Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

RedDevilQuebecois said:
That being said, I'm surprised that Putin chose to not make him disappear by now when that level of criticism against the government is blunter than anything that Navalny ever dished against the Putin regime.
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The only reason I can think of is that that guy has some use for Putin, especially in Africa.
 
The United said:
The only reason I can think of is that that guy has some use for Putin, especially in Africa.
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Plus Putin encourages unfriendly competition in his own ranks. As long as they’re fighting themselves they aren’t fighting him.
 
But there are risks to Mr. Putin’s wait-and-see approach beyond the possibility of a battlefield breakthrough by Ukraine. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, argues that Mr. Putin’s “tactic of inaction” could raise the influence of hard-liners like Mr. Prigozhin.

“Russia’s elites are liable to see defeatism in inaction,” she wrote this month. “Already, Putin is struggling to explain what exactly he is waiting for.”
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Raoul said:
Great to see Vlad taking the Ron DeSantis position on most issues.

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It should be a wake-up call to right-wingers (in the US and Europe alike) when Vladimir Putin has exactly the same positions and rhetoric as them. It won't be, though. Honestly, if anything they're probably just happy to have him on their side. Putin must be very satisfied that the west seems to have stumbled upon the ultra-nationalist traditional conservatism he's been building in Russia for years.

Well, stumbled with some help from Russia, no doubt.
 
the hea said:
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Is this strike rate purely down to the effectiveness of air defences or are we in the situation where Russia is just doggedly doing the same thing over and over again?

I'd imagine these shahed drones must be programmed with a route and surely these could be varied? Or are they drones where they need to increase altitude to get a position fix before descending back down to near terrain level?

Or are they just simple point and shoot weapons like the V1 bomb in WW2?
 
buchansleftleg said:
Is this strike rate purely down to the effectiveness of air defences or are we in the situation where Russia is just doggedly doing the same thing over and over again?

I'd imagine these shahed drones must be programmed with a route and surely these could be varied? Or are they drones where they need to increase altitude to get a position fix before descending back down to near terrain level?

Or are they just simple point and shoot weapons like the V1 bomb in WW2?
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They are designed to numerically overwhelm missile based air defences. But they are often up against Gepard SPAAG that have a field day shooting all of them down with some short bursts of its guns. It's just Russian stupidity to keep using them against areas where effective SPAAGs are operating.
 
Raoul said:
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It's interesting how people have been so fearful of hypersonic weapons from Russia and China and critical of US attempts to build them, just based on hyperbole and propaganda statements. It's becoming clear the Russian ones simply don't work, and it's highly likely the Chinese won't fare much better in a real combat scenario. Until they work seamlessly there is little added benefit over submarines off the coast and loitering aircraft nearby.
 
buchansleftleg said:
Is this strike rate purely down to the effectiveness of air defences or are we in the situation where Russia is just doggedly doing the same thing over and over again?

I'd imagine these shahed drones must be programmed with a route and surely these could be varied? Or are they drones where they need to increase altitude to get a position fix before descending back down to near terrain level?

Or are they just simple point and shoot weapons like the V1 bomb in WW2?
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I always thought the idea was to waste Ukrainian ammo and terrorise.

I doubt Russia think the hit rate will be very high at all, but from next to no research, it seems drones are relatively cheap compared with more advanced weaponry used to stop them (which Ukraine have to ask the West for, stoking further tensions).

Kinzhal weapons on the other hand…
 
buchansleftleg said:
Is this strike rate purely down to the effectiveness of air defences or are we in the situation where Russia is just doggedly doing the same thing over and over again?

I'd imagine these shahed drones must be programmed with a route and surely these could be varied? Or are they drones where they need to increase altitude to get a position fix before descending back down to near terrain level?

Or are they just simple point and shoot weapons like the V1 bomb in WW2?
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They follow a preprogramed route guided by commercial GPS sattelite signals and they don't have any way to communicate with ground crews so once they are fired the route or destination can't be changed. Russia is probably trying different routes all the time to find weakneses in Ukraines defense grid.
They are powered by a 40hp two stroke engine which gives them a cruise speed of about 150-200km/h, this low speed makes them pretty easy to target with various AA guns like the Gepard or even older Soviet guns like the ZU-23 equipped with some form of night vision optic. The biggest challenge is that they are able to fly at low altitude so you need to have a lot of guns with a short distance between them to be able to cover all the ground.
Short range missile based systems like Avenger or Crotale for example are also good options to down them with but missiles for those systems come at a higher cost compared to ammunition for the guns so guns should be the perfered option.
Medium ranged systems like NASAMS or IRIS-T are of course more then capable of intercepting them but those should only be used as a last resort since the missiles are only available in limited numbers and very expensive.
 
