(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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Storkrasch posted:That would make absolutely no sense, those countries have basically none of the factors that would make a common currency work. The EU isn't integrated enough to make a common currency work smoothly, five countries with almost nothing in common certainly don't. If it were true and not obvious bullshit, it would be an impressive comedy of errors. India and China could probably pull out when the new currency inevitably implodes. The other three would be in for interesting times. 
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Apr 1, 2023 10:55
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:37 |
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Hannibal Rex posted:Maybe I missed something in the tail end of the last thread. Did cinci say this new one was going to be the last Ukraine thread he'll moderate? To me, stuff like this is more likely a symptom of what I call Loss Reason Theory: Whenever a nation historically is badly loving up, there's a reason for them losing so hard. And then when you go looking, you often find that one of those reasons is always too many idiots at the steering wheel. Like, if you look at the revolutionary war in America for example, the British had some real mediocre politicians at the time, compounded with clinging to some real weird ideas of what was going on in the colonies, like thinking the uprising in the 13 colonies was started by a tiny cabal of radicals, and then later completely forgetting what it is they wanted to do and reducing General Clinton's army to send troops all over the place. Now, while you could argue that thinking that there are just tiny numbers of radicals and colossal numbers of loyalists after fighting multiple battles against actual armies worth of rebels is loving nuts, it's not like the war made those politicians lose their mind. They were stupid long before that, they were in fact one of the reasons the independence war went so badly for the British. Likewise, this guy was stupid/insane all along, guys like him are the reason Russia is currently losing so hard in Ukraine. It's just that now we're looking and taking notice. Essentially, before the invasion of Ukraine, this guy was quietly being dumb about stuff we didn't care about.
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Apr 1, 2023 17:21
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ahead!
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According to Süddeutsche, the Ukrainian government asks people to leave occupied territory. The article speculates it's because the Ukrainian counter-offensive is coming, and wants civilians out of the way.
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Apr 5, 2023 12:53
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Some good news on the air defense front: As the Süddeutsche reports, the promised German Patriot-system has arrived in Ukraine. As a bonus, another brandnew IRIS-T air defense system has left the factory and will soon be delivered to Ukraine. By my count, this makes 2 of these extremely expensive and very new systems in Ukrainian hands, and zero in German hands as the German Bundeswehr couldn't fully introduce the system themselves yet. Our government coldly calculates the Ukrainian forces need them more than us, and since it takes like 3 months for each system to be manufactured, our entire production currently goes to defend Ukraine instead of to the Bundeswehr. German procurement! Until the war ends or production speeds up, I'm willing to bet all future IRIS-Ts will also become Ukrainian weapons while the Bundeswehr has to sit there and wait.
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Apr 19, 2023 10:49
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Hannibal Rex posted:I think IRIS-T was mentioned in the leaks as one of the Western systems for which the provided missiles had already run out. It's good that they're being provided, but the question is how fast missile production can and will be ramped up. Yeah, that was one time the leaks just repeated things we already knew for almost a year now. Back then (it was even posted about in this thread, I think) it turned out the Bundeswehr had really pushed to get the system despite peace time and sleepy German politicians doing their hardest to prevent it from happening. So when the war started, the Bundeswehr had one half-finished system in testing and the company making them was building the first production model. The same company also made the missiles, which of course hadn't been on anyone's mind when the war started. Then, when Ukraine didn't immediately collapse, the German government basically threw the IRIS-T at Ukraine since it was already leaving the factory and the Bundeswehr didn't need it anyway. A political slam-dunk. But a couple months in and after high praise by Ukrainian forces, it turned out the company making IRIS-T had some trouble supplying enough missiles. Apparently the German government had been the only customer and never ordered that many in the first place, so production capacity was basically non-existent. Considering Ukraine is now getting another full system, I'm carefully and hopefully guessing the manufacturer has started overcoming their bottleneck. Though of course, the Ukrainian forces could just decide to keep the IRIS-Ts back and stockpile missiles for that one time a target absolutely has to be neutralized. (Ukrainians reported that it has had a 100% success rate so far, they just really need more missiles) Disclaimer: I'm going mostly by memory from reading news articles from by now about a year ago.
