SeaGreen
3933
Hey though, it’s a pretty intimidating statue / monument. Credit to the sculptor! Fooled those pesky roosians.
Thing is – it’s a stationary target (obviously!) and I’m not sure they hit it very much either.
SeaGreen
3935
They were driving too fast. Speed limit chaps?
They needed to put some points in Concentration/slow time on their skill tree.
From the Bucha/Irvin assault.
This one does not look like a minor probing attack.
Some of the videos on OSINT appear to suggest that RF forces are “dismounting” from their armored vehicles when they get to the outside of a city and are then just getting clocked inside the cities/population centers – while their abandoned vehicles get damaged/destroyed.
I’m not sure what kind of attack doctrine or protocol that is, but whatever it is I’m not sure it’s working.
What I’ve read (unsure if true) is that when vehicles get attacked they move into buildings for defense. Probably out of fear of anti-vehicle weapons.
I guess you can surrender from a surrounded building but not from an exploding vehicle?
Treat with the usual salt, but the guy is a journalist:
That makes sense to me, but what I keep seeing is video that suggests they’re parking small columns and then exiting the vehicles to move further into the city, like they’ve rolled up to a crowded amusement park and have to take a walk to get inside.
But I guess it’s possible, even likely those columns came under heavy fire prior to the video being shot, too.
@Strollen I think that most of us are in agreement that we should support Ukraine as much as possible, but I think you underestimate the risk of nuclear escalation. The world has been close to MAD far too many times over the past 70 years, IMO, and I’d as well not add another one. I love the Black Brant scare as an example, where Russia had the Cheget activated, subs put on alert, and literally 8 minutes to make the decision on whether to retaliate. When your civilization literally depends on the ability of a drugged down, constantly intoxicated alcoholic to take moderate decisions, you’re doing something very wrong.
This is the same reason why the idea of everyone having nuclear weapons in order to dissuade war is very bad. Sooner or later, someone - though malice or mistake - will push the button.
To my mind, there are two elements that strongly argue against hot NATO involvement. One - it would mean NATO troops engaging in hostilities in close proximity to the Russian border, and certainly being attacked by units on the other side of the Russian border. Keep in mind that Russia has never (officially) attacked NATO soil, nor vice versa (a Russian plane violating Turkish air space for 17 seconds in 2016 led to the use of deadly force and a major diplomatic incident). The likelihood of NATO units inadvertently crossing the border or attacking units in Russia would be extremely, unacceptably high.
Secondly, note how Russia is struggling now that they are in a war with a force which is not massively technologically inferior to themselves. The same is true of NATO - we are used to peace-keeping missions in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. NATO has never tried to operate in a war zone against forces with actually effective air defense systems. I doubt an attempt to do so would be the success that the hawks seem to think it would be.
That Germany is (finally) upping their defense budget is great news. But we (as in Europe) also need to have a hard talk about what we’re building for in future. Personally, I think we seriously need to build up the EU so that it can take over as an effective defensive alliance if/when NATO dies (i.e., with the next Trump).
That video is stunning. What you don’t see is a bunch of victorious Ukraine armor or fixed anti-tank weapon systems, which makes me think this was done by infantry with portable anti-tank weapons.
MikeJ
3945
I think this is incorrect. Russia imports of roughly $25 billion per month:
Russia Imports - January 2022 Data - 1994-2021 Historical - February Forecast.
So their imports are actually a sizeable fraction of their GDP and include a lot of machinery and stuff they don’t manufacture themselves.
Firefight (or at least cooking off ammo shortly after a firefight) near Ivankov.
The Ukranians sure don’t look or act like a desperate army on the brink of defeat in this clip.
The guy with the NLAW is like “think I’ll go for a stroll have a chat with my mate and blow up some Russki’s”
Putin says somebody should call the sanctions police?
Aceris
3949
I am very confused by what the Russian plan is. It feels like small units are being left isolated all over the place, and then picked off by the Ukrainians. I mean, the most credible explanation seems that there was no plan, or rather, that the plan was a fantasy for consumption by leadership on the basis that the operation would never happen.
Eh, given the level of competence displayed by the Russians I’m pretty sure that could be dealt with. But as you say it would involve bombing radars in Russia which is a huge step along the “nuclear war, everybody loses” escalation.
Yeah, he seems to be moving up trying to find a good place where he can hit something. I would say morale is pretty high at this point.
It was more about him putting the nuclear forces on high alert…
This is kind of what the video making the rounds this morning seems to convey, for sure. And yeah, it’s very puzzling. That video of the destroyed column of armed vehicles in Bucha that Juan posted looks like the biggest concentration of heavy forces I’ve seen so far.