the hea said:
They follow a preprogramed route guided by commercial GPS sattelite signals and they don't have any way to communicate with ground crews so once they are fired the route or destination can't be changed. Russia is probably trying different routes all the time to find weakneses in Ukraines defense grid.
They are powered by a 40hp two stroke engine which gives them a cruise speed of about 150-200km/h, this low speed makes them pretty easy to target with various AA guns like the Gepard or even older Soviet guns like the ZU-23 equipped with some form of night vision optic. The biggest challenge is that they are able to fly at low altitude so you need to have a lot of guns with a short distance between them to be able to cover all the ground.
Short range missile based systems like Avenger or Crotale for example are also good options to down them with but missiles for those systems come at a higher cost compared to ammunition for the guns so guns should be the perfered option.
Medium ranged systems like NASAMS or IRIS-T are of course more then capable of intercepting them but those should only be used as a last resort since the missiles are only available in limited numbers and very expensive.
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If they use commercial GPS, is there possibly a way to jam that signal or otherwise deny it to them? I guess Russia has their Glonass alternative to GPS... and I imagine Ukraine/US have already looked into possibilities of jamming.
 
MTF said:
If they use commercial GPS, is there possibly a way to jam that signal or otherwise deny it to them? I guess Russia has their Glonass alternative to GPS... and I imagine Ukraine/US have already looked into possibilities of jamming.
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Yes, everything can be jammed. But they will come down somewhere. So whenever possible it's the best solution to shoot them down by stationing a proper AA-gun system somewhere in their expected flight path. And there are more capable AA-guns than electronic warfare systems.
 
MTF said:
If they use commercial GPS, is there possibly a way to jam that signal or otherwise deny it to them? I guess Russia has their Glonass alternative to GPS... and I imagine Ukraine/US have already looked into possibilities of jamming.
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GPS jamming is certinly possible and from my understanding it is one of the most commonly used EW equipments in the war. The problem is that they work both ways, in an area where a jammer is used it will make all GPS guided equipment useless both Ukrainian and Russian and like @stefan92 said they will however land somewhere.
 
Carolina Red said:
You know, the last guys I saw fighting under a flag like that lost too.
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At least the Russians made an interesting crest in the middle of theirs.

As for Mr. Pickle, its short videos like these that probably allow him to make occasional controversial ones questioning the war effort.
 
the hea said:
Reports are saying that around 25 UAVs have attacked Moscow this morning.
You reap what you sow.
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Finally, this should become a daily reoccurrence for the pressure to start building from within to end this war. The regime in Kremlin did a pretty good job disconnecting ordinary russians from the realities of the war allowing them to be indifferent.
 
unchanged_lineup said:
I've seen one account saying that full mobilization is on the way and this could be a standard Putin false flag to justify it.
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That would be a pretty desperate move considering that Russia tried to avoid that by every means. I imagine that could lead to insurgencies within Russia.
 
Zehner said:
That would be a pretty desperate move considering that Russia tried to avoid that by every means. I imagine that could lead to insurgencies within Russia.
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Not to mention putting the economy under even more strain. They've been pretty good at navigating through the sanctions and evading the collapse of their economy that many predicted, but removing half a million men from the workforce could finally break the camels back.
 
unchanged_lineup said:
I've seen one account saying that full mobilization is on the way and this could be a standard Putin false flag to justify it.
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Who will they mobilize now that they already went through middle-aged men (under 50 for privates and NCOs, and under 65 for officers)?

RoyH1 said:
Not to mention putting the economy under even more strain. They've been pretty good at navigating through the sanctions and evading the collapse of their economy that many predicted, but removing half a million men from the workforce could finally break the camels back.
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Considering that remote provinces and ethnic regions already lost so many in the workforce due to selective mobilization, they will inevitably go after Moscovites and Petersburgians.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Who will they mobilize now that they already went through middle-aged men (under 50 for privates and NCOs, and under 65 for officers)?



Considering that remote provinces and ethnic regions already lost so many in the workforce due to selective mobilization, they will inevitably go after Moscovites and Petersburgians.
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You have provided the answer yourself. Several sources agree in that the Russian military conscripts heavily in the provinces and ethnic regions, so now the bourgeois big cities will face the same treatment which is something I'm pretty sure Putin and his cronies didn't want to do.
 
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