Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Stack said:
Thats exactly what I thought. Watching two men be killed
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I don’t know if you watched all the reply videos that show the whole thing but it seems one survived as the Ukrainian soldiers drag him away and tourniquet his leg. They they then place him in the trailer of a truck and he is taken away to what I presume is a place he can get medical treatment.
 
Could them restarting these flights towards Russia be linked to the Russians using the Kinzhal missile recently? - I'd imagine you want to not only remind the Russians of your capabilities but also check if the Russians had redeployed any air defences from the North to bolster defences against Ukrainian strikes towards Russia.

I' reckon a co-ordinated flight towards Russia while other assets are used should give you a great amount of data on response times, radar installations tracking you and radio chatter getting air defences on standby and this would provide a wealth of intelligence that might be useful to...anyone that might want to be targeting Russia about now.
 
Simbo said:
Feck knows what the implications of this are.

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This could become interesting. Baikonur is critical for Russia because it's the only spaceport usable for manned flights, so the entire Russian ISS supply would be at risk.

It also is a problem because the heavy Proton launch vehicle only starts from here - it's last launch for example was a military communication satellite.

But we will see what really will happen. Russia and Kazhakstan arguing about Baikonur is happening every few years. But in the current political climate, with Kazhakstan slowly realigning itself more towards China instead of Russia, this could become more serious then before.
 
Simbo said:
Feck knows what the implications of this are.

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If nothing else it will cause issues for supplies on the ISS and moving of astronauts depending what pans out.

It's interesting about the debt though, as there's been two big issues with the Soyuz capsules recently (the most recent has meant a planned resending of a replacement by Roscosmos) and it was becoming obvious they were having bigger issues than normal despite them claiming that wasn't true.

If there's any concerns about safety at all I would have thought that the US will send a dragon capsule to get the astronauts off the station as they won't want to take risks and that could be a bigger issue for the upkeep of the ISS.
 
Is it expected that Ukraine will soon have to give up Bakhmut? Are they capable of launching any sort of counter offensive as long as they have to commit significant numbers of troops there?

I don't disagree with the argument that if they leave it it will just be the same in the next town. I just wonder how, or if at all, Ukraine will manage to unbog the situation.
 
pierrethesnack said:
Is it expected that Ukraine will soon have to give up Bakhmut? Are they capable of launching any sort of counter offensive as long as they have to commit significant numbers of troops there?

I don't disagree with the argument that if they leave it it will just be the same in the next town. I just wonder how, or if at all, Ukraine will manage to unbog the situation.
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Not really, but they are very confident at their saying and we saw how successful there were with Kherson's surprise attack, seeing how most of the latest tanks and other artillery isn't even fully got to Ukraine, if they have most of the stuff ready and set - there will be some sort of attack coming.
 
pierrethesnack said:
Is it expected that Ukraine will soon have to give up Bakhmut? Are they capable of launching any sort of counter offensive as long as they have to commit significant numbers of troops there?

I don't disagree with the argument that if they leave it it will just be the same in the next town. I just wonder how, or if at all, Ukraine will manage to unbog the situation.
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I think they are capable of both at the same time. First of all, offense and defense need different equipment. To hold Bakhmut, they need menpower, artillery, drones and anti armor weapons. But to attack, they need most of all MBTs and IFVs to breach russian defenses. Of course you need significant numbers of troops for both, but it seems like a shortage of troops is not a problem so far. There are also thousands ua soldiers in training in many western states right now. I believe Ukraine has enough reserves, especially because they don't throw them into the meat grinder like Russia does. Development of smart tactics together with Nato, western equipment and a good healthcare greatly increase the life expectancy of a soldier. As soon as the western armor arrives, we can expect Ukraine to take the initiative again. It won't be as easy as the last one of course, because even Russians learn through mistakes, but I think they had more than enough time to prepare a good tactic.
 
I think it's actually time for a new thread to talk about Russia in a non Ukraine invasion context.

Take this film (not sure where I came across it now) which will probably lead you to the conclusion that it is nigh on impossible to imagine Russia as a "normal" country any time in the next 50 years.

Putin and his FSB are utter scum.

 
Raoul said:
An ode to the MAGA base. He will get torched for a it if he ever makes it to a Gen.
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Especially as he has a track record as a congressman of voting for assistance to Ukraine
 
Raoul said:
Which is probably closer to what he believes. He's just pandering to Trump voters at the moment because he thinks it will give him political cachet in his inevitable showdown with Trump.
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Do these people really 'believe' anything?
 
JuriM said:
Not really, but they are very confident at their saying and we saw how successful there were with Kherson's surprise attack, seeing how most of the latest tanks and other artillery isn't even fully got to Ukraine, if they have most of the stuff ready and set - there will be some sort of attack coming.
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Ragnar123 said:
I think they are capable of both at the same time. First of all, offense and defense need different equipment. To hold Bakhmut, they need menpower, artillery, drones and anti armor weapons. But to attack, they need most of all MBTs and IFVs to breach russian defenses. Of course you need significant numbers of troops for both, but it seems like a shortage of troops is not a problem so far. There are also thousands ua soldiers in training in many western states right now. I believe Ukraine has enough reserves, especially because they don't throw them into the meat grinder like Russia does. Development of smart tactics together with Nato, western equipment and a good healthcare greatly increase the life expectancy of a soldier. As soon as the western armor arrives, we can expect Ukraine to take the initiative again. It won't be as easy as the last one of course, because even Russians learn through mistakes, but I think they had more than enough time to prepare a good tactic.
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Cheers, both.
 
