Russia invades Ukraine

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by activeStick

I haven't been following the conflict for a while now other than reading this thread here and there and it's a bit surprising to come in and see that Russia has won in Mariupol. I was always assuming and under the impression that Russia was incapable of winning in any region with all of their wrong moves and bad tactics. I imagine this will be a pretty big deal for Russia.

Russia is doing fine in Donbas and Mariupol was won weeks ago for Russia. It was just a matter of when the holed up troops would surrender.

Russia shrinking their goals by about 100 times what they were to start means they can win the smaller areas they are left fighting over (that they pretty much had control over before the war even started).

[burn_this_city]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1526916706353954816

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Russia is doing fine in Donbas and Mariupol was won weeks ago for Russia. It was just a matter of when the holed up troops would surrender.

Russia shrinking their goals by about 100 times what they were to start means they can win the smaller areas they are left fighting over (that they pretty much had control over before the war even started).

The other thing Russia is doing now is trying to consolidate the territory they have now so they can Annex it and declare it Russia, put it under its nuclear doctrine to see if the West will continue to support the Ukraine in “invading” what Russia declared as Russia/Independent.

It makes things like taking back Karkiv and the destruction of the river crossing to prevent encirclement very large victories for Ukraine.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by GGG

The other thing Russia is doing now is trying to consolidate the territory they have now so they can Annex it and declare it Russia, put it under its nuclear doctrine to see if the West will continue to support the Ukraine in “invading” what Russia declared as Russia/Independent.

It makes things like taking back Karkiv and the destruction of the river crossing to prevent encirclement very large victories for Ukraine.

As per Russian nuclear doctrine, non-nuclear attack on Russian proper does not trigger a nuclear response unless such attack is an existential threat.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-ukraine-putin

[FlamesAddiction]

Videos show Russia moving nuclear capable missiles to the border region of Finland.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world...57cfcd8b698b20

Likely just posturing and it wouldn't be the first time that they had missiles that close, but still an escalation. It's almost like they want to push Finland further towards NATO.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Videos show Russia moving nuclear capable missiles to the border region of Finland.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world...57cfcd8b698b20

Likely just posturing and it wouldn't be the first time that they had missiles that close, but still an escalation. It's almost like they want to push Finland further towards NATO.

Eh, who cares. Seriously, it does not matter even a little bit for us where the nukes are exactly.

I struggle to see this as "an escalation", even an attempted one, even though NA media seems to want to call everything and anything an escalation and want to stir up the idea that there's some panic in Finland over every little thing. There's not.

Generally speaking there's less troops on the Finnish border than basically ever. Moving around some missiles doesn't change the big picture.

Putin already moved the goalposts from "Russia will not accept Finland joining NATO" to "Russia will not accept NATO bases in Finland".

[burn_this_city]

Everyone in the west is only 10-30 mins from being nuked, what's the difference between 100km and 10,000 when everyone dies anyhow?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Everyone in the west is only 10-30 mins from being nuked, what's the difference between 100km and 10,000 when everyone dies anyhow?

Russia seems to be obsessed with the speed of missiles, the existence of hundreds of thousands of warheads in submarines all over the world seems to elude their thinking

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Russia seems to be obsessed with the speed of missiles, the existence of hundreds of thousands of warheads in submarines all over the world seems to elude their thinking

Dumb ####s

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Everyone in the west is only 10-30 mins from being nuked, what's the difference between 100km and 10,000 when everyone dies anyhow?

Its just posturing.

[CroFlames]

Finland has been ready for a Soviet/Russian invasion since 1945. Any ground invasion of Finland would be more of a meat grinder than Ukraine was.



It would take unprecedented of air strikes against Finnish military positions and cities before an invasion for Russia to have type of success there. Even still, an air campaign would be a grind as Finland has robust AA defenses.



But again, what would be the ####ing point?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Finland has been ready for a Soviet/Russian invasion since 1945. Any ground invasion of Finland would be more of a meat grinder than Ukraine was.



It would take unprecedented of air strikes against Finnish military positions and cities before an invasion for Russia to have type of success there. Even still, an air campaign would be a grind as Finland has robust AA defenses.



But again, what would be the ####ing point?