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Apr 19, 2023 15:47
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Had they actually managed to kill/wound 200k Russian troops Ukraine would have won the war. The leaks seem to disagree with you there, but OK, clearly internet goon Obvious knows better than the entire US intelligence service
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Apr 28, 2023 16:53
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Couldn't you say something similar about the military too? no, because the military is only economically relevant to the corporations getting rich equipping it, and to a lesser degree to the economies of cities housing larger garrisons for everything else, the military is a huge drain on the economy, so no, you can not say the military is "economically and militarily important" one of these things is plain false, and the other thing is obvious... wait  , saw what you did there, buddy
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May 1, 2023 16:58
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Nenonen posted:The scariest outcome to me would be that Russia just slides deeper into fascist totalitarianism and tries to brute force the war to end in a favourable way, no matter what the human cost. Either mobilizing a million man army and handing them whatever rusty Kalashnikov or Mosin-Nagant can be found, or resorting to WMD. I doubt it will get to that, but that's the nightmare scenario. Russia actually tried this under Soviet-regime in the Polish-SU war and when they pushed beyond the borders of Poland to take Warsaw, their army quite literally disintegrated because the Red Army soldiers in that stage of the war had been recruited on the promise of defending the motherland, and invading and taking Poland wasn't that, so the desertion rate skyrocketed after it became clear there was no second miracle to save the Polish army and the war was basically over. If Lenin's regime, despite all the brutalities of the civil war, couldn't mobilize an army for outright invasion, modern-day Russia won't be able to pull this stunt, either. There will be no million men army getting mobilized for this shitshow, as that would make Putin look incredibly weak if the house of cards then predictably implodes.
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May 1, 2023 20:54
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Tevery Best posted:Either you are confused about the sequence of events or explaining yourself very poorly. What moment are you referring to? What second miracle? While i'd like to discuss this war in more detail, this is not the MilHist-thread. Also, you can probably read up on this on Wikipedia, with sources and poo poo.
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May 2, 2023 15:12
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yeah, that was a weird post as far as I know, the only confirmed disability Kadyrov has is his lack of a soul
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May 6, 2023 19:18
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From German news media Zeit: Prigoschin now claims that the Russian army is already fleeing Bakhmut. He then further claims the RAF-leadership is purposefully lying to Putin to hide that Russian units are abandoning their posts in the city.
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May 9, 2023 18:14
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The Soviet Union did it better by just naming their alliance after a city. New York Treaty Organisation. NYTO. Could have worked, but noooo, we had to know better
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May 10, 2023 08:48
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Apparently, old Prigo's claims that Russian soldiers have abandoned their posts was real: Ukraine claims they retook 8km² of Bakhmut today
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May 10, 2023 13:23
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Antigravitas posted:Switzerland has a highly educated workforce with high labour costs. A lot of Swiss industry is therefore producing the kind of fancy hardware that has a high enough price tag to still be profitable. Consequently Swiss stuff is in a lot of European armies. In addition to Swiss ammunition stocks now being released for re-export, the new ammunition line Germany was building is slated to come online in June. Together with giving even more Gepards from Germany to Ukraine, this will make the future for Russian forces extra spicy: Reportedly, Ukrainian troops used Gepards as spearheads in their Kharkiv-offensive, and it often scared Russian pilots to rather turn around and break off attack runs, rather than risking getting some nasty holes punched into their planes. It's, I think, easy for non-military goons to forget that most of a modern airframe's defenses are for defending against smart ammo like missiles. And you can't use chaff, ECM or other anti-missile defenses on a dumb piece of dead metal on a ballistic collision course. The only thing "defeating" ballistic ammo is turning your plane back around, which kind of defeats the purpose of CAS.
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May 13, 2023 19:48
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with a rebel yell she QQd posted:Well well... Viktor also has recently compared the EU to Adolf Hitler, which is not only , but also probably means Hungary won't be in the EU anymore for long
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May 16, 2023 13:01
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cr0y posted:If that AD kill rate is anywhere near accurate that is absurdly good. They already have three, I think. The German one, one from the US and I faintly remember some Nordic/Batlic country giving them antoher one? But yeah, they can certainly always use more. 
