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the popes toes posted:I believe the framing is Mr. Putin had no choice. Indeed, he warned the West many times against this political adventure, and so unheeded, he did what he said he would do. The West didn't necessarily trap him as wantonly challenged him. The reasons for the West's goading are various and none of them make the least bit of sense. There was a joke in the other Ukraine thread that "NATO kept wagging it's finger at Russia, so it obviously had no choice but to invade and commit genocide." And while honestly intended as a joke, that essentially is the truth of the matter if you genuinely accept the idea NATO is an imminent and existential threat to Russia and caused this by...simply existing? Putin's latest word salad rant had a part about how long range missiles get put on the border of Russia, so in response he has to keep expanding the border as well. ...Which is an open admission that he's choosing imperialist expansion for a thin veneer of safety. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously who swallows and parrots this stuff. It's transparent nonsense. If you really want to support Russia, why invent these dumb and convoluted reasons and just be honest about it?
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Feb 27, 2023 02:55
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Nelson Mandingo posted:There was a joke in the other Ukraine thread that "NATO kept wagging it's finger at Russia, so it obviously had no choice but to invade and commit genocide." And while honestly intended as a joke, that essentially is the truth of the matter if you genuinely accept the idea NATO is an imminent and existential threat to Russia and caused this by...simply existing? Because Russia are unequivocal bad guys and you need either to delude yourself into believing they’re not, or you know and support them anyway but you want your buddy who only wants to talk about the NBA or NHL to be on your side, because both sides are no angels.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:01
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I mean Ovechkin stumps for Putin, so that's your NHL fan taken care of... Sorry, Ovechkin is "non political" when he's not campaigning for Putin.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:16
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Funny how somehow the Baltic countries joining NATO wasn't an existential threat to Russia but Ukraine joining would be.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:27
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:There's a strange "leftist" school of thought that states only America truly has agency in world politics and every other government essentially only ever reacts to American stimulus. It's not phrased this way but that's what, when you strip away all the cruft and phraseology and caveats, they're actually saying. The arguments you're talking about come from this school of thought. It's somehow the most amerocentric perspective possible despite being presented as the opposite, too.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:31
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Herstory Begins Now posted:It's somehow the most amerocentric perspective possible despite being presented as the opposite, too. Like I said, it's just upside down American exceptionalism. Main character syndrome, except you believe the main character is an all powerful mind controlling evil mary sue.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:39
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:There's a strange "leftist" school of thought that states only America truly has agency in world politics and every other government essentially only ever reacts to American stimulus. It's not phrased this way but that's what, when you strip away all the cruft and phraseology and caveats, they're actually saying. The arguments you're talking about come from this school of thought. Not going to link to the guy but yeah, that's the argument. With ref to the UNGA resolution condemning the invasion: Considering the majority of nations "in favor" were coerced and threatened by the US or are outright controlled by client regimes installed by the US, the vote does more to reflect everything that's wrong with the UN than a meaningful indictment against Russia.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:40
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Sorry to be bloodthirsty but this is cool as hell. https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1629909265753276419?s=20 not sure what the ukrainian is doing. probably pointing to show the drone where to go.... (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 27, 2023 04:32
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CNN is reporting that Zelenskyy fired Ukraine's "Commander of Joint Forces." What is this role, exactly? The person was a Major General, which means there are more senior ranks (unless Ukraine's general ranks are very different).
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Feb 27, 2023 05:17
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Jonny Nox posted:Sorry to be bloodthirsty but this is cool as hell. Are these still jury rigged or is someone making these for this specific use? Are those mortars or munitions designed to explode on contact? What does command and control look like? The targeting must have its own logistics as the drone camera is just a camera from what I have seen; is there a specific platform or - dare I speculate - a targeting OS or app for something like this? I get this might all be top secret and milsec, I am just interested in the generalities.
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Feb 27, 2023 05:43
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Ynglaur posted:CNN is reporting that Zelenskyy fired Ukraine's "Commander of Joint Forces." What is this role, exactly? The person was a Major General, which means there are more senior ranks (unless Ukraine's general ranks are very different). joint forces is a unified military and law enforcement and intelligence body overseeing anti-Russian operations in the donbass, more or less. Originally was under intelligence control but was shifted over to military control a number of years ago.
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Feb 27, 2023 05:44
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Huggybear posted:Are these still jury rigged or is someone making these for this specific use? Are those mortars or munitions designed to explode on contact? What does command and control look like? The targeting must have its own logistics as the drone camera is just a camera from what I have seen; is there a specific platform or - dare I speculate - a targeting OS or app for something like this? I get this might all be top secret and milsec, I am just interested in the generalities. No idea how that one works, but I remember seeing some early versions with civilian drones supposedly used sensors watching lights on the drone that could be triggered through the drones app to blink on command. Flash the light, the bomb holder releases the bomb.
