Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

You tell ‘em. But keep an eye on the forum rules while you do.
Will do.

In the meanwhile, keep an an eye on those YouTube videos where you can see people die and have your daily fix. Don't forget to share the links.
 
Iran should impose sanctions on the US for a laugh..
“Anyone who proves assistance to Israel… is perpetuating the war, is perpetuating the conflict,”
:lol:

Pot calling the kettle black has never found any truer meaning.
 
What is indeed problematic is that AFU has no real singularized platform for defending against Short/medium range ballistic missiles.
 
Thought these things were a bit of a gimmick at first, but are apparently quite effective at burning out entire trench lines. Seems to be getting extensive use but no doubt Russia its frantically working on its own version.

 
Will do.

In the meanwhile, keep an an eye on those YouTube videos where you can see people die and have your daily fix. Don't forget to share the links.
You've no idea about me, what my daily fix is but if helps you to get up there on that very tall horse of yours...
 
Putin said the following.

Speaking in St Petersburg, President Putin sent a clear warning to the West: don’t allow Ukraine to use your long-range missiles to strike Russian territory. Moscow, he said, would view that as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the war in Ukraine.

“It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict,” the Kremlin leader continued. “This will mean that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.” He claimed that, for missile launches into Russia, Ukraine would require data from Western satellites and that only servicemen from Nato member states would be able to “input flight missions into these missile systems”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrlr87e5elo
 
Realistically, what would an escalated response from Russia be?
Time Magasine wrote this about possible escalations:

Some Moscow hardliners advocate using tactical nuclear weapons against wartime targets to shock the West into sobriety. More moderate experts have floated the idea of a nuclear bomb demonstration test, hoping that televised images of the signature mushroom cloud would awaken Western publics to the dangers of military confrontation. Others call for a strike on a U.S. satellite involved in providing targeting information to Ukraine or for downing an American Global Hawk reconnaissance drone monitoring Ukraine from airspace over the Black Sea. Any one of these steps could lead to an alarming crisis between Washington and Moscow.
 

Hasn't he been saying this for years now? I assume the red line will be crossed at some point but he's the boy who cried wolf at this point.

One thing I can completely forsee is him massively ramping up the military support of various state and non state actors across the world who are in direct competition with the West and fomenting unrest.

Putting aside the visuals of course of western missiles raining down in Moscow, which probably would trigger a direct response.
 
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One thing I can completely forsee is him massively ramping up the military support of various state and non state actors across the world who are in direct competition with tjr West and fomenting unrest.
The problem is... how? Russia's military exports are barely existing at the moment, there is only so much more they can produce and sent elsewhere.
 
Is it weird that I can't help feeling sad about the effects of these tactics on wildlife?
Nope. The environmental impacts of war are horrible. We can often see these effects on things like elephant populations in African countries struck by civil war. And it obviously goes much deeper than that. The amount of ecosystems that get destroyed this way is absolutely depressing.
 
Nope. The environmental impacts of war are horrible. We can often see these effects on things like elephant populations in African countries struck by civil war. And it obviously goes much deeper than that. The amount of ecosystems that get destroyed this way is absolutely depressing.

That video in particular bothered me because modern farming techniques have already decimated biodiversity and hedgerows and treelines like those are the last refuge for native wildlife. So seeing them get incinerated is so sad.
 
That video in particular bothered me because modern farming techniques have already decimated biodiversity and hedgerows and treelines like those are the last refuge for native wildlife. So seeing them get incinerated is so sad.
You’re completely right on that. But as sad as that is, it’s not destroyed forever. Nature is brilliant like that. Many parts of the Westwall for example are now among the areas with the highest biodiversity in Germany and offer space for many threatened species. Or the areas that were once close to the wall surrounding east Germany have become one of the biggest or maybe even the biggest connected ecosystem in the country.
That might offer a bit of hope in moments like these.
 
Is it weird that I can't help feeling sad about the effects of these tactics on wildlife?
That has bothered me and other people I know from the beginning. I worry that now Russia has become isolated from the west, how will that impact Russia's native wildlife. Maybe they've got their own conservationist taking care of everything, I hope so.
 
One of Russia's dodgy "shadow fleet" cargo ships ran aground and is trying to dock at a Norwegian port. Oh, and its carrying 20kt of ammonium nitrate.

The hell you supposed to do in this situation? Would be madness to let it dock anywhere.

 
Thought these things were a bit of a gimmick at first, but are apparently quite effective at burning out entire trench lines. Seems to be getting extensive use but no doubt Russia its frantically working on its own version.


Gruesome stuff thermite when used as a weapon. Hope it doesn't catch on for humanity's sake. Especially if the Russians start using it.
 
Gruesome stuff thermite when used as a weapon. Hope it doesn't catch on for humanity's sake. Especially if the Russians start using it.
I've seen videos from Russian positions after being hit by this. Turns out, it's not that terrible and even a wooden shelter keeps you easily alive. What this does seems to be mostly destroying cover and allowing to clearly identify the actual positions and allowing to attack them, much more than actually injuring/killing soldiers directly.
 
Seems like Putin has won the mind games over his threat of escalation should the US/UK allow Ukraine to use long range weapons.

That is exactly the purpose of having nuclear weapons as a threat.
 
A key finding from the new US intelligence is that, for more than a year, the Russian government quietly embedded an intelligence-gathering unit within RT focused on influence operations globally. That activity has been part of US officials described as a big expansion of RT’s role as an arm and mouthpiece of the Kremlin abroad. The activity goes beyond propaganda and covert influence operations to even include military procurement, according to US officials.
 
According to the report, at least since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the goal of separating Germany from the Western alliance and making it an advocate for Moscow has been intensively pursued using hybrid means. Unlike for France or Italy, it has been analyzed that there is actually a chance of this happening in the case of Germany.
The Putin regime's calculation: Germany is a weak target in the Western world, and the German population, the Kremlin is said to have analyzed at the time, is easier to influence and divide than other nations in Russia's opinion. The political extremes, especially right-wing populists, could be strengthened through targeted propaganda and disinformation, society could be divided and the state destabilized.
https://www.tagesschau.de/investiga...ussland-putin-deutschland-massnahmen-100.html

 
1 million dead or injured being reported by the WSJ.


It will be really interesting to see what the birth rates in Russia look like this year. Not that Putin won’t fudge it somehow. A million killed and injured, and potentially a million who have emigrated. I bet 90% of them will be aged 18-35.
 
It will be really interesting to see what the birth rates in Russia look like this year. Not that Putin won’t fudge it somehow. A million killed and injured, and potentially a million who have emigrated. I bet 90% of them will be aged 18-35.
1 million is the combined number for both Russian and Ukrainian losses (with the Russian ones being estimated at around 200k dead and 400k injured). It's still a hefty size of a population, especially if you add up those who left the country, be it for purely political reasons or those who were fleeing from mobilization. As you've said, it's mostly the young people — and mostly the most capable (with good education and working prospects), so it's not just a demographic issue but also a massive brain drain.
 
1 million is the combined number for both Russian and Ukrainian losses (with the Russian ones being estimated at around 200k dead and 400k injured). It's still a hefty size of a population, especially if you add up those who left the country, be it for purely political reasons or those who were fleeing from mobilization. As you've said, it's mostly the young people — and mostly the most capable (with good education and working prospects), so it's not just a demographic issue but also a massive brain drain.
Ah, I missed that bit.

Either way Russia will have likely lost over 10m people from its population in 5 years (2m deaths per year average, from beginning 2020 to end 2024). With about 1.25 or 1.3m live births. Without immigration inwards it’s a net loss of 3.5m+