Just to add to this, as Finland has been under the threat of Russian/Soviet invasion since WWII, they're constantly prepared for that threat. They have mandatory military service, and could raise an army of a million. Finland might be the second hardest nation in Europe to invade, behind Switzerland.

On top of that, St. Petersburg is not far from the Finnish border. This wouldn't be a one sided strike like in the Ukraine, the Finnish would be actively bombing the second biggest city in Russia.

[FlameOn]

MOD and map updates. Russian forces continue to hold in the near Lyptsi trying to hold the area directly north of Kharkiv while Ukrainian forces have recaptured up the the pre-invasion border directly E of the town. The Soviet culture of scapegoating is alive and well in the Russian military with the removal of the commander responsible for the Kharkiv invasion from his post.

In Donbas, Russians made some minor gains near Izyum, Lyman, Popasana, and Lysychansk, including the town of Toshkivka.

No other significant advances have been reported anywhere else.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1527163546781483008

https://twitter.com/user/status/1527066364271153152

Larger detailed map from Wikipedia

Spoiler!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_R...ion_of_Ukraine

Turkey is now blocking talks of Sweden and Finland's official applications into NATO from being discussed.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1526918118458671105

[Baron von Kriterium]

Well, the world of Twitter has been buzzing since last Friday about the Ukrainians crushing the Russians as they forced a crossing on the Siverskyi Donets River near the sleepy little hamlet of Bilohorivka. Users here have posted facts and figures from ironclad OSINT sources citing tens of AFVs destroyed and hundreds of Russians dead. Not to be outdone, here is CNN's effort:


Stills taken from the source video:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/202...tary-conflict/

Well, friends, we have a problem. I have no doubt that there were Russian casualties - both vehicular and personnel - but CNN is showing Ukrainian vehicles. OK, maybe, just maybe, the destroyed tank in the background of the middle left picture is Russian, but the rest are most assuredly Ukrainian.

[Mr.Coffee]

Okay, and?

[burn_this_city]

Both sides are using captured vehicles and it's quite possible there was a counter attack at some point resulting in losses.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1527259817793961986

https://twitter.com/user/status/1527260540778827779

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

Well, the world of Twitter has been buzzing since last Friday about the Ukrainians crushing the Russians as they forced a crossing on the Siverskyi Donets River near the sleepy little hamlet of Bilohorivka. Users here have posted facts and figures from ironclad OSINT sources citing tens of AFVs destroyed and hundreds of Russians dead. Not to be outdone, here is CNN's effort:


Stills taken from the source video:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/202...tary-conflict/

Well, friends, we have a problem. I have no doubt that there were Russian casualties - both vehicular and personnel - but CNN is showing Ukrainian vehicles. OK, maybe, just maybe, the destroyed tank in the background of the middle left picture is Russian, but the rest are most assuredly Ukrainian.

Because? you realise the markings burn off as the vehicle cooks, the lack of a roughly spray painted V isnt proof

[Baron von Kriterium]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Okay, and?

And CNN is garbage. And I'm skeptical of claims of pro-Ukrainian OSINTers when it comes to casualty counts. For what it's worth, I'm skeptical of the Russian ones, too.

The point is that it's difficult to determine which vehicles belong to whom based on images like this one, pulled from post #6153. But the pro-Ukrainian OSINTers are implying these are all Russian.



AFV 1, 2 and 3 are BMP-1. Two of their turrets are seen at 4 and 5. AFV 6 is a BTR-D. So what? Well, the Russians do not use BMP-1. The UAF and Donbas militias use them. But the Russian army uses different variants (BMP-1AM and BRM-1K). Russian airborne units, Ukrainian ground and air forces and the Donbas militias use the BTR-D - the latter having captured them from UAF.

Basically, this picture tells us nothing except a battle took place and all sides likely took casualties, but there is nothing in this picture that one can conclude all casualties are Russian.

[Baron von Kriterium]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Because? you realise the markings burn off as the vehicle cooks, the lack of a roughly spray painted V isnt proof

Oh for feck's sake. Don't be so obtuse. Those are T-64s

[burn_this_city]

Begs the question though, who was using the crossing? Why would UAF vehicle drive right up to the riverbank to stop a RuAF crossing?