There was a recent story of 200+ POW returning to Ukraine with open arms. Absolute heroes. However a heartbreaking story has emerged from that. One of the POWs learned upon arrival that his wife and daughter, the very people that kept him going while in captivity, were killed in a missile strike sometime earlier. He returned to his homeland a hero, only to learn his family was murdered by russian terrorists.
My wife found this story making the rounds on her Ukrainian socials last night. Heartbreaking stuff. That poor man. I simply cannot fathom even imagining the pain he must feel, knowing he had his family in mind that undoubtedly kept his psyche alive while undergoing torture in russian captivity, only to step off the bus expecting to see them and learning that they were killed. Heartbreaking and infuriating.
The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to Huntingwhale For This Useful Post:
Huge if true. Sinking ships at sea hurts a lot more than getting them at port, with the inevitable loss of personnel.
(What's interesting is that most of the missile corvette's in the Black Sea fleet are brand new, less than 5 years old. They already lost one of those, but that was at port. Losing a brand new corvette at sea to an opponent with no navy and limited air power would be another massive embarrassment for the Black Sea fleet.)
The Following User Says Thank You to Itse For This Useful Post:
Appears we may have a new top dog for the Ukrainian Armed Forces leadership and the commander will be officially replaced following speculation this week.
CP group buy perhaps? For every $1000 donation they'll send a keychain made from a piece of a downed Russian aircraft. I'd be partial to an SU-34 keychain but any shot down Russian aircraft would work.
The Following User Says Thank You to karl262 For This Useful Post:
Give them the damned rockets already!
We have 83,000 rockets slated for demolition that Ukraine can use, there’s a team of experts ready to come and get them. The ask was made months ago and our Canadian government is still mumbling about safety in transport.
A thing in this war has been civilians buying satellite imagery and using those to publicly track the Russian stockpiles. (Which is kind of crazy when you think about it.)
The most recent count of the Russian artillery stockpile says that Russia has activated or burned through about 1/2 of it's towed artillery stockpile and 1/3 of it's self propelled artillery stockpile. Which is a really significant rate, but they're not yet close to running out... yet.
That towed artillery number is starting to get interesting though. Based on the satellite imagery, Russia has been emptying their stockpile with a basic Last-In-First-Out system. That means each batch they bring out is older than the previous one.
The video I linked says Russia is not running out of artillery any time soon, but I'm not so sure.
That stockpile lasts for maybe a year and a half, assuming they keep burning through them at the same pace. That in itseld is not forever. However as the batches are getting older, a smaller percentage of them is likely to be useable, and the ones that are going to be usable are going to last less. Which would mean that even if they lose equipment at the same pace, they'll likely be burning throug the stockpile at a constantly increasing pace. So if the heavy fighting continues, we could be starting to see shortages as early as this year. (Or hypothetically any day now for all we know.)
Since Russia relies very heavily on sheer volume of artillery fire in everything they do, lack of artillery would be a huge deal for them. (They also use barrels from those towed artillery guns as spare parts for self-propelled artillery.)
Last edited by Itse; 02-06-2024 at 08:08 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to Itse For This Useful Post:
Give them the damned rockets already!
We have 83,000 rockets slated for demolition that Ukraine can use, there’s a team of experts ready to come and get them. The ask was made months ago and our Canadian government is still mumbling about safety in transport.
Our Canadian government "has selected a private contractor to demolish them".
The cynic in me (and I'd believe this whether it was a Liberal or Conservative government acting this way) believes that there are likely politicians and/or politician's close family members who stand to financially gain from this "private contract" to destroy the 83,000 CRV7s.
PP called out the Liberals for taxpayer spending on this missile disposal instead of donating them to Ukraine, and he was called out by the Liberals for "trying to cover up his weak stance on Ukraine by distracting Canadians."
Putin's main opponent in the presidential "election" has apparently gone off-script and put ending the war on his agenda.
Just in general, the vibes suggest that Kremlin is quite nervous about Putin's popularity.
I've never really followed Russian elections, just assumed they are corrupt.
Will another candidate be allowed to run?
I read something earlier that he hadn't met the requirements for signatures from the right number of regions or something like that.
If he does run will there actually be a free vote that will be counted fairly?
I just envision a "free" election where you have to mark your ballot in front of the party officer and if you don't vote Putin that they send you to another line to get your identification recorded or something. Or that those ballot boxes get lost or damaged in an unfortunate accident. Or that the other candidate suffers a fluke defenistration.