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May 16, 2023 14:01
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:It would be easier to believe if Russia specified which it they meant, bc the whole shebang is definitely not hit. a patriot-system has eight launchers, so that would only be possible if some of those hits "skipped" straight into multiple launchers, as that are more launchers than the observed hits edit: OK, I've found a second source claiming PATRIOT-batteries have 6 launchers instead of 8. So apparently, the number of launchers can vary, but since I don't think Ukraine got PATRIOTs with abnormally low numbers of launchers, that's still too many to destroy in a single strike. Libluini fucked around with this message at 16:23 on May 16, 2023 |
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May 16, 2023 16:19
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Bremen posted:That there's even a hint the Ukrainians might be able to repair it makes me wonder if it's not even that bad, like a missile just hit nearby and there was some damage but not complete destruction. Moon Slayer posted:If they even "took out" anything. Yeah, that official quoted above said "it is possible, that" it was damaged. Typical politician talk. This is just chasing rumors until some real info shows up.
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May 16, 2023 19:24
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Rust Martialis posted:Posters *on this page* calling it "a pocket" or somehow like Stalingrad before, presumably, a Ukranian Operation Uranus those are speaking of potential hypotheticals, not things that have actually happened already maybe you need a refresher on how English tenses work?
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May 21, 2023 01:28
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Atreiden posted:Interestingly this seems to be acknowledged by Russia's propagandists. very funny, I guess the next step is to ask Russian citizens to use their magic powers to conjure missing materials out of thin air, too
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May 21, 2023 21:19
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Charliegrs posted:I wonder if this "separatist" action in Belgorod will turn out to be a bad idea. Like I wonder if the Biden admin is pissed off at the Ukrainians right now. What if a bunch of Russian civilians get killed (unintentionally) in this operation ? I mean yeah a whole shitload of Ukrainian civilians have died in this war but Ukraine is supposed to be better than that. that's understandable, CNN and WaPo are primarily American media, so UK and German news carrying the story before they can is to be expected, we're a bit closer to Russia, after all
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May 22, 2023 18:49
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fatherboxx posted:Well this one isnt random its pretty much a whole unit of Russian nazi emigres that Ukraine (either SBU or GUR) kits out to do these PR raids. Which I guess, is the whole point: Either they make themselves annoying in Russia, outside of Ukraine, or Russia bombs their own villages until those pesky intruders are dead. Win-win on the denazification front!
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May 23, 2023 20:40
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Some news I haven't seen posted here: Russia blocks bridge to Crimea -Russia claims the bridge has to remain closed due to "exercises", but no details. The bridge so far remains closed. -The governor of Belogorod claims that now, after the recent incursion, Russia had to fight of multiple drone attacks, but every drone was defeated. (citation needed) Another attack probing the defenses in the region, maybe? No idea though why Russia has the bridge over Kerch blocked. Maybe they expect a missile or drone strike on the bridge? Edit: I scrolled down the liveblog some more, apparently the Russian warship Iwan Churs fought and destroyed three unmanned Ukrainian drone ships in the Black Sea. Though the article points out there are no sources confirming any of this has actually happened, so take this Russian claim with a grain of salt. Edit 2.0: It just dawned on my that maybe in the context of the claimed drone attack on the Iwan Churs, Russia is maybe thinking there are more drone ships lurking around, possibly targeting the Kerch-bridge? Libluini fucked around with this message at 19:57 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 19:52
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Some more news from today and yesterday: An advisor of Zelensky has claimed the counter-offensive has already started, several days ago. From the same link, further down: EU suspends tariffs on imports from Ukraine, until mid-2024 for now. A little extra, to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat. Allegedly, the fighting in Bakhmut is winding down, despite Ukraine being in control of the south-western city border. Also, Germany has started contemplating joining the alliance for training Ukrainian jet pilots. (Which, if this goes like Germany and tanks, they'll probably already be starting the training program right now. )And finally, something more social: Zeit Online lead an interview with someone living in Mariupol, over a secured messenger service. Some bits: -Despite massive Russian propaganda and attempts at rebuilding the city using workers from Usbekistan and Tadschikistan, the atmosphere is dire: While some people are on the Russian side, most of the people are living in what the Mariupol-citizen described as "hatred". -Some life has come back into the city, thanks to people either returning from abroad after the surrender, or from the Donbass, as the fighting there isn't looking like it's going to stop anytime soon. -Her husband got work in one of the Russian constructions projects, but she still loving hates Russians -There is some passive resistance, but active resistance is hard, since approx. 