Saw an interesting video that takes a look at a recent interview on PBS with the Chinese Ambassador. The analysis gives good insight into the responses and does a good job taking a look from China's perspective from an American's viewpoint.
This Russian invasion needs to end... now.
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MOD updates. No real changes in the fronts for the most part after a couple of days aside from Ukrainian reports that Russians are retreating near Kyiv which don't seem to be getting updated by Wiki/MOD. Apparently Ukrainians shot down a record 17 aircraft yesterday tho, probably owing to the delivery of the Starstreak MANPAD system. https://twitter.com/user/status/1508774299058020357 https://twitter.com/user/status/1508678736866156544
“I’m not here to #### around,” Tyler says. “I know exactly what I’m getting into. I spent a lot of time and money creating a will before I left for Ukraine. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe this was worth dying for. To be a good soldier, you have to be willing to say goodbye.”
Quote:
“My biggest fear is to die because I did something stupid,” he adds.
Tyler kept his departure for Ukraine under wraps from his employer. As for his parents, he told them he was simply headed to Ukraine to volunteer. “But they know,” he says. In fact, his father’s parting words were “Kick some ass.”
“He never said that before I went to Afghanistan,” Tyler says.
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Like how many generals have been killed in all conflicts combined in the last 50 years??
Because the Americans are feeding specific location information to the Ukrainians. It will be an amazing story when it comes out years down the road but there is no way the Ukrainians are having this degree of success against high-value targets without major assistance.
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Because the Americans are feeding specific location information to the Ukrainians. It will be an amazing story when it comes out years down the road but there is no way the Ukrainians are having this degree of success against high-value targets without major assistance.
Has there been a lot of leaks on how the Ukrainians and their allies are getting the info? Are they using new tech or just relying on a lack of Russian tech/competence?
Like how many generals have been killed in all conflicts combined in the last 50 years??
Well, there are some mitigating factors. First is that it's much more normal for them to be close to the frontlines than for their western counterparts, and second is that Russia has top heavy officer structure with lots of generals.
I suspect Putin being very unhappy with his officer staff (he has also fired 8 generals) might also be a contributing factor, the generals might be taking more risks than usual, or be forced to take more risks. Analysts have also speculated that generals being at the frontlines is a sign of the general chaos of the operation. Generals need too often to be on location to sort things out.
Of course just because there's a lot of generals near the frontlines doesn't excuse getting them killed at this rate, and obviously generals aren't the only high ranking officers they've been losing, they're just the ones getting their own press releases.
Considering that the Russian military is known to not support lower ranking officers showing initiative, the loss of high ranking officers at this rate must in itself have quite the paralyzing effect.
Like how many generals have been killed in all conflicts combined in the last 50 years??
Incredibly poor communications security and discipline, constantly using open comms, and not adapting in any way to past mistakes. This latest general was supposedly killed in a strike on the same base where one of the previous generals was killed after comms were intercepted by the Ukrainians.
This is partially due horrible morale of the troops forcing generals to lead from the front, partially horrible commsec discipline by Russian troops (also poor training and morale), partially due to their "secure" communications system not working because of fundamental flaws. Like Russian soldiers keep on stealing Ukrainian civilians phones and calling home for example making it easy for Americans and others to intercept.
Its looking like Russians spent all of their defense budget on prestige projects like updated hardware instead of focusing on their troops, either that or all the money meant for troop training was stolen by Putin's corrupt officers/oligarchs. Russians are probably not going to learn from their mistakes either since they are too busy just finding scapegoats to purge, as is the Russian/Soviet Way (tm)
Last edited by FlameOn; 03-28-2022 at 11:15 AM.
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