Russia has already lost. The conventional warfare isn't going according to plan for them.
If the Russians are victorious in the conventional phase of the conflict, that's just the beginning. Then the asymmetric warfare takes over.
Ukrainians will be like white Taliban. Ukraine will be a meat grinder for the Russian Army just like the Mujahideen were a meat grinder for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The US and UK and Germany will have crates of Javelin and Stinger missiles "fall off" the backs of trucks at the Ukraine-Polish border. Thousands and thousands of anti-tank missiles will filter through the country and will be destroying Russian armor and supply chains for the entire duration of any occupation.
Even if Russia wins, they lose.
Good let the Russian bodies hit the floor
__________________
Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Corporal Jean-Marc H. BECHARD, 6 Aug 1993
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Ukraine is asking the Red Cross for help repratriating thousands of Russian soldiers bodies now in it's possession so they can be "buried with dignity" in their home soil and Putin cannot hide the scale of the Russian casualties
Vitaly Skakun a 25 year old Ukrainian marine blew himself up along with the Henichesk Bridge. The Bridge was mined but there was not enough time to escape for a remote detonation as the Russian tanks were about to cross so he contacted the battalion that he was going to blow up the Bridge manually followed by a long explosion. It severely cut the Russians advancement.
"A Ukrainian soldier blew himself up to destroy a bridge in the southern province of Kherson to stop invading Russian tanks from marching ahead. His sacrifice to stop a column of Russian tanks is now being praised by the Ukrainian military, who has described Vitaly Skakun Volodymyrovych as a hero.
Marine battalion engineer Volodymyrovych was deployed to the Henichesk bridge when the Russian tanks entered the area, the Ukrainian military wrote on Facebook.
The brave engineer had volunteered to rig the bridge, a key strategic point linking Crimea and mainland Ukraine, with mines. As the Russian forces raced towards him, the soldier realised he did not have enough time to set the fuse and get to safety. So, he blew himself up and destroyed the bridge."
Last edited by combustiblefuel; 02-27-2022 at 12:43 AM.
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Weird time to throw shade at Musk. I mean ya he's pretty weird and egotistical and yes he will probably gain fro. This as It will show off his Starlink tech . At this point tho I don't give a #### if he has a hero complex or may benifiet financially.
The Ukraine is under attack from a ruthless dictator who dispises ANY western democracy. The Ukraine is under attack because we were trying to allow them the same rights and freedoms we enjoy. Any thing Western civilians can do to provide aid where the governments won't/can't is welcomed in my eyes. I still hold Musk accountable for his previous covid denying and etc etc but right now Ukraine needs a stable communication system to fight off a barbaric invader and He's one of the few private citizens that can do that.
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Just had a long talk with my wife. She is close to Kharkov, bunkered down with her family in their village. Kharkov was hit hard last night. For 2 days she saw a steady stream of tanking heading there. Around 10pm CET hellfire was raining down on the city until about 6am CET. However now seems some Russian hardware is in the city.
As mentioned by various reports, the Russian army is very disorganized in many areas. She said that most of the soldiers that come through her village are 19-25 years old. Many of them ask for food and have no kind of phone or GPS signal with them. They don't know if they are in Russia or Ukraine when they end up in the village. Most of them trek it on foot towards Kharkov, or follow the highway there once they see it.
She said that many of them are also just hiding in the forested areas and have no desire to fight. That's why they go around asking households for food. She's finally been able to get some food in her stomach, take a shower, general hygiene. But it's tough. It's hard for me to even eat these days but I can't imagine what it's like for her and her family. Confirmed with her and her family that the geolocations are all turned off on their phones. Reduced their social media presence just in case someone is 'watching'.
