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ZombieLenin posted:I mean, we already learned about the absolute miserable state the military analysts ranked second in the world before this started is actually in, but seriously? I know it is fashionable to meme on the Russians but frankly, they are consistently winning on all fronts. This isn't US shock and awe pace but they have cleaned up their act from the 'liberators riding through cheering crowds' mode into a more methodical shell them out approach and are making steady gains everywhere. The shots of destruction at Zhytomyr early in the day is just an indication they intend to outflank Kyiv further West than just Marakiv. The Ukrainians identify Russians operating at least 3 of their battalions in the Zhytomyr oblast so their setback in Marakiv may turn out to phyrric. Cherniv is now confirmed to be in seige mode still with no word on whether the lone tank brigade in the Ukrainian battle rolls managed to extract itself. Maybe they aren't mentioned anymore because the unit has been attritted in 5 days fighting to effectively not exist as a maneuver unit. People keep talking about how Kharkiv continues to hold out but most analysts identify the entire eastern area of operations as a secondary supporting effort. No progress is being made in Kyiv but the Russians are intent on encircling it instead of taking the city by storm. The Russians might not even need to physically sit on top of all the roads leading west out of Kyiv to effectively cut it off from fresh NATO weapon supplies and ammunition. If at some point they can just sit their long-range artillery close enough to shell the roads consistently that might be enough to do the job. Clearly the Russians are bleeding, the fact that they publicly released a figure at all after days of silence means that they feel they can't really hide the scope of the casualties anymore and want to feed a propaganda number that will at least appear to stand up to casual scrutiny with the phone calls coming home. Not sure if it is enough though. Putin is looking like a pitbull right now with negotiations delayed till tommorrow. Maybe just giving his guys time to take Kherson which they did so they have a better spot to negotiate from on March 3.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:17
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Bisse posted:There's a lot of talk about momentary Ukranian army victories, demoralized and incompetent Russian units, but what chance does Ukraine actually have in this war? Reading here and on Reddit there seems to be a hopeful spirit and lots of uplifting news, with russians deserting and refusing to follow orders, tanks and convoys being taken out, but looking at the reality on the ground the Russian army is absolutely gargantuan and has only been making advances. The situation for Ukraine seems hopeless.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:18
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Bisse posted:There's a lot of talk about momentary Ukranian army victories, demoralized and incompetent Russian units, but what chance does Ukraine actually have in this war? Reading here and on Reddit there seems to be a hopeful spirit and lots of uplifting news, with russians deserting and refusing to follow orders, tanks and convoys being taken out, but looking at the reality on the ground the Russian army is absolutely gargantuan and has only been making advances. The situation for Ukraine seems hopeless. It is an army minuscule for the task it has set itself on: Occupying a country of this size and population, and trying to abet whatever nation engineering project Putin has in mind. And it has not only been making advances, to say nothing of it not even being all organized in clear lines that make organized advances. The situation for Ukraine is brutal, but the situation for Russia is hopeless. This is an Afghanistan/Iraq sort of conflict, which means yes, horrifying for the people living there. But also a horrifying dead end quagmire for the occupying force even and maybe even especially in the event that they knock out the ruling government and switch to "victorious" occupying force.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:18
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Maybe the roid rage will pop his heart is probably the best somewhar likely scenerio
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Mar 3, 2022 02:18
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Grape posted:It is an army minuscule for the task it has set itself on: Occupying a country of this size and population, and trying to abet whatever nation engineering project Putin has in mind. Yeah, that's my sense, as well. Russia can't possibly win this outright. It's just a matter of how long it takes for them to call it quits and go home. That's not very quantifiable, unfortunately. Ukraine "wins" by simply not conceding the field and waiting them out. Here's hoping they can.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:21
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KitConstantine posted:May all your enemies be lazy It is quite good. For those that can't click through: if you don't move parked equipment regularly the sun shining on the same spot over and over will weaken a section of the tire wall. That's not really a problem when the tire is kept inflated for normal road travel, but if you try to drive at a lower pressure the tire rips apart. And you need to use a very low pressure to drive through mud. The equipment in the photo has failed this way, and it happens to be a very expensive important new piece of equipment. If the best of the best hasn't had the tires maintained, the rest of the fleet almost certainly has not. It appears likely that a large portion of the Russian military's wheeled vehicles will tear their tires apart if driven in mud.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:22
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Bisse posted:There's a lot of talk about momentary Ukranian army victories, demoralized and incompetent Russian units, but what chance does Ukraine actually have in this war? Reading here and on Reddit there seems to be a hopeful spirit and lots of uplifting news, with russians deserting and refusing to follow orders, tanks and convoys being taken out, but looking at the reality on the ground the Russian army is absolutely gargantuan and has only been making advances. The situation for Ukraine seems hopeless. Russia cannot attain a complete victory with the forces it has now, imo. Their stated goals are basically fully controlling Ukraine as a client state. They might be able to completely level Kyiv block-by-block while suffering quite a lot of losses themselves. Maybe even take out key members of the government. But what then? The Ukrainians have already shown that they won't give up. They will keep receiving tons of aid. Their military is not small, and also quite well trained. Russia won't be able to actually occupy the country without at least 4 times the personnel the way things are going. On the other hand, Ukraine has nothing to lose. They will resist to the death, because there is literally no difference for a lot of them. I fear it will be a long, bloody, terrible conflict.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:23
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the popes toes posted:Well, yeah my point exactly. There's your off ramp. 
