sentiments, I’m all ears. And Korostelyov’s thing doesn’t count since he was literally fired for it.

As for the meeting — I’ve read that all previous ones were held in Russian by mutual agreement. If that’s not true (this is what Dzyadko says) then this is obviously an extremely insensitive thing to do. It we’re talking about funny details, Āboliņš praising Putin and talking down about Ukraine surely is an interesting detail. It was a mistake and he apologized for it? Well, so did TV Rain.

Overall - I find it a bit weird that everyone’s asking Russians why haven’t they overthrown Putin yet only to gang up on the likes of TV Rain that have been speaking up openly (and quite loudly) against the annexation of Crimea, the war on Donbass, the current invasion etc. throughout the entire twelve-something years that they have existed.

I’m not even their fan — just like it usually is with Russian opposition, I have a lot of issues with both their goals and means to achieve them, plus they simply aren’t the most reliable source of information due to the nature of live TV but at this point stopping Putin is surely the priority and they are doing their job better than anything else does at this point. I’m not going to vote for Navalny in a democratic election but I’d back him if he’ll go against Putin — same logic applies here.
 
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