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fatherboxx)
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Lum_ posted:Before this year, they were more of a classic PMC with forces overall far better trained and equipped than the average Russian brigade. They've spent the past year bloating up with convicts and volunteers from various sources and their on-the-job training program has been "charge the front, and if you don't die, do it again tomorrow", so they are much closer to what you'd consider a paramilitary militia now, albeit still with a core of warcrimey merc goons. Wagner has been used as plausible deniable Russian forces for some time. I can’t for a second believe that they do anything without the OK from Putin. The Syria incident is  because it had to have been planned and ok’ed from above. It goes to show the Russian mindset that they didn’t think that the entire might of the US forces in the area wouldn’t come down upon them. The US has their own versions of these; Blackwater famously was used during our desert wars with plenty of war crimes on their hands too. They have become favored in recent times to handle tasks that are politically or legally dangerous or the chance for failure is very high. They are considered expendable and if things get too spicy they can and often are cut loose.
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May 5, 2023 18:10
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You generally try to evacuate civilians out of the harm's way if you have some clue of where fighting is likely to flare up, and if you give a flying ef about them. It's possible that some people in the civilian occupation administration don't want to carry responsibility for every babushka left in the area getting splattered by artillery fire. A more pessimistic view would be that people get kidnapped to Russia and will never be let back to their homes. A truly draconian military commander would deny them from leaving so they would act as meat shields, so at least that's a positive sign if the civilian admins can get them out.
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May 5, 2023 18:14
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If you clean out the civilians, you also clear put partisans and observers reporting to the UA.
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May 5, 2023 18:18
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Morrow posted:If you clean out the civilians, you also clear put partisans and observers reporting to the UA. Yeah, it's that. Also, now you can booby-trap and mine every village to hell and back.
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May 5, 2023 18:38
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Willo567 posted:https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1654500316883058689 Yeah, last two times it was announced a "gesture of goodwill" followed
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May 5, 2023 21:33
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It looks like Russia has started bombarding Bakhmut with incendiary munitions. https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1654560109723537408?s=20
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May 5, 2023 21:46
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Mr. Apollo posted:It looks like Russia has started bombarding Bakhmut with incendiary munitions. Is there anything about how effective this is? There's a bunch of footage from defenders on the ground and it looks like they're just kinda chilling and watching a bunch of fires from their fortifications: https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/1654598291777003523 *edit* no idea why that's not embedding for me. It's some Ukrainians joking around while watching the incendiary landing all around them as if it's no big deal Chalks fucked around with this message at 22:31 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 22:27
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Prigozhin leaving makes sense to me. He is wasting his money and people for a cause that no longer makes sense to him. He previously made a video where he wanted to just keep what we got and move on. For newbies to the thread Prigozhin despite his role in the war is a convicted criminal who served several years in russian jail and so for a mob boss what is there to gain? But we'll see on the 10th.
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May 5, 2023 23:34
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fatherboxx posted:https://twitter.com/vofchekpan/status/1654413658296840194?t=Gx9qiNU9qsIc2kExUmjKuw&s=19 Officially, apparently Ukrainian MOD has denied it happened: https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1654467767737696256 e: But also, others think differently: https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1654448035445784576 So,  ?
Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 00:14 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 23:51
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The US forces in the area cleared the action against Wagner by having James Mattis call the Russian commander and basically go "those guys are coming for us, are they yours?" Russia denied it, Mattis asked again and specifically said it was going to engage, Russia denied it again, Mattis shrugged and casually proceeded to annihilate most of a Wagner battalion. The air power the US brought to bear included AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52s bombers. Wagner didn't have any aircraft because their promised air support was uniformed Russian Air Force and that would be Bad.
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May 6, 2023 00:01
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Wagner did have their "own" aircraft in Ukraine (not sure if any got shotdown, so they might still have some), but it would be bombers and CAS, which probably won't do them much good against US Air Force fighters...