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Mar 3, 2022 02:23
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Despera posted:Maybe the roid rage will pop his heart is probably the best somewhar likely scenerio My one consistent wish through all of this has been that, that fucker strokes out while having some Downfall esk rant.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:24
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MikeC posted:I know it is fashionable to meme on the Russians but frankly, they are consistently winning on all fronts. This isn't US shock and awe pace but they have cleaned up their act from the 'liberators riding through cheering crowds' mode into a more methodical shell them out approach and are making steady gains everywhere. The shots of destruction at Zhytomyr early in the day is just an indication they intend to outflank Kyiv further West than just Marakiv. The Ukrainians identify Russians operating at least 3 of their battalions in the Zhytomyr oblast so their setback in Marakiv may turn out to phyrric. Cherniv is now confirmed to be in seige mode still with no word on whether the lone tank brigade in the Ukrainian battle rolls managed to extract itself. Maybe they aren't mentioned anymore because the unit has been attritted in 5 days fighting to effectively not exist as a maneuver unit. People keep talking about how Kharkiv continues to hold out but most analysts identify the entire eastern area of operations as a secondary supporting effort. No progress is being made in Kyiv but the Russians are intent on encircling it instead of taking the city by storm. The Russians might not even need to physically sit on top of all the roads leading west out of Kyiv to effectively cut it off from fresh NATO weapon supplies and ammunition. If at some point they can just sit their long-range artillery close enough to shell the roads consistently that might be enough to do the job. You should not be making these kinds of posts when you can't even follow the news of the day well enough to know that Ukrainian armored elements were mentioned today in relation to a counter-attack north of Luhansk (I think that was it, in the east at least).
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Mar 3, 2022 02:25
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Samopsa posted:
I fear the same, if Russia sets up defensive positions and slows their casualty rate they could feasibly use that artillery for a very very long time
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Mar 3, 2022 02:25
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William Bear posted:I don't get what they're suggesting. Purple says Hungarian territory, green says Romanian. How would that work? Bucovina, was part of Romania since 1918 and formerly part of the Modova principate since middle ages. It was occupied together with Basarabia (Republic of Moldova) by Russia in 1940 after the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty. It had majority romanian speaking population but Russian and Ukrainian rule were not kind to it, a lot of internal movement must've changed that. A local guy on TV summarized their stance on things recently by saying "Russia has taken away our land, Ukraine has taken away our language and Romania has taken away our hope". Romania renounced it in formal treaties with Ukraine so it can join EU. Romania has a history of taking benefit of international events to unite romanian speaking territories with the motherland however it probably wouldn't touch this scheme with a 1000' pole unless all things went nuts and Western Ukraine became Somalia.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:27
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Yeah I'm not seeing any sort of "offramp" other than Russia demolishing all of Ukraine 
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Mar 3, 2022 02:27
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Grape posted:It is an army minuscule for the task it has set itself on: Occupying a country of this size and population, and trying to abet whatever nation engineering project Putin has in mind. i think people basically place a high likelihood of success that ukraine cannot be occupied even if its army can be defeated in the field and russia rolls through the cities and raises a flag. the population all loving hates them now, even the people who were formerly pro-russia - and they all got a lotta javelins the russians appear to be loving up enough that it is possible (though i think it's relatively unlikely) they get defeated in the field, but that requires the ukranian army maintaining itself as a coherent fighting force that can actually encircle and destroy russian formations rather than maul them through attrition via endless javelins. the ukranians are blacking out basically everything about where their army is, how it is doing, etc so its very hard to gauge this from twitter, but there is a big concern that their best formations are potentially going to be trapped in the south (where the russians are doing their best)
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Mar 3, 2022 02:27
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Samopsa posted:Russia cannot attain a complete victory with the forces it has now, imo. Their stated goals are basically fully controlling Ukraine as a client state. They might be able to completely level Kyiv block-by-block while suffering quite a lot of losses themselves. Maybe even take out key members of the government. But what then? The Ukrainians have already shown that they won't give up. They will keep receiving tons of aid. Their military is not small, and also quite well trained. Russia won't be able to actually occupy the country without at least 4 times the personnel the way things are going. Putin putting out kill lists that have since been corroborated by several sources is bound to make "giving in" less appealing as well. Anyone who ever expressed happiness at Ukraine not immediately folding on social media would have good cause to worry.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:28
