(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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Paladinus posted:Even though Iran denies it, its direct contribution to the Russian war effort is probably more valuable right now than that of Belarus, Iran is selling weapons, but Belarus continues to give air basing and overflight to Russian forces. The initial attempted rapid takeover of Kyiv was from Russian forces operating inside Belarus crossing the border from Belarus into Ukraine. When those attacks stalled, some of the Russian forces withdrew via Belarus. Russia has air defense and air surveillance capability stationed inside Belarus, Russia has continued to use Belarusian airspace to launch aerial attacks, housed Wagner members post-mutiny in Belarus, refit forces, train combat forces there, etc. Belarus is not at war with Ukraine, sure, but Belarus’ material support to Russia in this conflict is far greater than Iran’s. The basic Russian initial warplan relied on Belarusian support and access. That means a hell of a lot more than selling drones and artillery rounds. Belarus recognizes the Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory; Iran does not. Paladinus posted:Ukraine also has no allies, just a bunch of countries helping out and saying words. This is a central part of Ukraine’s difficult predicament, and they have been trying to remedy it for years. Attempting to remedy their lack of allies is part of the reason Russia decided to invade its neighbor and force a regime change. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 14:17
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mlmp08 posted:Iran is selling weapons, but Belarus continues to give air basing and overflight to Russian forces. The initial attempted rapid takeover of Kyiv was from Russian forces operating inside Belarus crossing the border from Belarus into Ukraine. I don't think I can argue convincingly about whether Belarus' or Iran's contribution was more valuable over the 19 months of the full-scale invasion, since it's hard for me to quantify it with any sort of factual basis. I will, however, point out, that while Russia still depends on Iranian drones to conduct successful missile attacks by keeping Ukrainian air defence at its limit, Belarus doesn't provide anything that Russia really depends on currently. Once Russia gave up on Kharkiv and Kyiv, they pulled a lot of soldiers and equipment out of Belarus, so there are no strikes from its territory, no wounded Russian soldiers in its hospitals, and all training is limited to scheduled military exercises. Almost all Wagner mercenaries also seem to have gone somewhere else after doing a couple of flashy modern warfare master classes for Belarusian soldiers. Again, hard to compare it to billions of dollars worth of military and humanitarian aid coming from the West to Ukraine, but it still doesn't feel right to use that very strict definition of allies in this conflict. There are clear neutral and non-neutral countries, and euphemisms like 'supporters' for the latter don't cover the extent of assistance some of them provide.
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Oct 14, 2023 15:16
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Antigravitas posted:That chart suggests a level of certainty that I take some issue with, but the trend is pretty well sourced at this point. I think we've talked about Ukraine's counter-artillery campaign a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell Russia isn't so much running out of shells, but rather has artillery positions being suppressed and destroyed. They "ran out of shells" in late 2022. The stockpiles are effectively gone due to the huge amounts they were firing in 2022 plus the huge amounts blown up in ammunition dumps. Since then they've been firing more or less at the rate they can produce new shells and move them to the front. This year's more gradual downward trend would be down to Ukrainian success with destroying Russian artillery platforms themselves, the RuAF inability to maintain their large number of artillery platforms through long periods of constant use, and ongoing pressure to complicate Russian logistics. North Korea sending piles of shells now actually means a lot less than it would have in late 2022/early 2023 for that reason - even if the ammo shortages are solved Russia may not have the guns/tubes it needs to return to a level of clear artillery dominance anymore. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 15:25
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Paladinus posted:I don't think I can argue convincingly about whether Belarus' or Iran's contribution was more valuable over the 19 months of the full-scale invasion, since it's hard for me to quantify it with any sort of factual basis without. I will, however, point out, that while Russia still depends on Iranian drones to conduct successful missile attacks by keeping Ukrainian air defence at its limit, Belarus doesn't provide anything that Russia really depends on currently. Belarus only took down massive training areas for Russian troops in July of 2023, as Russian troops exited. From October 2022 through mid-summer 2023, Belarus was the site for training thousands of Russian troops, including new recruits and formations. https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-dismantling-russian-training-grounds-satellite-images/32492923.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64030975 Belarus allowing Russia to launch the initial attack on Kyiv from Belarus cut Russia's overland distance to Kyiv by half and put them on the west side of Kyiv and the river and Russia operates strategic SAMs, combat aircraft, etc from inside Belarus. While Belarus has stated (and made it clear through action) that they don't desire to personally cross the border into Ukraine, the threat of Belarusian and Russian forces on the northern border have been a concern for Ukraine and soak up Ukrainian resources. Belarus' support to Russia is far, far greater than Iran agreeing to sell drones to Russia.
