Russia invades Ukraine

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Firebot

To put it in perspective, the much vaunted Battle of the Bulge which was a major Nazi counteroffensive that threw the Allies offguard and who had 700K troops by the end of the battle, and a similar amount of time and the biggest offensive the Allied faced in the entirety of the war.

Nazi Germany German:
67,675[12] casualties
(U.S. Estimate: 103,900[13][e] casualties)

527–554[14]tanks, tank destroyers and assault guns lost
c. 800 aircraft lost, at least 500 in December and 280 during Operation Bodenplatte[9]

These Avdiivka numbers are absolutely insane numbers even by any standards. And Russia has 2km to show for it.

Just generally I feel like people have trouble understanding the scale of this war. Especially people in the west, including politicians.

This is a real old school full scale war between two really big countries. The front line is way over 2000 km long, and half of that has active battles. That's longer than the western and southern fronts of WW1 combined. The still ongoing Battle of Bakhmut is already one of the longest in modern history.

It's a classic history book war.

Sadly.

But the materiel support given should reflect that scale.

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1729913749698416865

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730131107075527034

[Leondros]

That would be absolutely terrifying seeing a drone strapped with explosives wizzing around you just knowing that you are going to at worst lose some limbs.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Leondros

That would be absolutely terrifying seeing a drone strapped with explosives wizzing around you just knowing that you are going to at worst lose some limbs.

This whole ####ing battlefield is the thing of nightmares, harkening back to Battles like Verdun.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Leondros

That would be absolutely terrifying seeing a drone strapped with explosives wizzing around you just knowing that you are going to at worst lose some limbs.

Sounds like Russians should go home.

They chose to go kill Ukrainians and decided this fate over other outcomes. There's a video of a Russian conscripted to go to the front that shot himself at a gun firing range rather than go to war for something he doesn't believe in (I won't post it here). Others choose to surrender, even at the risk of being killed by their own side.

This soldier chose this fate and had a choice to not participate. Ukrainians wished to do a different choice, but have to do their duty because of soldiers like that one in the video to protect their families and their country.

Now's he's dead and a meme on Twitter at his expense.

[Monahammer]

I don't disagree with what you've said, Firebot. It is difficult though to remove some of my thoughts of general grief while watching a single man struggle against a machine like that. Same with that poor fellow who got killed by a drone while wiping his ass a couple weeks ago. They shouldn't be there, but #### they wouldn't be at all if it weren't for Putin.

And with the death of Kissinger today, I was thinking about war criminals in general. I know it gets said often, but Putin is a war criminal. I am going to go further: Putin is the biggest living war criminal. He would have been even before yesterday. He is potentially the biggest war criminal since WW2. He is raising his name to the echelons of Stalin and Hitler, to be reviled forever and remembered in the deepest circles of hell.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Sounds like Russians should go home.

They chose to go kill Ukrainians and decided this fate over other outcomes. There's a video of a Russian conscripted to go to the front that shot himself at a gun firing range rather than go to war for something he doesn't believe in (I won't post it here). Others choose to surrender, even at the risk of being killed by their own side.

This soldier chose this fate and had a choice to not participate. Ukrainians wished to do a different choice, but have to do their duty because of soldiers like that one in the video to protect their families and their country.

Now's he's dead and a meme on Twitter at his expense.

We can all agree that Russia needs to get the hell out of Russia without a doubt, but we are also human and also see and feel the human suffering that is going on in all these wars across the world. There are a lot of Russian soldiers who, through no fault of their own, are being forced into Ukraine. It's just the way it is.

I can't wait until Russia hopefully loses this war but there is still a tragedy to all of this from a human level. Does you opinion change on the Canadian men and women who were injured or killed in Afghanistan ? Looking back on it, what the hell were we doing there? Plenty of locals didn't give a crap about blowing up Canadians yet the optics for us back home was different.

When political and militarily leaders force us to do things against our will, everybody loses

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730502199313064311

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730525545274757172

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730499239678030265

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730482133351702528

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730481563131924534

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by curves2000

We can all agree that Russia needs to get the hell out of Russia without a doubt, but we are also human and also see and feel the human suffering that is going on in all these wars across the world. There are a lot of Russian soldiers who, through no fault of their own, are being forced into Ukraine. It's just the way it is.

I can't wait until Russia hopefully loses this war but there is still a tragedy to all of this from a human level. Does you opinion change on the Canadian men and women who were injured or killed in Afghanistan ? Looking back on it, what the hell were we doing there? Plenty of locals didn't give a crap about blowing up Canadians yet the optics for us back home was different.

When political and militarily leaders force us to do things against our will, everybody loses

Are individual Russian soldiers being forced to rape, commit, atrocities, steal belongs and I am sure as this is unpacked there will be more crimes found?

Each Ivan is making a decision.

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730590439860773120

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730404684014227673

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730550518366318845

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730589577948049788

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730342008240349624

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730510762643194356

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730447516825497912

[Firebot]

So...much...smoking...

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730652452272177607

[RoadGame]

Might just go watch Bridge on the River Kwai this weekend.

WTG Ukraine!