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ethanol posted:I fear the same, if Russia sets up defensive positions and slows their casualty rate they could feasibly use that artillery for a very very long time And yet at the same time recreating Sarajevo with a far larger city in the Tiktok age, with an already outraged globe that has been smashing their economy's balls, will also intensify problems for Russia.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:28
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Mulling over it, I'm really starting to believe a Duma intervention is a possible mechanism. Even if it's not, it IS an available internal legal mechanism that the west can publicly suggest. The Duma has the power to impeach, so surely they can censure. At the very least, the west should be encouraging internal legal sanity and I haven't heard anything like that from the diploverse. Regardless of the improbability/impossibility the west should get on that wagon.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:28
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the popes toes posted:Mulling over it, I'm really starting to believe a Duma intervention is a possible mechanism. Even if it's not, it IS an available internal legal mechanism that the west can publicly suggest. The Duma has the power to impeach, so surely they can censure. At the very least, the west should be encouraging internal legal sanity and I haven't heard anything like that from the diploverse. Regardless of the improbability/impossibility the west should get on that wagon. the duma has as much actual ability to direct the russian army and security services as the queen of england has to direct english armed forces yes, in theory they have that legal right. however, everyone with guns knows they're just a funny national mascot for a pretend government.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:30
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Dante posted:It was the president (Yeltsin) bombing the parliament for censuring him. The russian white house housed the parliament and prime ministers office back in 1993. yeah, I had a pal on one of the roofs observing and we were getting reports in real time when I was a low level bureaucrat on the gov tit.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:30
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quote:priceless: This is from a Reddit thread. Army HQs? The Finns would be impressed.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:31
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Comstar posted:This is from a Reddit thread. Wait... orcs?
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Mar 3, 2022 02:33
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Calibanibal posted:Wait... orcs? Nazis, orcs, pieces of poo poo I mean colloquially called Russians soldiers.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:33
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evilweasel posted:the duma has as much actual ability to direct the russian army and security services as the queen of england has to direct english armed forces Sure but your average UK citizen (or palace guard / billionaire) may change their minds if the Pound Sterling and the London Stock Exchange lost most of their value overnight with no discernible way to rebound.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:34
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Calibanibal posted:Wait... orcs? A lot of the Ukrainians are calling the Russians 'Orcs' in reference to LOTR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGVZHLOV60E Music video praising the Turkish drones Ukrainians are using.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:34
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the popes toes posted:Mulling over it, I'm really starting to believe a Duma intervention is a possible mechanism. Even if it's not, it IS an available internal legal mechanism that the west can publicly suggest. The Duma has the power to impeach, so surely they can censure. At the very least, the west should be encouraging internal legal sanity and I haven't heard anything like that from the diploverse. Regardless of the improbability/impossibility the west should get on that wagon. The democratic trappings that Russia has draped around itself is purely cosmetic. Russia is effectively a dictatorship. The moment the Duma does something Putin doesn't accept, the Duma is disbanded, and new "elections" are held. Or maybe not, if they don't see a need to continue to pretend they are a Democracy. Regime change without external pressure requires the military to decide they have had enough of Putin. And yes, I know people have said that Putin has carefully chosen his inner circle, but if it gets bad enough, the inner circle would be lined up against the wall and shot by mid-level officers if the military as a whole wanted it badly enough.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:34
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Randarkman posted:You should not be making these kinds of posts when you can't even follow the news of the day well enough to know that Ukrainian armored elements were mentioned today in relation to a counter-attack north of Luhansk (I think that was it, in the east at least). Every day he comes here with a long rear end post how the Rusians are winning. Initailly he was shocked that the Russians got to the capital so fast!
