Danann posted:

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1684701017030397952

western ways of armored thrusts eh

KomradeX posted:

Germans working over time to deal with all those videos of destroyed or abandoned Leopard 2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGzRfvgnS_s

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1684684385478705152?s=46&t=UyfxoSAUKW7QZlR_GhkuYA

Regarde Aduck posted:

typical US exceptionalism, becoming a colony of itself

gradenko_2000 posted:

I should stop reading this thread before going to bed.

I dreamt I was driving around in a tank.

Cerebral Bore posted:

coming for dat ukrass

gradenko_2000 posted:

KomradeX posted:

Lol they all think they're Michael Wittman

Danann posted:

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1684701017030397952

western ways of armored thrusts eh

gradenko_2000 posted:

quote:

Latest unconfirmed reports from the US suggest the main thrust of the counter-offensive has begun. The Institute for the Study of War says Ukrainian forces appear to have broken through "certain pre-prepared Russian defensive positions".

But so far there's little evidence that Western supplied tanks and armoured vehicles have been able to tip the balance decisively in Ukraine's favour.

Several Leopard tanks and US Bradley fighting vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the first days of the offensive, near the city of Orikhiv.

Ukraine's 47th Brigade, which had largely been trained and equipped by the West to try to break through Russian lines, were soon stopped in their tracks by mines and then targeted by artillery.

Russia released multiple videos of the incident claiming Ukraine's offensive had already failed. In reality it was an early setback rather than a decisive blow.

quote:

In cities across Ukraine, people started bringing their Russian literature to local recycling stations to be shredded and converted into toilet paper. Street names have been changed to honor Ukrainian heroes instead of Russian writers. Russian dishes, like pelmeni dumplings, have been relabeled on restaurant menus. Radio stations stopped playing songs by Russian artists, long popular in Ukraine.

“For many people, it has become impossible to speak Russian because it is the language of the enemy,” said Iryna Pobidash, an associate professor of linguistics at Kyiv’s Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute. “Russian is now a marker of everything that has happened: a marker of pain and tragedy.”

“Language is not only about communication, but also about positioning oneself. It’s my ‘who am I?’” Pobidash added.

Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov, who writes novels only in Russian, said that after the invasion, he felt “in pain” when writing because he was so ashamed of Russia.“I understood that Russia was destroying itself and destroying Russian language culture worldwide,” he said.
...
The future 0f Russian language in Ukraine is a daunting question for the roughly 30 percent of Ukrainians who speak it as their first language.

After last year’s invasion, the flood of Russian-speaking refugees to western Ukraine caused tensions, with suspicious landlords refusing to rent apartments to them. In June, Ukraine’s parliament adopted a divisive bill banning the import of literature from Russia and Belarus. President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to sign it, saying it violated European Union rules on minority rights. The same month, Zelensky proposed making English Ukraine’s second official language. [ed note: lmao]

Alisa Sopova, a Russian-speaking anthropologist at Princeton University who is from Donetsk and often works in Donbas, said Ukraine’s long-standing, “multilayered” problem with Russian speakers is “kind of the elephant in the room.” Many Russian speakers are afraid to voice their concerns, she said.

“The public discourse is so narrow now that the only accepted way of talking about this problem is to say that I hate Russian because it’s the language of aggressor,” she said. “Russian speakers do not feel they have the right to demand to speak their language because the problem has been warped and discredited by Russia.”

SplitSoul posted:

We had six separate anti-Muslim protests and Qur'an burnings in Copenhagen today, all protected by cops.

VoicesCanBe posted:

I'm gonna be honest, in a hypothetical matchup of the US military vs the AFU with the current backing they're getting from NATO, the US military would probably get its rear end kicked.

I know that's a silly and unrealistic scenario but it's impossible to shake the idea that the US military is entirely unprepared for a long term conflict with a near-peer adversary.

Nix Panicus posted:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/28/ukrainians-are-breaking-their-ties-with-russian-language/

There's no fascism in Ukraine though

DiscountDildos posted:

I'm pretty dumb about that part of the world but it's this sort of poo poo that confuses me about the unyielding drive to take back the parts of Donbas that Russia's in control of. Ok, you take them back and uhhhh... then what... like wtf happens after that?

DiscountDildos posted:

I'm pretty dumb about that part of the world but it's this sort of poo poo that confuses me about the unyielding drive to take back the parts of Donbas that Russia's in control of. Ok, you take them back and uhhhh... then what... like wtf happens after that?