90% of the city's residential areas are still destroyed. -Russia has started giving people a stipend to live on, but thanks to high prices it's not enough -The new apartment blocks being built by Russia are often empty, as many of the citizens stay away, either due to a lack of money for even the most basic things like a bed, or because they're still hoping the city gets liberated and don't want to be seen living in a "Russian" apartment -Outside of Russian state projects, the city's economy is basically dead: No jobs, no hope. Cynically, Russia wants to make Mariupol a tourist city, since there's no industry anymore after Russia destroyed it I don't want to summarize the entire article, but it was a fascinating read. Sadly, you'll need a translation tool, as all these sources are in German. Libluini fucked around with this message at 19:09 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 19:06
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Ukraine has started asking for the German cruise missile Taurus. Which made me sit up, since development of that thing was a giant pain for the Bundeswehr. But looking the thing up on Wikipedia, Germany apparently eventually managed to make some, and even Spain and some other country I think? got some. Our current stock (Germany) is something like 600, but we also don't need a bunker-busting cruise missile right now, so there's really no reason not to give them over. Eventually, since the thing is mainly launched from a fighter. The one minor obstacle: The F-16 is one of the fighters that can't carry a Taurus. The things are only compatible with Tornados, Eurofighters, F-18s, F-15s and JAs-39 Gripen. But since Germany is thinking about training jet pilots for Ukraine, maybe eventually we'll see something like German Tornados and a bunch of those approx. 500 km range missiles showing up on the front? Maybe 1-2 years from now, if the war hasn't ended by then.
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May 26, 2023 21:36
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yeah, looking at the available evidence it seems clear those drones where on their way somewhere else before EW confused them and they got shot down over Moscow
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May 30, 2023 19:27
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Belteshazzar posted:A UN referendum is one of those things that sounds nice but is not actually reasonable at this stage. So many people have fled the occupied areas (or died) that the remaining population is totally unrepresentative. For example Mariupol has gone from 425,000 people pre-war to less than 100,000 now. Bakhmut is down from 70,000 to only a few thousand. Pro-Ukrainian residents would have been disproportionately motivated to get out. Meanwhile large numbers of Russians have been moved into occupied Crimea since 2014. There's no practical way to get back the prewar demographics to have a fair vote, even if it were possible to conduct one under Russian occupation. There's also the really small thing of any too Pro-Russia referendum being immediately vetoed by the US, and any too Pro-Ukraine referendum being immediately vetoed by Russia, so the idea of any referendum happening any day soon is pretty
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Jun 3, 2023 20:32
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fatherboxx posted:Today in Second Army in the World news: The lieutenant colonel that Wagners took hostage recently has recorded a video accusing Wagner of some horrid things and Prighozin wonders why the Russian army hates Wagner so much they secretly mined some of their retreat lines from Bakhmut
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Jun 8, 2023 11:38
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WarpedLichen posted:New US aid package, it's all USAI. Interesting, I know some helicopters share a name with our newest and shittiest IFV, the Puma, but the US also having a system with that name, which they're now sharing with Ukraine, will probably be very confusing if our journalists forget to specify which Puma they're talking about. Especially since the constant clown show that is the German Puma is quite often in our (German) news recently
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Jun 9, 2023 17:59
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Ynglaur posted:In the US we use "cougar" for that. I feel like you have to specify which Puma you're talking about first. The one currently getting slowly introduced in Germany is supposed to eventually replace the Marder IFV. Edit: I looked up the Lynx, since I never heard about the thing before. Turns out it's a German-built IFV that's not actually used by the Bundeswehr. No relation to the new Puma. Huh. You never stop learning.
