Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

shamans said:
I hope people who used to yap on about militants in Gaza using "human shields" finally see this as well. This is how it actually happens. Some people think it's as if military basecamps are hiding under school children. In reality it's because you don't have much else to go.
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Absolutely right.
 
spiriticon said:
I mean, if you're being given a free day off work and get bussed in by the government to watch a concert... Would you not go? I would.
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You miss the most important part of this hypothetical — they are not really given a choice and are taken there under the orders of their superiors (under the assumption that they’re going to be fired if they won’t — or, at least, they won’t be given their yearly bonus).

Are those threats realistic? Probably not, but most people, especially those that aren’t openly oppose the cause, don’t dare to test those.
 
Revan said:
Thing is, Kyiv is 10 times as big as Mariupol, so battering Kyiv is gonna be far more difficult.
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It's also much better defended. It seems that so far not many Russian artillery units have managed to get close enough to bombard the centre, and Russia may be running out of cruise missiles and the like to do the job from further away.

There can be bombers attacking from the air I guess. If done from high altitude I'm not sure how many (if any) anti-aircraft missiles the Ukrainians have that could knock down such aircraft.
 
11101 said:
I'm not defending the Russians in any way, just pointing out that if Ukrainian soldiers are using residential buildings as firing positions, poorly trained Russian soldiers with a nervous trigger finger will inevitably shoot at them and anything else that looks like it might contain hidden threats. It's a tactic that will contribute to civilian casualties.
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I just don't understand what you think the alternative is.
 
GlastonSpur said:
There can be bombers attacking from the air I guess. If done from high altitude I'm not sure how many (if any) anti-aircraft missiles the Ukrainians have that could knock down such aircraft.
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Ukraine has S-300's, and it's looking like those are going to be getting reinforced soon, so... those can definitely shoot down Russian bombers.
 
sun_tzu said:
presumably cruise missile strikes on whatever brings them over the border as soon as it does so if they have sufficient intel to track the movements?
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Someone made the point today that if they could do it, they already would have done it. ie empty threat.
 
LARulz said:
I was listening to someone on the radio who knows the Russian army stuff and was saying because they completely miscalculated the strength/will of the Ukrainian's - they literally sent their "Championship and League 1" equipment and left the "Premier League" stuff away which in hindsight was a mistake for them. Now they have to think about calling them out or find a way to end the war with out "losing"

Just thought it was interesting that they were so arrogant and didn't have a more suitable/close Plan B
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You don't need champions league equipment to fill up a truck's fuel tank or keep the tyres from falling apart, or to keep secure comms. They are so bad at at the basics, it would have just meant their better stuff - assuming they have any - would have been stuck in the mud and abandoned instead.
 
nickm said:
Someone made the point today that if they could do it, they already would have done it. ie empty threat.
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Moreover, even if those missile systems are not being brought into the country, the mere fact that it's being said that they are will have at least some deterrent effect on Russian aircraft, because the Russian pilots and their commanders won't know either way and will have to assume the threat exists.
 
Raoul said:
It was tongue and cheek. It will obviously never happen, but don't be surprised that if the Russians continue to lose, that the Ukrainians may attempt to retake all of their territory the Russians are currently squatting on.
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Ok. Understood. Sometimes difficult to work out what is real and what is not.
 


Anyway, IIRC the strategy of singularizing Putin (and not Russian) as the enemy has more to do with A) Causing unrest/divission in Russia and B) Maximizing the possibility that the war ends soon, hopefully with Russian voluntarily dropping out under a new regime.
 
Droid_Repairs said:
Kinda. Putin is certainly making it that way by suppressing opposition. It's not like in China where there's literally no attempt at democracy, but in Russia democracy is becoming more and more of a facade over time. Not only with political opponents being persecuted but with ever harsher measures for political protestors and dissenting voices.