The Oldest Man posted:

Sparkling ethnic cleansing

celadon posted:

like even assuming 100% peaceful and voluntary, people all clapping eachother on the backs and laughing as apartment keys are handed over, crimea is like 70% russian and its 1.5M people youd have to swap out. that seems difficult to pull off logistically in terms of keeping all the plates spinning, economy-wise

gradenko_2000 posted:

Bad news for Russia: they will almost certainly draw global condemnation for establishing a new imperial colony in Africa!

https://twitter.com/d_foubert/status/1684437856847011841

The Oldest Man posted:

You don't do it all at once. You do what Israel does, start building walls and checkpoints, make conditions intolerable, create concentration zones, start giving your preferred people the defacto right to just take over whatever property they want, etc. and unleash the army against the target population if they get uppity. It'll take decades.

Megamissen posted:

denmark couldnt let sweden threaten their reputation as the most racist scandianavians

euphronius posted:

saying there is more than one is really splitting hairs

AnimeIsTrash posted:

Prigozhin was at the African summit this week. So much for that "coup". Lol

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/28/russias-wagner-boss-appears-to-hail-niger-coup-tout-services

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/business/status/1684969231379570714?s=20

https://twitter.com/AmakanjiThomas/status/1684773597800280064?s=20

AnimeIsTrash posted:

what piece of furniture is each ikea race?

Some Guy TT posted:

you were driving around in a toyota land cruiser? doesnt sound like much of a dream tbh

Regarde Aduck posted:

the unspoken implication is that they're going to kill or displace everyone

they've also been hinting this is what's going to happen in Crimea as well.

Zodium posted:

you sound like an estonian

January 6 Survivor posted:

I will never attempt to pixel art again, sorry everyone

(I still like how the 152mm main gun flops around like a fat hog)

January 6 Survivor posted:

I will never attempt to pixel art again, sorry everyone

(I still like how the 152mm main gun flops around like a fat hog)

gradenko_2000 posted:

youtube recommended me this clip from Madam Secretary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDT4nzTrTsk

this plot thread, of the Russians having launched a full nuclear strike on the United States under no prior warning is not new, but what bothered me was at around 1:20 on the video:

- "nuclear winter is only a theory"
- it's the American president's constitutional obligation to end the world

KomradeX posted:

Ukraine shifted to hammering Russian defenses with artillery after losing a lot of Western armor in its early counter-offensives: report


Why do they act like using artillery on fortified positions is something to be ashmrd of

Officer Sandvich posted:

The general question of who is winning is Ukraine. They are extremely unlikely to lose self governance and become a client state of Russia. They have had major victories at Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv. That said, the war is still being inflicted and fought on their country, to great loss of lives and resources. Cities are being leveled and Russia is stealing everything it can. Grain, oil, washing machines, children.

Oryx and Ukraine reports of Russian casualties (wounded and killed) seems to be in the right ballpark. And the general consensus is that Ukraine is losing less people than Russia. Of course, Russian leadership cares less about its people than most other countries. But there are consistent signs Russia is having trouble putting bodies on the front lines. They are always scrounging up more troops, and there are big hints that they lack reserves. Not being able to rotate and rest troops, not being able to add recruits to damaged units, and not being able to rush fresh soldiers to enemy breakthroughs are all huge problems.

That said... Russia largely just has to keep holding on to 'win'. Nobody really wins a war. It's a stupid sick waste and a horror. They failed at their initial goal , but still have a lot of Ukraine territory the elites consider important. Staying defensive plays to Russian strengths. The West can't supply Ukraine forever. It's almost certainly not a good idea for Ukraine to surrender places like Crimea, especially since Russia has a tendency to take parts of other countries and keep them as long as possible. There is a coalition against Russia currently, even if the support of Ukraine could have been faster and more effective. But politics can and do change.

So my money is on Ukraine. Russia has proven unable to make significant advances, while Ukraine has the bulk of the victories. The momentum and control of the battlefield, the logistics and morale all point to Ukraine. I just hope they can win the war instead of winning most of the battles but still losing the overall war.

BULBASAUR posted:

I was talking to my Mongolian friend and according to him, business is booming as Russians go there to avoid sanctions and products are imported and then shipped to Russia with a markup