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May 6, 2023 00:21
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HonorableTB posted:The US forces in the area cleared the action against Wagner by having James Mattis call the Russian commander and basically go "those guys are coming for us, are they yours?" Russia denied it, Mattis asked again and specifically said it was going to engage, Russia denied it again, Mattis shrugged and casually proceeded to annihilate most of a Wagner battalion. The air power the US brought to bear included AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52s bombers. It is a known situarion in Syria. Wagner survivors complained that there was 3 apache helicopters goin in circles and firing nonstop, there was no chance
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May 6, 2023 00:30
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Chalks posted:Is there anything about how effective this is? There's a bunch of footage from defenders on the ground and it looks like they're just kinda chilling and watching a bunch of fires from their fortifications: It depends. Most people are familiar with white phosphorous munitions, but there are other incendiaries that are less (I can't think of the proper word, just less...), and are designed with an intent to spread fires or ignite fuel/munitions. They can also potentially obscure vision or just keep a target from wanting to move around in general. Russia was dropping what looked like Thermite rounds on Azovstal last year.
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May 6, 2023 00:40
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Lum_ posted:Before this year, they were more of a classic PMC with forces overall far better trained and equipped than the average Russian brigade. They've spent the past year bloating up with convicts and volunteers from various sources and their on-the-job training program has been "charge the front, and if you don't die, do it again tomorrow", so they are much closer to what you'd consider a paramilitary militia now, albeit still with a core of warcrimey merc goons. neither side pretended it didn't happen and indeed it happened specifically because Russian commanders, when contacted by American leadership via deconfliction lines said 'not our guys, do whatever.' so 'whatever' ended up being 4 hours of strikes by basically every weapon system that could get within range in time.
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May 6, 2023 00:51
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Herstory Begins Now posted:neither side pretended it didn't happen and indeed it happened specifically because Russian commanders, when contacted by American leadership via deconfliction lines said 'not our guys, do whatever.' so 'whatever' ended up being 4 hours of strikes by basically every weapon system that could get within range in time. After the fact the US side very carefully insisted it was an attack by Syrian forces, and Russia said there may have been a few citizens of Russia that died in the area but they were 100% not part of the Russian military nosiree not that. There wasn't any official acknowledgement until Pompeo bragged about it a few months later.
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May 6, 2023 01:01
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what? it was reported on as it happened. the significant point is that there were no member of the Russian military involved because Wagner is not the Russian military. no one was being coy about that, it's a practical legal distinction because there's no diplomatic complexity to killing non-flagged mercenaries who are presently attacking you. Wagner at that time also existed as much more of a separate force from Russian MoD and it wasn't until the war in Ukraine that they were more or less fully enmeshed within the Russian MoD structure. reporting https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie-idUSKCN1FZ2DZ dod statement https://www.defense.gov/News/Transc...ian-via-teleco/ there's stuff from even closer to the date, but the details of what had happened were not in any significant dispute basically from the moment it happened. here's the middle east thread talking about it basically as the news broke https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3839774&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=70#post481079925 note the date: https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/961617576848740352 Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 01:26 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 01:12
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Chalks posted:Is there anything about how effective this is? Well they've been doing it for months and the city is still holding out, so...
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May 6, 2023 01:38
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saratoga posted:Well they've been doing it for months and the city is still holding out, so... Incendiary munitions in general are extremely situational in their effectiveness, even if your intentions are toward something as malleable and hard to define as "Enemy morale"
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May 6, 2023 01:42
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Herstory Begins Now posted:what? it was reported on as it happened. the significant point is that there were no member of the Russian military involved because Wagner is not the Russian military. no one was being coy about that, it's a practical legal distinction because there's no diplomatic complexity to killing non-flagged mercenaries who are presently attacking you. From the DOD press conference you linked at the time: quote:I know you're going to ask, so I'm going to be clear that I will not speculate on the composition of this force or whose control they were under. As I've said throughout my nearly two years commanding coalition air forces, we are focused on a singular enemy: ISIS. We're not looking for a fight with anyone else, but as Secretary Mattis said last week, “If you threaten us, it will be your longest and worst day.” I didn't say that the media and commentators didn't say explicitly at the time a bunch of Russians were killed, I said the US government/military very carefully refused to comment, which you can see above. Much as if Russia managed to kill a bunch of Blackwater mercs somewhere, the fact they weren't uniformed Russian soldiers did not make it that much less a possible international incident if someone wanted to escalate it. Thankfully, no one did.