JuriM said:
Not really, but they are very confident at their saying and we saw how successful there were with Kherson's surprise attack, seeing how most of the latest tanks and other artillery isn't even fully got to Ukraine, if they have most of the stuff ready and set - there will be some sort of attack coming.
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As soon as Ukraine will get the new stuff, I say they must race through the south with one main target in mind: Sevastopol. That is the prize because it would make a world of difference when it comes to maritime security for Ukraine by neutralizing the main Russian naval threat in the area. It is the modern day version of Port Arthur as a victory there followed by a conquest of Crimea would give Ukraine a far more advantageous position ahead of any peace talks.

Sir Matt said:
More details:

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That fighter pilot must have found his licence in a box of Cracker Jacks.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
As soon as Ukraine will get the new stuff, I say they must race through the south with one main target in mind: Sevastopol. That is the prize because it would make a world of difference when it comes to maritime security for Ukraine by neutralizing the main Russian naval threat in the area. It is the modern day version of Port Arthur as a victory there followed by a conquest of Crimea would give Ukraine a far more advantageous position ahead of any peace talks.
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Tough one. I would think an attack towards Melitopol/Mariupol makes more sense at first. Break through to the coast, destroy the bridge and put coastal defenses in place so that Russia can't resupply Crimea as it would need to.
 
Dans said:
I think it's actually time for a new thread to talk about Russia in a non Ukraine invasion context.

Take this film (not sure where I came across it now) which will probably lead you to the conclusion that it is nigh on impossible to imagine Russia as a "normal" country any time in the next 50 years.

Putin and his FSB are utter scum.

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Oh, I thought that it sounded familiar. Saw some excerpts from that earlier & they were asking the director about Tesak when the latter mysteriously died/was killed in prison.

To be fair if anything this video shows that a change can happen to a country (and did happen in Russia) very quickly. The issue is, that change doesn't always comes for the best.

In the 90's you've had financially motivated mobs (that either killed each other off or got enough power to legitimize themselves and go into politics), in the 00's there was a scary rise of neo-nazism from the ground up and in the 10's Russia ended up getting strangled by siloviki (FSB, police & the rest of them), who almost completely eliminated the threat of those neo-nazi groups by destroying them and incorporating whatever was left of them (not as much in terms of the personnel but more so ideologically — I'm talking about the internal validation of brutal violence, general resentment and feeling of being completely untouchable). And now we have a genocidal war with daily war crimes as the result.
 
Interested in your take here @harms - mine was that all of this rising up of Neo Nazis was actively encouraged by the FSB and therefore very likely with Putin's approval as an effort to ensure an election win. That these Neo Nazi types exist wasn't for me the point here - they are everywhere. It's the use of them that is so disturbing. I do also think that the hooligan rampages at the UEFA Euros in France in 2016 were probably also something Putin encouraged.
 
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Seems like this wasn't covered here before: https://focus.de/politik/ausland/uk...n-der-ukraine-getestet-wird_id_188145854.html

Apparently two Skyranger systems are already in Ukraine and are being field tested. It's basically the successor to the Gepard (both being a 35mm SPAAG), technically it is a mobile version of MANTIS which is used by the Bundeswehr to protect field camps like in Afghanistan.

As SPAAGs are the most cost-effective solution to fight Shaheds and similar systems Ukraine really needs more of them, but there just are only a few left in the world because most switched to missile-based air defense systems.
 
stefan92 said:
Seems like this wasn't covered here before: https://focus.de/politik/ausland/uk...n-der-ukraine-getestet-wird_id_188145854.html

Apparently two Skyranger systems are already in Ukraine and are being field tested. It's basically the successor to the Gepard (both being a 35mm SPAAG), technically it is a mobile version of MANTIS which is used by the Bundeswehr to protect field camps like in Afghanistan.

As SPAAGs are the most cost-effective solution to fight Shaheds and similar systems Ukraine really needs more of them, but there just are only a few left in the world because most switched to missile-based air defense systems.
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These systems will soon be in series production again. The whole world sees how effective cheap drones are right now and the only efficient way to shoot them down is with bullets, not missiles. The manufacturer with the best system will make billions because of this war, so I expect a race for this and germany has very good chances here because of the Gepard knowledge. Many countries will order them after watching what drones do in Ukraine on both sides.
 
Dans said:
Interested in your take here @harms - mine was that all of this rising up of Neo Nazis was actively encouraged by the FSB and therefore very likely with Putin's approval as an effort to ensure an election win. That these Neo Nazi types exist wasn't for me the point here - they are everywhere. It's the use of them that is so disturbing. I do also think that the hooligan rampages at the UEFA Euros in France in 2016 were probably also something Putin encouraged.
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FSB certainly weren’t controlling them directly but for a while they certainly thought that they could manipulate them, yeah. That ended in 2010 when football hooligans went to Manezhnaya square (which is right in front of Kremlin) after the murder of one of theirs — that scared Putin & FSB a lot and they’ve liquidated more or less any significant neo-Nazi organization & imprisoned a bunch of their leaders.

As for the rampages in Europe — who knows. I’d imagine that FSB most likely knew of these plans at the very least.
 
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