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Feb 27, 2023 05:49
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35 minutes of interviews with soldiers and resistance members in Kherson from France24, released a couple days ago. Nothing gory, but covered corpses and some harrowing combat footage (cinci edit:  ) are shown:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXylHMy9X0M (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Somebody fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 05:55
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GSV gently caress Your God posted:Also, from that Global Times article was this line, which was, in euphamism, lamenting that the Ukrainian people had as much popular will to defend themselves as they do: They really seem to think (or at least, try to popularize the idea) that the UAF is the modern day equivalent of the ARVN.
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Feb 27, 2023 06:59
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Huggybear posted:Are these still jury rigged or is someone making these for this specific use? Are those mortars or munitions designed to explode on contact? What does command and control look like? The targeting must have its own logistics as the drone camera is just a camera from what I have seen; is there a specific platform or - dare I speculate - a targeting OS or app for something like this? I get this might all be top secret and milsec, I am just interested in the generalities. US seems to be using 3 main drones. A Mavic 3 quad which is used at the squad level and controlled by a phone and console like controller. It is rigged to drop grenades or small morter rounds with some 3d printed parts. They also have also been using some small racing drones that they strap rpg rounds to that are suicide drones. Both are realitivly cheap off the self drones from China, mostly made by DJI. The one in the pic is a much more expensive octo drone that for the most part is used for over watch but they do sometimes have a load of grenades as you can see. Anyways, here is a good PowerPoint about them all. I don't remember anything offensive in it and it was rather dry but  to be safe.https://youtu.be/AlpZf1hpQYM freeasinbeer posted:No idea how that one works, but I remember seeing some early versions with civilian drones supposedly used sensors watching lights on the drone that could be triggered through the drones app to blink on command. That would make sense, I've noticed some kind of light notification pop up in the center of the display when they release in the past. lamentable dustman fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 07:16
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JFO is Donbas/Eastern Ukraine. So either Zelenskyy isn’t happy with what’s going on in the East or it’s part of his ongoing focus on corruption, or both I guess Ukraine was full of developers pre-war so these civilian drones get flashed with firmware hacks created to support combat ops
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Feb 27, 2023 08:04
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Moon Slayer posted:Funny how somehow the Baltic countries joining NATO wasn't an existential threat to Russia but Ukraine joining would be. Well, to be fair, Ukraine joining NATO (which wasn't going to happen as long as Russia supplied Germany with cheap gas) would be a much bigger threat to Russia than the Baltics joining, for a lot of reasons. If you believe that NATO is a threat to Russia.
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Feb 27, 2023 08:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-X8Zaev5o4 Found this update from Bakhmut. I'm not sure how accurate the information within is, but it looks legit. It looks like the Russians were able to make tactical progress and collapse some front lines north of Bakhmut just before the weather turned sour. Ukraine blew up a dam nearby to cut them off and slow their advance. This guy estimates around 2.5k Ukrainian soldiers stuck in the Bakhmut residential areas.
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Feb 27, 2023 08:23
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I have my doubts about this video, if only because the thumbnail marks it as dogshit-grade clickbait. This war has been chock-full of self-proclaimed experts popping up out of nowhere that start with one or two insightful points and then stretch those points to a wildly overblown conclusion, like trent telenko and how bad tires mean a complete logistical collapse for russia in 5 months, or kamil galeev and how Russian supply chain issues mean this war will cause the russian rail system to collapse and the country to fragment into warlord fiefdoms. The topic these guys have educated me most on is their particular flavor of Russia-watcher hustlegrind
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Feb 27, 2023 09:37
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I see. Yeah, unforunately, most videos these days have a clickbait thumbnail, even if they turn out to be good and informative, so it's very hard to tell. I mostly just follow Perun and Anders Puck Nielsen, but they don't deal with the day to day stuff. Anyone got any good sources for that?
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Feb 27, 2023 09:44
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hey mom its 420 posted:I see. Yeah, unforunately, most videos these days have a clickbait thumbnail, even if they turn out to be good and informative, so it's very hard to tell. I mostly just follow Perun and Anders Puck Nielsen, but they don't deal with the day to day stuff. Anyone got any good sources for that? https://notes.citeam.org/+dispatches I think CIT does good status updates for the war. They're a bit behind the hour, publishing new dispatches every 1–4 days (depending on the intensity of war) and taking some additional time to (not so well) translate their Russian-language updates into English, adding maps from Defmon, but I would say that for the majority of people that should be regular enough. Think of it like a much more condensed version of the ISW reports, where the repeating half is omitted.