Thankfully her family has turned off all the Russian news since obviously it's all lies. Get's a lot of her information from UA news sources, telegram, and myself. She even cracked a smile on her face today when I told her that steady stream of tanks she saw heading to Kharkov, many lay in ruins or are abandoned on the way. Still, trying to lift her spirits a bit with how hard her country is fighting is hard. I can trot out all the "good news" I want, but fact remains she sees, hears and feels tanks and explosions most of the day. Can tell her about sanctions all I want, but it means nothing to a family currently bunkered down. Hard to feel optimism of any kind when that is what you experience all day.
Also heard a very sad story that her 10 year old cousin was killed by an explosion while he was outside in his village. Poor boy. Nobody deserves that fate. Putin has officially committed a war crime on her personal family. Disgusting POS and not a second of each day goes by where I'm not waiting for his death, someway somehow.
Passed on some messages of love and support from my friends and family. Also told her that the silly hockey site I'm always on (aka CP) has some messages of support and she got a good chuckle out of that. She still has no idea why I spend so much time here...but we had a good laugh about that. So thank you all for the PMs and messages here.
Today is another day of survival for them. What she is worried about now is that Putin will escalate the orders in order to achieve some kind of victory on his end. She's worried that although all the soldiers tell them they only want to go to Kharkov to hit military targets, that those orders change to be a bit more hostile in order to reduce Ukrainian morale. Hoping it doesn't come to that point and praying that a miracle happens and the combination of sanctions and UA resistance will force some kind of ceasefire sooner than later.
Last edited by Huntingwhale; 02-27-2022 at 01:59 AM.
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I think this post deserves more appreciation than the 8 thanks or whatever
Watching this video is a good use of your half hour if you want to understand what’s going on
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlameOn
So stemming from all this entire conflict one thing hasn't been really clear is Putin's mindset, interests and motivations for the war. With new analysis coming out its becoming increasingly clear that this entire invasion of Ukraine is really just to protect Russia's, and by extension Putin and the Russian oligarch's, geographic strategic defensibility and economic positions in their country.
RealLifeLore has an extremely detailed analysis on the underlying issues behind Putin's invade and the demographic projections that probably led it. Basically it amounts to a cold war era mindset centered around an inevitable armed conflict with the West. Viewed in this lens, Putin's actions make perfect sense.
Underlying strategic issues:
Putin sees NATO and the West through a cold war lens and treats us as an enemy, so is limiting the number of geographic fronts he has to defend Russia on by limiting assess to the strategically vulnerable Russian plains. Ukraine in NATO's sphere of influence would be an impossible to overcome strategic handicap from a geographic standpoint.
Russia is one of the largest petrostate in the world with more than 30% of its GDP and half it's annual budget coming from sale of LNG/Oil mostly to customers in Europe via various pipelines the largest of which is being tariffed by a hostile Ukraine.
Huge offshore natural gas and oil fields outside of Crimea in 2012 had reserves that would have challenged Russia's petrostate supremacy and it is why he chose to invade in 2014 as by seizing the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. In that incident he also seized all of the Ukrainian offshore oil drilling eq/facilities and most of their maritime access to these oil fields crippling the western friendly Ukraine economically and scaring off any foreign investment. This leaves Ukraine poor and unable to challenge Russian petrostate supremacy.
Sevastopol is Russia's only warm water port and is located in Crimea and was least to Russia. A hostile Ukrainian government would cut the lease off
Why he chose to invade:
Demographic problems w/ lowest birthrate in Russia ever recorded mean if he waited longer it may no longer be feasible
Water access to Crimea is critically low and reserves are at less than 7% with Ukraine cutting off access to water to the peninsula following the last conflict.