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May 6, 2023 03:46
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From the Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. So, maybe it wasn't a false flag https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1654138239387664437
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May 6, 2023 05:03
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Charlz Guybon posted:From the Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. those are just boat tours on the moscow river, it's completely normal
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May 6, 2023 05:09
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look, if you've seen russian driving videos, that is perfectly possible positions for all those cars
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May 6, 2023 05:12
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Russia has been jamming GPS near Kremlin since 2016
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May 6, 2023 08:00
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Sir John Falstaff posted:Officially, apparently Ukrainian MOD has denied it happened: Another confirmation by commander https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1654742797725868036
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May 6, 2023 08:03
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MikusR posted:Russia has been jamming GPS near Kremlin since 2016 That seems like it's in the Simonov raion of Moscow, which is some way from Kremlin. So it might be a case of someone cranking the dial up, but just from one tweet who knows. GPS magic is fiddly.
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May 6, 2023 09:17
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Interesting analysis on a Prigozhin video: https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1654520105240350721?cxt=HHwWgsC-qaHRhPYtAAAA Suggests MoD deputy head of logistics, Mikhail Mizintsev, was selling ammo to Wagner and got fired for it, then recruited by Wagner.
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May 6, 2023 10:07
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This is weird question but what would occur in Western Militaries if a commander or leader did what Prigozhin did where his sharing videos of the dead and he isn't getting the support he needs?
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May 6, 2023 10:29
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:This is weird question but what would occur in Western Militaries if a commander or leader did what Prigozhin did where his sharing videos of the dead and he isn't getting the support he needs? They'd start their career at Fox News earlier than intended.
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May 6, 2023 10:33
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:This is weird question but what would occur in Western Militaries if a commander or leader did what Prigozhin did where his sharing videos of the dead and he isn't getting the support he needs? Any military, no matter how small, has it's own bureaucracy that supports and protects itself as an institution. Also, everyone has a boss. No boss likes to be made a fool of. Which is exactly what Prigozhin is doing. Making a fool of one of the largest and, arguably, most corrupt bureaucracies in the world. That he has so far gotten away with it is due to many quirks, many idiosyncrasies, baked into the way the Russian government works under Putin. Your question isn't so weird if you think about what would have to happen in a Western military for it to even be an issue. A situation so out of control, pulling the actors involved in so many directions (and them doing some pulling of their own), with so little hope of resolution, that humiliating superiors and threatening mutiny seems like an option. A whole bunch of things would already have to be broken as gently caress. Basic discipline, the threat of legal consequences, any kind of goodwill within the organization, the list goes on. Western militaries are constrained by policy written by the civilian government they are beholden to. Within that envelope, they generally know what they can and can not accomplish. This gives the bureaucracy an "out". Do what the boss tells you as best as possible. No reason to rock the boat if the whole system (civilian and military) will be held "accountable" for how hosed things end up being. I'm not sure that applies to Prigozhin and his "orchestra". My read is that the dude is paranoid that a bunch of heavy poo poo will fall on his head if Wagner can't achieve the aims he set for it. Lashing out and trying to spread the blame might insulate him from the worst of it. Not like what he's saying is exactly wrong either, in context. Stopped clock and all that. gently caress, that's a bunch of rambling poo poo. 
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May 6, 2023 12:25
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Good post, I wonder if it's even realistic if Wagner can hold the outskirts of Bakhmut. Probably not.
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May 6, 2023 13:36
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Also notice that officers, including Russian officers, have sworn an oath of office and there are lots of regulations that affect them. The most important thing for an officer is to make sure that you and everyone around you follows those regulations, whether it's about how field latrines are placed or how nuclear warheads are stored, and failure to do so will really quickly cut your career or worse. But Prigozhin is not an officer, he's an unscrupulous businessman who is also a good friend of the big guy so he doesn't give a gently caress if his behaviour is unbecoming of an officer. If anything that's what connects him and Putin, Vova also likes to talk tough and use criminal slang terms about his enemies.