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Mar 3, 2022 02:35
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evilweasel posted:yes, in theory they have that legal right. however, everyone with guns knows they're just a funny national mascot for a pretend government. Sure, but the west should still encourage it. Do it you fools, prove to your countrymen that you're not a funny mascot. Do it. Save the world from this madness. I mean, really, why not? It doesn't hurt to encourage it publicly.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:35
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Some of you guys seem to be into soccer (or at least aware of it). Sky News dragged Andiry Shevchenko up to get interviewed and get his thoughts about the situation in his home country. This plea he made in Russian really got to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osGM4q7Ebe0 Translation: "I would like to address the Russian people. I would like to ask you how you can tolerate this. I implore you, while there is still time, to stop the war. Go out into the street. Say your opinions. You can stop the war and you need to do this."
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Mar 3, 2022 02:35
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Shifty Pony posted:It is quite good. mud mvp
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Mar 3, 2022 02:37
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Sure but your average UK citizen (or palace guard / billionaire) may change their minds if the Pound Sterling and the London Stock Exchange lost most of their value overnight with no discernible way to rebound. yeah but if you're the guy with control of enough guns in putin's russia to decide it's no longer putin's russia, (a) you're taking an immense personal risk, and probably going to feel you deserve immense personal rewards and should be one of the new council of leaders (you probably can't just make yourself the big guy with no supporters right off the bat, you're gonna need to bring in all the other people who control guns); and (b) you're a guy in control of enough guns in putin's russia, you don't have a great love of real democracy anyway or you'd have had your authority removed years ago
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Mar 3, 2022 02:38
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the popes toes posted:yeah, I had a pal on one of the roofs observing and we were getting reports in real time when I was a low level bureaucrat on the gov tit. That sounds like an interesting story! the popes toes posted:Sure, but the west should still encourage it. Do it you fools, prove to your countrymen that you're not a funny mascot. Do it. Save the world from this madness. I mean, really, why not? It doesn't hurt to encourage it publicly. Eric Cantonese posted:Some of you guys seem to be into soccer (or at least aware of it). Sky News dragged Andiry Shevchenko up to get interviewed and get his thoughts about the situation in his home country. Dante fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Mar 3, 2022 |
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Mar 3, 2022 02:38
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CommieGIR posted:A lot of the Ukrainians are calling the Russians 'Orcs' in reference to LOTR. Yeah I'm sure it's a LOTR reference man
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Mar 3, 2022 02:38
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CommieGIR posted:A lot of the Ukrainians are calling the Russians 'Orcs' in reference to LOTR. I thought they were specifically calling the chechens orcs?
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Mar 3, 2022 02:39
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^^^^ Nope. Dates back to 2014. Rigel posted:The democratic trappings that Russia has draped around itself is purely cosmetic. Russia is effectively a dictatorship. The moment the Duma does something Putin doesn't accept, the Duma is disbanded, and new "elections" are held. Or maybe not, if they don't see a need to continue to pretend they are a Democracy. Also the main party was literally founded with "We are for the president" as the slogan, and controls more than 2/3rds of the seats. Independent thinkers they are not. (And the rest is hardly real opposition, either).
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Mar 3, 2022 02:40
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Rigel posted:The democratic trappings that Russia has draped around itself is purely cosmetic. Russia is effectively a dictatorship. The moment the Duma does something Putin doesn't accept, the Duma is disbanded, and new "elections" are held. Or maybe not, if they don't see a need to continue to pretend they are a Democracy. This^ I don't know why some people talk about Vladimir Putin like he's loving Emperor Palpatine or something but he's not: he a flawed human being capable of miscalculations and mistakes. Has he shown savvy and cunning before yes? Did he come from the KGB and become dictator by being ruthless and intelligent? Yes Was this invasion an utter loving mistake and the invasion plan he signed off on Special forces wankfest worship idiocy? Yes You make things bad enough and military commanders start talking about a change at the top and a purge of that inner circle.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:40
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TheRat posted:I thought they were specifically calling the chechens orcs? Maybe, I could be wrong, I thought it was being used as a LOTR reference.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:41
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TheRat posted:I thought they were specifically calling the chechens orcs? I mean, evidently not. Even then in that reference (I think it was someone from the Azov battalion) they specified "Kadyrovite orcs" IIRC.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:43
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CommieGIR posted:Maybe, I could be wrong, I thought it was being used as a LOTR reference. I'm not going to claim omniscience here, but I've only seen it used in a very racist way against chechen muslims.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:43
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https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1499196615411871749
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Mar 3, 2022 02:43
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Russia will declare martial law on March 4th.
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Mar 3, 2022 02:44
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