Zelenskiy and Ukraine's statements that they would be seeking to recapture Crimea stoked fears that they would eventually get NATO/Western ally support in that effort
Possible endgame goals for Putin from this conflict that are likely dependent on how the war goes:
Secure strong defensive lines for Russia up to the Dneiper river with extended borders for Donetsk, Luhansk, and water access for Crimea and Russia's only warm water naval base
Full southern takeover of Ukraine to link up all the way to Transnistria, effectively making Ukraine completely landlocked and cut off all Ukrainian access to the Crimean offshore oil fields while uniting all "Russian" territories
Full takeover of Ukraine and later invasion of Moldova to fully secure Russia's defensive lines against NATO up to the Carpathian mountains
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Putin's propaganda tries to sell delays as if Putin ordered to halt invasion hoping for peace talks but now that Zelenskiy refused to talk, Russian are "resuming" their relentless attack. They went as far, as to say that it was Zelenskiy who suggested to place talks in Belarus.
General public does not seem to buy it at all. However, the problem is that given this war has no precedence, citizens are struggling to figure out whether it's going "as expected", better or worse. Because we all don't really know what is supposed to be "expected" in this kind of war. This allows for a lot of goalposts-moving propaganda.
Last edited by Pointman; 02-27-2022 at 02:09 AM.
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Putin's propaganda tries to sell delays as if Putin ordered to halt invasion hoping for peace talks but now that Zelenskiy refused to talk, Russian are "resuming" their relentless attack. They went as far, as to say that it was Zelenskiy who suggested talks in Belarus.
General public does not seem to buy it at all. However, the problem is that given this war has no precedence, citizens are struggling to figure out whether it's going "as expected", better or worse. Because we all don't really know what is supposed to be "expected" in this kind of war. This allows for a lot of goalposts-moving propaganda.
Duh, It's Russia . This seems all normal operating procedures.
HW wishing you all the very best in these difficult times.
I’ll second that. My thoughts are with you and your family. My grandfather told me his stories from WWII and it is heartbreaking that you and they have to deal with this. I hope everybody is ok, and soon as possible
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Russia has already lost. The conventional warfare isn't going according to plan for them.
If the Russians are victorious in the conventional phase of the conflict, that's just the beginning. Then the asymmetric warfare takes over.
Ukrainians will be like white Taliban. Ukraine will be a meat grinder for the Russian Army just like the Mujahideen were a meat grinder for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The US and UK and Germany will have crates of Javelin and Stinger missiles "fall off" the backs of trucks at the Ukraine-Polish border. Thousands and thousands of anti-tank missiles will filter through the country and will be destroying Russian armor and supply chains for the entire duration of any occupation.
Even if Russia wins, they lose.
It sounds like the USA is full on openly funding the Ukrainian war effort. They're sending $350 million worth of weapons:
Russia has been, both directly and indirectly, arming all sorts of military groups fighting American soldiers for decades. Direct war will trigger a nuclear war, but a arming the opposition is right out of Russia's playbook and fair game.
The exghanges between Putin and top military brass must be getting heater each day. This must be the end game for the west. Putin turns on military for the embarrassing performance. Military turns on Putin for ordering a bloody war with a neighbour. It culminates into a military coup.
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Russia has been, both directly and indirectly, arming all sorts of military groups fighting American soldiers for decades. Direct war will trigger a nuclear war, but a arming the opposition is right out of Russia's playbook and fair game.
Hell, Putin has recently called in Chechen mercenaries, asked Kazahkstan for help (which they refused) and has his muppet Lukashenko tossing bombs from his borders. Russia is already using that playbook out in the open. So fine. Face the might of the US financial war machine now.
Russia has been, both directly and indirectly, arming all sorts of military groups fighting American soldiers for decades. Direct war will trigger a nuclear war, but a arming the opposition is right out of Russia's playbook and fair game.
The major western countries have been funding anti-Soviet and then anti-Russian groups mostly uninterrupted since the armies they sent to Russia to stop the Russian revolution were defeated a hundred years ago. Oh, and let's remember Germany originallu funded Lenin with the intention to knock Russia out of WW1. That of course went a little too well.
Proxy wars have been ongoing almost constantly in some form or another since then.
Putin is a madman and Ukraine joining Nato really has nothing to do with the actual safety of Russia, but this play is just a classic.
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