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Feb 27, 2023 10:35
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HolHorsejob posted:I have my doubts about this video, if only because the thumbnail marks it as dogshit-grade clickbait. This war has been chock-full of self-proclaimed experts popping up out of nowhere that start with one or two insightful points and then stretch those points to a wildly overblown conclusion, like trent telenko and how bad tires mean a complete logistical collapse for russia in 5 months, or kamil galeev and how Russian supply chain issues mean this war will cause the russian rail system to collapse and the country to fragment into warlord fiefdoms. I've been watching a lot of this guy's videos, and have seen a lot of reactions like yours. Yes, everyone finds the thumbnails and titles clickbaity, but everyone who bothers to watch more than a little of it seems to conclude that there's nothing wrong with the actual content. I would agree with that, but my relatively uneducated opinion should not be very valuable to anybody. If anyone knows of a good reason not to follow this guy then I'd be happy to hear it!
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Feb 27, 2023 10:40
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Putin's latest word salad rant had a part about how long range missiles get put on the border of Russia, so in response he has to keep expanding the border as well. ...Which is an open admission that he's choosing imperialist expansion for a thin veneer of safety. I see you haven't been sent a far-too-long leftist YouTube video explaining how imperialism can only be done by capitalist western governments. You see, communism doesn't require constant expansion and pillaging of resources like capitalism does, so communist governments don't seek out other countries to invade and take their resources. Thus, nothing Russia does is imperialism; instead, it is justified reactive self-defense against a capitalist world that seeks to stamp out all vestiges of communism. To believe this you must ignore that it's not 1980 anymore and that Russia is no longer communist, but capitalist with a communist veneer slapped across it.
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Feb 27, 2023 11:26
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My favorite tho is when leftists go off on a rant about Ukraine being part of Russian sovereignty that sounds like it came straight from the western expansion of the US in the 1800s. Just some weird-rear end Manifest Destiny poo poo. Bitch, gently caress a sovereignty.
StrangersInTheNight fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 11:31
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Submissions are closed for ranting about random cranks, thank you.
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Feb 27, 2023 11:33
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Torrannor posted:Well, to be fair, Ukraine joining NATO (which wasn't going to happen as long as Russia supplied Germany with cheap gas) would be a much bigger threat to Russia than the Baltics joining, for a lot of reasons. If you believe that NATO is a threat to Russia. Well sure but it wasn't about NATO. Russia started this war because Ukraine was about to sign a trade agreement with the EU similar to other EU trade agreements with Morocco and Egypt. The Russian government explicitly and directly told Ukraine and the EU what they would do: Sergei Glazyev, EU-Ukraine meeting at Yalta, 22 September 2013 posted:"But legally, signing this agreement about association with EU, the Ukrainian government violates the treaty on strategic partnership and friendship with Russia." When this happened, he said, Russia could no longer guarantee Ukraine's status as a state and could possibly intervene if pro-Russian regions of the country appealed directly to Moscow. In addition, since independence in 1991 until 2014 Ukraine was neutral and constitutionally unable to join NATO. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, passed on July 1, 1990, declared that the country had the “intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs...” and the Ukrainian Constitution, based on the Declaration of Independence of August 24, 1991, contained principles of non-coalition and future neutrality. It was not about NATO and if Russia was concerned about Ukraine joining NATO they should not have ended Ukrainian neutrality in February 2014. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 27, 2023 11:45
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Nenonen posted:They're thermobaric rocket launchers. quote:The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is unique—and unpleasant. ... What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs. ... If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as with most chemical agents. 
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Feb 27, 2023 11:53
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StrangersInTheNight posted:I see you haven't been sent a far-too-long leftist YouTube video explaining how imperialism can only be done by capitalist western governments. Not that any of that matters as Soviet Communism very much WAS about invading and systematically exploiting non-ethnic Russians (or anyone outside Moscow/St. Petersburg, whatever floats your boat) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 27, 2023 12:13
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Girkin is having another bad day. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1630175329422655489
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Feb 27, 2023 13:39
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Has there been any satellite confirmation on the A-50 being hit yet, or nothing?
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Feb 27, 2023 15:14
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the popes toes posted:I believe the framing is Mr. Putin had no choice. Indeed, he warned the West many times against this political adventure, and so unheeded, he did what he said he would do. The West didn't necessarily trap him as wantonly challenged him. The reasons for the West's goading are various and none of them make the least bit of sense. The conservative block in the US believe the Ukraine is soo corrupt, that is just a puppet state the clintons and biden because of the hunter laptop and joe s remark of firing some prosecutor, all the aid and money going to the Ukraine is just being funneled out to the DNC and their masters....But the russians have a huuuge number of men to throw at the Ukrainians! Why yes I did have breakfast with family this Sunday. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 27, 2023 15:15
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Dandywalken posted:Has there been any satellite confirmation on the A-50 being hit yet, or nothing? Just checked on Planet, there's nothing new today. It's also cloudy in the area, so there's a good chance it'll be blocked anyway.
