Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Beans said:
These places are being struck due to the imprecision of the weapons, yes? Surely they're not being targeted...
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Of course it's targeted. They did the same in Chechnya and Syria. When the WHO or UN got coordinates for hospitals or health care facilities in Syria to avoid, the Russians bombed them. Just like when they have repeatedly attacked humanitarian corridors. Accidents can (and do) happen, but the leveling of cities and targeting of hospitals, theaters labeled "children", apartment buildings, and civilians driving down the street demonstrate Russia's tactics are intentional.

The US, British, French, Israelis, Chinese, Indians, and others have adapter kits to make their dumb bombs into precision guided munitions (JDAMs in US terms). Russia doesn't have them despite having the technical ability to make them and the fact that they are relatively cheap ($25k). At best, Russia is showing a reckless disregard by continually dropping dumb bombs in urban areas, but the reality is that this is the Russian strategy. Murder thousands of civilians to coerce the Ukrainians to surrender.
 
Oly Francis said:
Who could believe for one second that Ukraine was like "Russia is too simple to handle, lets attack Belarus".
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To be fair, if I was Ukraine I would consider Belarus to be de facto at war with me since Russia used its territory to invade from.
 
MTF said:
To be fair, if I was Ukraine I would consider Belarus to be de facto at war with me since Russia used its territory to invade from.
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Obviously but there's less than zero interest for them to attack Belarus. On top of being stupid from a military standpoing, it would totally shatter their "we just defend our land, they're the attackers" (legitimate) propaganda.
 
hellhunter said:
Not sure what to make of this
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Seems like Russia's first attempts at a false flag attack on Belarus to spur the Belorussian soldiers into action didn't work so Russia is going for more bombs. Based on reported sentiments from the Belorussian military, it seems like the soldiers don't want any part of the war, but Putin is trying to push them into it. Lukashenko seems to be trying to avoid it since he likely worries about the domestic response once his military is in the field or decimated.
 
MTF said:
To be fair, if I was Ukraine I would consider Belarus to be de facto at war with me since Russia used its territory to invade from.
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But you would attack the Russian air force assets in Belarus rather than bombing towns and cities. Bombing those planes won't move the needle with the Belorussian military or people though.
 
Sir Matt said:
But you would attack the Russian air force assets in Belarus rather than bombing towns and cities. Bombing those planes won't move the needle with the Belorussian military or people though.
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Ukraine attacking Belarus territorty makes no sense whatsoever.
 
sglowrider said:
How are they going to get all that over and how will the Ukrainians distribute all that?
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They’ve had constant C-17s flying shit into Poland since the war started. It would take mere days to transport all this stuff once it is in one place. Those planes are gigantic.
 
Oly Francis said:
Obviously but there's less than zero interest for them to attack Belarus. On top of being stupid from a military standpoing, it would totally shatter their "we just defend our land, they're the attackers" (legitimate) propaganda.
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For sure it is an additional political consideration to attack the territory of the country that isn't the main aggressor. Militarily, if there are critical supply depots or connections in Belarus from which the Russian forces north of Kyiv are getting supplied from, then those would also be targets of value. That said, Ukraine has shown limited ability and/or willingness to conduct such strikes on the supply lines even within Russia, so I agree it would be unlikely that they would be striking them in Belarus. Just not impossible.
 
sglowrider said:
How are they going to get all that over and how will the Ukrainians distribute all that?
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Keep in mind that this is all small handheld stuff. You don't need any big trucks or other special devices, you can transport that with basically everything.
 
stefan92 said:
Keep in mind that this is all small handheld stuff. You don't need any big trucks or other special devices, you can transport that with basically everything.
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Russians won't track them coming from Poland and attack these convoys?
My point is why make these announcements? It's so redundant at that point with so many countries promising ant tank weapons etc.
Just ship them out quietly or western Ukraine becomes a huge target.
 
2cents said:
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What has provoked these comments from Putin? Is just about the odd ballerina that has defected, or the one or two oligarchs living in the West who have criticised the war? Or is there something more going on that we don't yet know about?
 
sglowrider said:
Russians won't track them coming from Poland and attack these convoys?
My point is why make these announcements? It's so redundant at that point with so many countries promising ant tank weapons etc.
Just ship them out quietly or western Ukraine becomes a huge target.
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They would like to try to anyways. But the point is, you don't need to drive in a big convoy to distribute this weapons and the Russians won't be able to attack every truck crossing the border and driving somewhere through Ukraine. So it's quite safe to transport those through their own country. As long as they are driving through their own land they don't have any need to form convoys.

And you can be sure Russian intelligence would get to know about those deliveries anyway. While we have seen an exceptional case of filtering out unwanted negative information while moving reports through the ranks and therefore an epic failure to assess the strategic situation, that doesn't mean that such tactical information would go unnoticed. So at this point publicly announcing it is essentially just PR and propaganda, a show of support for the Ukrainian people.
 
sglowrider said:
Russians won't track them coming from Poland and attack these convoys?
My point is why make these announcements? It's so redundant at that point with so many countries promising ant tank weapons etc.
Just ship them out quietly or western Ukraine becomes a huge target.
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Tough to stop a flood.
 
Oly Francis said:
Some say it might be sonic booms from aircrafts or missiles launched from Belarus.
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Sonic boom makes much more sense, unless I've missed images/videos of actual explosions?
 
Champ said:
Sonic boom makes much more sense, unless I've missed images/videos of actual explosions?
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Nothing almost one hour after the event, I think it's pretty safe to assume nothing exploded in Belarus.
 
Fareed Zakaria just said according to his sources, the Russians have lowered their demands for a ceasefire, which suggests they're feeling the pressure.
 
#Putin speaks of a special action in #Ukraine that is not aimed at civilians. However, a drone filmed a few kilometers west of Kyiv how a civilian was shot dead by apparently Russian soldiers. #ZDFfrontal exclusive, more about the war 9:15 p.m. @ZDF
 
sun_tzu said:
Watch them break off peace talks and say they won't restart till biden apologises
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At this stage I'd imagine the Russians are becoming increasingly eager for peace talks. In another 3 weeks, at the current rate of attrition, around half of their total invasion force will be out of action. If they try taking major cities, it'll be way more than half.
 
GlastonSpur said:
At this stage I'd imagine the Russians are becoming increasingly eager for peace talks. In another 3 weeks, at the current rate of attrition, around half of their total invasion force will be out of action. If they try taking major cities, it'll be way more than half.
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Russia will pull in other countries on its side, I have no doubt that Putin will go further yet.
 
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