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Oct 14, 2023 15:28
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Ukraine launching missles from Poland = no but Russia launching stuff from Belarus = yes. Fun logic there (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 14, 2023 16:31
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Ynglaur posted:https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1713071147414180001?t=SmQe_gOCDKP9QuBKRo-BLw&s=19 Twitter analysts posting fancy graphs whose source is other unverified Twitter analysts is a weird part of this whole saga. I'm sure it happens for lots of other hot topics but there seems to be this odd proliferation of people who make a ton of unverifiable claims about the state of the war in Ukraine and I'm not sure how anyone who isn't actively fighting in the war would know. Even then, how would one track how many shots across the entire front are being fired in a given day? Does 7 shots per day even make sense? That seems incredibly low. Popete fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 17:23
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The graph is in thousands. Agreed that sourcing would be really suspect.
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Oct 14, 2023 17:26
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WarpedLichen posted:The graph is in thousands. Agreed that sourcing would be really suspect. Oh duh, that makes more sense.
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Oct 14, 2023 17:28
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The early numbers match official figures I've seen from both sides, but I've not seen specific numbers released for a long time. It seems anecdotally consistent since there's been a lot of Russian complaining about their inability to perform counter battery operations and also very large numbers of Russian artillery losses have been reported, but they really need to cite their sources on these specific figures.
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Oct 14, 2023 17:59
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I believe that particular tweet bases its sources on Ukraine 's MoD which may not be the most accurate source in the grand scheme of things
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Oct 14, 2023 18:17
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The source for that particular Tweet is another Twitter user @HerrDr8 and I cannot find any direct mention of daily artillery rounds expended except for a Tweet from July 29 that makes claims from the US Government and Ukrainian Gvoernment but gives no direct sources that I can find. Really that whole Twitter account (@HerrDr8) looks like nonsense from someone trying to infer a positive outcome for Ukraine.
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Oct 14, 2023 18:33
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Popete posted:The source for that particular Tweet is another Twitter user @HerrDr8 and I cannot find any direct mention of daily artillery rounds expended except for a Tweet from July 29 that makes claims from the US Government and Ukrainian Gvoernment but gives no direct sources that I can find. You could just have followed the data source given in the graphic itself, which lead me to a Telegram-Channel proudly proclaiming it's for Ukrainian propaganda, 
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Oct 14, 2023 21:05
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Paladinus posted:Can Russia and Belarus be called allies? Russia and Armenia? I would say yes to the former and no to the latter despite all of them being members of the same military alliance. Although Belarus is not sending in soldiers (yet) when Ukrainian missiles and drones strike targets in Russia, we have words of unwavering support from Lukashenko, full diplomatic support in international organisations, and occasionally material support in the form of providing territory for Russian military to conduct attacks, medical assistance to Russian soldiers, etc. That that alliance may crumble at any point or that both allies may have some hidden agendas is immaterial, in my opinion. Even though Iran denies it, its direct contribution to the Russian war effort is probably more valuable right now than that of Belarus, but whether they should be called allies or fellow anti-American travellers is open to interpretation. If Iran is not an ally of Russia, then Ukraine also has no allies, just a bunch of countries helping out and saying words. imo belarus is more of a russian satellite, you can leave an alliance without someone declaring a war to you and yeah, us and iran aren't sending troops to ukraine, so imo they aren't allied to ukraine and russia. afaik, iran only sells stuff to russia, so us is much closer to ukraine, but still not allied
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Oct 14, 2023 22:03
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The Russian Army Dragged Old Experimental BTR-90 Vehicles From A Test Site—And Sent Them To Ukraine I hope they aren't about to deploy the C&C Red Alert kit.
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Oct 15, 2023 05:27
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Quixzlizx posted:The Russian Army Dragged Old Experimental BTR-90 Vehicles From A Test Site—And Sent Them To Ukraine Double barreled heavy tanks, mammoth tanks and tesla tanks would be very cool though. And I think an iron curtain would be useful for crossing minefields at least, though still not as useful as a chronosphere sadly.
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Oct 15, 2023 06:18
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Quixzlizx posted:The Russian Army Dragged Old Experimental BTR-90 Vehicles From A Test Site—And Sent Them To Ukraine Give the Ukrainians cruisers and a Tanya and this war is over before Christmas.
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Oct 15, 2023 08:40
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Nervous posted:Give the Ukrainians cruisers and a Tanya and this war is over before Christmas. Wouldn't that just escalate the conflict and cause the Russians to make a counter move they would not previously have done?
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Oct 15, 2023 08:52
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Zoeb posted:Wouldn't that just escalate the conflict and cause the Russians to make a counter move they would not previously have done? Digging up more Soviet era junk? At this point Ukraine is collecting it like baseball cards.
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Oct 15, 2023 09:32
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Zoeb posted:Wouldn't that just escalate the conflict and cause the Russians to make a counter move they would not previously have done? It was a Red Alert joke.