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730933796373983576

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730918330574176297

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730901430658035828

https://twitter.com/user/status/1730839076096667760

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Are individual Russian soldiers being forced to rape, commit, atrocities, steal belongs and I am sure as this is unpacked there will be more crimes found?

Each Ivan is making a decision.

I am not sticking up for any Russian solider doing any of those types of things at all. I am firmly not on Team Russia. If anything, I have always been stunned at the lack of firm response from the entire world in regard to dealing with Putin.

What I am trying to illustrate is the human level. Say you and I were hypothetically forced into battle from our Canadian government. We have absolutely zero choice in this matter to go and fight against our enemies. It really becomes fight for survival, its either us or them. It's the reality of war.

If I was killed in combat for the Canadian Forces and you lost 3 limbs while wiping your ass, our families are mourning and dealing with the consequences, the human element is some expression of some sympathy in my mind.

Russia has zero business being in Ukraine and millions of people are affected by this disaster. Everybody is paying the price.

I used that example of Canadian military being injured and killed in Afghanistan, to us what happened to them was tragic. They are protecting our freedoms. To the Afghans and those who were active in fighting the various countries who sent military there, the question is "What the hell are you doing here?"

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I am not sticking up for any Russian solider doing any of those types of things at all. I am firmly not on Team Russia. If anything, I have always been stunned at the lack of firm response from the entire world in regard to dealing with Putin.

What I am trying to illustrate is the human level. Say you and I were hypothetically forced into battle from our Canadian government. We have absolutely zero choice in this matter to go and fight against our enemies. It really becomes fight for survival, its either us or them. It's the reality of war.

If I was killed in combat for the Canadian Forces and you lost 3 limbs while wiping your ass, our families are mourning and dealing with the consequences, the human element is some expression of some sympathy in my mind.

Russia has zero business being in Ukraine and millions of people are affected by this disaster. Everybody is paying the price.

I used that example of Canadian military being injured and killed in Afghanistan, to us what happened to them was tragic. They are protecting our freedoms. To the Afghans and those who were active in fighting the various countries who sent military there, the question is "What the hell are you doing here?"

There is always a choice. Not easy choice and not one that doesn't have serious repercussions or risks involved, but still a choice. There are Russian men in prison right now because they refused to report and kill Ukrainians. There are many who fled and now have to start a life elsewhere. There are some who surrendered to Ukrainian forces as soon as they were able, or just went AWOL. I get that none of these things are great choices.

If someone came to your house and said, I am going to put you prison unless you kill some people for me, is your freedom worth more than lives of innocent people? For a lot of the Russians sent to Ukraine, it was to them. So I don't have any sympathy for them.

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1731487913538466092

https://twitter.com/user/status/1731432976469385235

https://twitter.com/user/status/1731594515138715786

https://twitter.com/user/status/1731531596556390602

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

If someone came to your house and said, I am going to put you prison unless you kill some people for me, is your freedom worth more than lives of innocent people? For a lot of the Russians sent to Ukraine, it was to them. So I don't have any sympathy for them.

Further to that, there are thousands of soldiers from the poor Eastern parts of Russia who have been promised basic needs such as running water, sewage, and electricity if they volunteer to go to Ukraine and fight. Imagine someone coming to your shack and telling you that you will have all these utilities hooked up if you go kill people in the neighboring country. I get that education in those regions is pretty much non-existent, but you'd think that some people would put 2 and 2 together and start asking how sewage and power is going to get installed without having pipes or power lines.

My MIL told me many stories when under occupation how she spoke to a lot of Siberians who told her what I just wrote; they were promised to have things like power and water installed in their homes if they came to fight.

Pretty obvious to most of us that this was all BS and these soldiers were lied to and used as cannon fodder. In that respect I feel a bit sorry for them. But that sympathy quickly goes out the window when I then heard stories of people lined up and shot into the river down MIL's street, the bodies were there for months before being removed. Extreme poverty makes people do extreme things when a carrot in dangled in front of them, but lines are crossed when it means murdering innocent people.

[Johnny Makarov]

There's 420,000 Russians in Ukraine right now? Time to make them into 3.2 million pieces!

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I am not sticking up for any Russian solider doing any of those types of things at all. I am firmly not on Team Russia. If anything, I have always been stunned at the lack of firm response from the entire world in regard to dealing with Putin.

What I am trying to illustrate is the human level. Say you and I were hypothetically forced into battle from our Canadian government. We have absolutely zero choice in this matter to go and fight against our enemies. It really becomes fight for survival, its either us or them. It's the reality of war.

If I was killed in combat for the Canadian Forces and you lost 3 limbs while wiping your ass, our families are mourning and dealing with the consequences, the human element is some expression of some sympathy in my mind.

Russia has zero business being in Ukraine and millions of people are affected by this disaster. Everybody is paying the price.

I used that example of Canadian military being injured and killed in Afghanistan, to us what happened to them was tragic. They are protecting our freedoms. To the Afghans and those who were active in fighting the various countries who sent military there, the question is "What the hell are you doing here?"

I don't feel sympathy for the Russian military personnel dying in Ukraine.