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Jun 9, 2023 19:15
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mustard_tiger posted:If blowing up 12 Ukrainian tanks and IFVs mean that Ukraine has lost the war what does blowing up thousands of Russian tanks mean? at that scale of difference, something like "Russia retroactively ceases to exist, Kievan Rus takes over Europe and Asia"
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Jun 14, 2023 19:34
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Dog Friday posted:The incredible damage to Putins image would lead me to believe this was not a show... to be fair, it could have been a really bad show
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Jun 24, 2023 22:24
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Chalks posted:Would multiple tweet sources be helpful for that sort of thing? I feel like it's kinda obnoxious to post like, 3 embeds that are all basically exactly the same info to give it more weight. Also feel kinda the same with subtweets, if someone I consider legitimate subtweets a rumour (which is what happened here) I'll do a quick search to see if other people are talking about it then post that original tweet. I can see how it lends more credibility to post a tweet that's subtweeting a tweet that's got a screenshot of a message about a rumour in it but like... ick. This discussion probably would have never happened if you had just gone with your second source. A Saudi Arabian news channel citing "some sources" is at least a step up from some guy nobody knows doing so
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Jun 27, 2023 22:35
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Saladman posted:Ask the North Vietnamese how they did it, maybe. That conflict ended with South Vietnam eventually being annexed by North Vietnam, so I guess the answer is: "Ukraine should annex Russia and restore the Kievan Rus", which is probably not what you were going for Russia/Afghanistan would be a better example.
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Jun 30, 2023 07:24
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I guess there's a lot of ways to interpret the fact that the most qualified man for a very important job is barely out of his 20s. yeah, for one thing, we can deduce that he isn't an American Re: Counter-Offensive Results. I'm mostly reading our own local media, and they keep on reporting small Ukrainian advances here and there. So far, the Russians haven't managed to stop their advance anywhere, despite several attempted counter-attacks, and apparently Russia has now ordered to abandon the nuclear power plant in the region Saporischschja. (According to Ukrainian sources) Source: Zeit, in German Please don't tell Willo, or they may fear that Russia is evacuating the power plant to blow it up.
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Jun 30, 2023 19:05
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mobilized "Russians" Kazakhstan recently warned its citizens that joining a foreign war can get you up to 10 years in prison. Allegedly, Wagner and the Russian MOD have started recruiting in some of the border regions near Russia, and Kazakhstan is pissed.
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Jun 30, 2023 19:20
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Can assault rifle rounds even reach an airplane/helicopter with any penetrative power left? Those who have to fly low to avoid radar are probably very vulnerable to this. Making a flying machine fly is non-trivial, and involves a lot of measures to reduce weight. Even an armored combat helicopter is astonishingly flimsy, even compared to an IFV. A bad round of bullets out of nowhere can easily choke an engine, and helicopters are always looking for an excuse to dive straight into the ground, anyway.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:42
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FMguru posted:Oh, word? I'm sure they've also strengthened ties with Russia, and Russia
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Jul 6, 2023 19:57
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Enjoy posted:
You are right, of course. I've sent Putin a stern letter telling him he should stop using cluster munitions. I'm sure the Russians will stop using them any day now. Enjoy posted:Thank god the Ukrainian high command are omniscient beings I guess, our diligence is done and our hands are clean. I think you're comparing them to your own mental capacities there, buddy. Fake edit: In some actual news, the Brits seem to believe Russia may lack the necessary reserves to hold Bachmut. Which lends credence to the rumors that a breakthrough on that front may be imminent. From a bit further down the newsblog: RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland made a telephone interview with an Ukrainian officer. He claims the fighting on both sides is constant, intense, and very bitter. North of Bachmut he reports Russia has concentrated a sizable force of modern tanks and artillery, and both sides hit each other with all they can. Still, the Ukrainian army advances on average 500-1500 m each day, despite the Russians fighting tooth and nail over every trench. Both sides are apparently highly motivated to kill each other down to the last man.
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Jul 8, 2023 11:18
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:37 |
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Enjoy posted:Putin is a dictator waging an illegal war of aggression. Why do you want the rest of the world to follow his moral standards? you may be confused, but I send a letter to Putin to make him stop using cluster munitions, so Ukraine can then stop using them, too isn't this exactly what you wanted? Enjoy posted:Some weapons are obviously worse than others, which is why civilised countries ban the use of cluster munitions, and why people like Human Rights Watch call for them not to be used in Ukraine. Seriously, everyone knows cluster munitions are bad, but war involves a lot of bad stuff. Saying the weaker side, the one being invaded, should stop using a useful weapon because it's "immoral" is a completely insane stance. The Human Rights Watch does good work, but I'm assuming stuff like this won't get them many Ukrainian supporters these days.
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Jul 8, 2023 12:12
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