There are multiple parties in the Duma, although United Russia makes up 3/4 of the seats. The problem is that opposition is suppressed, in state media and elsewhere. This isn't especially new in Russia, but Putin has certainly strengthened his grip on power, and is surrounded by allies who can't and won't challenge him.
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That was my view as well.
 
nickm said:
You don't need champions league equipment to fill up a truck's fuel tank or keep the tyres from falling apart, or to keep secure comms. They are so bad at at the basics, it would have just meant their better stuff - assuming they have any - would have been stuck in the mud and abandoned instead.
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Yeah, its not like they're only changing tyres and doing oil changes on the nice equipment. Plus I doubt there is a championship level 'air force', it wouldn't makes sense to not use your best planes and pilots, and they still don't have air dominance. They're just inept
 
sun_tzu said:
at the moment s United Russia holds 70% of the seats but 48 parties 6 of which have representation at the state duma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Russia
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Technically yes, but functionally all opposition is of the loyal opposition variety. The communists sometimes make their independence known, but by and large even they support Putin's agenda wholeheartedly. The real opposition hasn't been allowed to participate for a while.

Of course, it's nothing like the likes of North Korea, which laughably also technically has several parties, and elections. Without Putin it's possible Russia's democracy could be resurrected. Maybe.
 
LARulz said:
I was listening to someone on the radio who knows the Russian army stuff and was saying because they completely miscalculated the strength/will of the Ukrainian's - they literally sent their "Championship and League 1" equipment and left the "Premier League" stuff away which in hindsight was a mistake for them. Now they have to think about calling them out or find a way to end the war with out "losing"

Just thought it was interesting that they were so arrogant and didn't have a more suitable/close Plan B
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Looking at their armored capability. I doubt they really had enough of the Premier League stuff to do the job anyway. While they have about 500 T-80’s in active duty and several thousand in reserve, they don’t want to use them because of how poorly they performed in Chechnya. They’ve got around 500-600 T-90s, some of which are in Ukraine, but they don’t want to fully commit those because then they’re stripping any units facing NATO borders of their best tanks, as the T-14 Armata hasn’t been produced in sufficient numbers to be combat ready yet.

That leaves them with the tried and true T-72s, which they have thousands upon thousands of, and which is the bulk of the armor you’re seeing in Ukraine.
 
This CNN investigation on the bombing of the pediatric hospital in Mariupol is impressive. It has 2D and 3D mapping details of what happened and where videos were taken in the immediate aftermath. It's even more shocking when you put all pieces together.



When I see the long line of Kremlin mouthpieces spouting their shit time and time again after seeing that investigation, I swear that those deplorables (Nebenzya, Lavrov, Shulgin) all deserve to be lined up on their knees and then receive you-know-what as proper punishment when this will be over.
 
MTF said:
Haha, yeah I know you didn't mean it in that sense. I just wanted to say something about the T-72's history.
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Yeah the T-72 hasn’t aged well... which has been apparent for awhile, as you point out. The little cages they’ve put on the top of the turret to stop the javelin missiles hasn’t aged well either.
 
Carolina Red said:
Oh trust me, I’m not saying it’s the tank you want to be in on a battlefield in 2022, but it’s the one they’ve got.
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I guess it's all about the level care a country gives to its military hardware so it can still deliver. I don't expect much from Russia when it comes to their hardware, but the Japanese would have been kicking ass in those old F-4EJ Phantoms if they had to defend their homeland a few years ago before those jets were officially retired from service. Former and currently serving US Air Force personnel have said great things about how the JASDF took care of the Phantoms.
 
Everything is correlated to everything else

FOJeW1YX0AEmGE-
 
Carolina Red said:
Yeah the T-72 hasn’t aged well... which has been apparent for awhile, as you point out. The little cages they’ve put on the top of the turret to stop the javelin missiles hasn’t aged well either.
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How useful are tanks in this day and age anyway?
 
do.ob said:
It's not exactly been a secret that conservatives and populist in the West have been doing Russia's bidding, has it?
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Yes, no secret. They whinge about the "tyranny" of mask-wearing and vaccination, but lap up the brutal tyranny of Putin's absolutist gangster-state.
 
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