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May 6, 2023 13:38
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An example of how bad Prigozhin's behaviour would be for an officer is how the commander of USS Theodore Roosevelt got removed for sending this e-mail in the middle of an acute COVID-19 epidemic which was then leaked to media:quote:"If required, the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT would embark all assigned Sailors, set sail, and be ready to fight and defeat and adversary that dares challenge the U.S. or our allies. The virus would certainly have an impact, but in combat, we are willing to take certain risks that are not acceptable in peacetime. However, we are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily. Decisive action is required now in order to comply with CDC and NAVADMIN 083/20 guidance and prevent tragic outcomes." He was immediately relieved of command and his career was done.
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May 6, 2023 13:52
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Looking that up on Wikipedia, Crozier was re-instated and retired last year. Looks like he didn't do things completely right but not completely wrong either.
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May 6, 2023 14:08
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Edit: already covered
Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 14:21 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 14:13
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Looking that up on Wikipedia, Crozier was re-instated and retired last year. Looks like he didn't do things completely right but not completely wrong either. He was not reinstated. Like said, it killed his career.
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May 6, 2023 14:17
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Looking that up on Wikipedia, Crozier was re-instated and retired last year. Looks like he didn't do things completely right but not completely wrong either. I had thought about bringing up Crozier but, as you say, he seemed justified in doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. That situation was handled badly by his superiors in a lot of ways, IMO, which made things way worse than they had to be for the Navy. It's not like you don't see criticism from Western general officers about what their organizations do, or what policies they follow. These are professionals, and political creatures in all the ways that matter. They always seem to temper their opinions, being careful not to lay too much blame on any one thing or too much on themselves and, by extension, the people under them. It's there though, in the sense of very broad condemnation. Like, soldiers detailed what could happen with "Iraqization" and the drawdown of US troops in Iraq. They talked about the political and military failures that could cause it, too. It sounded like insane rambing from people too invested in the war for anyone's good. Talking about "messianic death cults" and "global caliphates" on national TV. Bug-gently caress crazy poo poo. Enter, daesh. Being right helps, I guess. Anyways. The Russian way of war since the fall of the USSR has, in my opinion, followed a trajectory that started with unrest during the end years of the USSR and FRY/Serbia during the Yugoslav Wars. The Russian government learned a few things from the internal strife that beset the late-USSR. They hate when it happens to them, but are all too happy to apply the worst answers anywhere else. Shove a crowbar between the cracks, crank up the propaganda machine, arm up the nastiest criminal fuckers you can find to further the break, let them do their worst, eliminate or sideline said nasty fuckers, exploit the moonscape they leave behind. Any justification works, as long as it works for the biggest party involved (the Russian government, in this case). Ethnic division, religion, racism, nationalism, fear, hatred, what the gently caress ever, it doesn't matter. All that can be cleaned up once the "right" people are in charge. It works well enough, where it works, that failure is the exception.
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May 6, 2023 15:29
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Nenonen posted:He was not reinstated. Like said, it killed his career. Was he dishonorably discharged? I am not seeing that, looks like they told him he needed to retire but wasn't fired.
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May 6, 2023 15:46
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Was he dishonorably discharged? I am not seeing that, looks like they told him he needed to retire but wasn't fired. He was relieved of command, transferred, and then retired....because his career was over. A couple of people recommended/considered reinstating him, but ultimately he was not reinstated. To add insult to injury, he was criticized by a naval inquiry. If you had actually read the Wiki page you would know all of this.
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May 6, 2023 16:03
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Was he dishonorably discharged? I am not seeing that, looks like they told him he needed to retire but wasn't fired. Dishonorably discharged is vaguely akin to a criminal record. You don't get one just because you were relieved of command and told your career was over.
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May 6, 2023 16:06
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 14:38 |
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https://twitter.com/bogy0/status/1654809214110384128 https://twitter.com/IvanKuhn8/status/1654840079766962179 Check it out. Ramzan Kadryov is wearing a pulse oximeter while giving his speech about replacing Prighozin with his own troops.
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May 6, 2023 16:15
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