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Oct 15, 2023 11:11
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Kchama posted:It was a Red Alert joke. Oh! Sorry. I was unfamiliar with the the reference.
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Oct 15, 2023 11:26
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Oct 15, 2023 12:00
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I want to see a president ackerman vs trump debate
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Oct 15, 2023 12:01
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So I can check, its been mostly buried by the Israel/Palestine conflict at the moment but is it true that the Russians have been attempting a major offensive? How has it been going?
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Oct 15, 2023 15:47
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khwarezm posted:So I can check, its been mostly buried by the Israel/Palestine conflict at the moment but is it true that the Russians have been attempting a major offensive? How has it been going? A pretty good summary here: https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1713520368151941558 Clearly a very significant and dangerous surprise offensive seems to have been undermined by sheer incompetence in the execution. Vast amounts of hardware lost for no significant gains, so far.
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Oct 15, 2023 15:58
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fatherboxx posted:During the invasion into Ukraine, Putin actually managed to maintain a very stable relationship with Israel - the latter has been extremely cautious in supporting Ukraine farther than token diplomatic support and humanitarian aid. Also Russia officially never tried to comment on I/P situation in past years in substantial manner, however now, the rhetoric from the top (I would ignore propagandists and low level scum like Medvedev, who usually improvise on the spot) is extremely adversarial: instantly going after US for some reason right after Hamas attack and invoking siege of Leningrad certainly means the Bibi/Putin honeymoon is over. From the Russian perspective, what is the benefit to doing this as opposed to some statement like "we abhor the loss of life on all sides"? Is the assumption that Israel isn't in a position to offer anything to Ukraine anyway so might as well bolster credentials with the Arab states/OIC?
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Oct 15, 2023 19:56
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Dopilsya posted:From the Russian perspective, what is the benefit to doing this as opposed to some statement like "we abhor the loss of life on all sides"? Is the assumption that Israel isn't in a position to offer anything to Ukraine anyway so might as well bolster credentials with the Arab states/OIC? Keeping Iran happy is more important than keeping Israel happy
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Oct 15, 2023 20:28
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Pook Good Mook posted:Keeping Iran happy is more important than keeping Israel happy It's not just about Iran... There are huge swaths of the world who do not agree with a blockade on Gaza and a ground incursion or the methods Israel has both announced and demonstrated to the world so far. Russia saying "these tactics are unacceptable" is a pretty damned easy call to make just by using the info available to them with the added benefit of that aligning with the take from many of their trade and diplomatic partners in the Arab world, Iran, global south, China, etc.
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Oct 15, 2023 20:33
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Pook Good Mook posted:Keeping Iran happy is more important than keeping Israel happy Maybe, but it makes me imagine a really dark future where Israel gets so mad they loan some of their nukes to Ukraine, and Ukraine then gives Russia an ultimatum: Get out or Moscow gets it. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 15, 2023 20:52
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how's it even a question? isreal is a strong US/NATO ally (partner if you're going to get pedantic), russia will say the same poo poo they say about US/NATO
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Oct 15, 2023 21:01
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There's also probably some hope from Russia that this develops into a wider conflict that diverts US resources away from Ukraine
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Oct 15, 2023 21:18
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Pook Good Mook posted:Keeping Iran happy is more important than keeping Israel happy I guess I see countries like Iran as being so Campist that anything short of full throated support for Israel's current campaign of warcrime/ethnic cleansing is more than good enough as long as Russia is still viewed as fighting against the west in Ukraine. So my view is that they can't really gain anything with Iran, but just torpedo their own relationship with Israel. mlmp08 posted:It's not just about Iran... There are huge swaths of the world who do not agree with a blockade on Gaza and a ground incursion or the methods Israel has both announced and demonstrated to the world so far. Russia saying "these tactics are unacceptable" is a pretty damned easy call to make just by using the info available to them with the added benefit of that aligning with the take from many of their trade and diplomatic partners in the Arab world, Iran, global south, China, etc. I guess that makes more sense to me if I think about the target audience being outside the region. I could see it as a tactic to be used for countries like South Africa or constituencies on the pro-Putin left in Europe/NA to bring political pressure to increase trade and withdraw from the sanctions regime (i.e. "supporting Ukraine is supporting genocide and apartheid in Palestine") ethanol posted:how's it even a question? isreal is a strong US/NATO ally (partner if you're going to get pedantic), russia will say the same poo poo they say about US/NATO To me it seems that Russia has had pretty warm relations with Israel over the last decade; the US gov has been upset with Israel over it's perceived softness towards Russia since at least Crimea and the little green men in Donbas. Maybe they haven't been as friendly as I thought though.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:37
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Dopilsya posted:To me it seems that Russia has had pretty warm relations with Israel over the last decade; the US gov has been upset with Israel over it's perceived softness towards Russia since at least Crimea and the little green men in Donbas. Maybe they haven't been as friendly as I thought though.