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Feb 27, 2023 15:18
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Icon Of Sin posted:Luka: I can’t help with Ukraine right now, I’ve got partisans to deal with!!! Has anyone from the RF side accused Luka of these being false flag situations? Is he self interested enough to even consider that sort of thing to stay [relatively] uninvolved?
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Feb 27, 2023 15:21
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 Minor service announcement – SAD is open for all your questions to admins about the demise of the GBS thread about Russia's war in Ukraine. I don't care to read in this thread why you do or not believe something or whatever else is on your heart about the thread, but if you want to talk to the manager about this, they're waiting for you here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4025159
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Feb 27, 2023 15:30
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Vaginaface posted:Has anyone from the RF side accused Luka of these being false flag situations? Is he self interested enough to even consider that sort of thing to stay [relatively] uninvolved? Haven't seen anything like that. Both Russia and Lukashenko are still trying to come up with a narrative that is the least embarrassing for them, and both have things they would like to not acknowledge. For Lukashenko it's showing that opposition partisans can operate with impunity for months, perform what amounts to a terroristic act, and swiftly escape abroad. For Russia, it's showing that half a dozen drones can successfully decommission a plane that costs more than annual military aid to Ukraine of some smaller countries. Synthesis of these two concerns will probably be something like Ukrainian agents in collaboration with local terrorists attempted to blow up a plane, failed, and are now apprehended.
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Feb 27, 2023 15:59
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Germany gonna Germany."Politico posted:The truth about Germany’s defense policy shift Full disclosure, I'm not familiar with this commentator so would appreciate anyone who is chiming in if we should just ignore this article entirely.
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Feb 27, 2023 16:23
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An ISW update on Russian combat force numbers: https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1630211007648874497?s=20 Also Big Train Man is headed for bigger and better things (gonna credit Cinci for calling this one about a week ago): https://twitter.com/AKamyshin/status/1630227614257250305?s=20
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Feb 27, 2023 16:45
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Shes Not Impressed posted:An ISW update on Russian combat force numbers: It's a bit grim, but I can't help but wonder how Russia's overall ideological makeup will be altered over time if Putin actually has been leaning on ultranationalist influencers to find volunteers - what happens when the most die-hard types go into a conflict where the odds of injury or death are very high, and the survivors have a good chance of walking away with trauma?
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Feb 27, 2023 17:00
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Shes Not Impressed posted:An ISW update on Russian combat force numbers: I'm really hoping they're right that Russia will run out of personnel 10 months ago  I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who is still in denial that it's 2023 already
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Feb 27, 2023 17:06
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https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1629722073487613953?s=20 This Twitter thread was mentioned earlier ITT and is getting a fair amount of discussion on Twitter (inasmuch as Twitter fosters discussion). The organization sizes seem to indicate the level of officer responsible for them, not size. Thus, the "platoons" are the sizes of Western squads: about 12 men. "Companies" are around 60-80 men. I have some problems with this task organization and even some of the tactics it espouses. The "assault platoons" are 12-man squads, which is good. I've thought for 20 years that the US 9-man squad was too small, and organized my dismounted patrols as 12-man squads in Iraq in 2003. There's a reasonable case that an IFV can be "the third fire team" supporting two dismounted teams of 4, but 12 to a squad provides good redundancy. Then Russia goes and negates the benefit. Each squad has two heavy machineguns and two automatic grenade launchers (AGLs). "That's a lot of firepower, Ynglaur," you say, "Isn't that a good thing?" Yes, if the job of that unit is to provide support-by-fire. But it's an assault element. But now instead of 12 men you have 6: a platoon commander, a signaler (radio, I assume?), a medic, a senior rifleman, and two sappers. The pamphlet goes on to state that the ideal range for the AGLs is 600-1700m away. Think about that for a minute. You have a 12-man squad, and 6 of them are going to be 600+ meters in front of the other 6. How do they communicate? You better have good quality, multiple radios going, and excellent coordination. It specifies organizing into 4 teams of 3 men each, which is okay, but 2 of the 4 teams have heavy weapons, and 1 has the platoon commander and a UAV operator. That leaves a single, 3-man team to actually assault an objective. I guess that's why that team has the medic assigned. His job will be to save the other 2. I realize Russia is a fires army rather than a maneuver army, but this structure seems to repeat the problems BTGs had but on smaller scale: a high theoretical combat power due to lots of heavy hardware, but the inability to sustain combat effectiveness in the face of casualties and the inability to move quickly.
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Feb 27, 2023 17:12
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