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Oct 15, 2023 22:56
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Irony Be My Shield posted:There's also probably some hope from Russia that this develops into a wider conflict that diverts US resources away from Ukraine Even if Russia wasn't hoping this, I'm fairly sure this was Iran's intent, and it was accomplished by funneling a bunch more weapons to Hamas using the money Iran's made selling weapons to Russia. That is an educated guess, it would take a lot of investigation to prove it but it seems sensible without being too clancy-esque. Russia's relation with Israel is weird both ways. Why Israel would not be openly hostile to Iran's best buddy is odd, why Russia would not be openly hostile to the state the US supports with the most literally religious vigor is odd. But if Iran gets involved after the ground invasion of Gaza kicks off I imagine the lines will be drawn more clearly. "Fun" times.
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Oct 15, 2023 23:15
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Orthanc6 posted:Even if Russia wasn't hoping this, I'm fairly sure this was Iran's intent, and it was accomplished by funneling a bunch more weapons to Hamas using the money Iran's made selling weapons to Russia. I think part of the answer to this question is that a fairly large chunk of immigration into Israel was from Eastern Europe in the period where the USSR was unified, and so to some degree there's a sort of shared lineage there. In the recent past I think parts of Eastern Europe had a similar sort of relationship to Russia, and I think that due to the fact that there's no land border and therefore no real threat from Russia, there's a bit of "stickiness" to the lenient attitude from Israel. Less charitably, I think you could also say that many right-wing nationalists have some common ground so long as they aren't contesting borders with each other, as they benefit from pushing the global Overton window on issues like hard-line anti-immigration attitudes, or weakening of international norms about war crimes or undermining free speech or what-have-you. Obviously in this case Russia is pretending to care about human rights for Palestinians, but the hypocrisy is extremely visible both in how they conduct themselves inside their country and what they do outside, so in doing so they almost undermine the side they pick, at least for supporters of Ukraine. By making recognition of human rights abuses into a "EU/US vs everyone else" that flips depending on if you are talking about Ukraine or Palestine, they turn it into a rhetorical game and cheapen the concept (not that the EU and US aren't already doing so by failing to disavow Israel themselves, of course). Basically,  , where by staking this claim in opposition to Israel, they help both themselves and Israel because it cements an existing West/East dynamic where words like "war crimes" lack an objective meaning that is evenly applied, cheapening their value in international politics. This lets them both continue to flaunt the rules to rule the roost in their own spheres using whatever brutal tactics they please. Even if the Israel conflict doesn't expand to involve any other countries or change the flows of weapons globally, it still gives Russia an easy whataboutism to throw in the face of the US whenever they freeze the Ukraine conflict and try to get back to trading oil internationally (and don't forget too that the countries that are *currently* laundering their commodities are much more likely to fall on the Palestinian side, so getting dollars or Euros is actually NOT a matter of pleasing the US or EU but the third parties that haven't agreed to sanctions).
BougieBitch fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 04:43
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Dopilsya posted:
ok i know what you mean. my speculation is that since feb 2022, russia state officials have enormously increased anti US/NATO rhetoric. this broadened approach includes isreal now. and not to say the US wasn't going to stand behind the isreal response after such a high casualty surprise attack, but the US has at points in the last decade been guarded, weary, and critical of isreal's approach to gaza. Whereas after the hamas attack, for example, the US congress agreed to a unified dem/republican support or at least sign off on an isreal ground invasion to remove the hamas government. and my point being Russia sees the US bolden up its partnership with isreal and reacts as such by doing the opposite of what US/NATO would like them to do
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Oct 16, 2023 12:22
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https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1713957896822698057 edit: woops didn't notice there was some violence in there towards the end. Consider it NSFW. Video coming out of Ukraine is showing more and more Russian losses. I still think we'll see them keep trying though. saratoga fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Oct 17, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 22:02
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warning: dude eats a drone dropped grenade in that video
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Oct 16, 2023 22:07
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Chalks posted:A pretty good summary here: ethanol posted:i was thinking about the russians trying to advance and I wonder, with so many mines planted if they even have a way to get through that themselves. maybe its a lot easier to drive through it if you know exactly where they are, or you leave hidden corridors open. i assume the former less than the later. I dunno Hell those ones are just on the surface which makes this even sillier.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:15
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Scratch Monkey posted:warning: dude eats a drone dropped grenade in that video yea posting troop death is actionable, especially this week. Do not recommend 
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Oct 16, 2023 22:16
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saratoga posted:.... NMS/NWS
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Oct 16, 2023 22:48
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