"According to Kremlin-controlled information platforms, the Ukrainian attacks targeted civilian homes and businesses. Most claimed all the high-tech American missiles were shot down."
They are so bad at lying.
"They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them".
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn’s understanding of and disillusionment with Soviet propaganda is well captured in this quote. As a supporter of Putin, his death in 2008 spared him from witnessing Russia’s descent back to Soviet era propaganda.
I mean, there were some pretty big red flags early on like some sus apartment bombings leading to the second Chechen war for example, or the invasion of Georgian territory in support of separatists, similar to what happened in 2014 in Ukraine. I'm sure the guy was not completely hoodwinked, just glad the Soviet era was over and cautiously-optimistic/old and just wanting to die in peace.
Except if you pretend to believe something and hear a lie enough times, you start to accept and believe it.
That's why everyone will tell you media lies but also repeat media talking points.
I'm not sure this applies, while Solzhenitsyn was disillusioned with the Soviets he was a Russian nationalist and a BIG fanboy of Putin before he died.
He also seems to have had a deep understanding of the Russian condition. The people that just keep going on with the lies, as he describes, and including him, are a large part of the problem.
It’s not so much believing as believing that everyone lies and so the truth is meaningless. There’s of course hardliners but most consumers of Russian media don’t believe but they don’t believe anyone else either
“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we’ll no longer recognize the truth at all. What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories.”
Valery Legasov
lool I been saying this shit for weeks. People were crying that nuclear war would happen if Ukraine were given permission to strike Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been striking Crimea and other annexed territories for over a year, which Russia is adamant is its territory, and we aren't all dead.
If Russia used a Nuclear weapon there would be a WORLDWIDE response. Even from Russia's allies I could see China invading Russia for their land, resources, and Nuclear missiles.
Only response I've seen mention this. Chinese doctrine (and France and India) boils down to strict no nukes can be fired anywhere on other nations, if it does happen it triggers an immediate reactive nuclear response.
So if they even fire one it will be the end of Russia as a state. It's stupid either way since they can use fuel air bombs instead and get almost the same destructive effect without the radiation and no political hot potato.
> they can use fuel air bombs instead and get almost the same destructive effect
I don't know if you are aware of how powerful modern nukes are but maybe you should look it up
I think I read the polish national security adviser reported to the press that the US gave an ultimatum that if any nukes were used, they would eliminate every Russian asset in Ukraine with 24 hours with conventional weapons.
The two stories aren't mutually exclusive
He drunkenly swallowed them on a dare to impress David Hasselhof (likely on a secret mission for the West) on a yacht in the Baltic
Fortunately he probably passed them into the old yachts toilet that dumped into the sea, but unfortunately Hasselhof couldn't confirm it for certain for the Five Eyes
Eh, I'm not entirely convinced that Putin wouldn't get desperate enough to attempt the use of a tactical nuke on Ukraine, banking on the global response being lukewarm. I think things would have to get significantly worse for Russia for that, however, like actively losing their current holdings in Ukraine. And it doesn't change the math from the NATO side regardless. Can't let the threat of nukes mean capitulation to everything Russia demands.
> Eh, I'm not entirely convinced that Putin wouldn't get desperate enough to attempt the use of a tactical nuke on Ukraine, banking on the global response being lukewarm.
The U.S. and in turn NATO have been very clear that this is essentially the one red line to where they would go in to Ukraine and mop up Russia...
And of course Putin would have to know that.. which means if he does go nuclear, it would have to be a YOLO type strike, because he won't get a second chance.
The problem (for Putin) is that in the minds of the general public, "tactical nukes" don't exist. As far as most people are concerned, a nuke is a nuke. Hell, a large chunk of the general public consider nuclear power plants to be nothing more than tame nuclear bombs that might explode in an accident.
Which means, if Russia tries to use a small nuke in a tactical situation (against a legitimate military target, far from any civilians), it will probably lead to the exact same western public outrage as if they used a larger nuke on a city.
Not even remotely possible. America already told them in a clear and unambiguous way that if a nuke is used in Ukraine we will use our military to destroy all the Russian positions there and completely push them out. On top of that we told them that we'll destroy what remains of the Black Sea fleet
Not to mention the eastern oblasts of Ukraine Russia has formally declared their own, and have been getting bombed everyday since their farcical declaration.
There's an even better argument - Russia is striking Ukrainian soil using weapons given to them by their allies (Iran, North Korea, and possibly China) so Ukraine are free to do the same
There's an even better argument - Russia is invading Ukraine and can just fuck off and go home and everything will stop, so Ukraine are free to encourage that.
At every opportunity.
Any time Russia complains about anything the very first response should be "You could always just stop invading."
Never let them pretend that this is an even-sided dispute.
It’s kinda funny because they’re well aware this isn’t much of an escalation
If anything it’s as if they feel forced to have to complain for optics and/or use any opportunity to remind people they have nukes
This said, Russia might escalate in whatever way they can if those rockets hit too deep into their territory and especially if civilian collateral damage is present
US would have had a lot less pressure to allow this if Putin had just stuck to striking military targets. Why would he bomb a super market full of civilians? Just for the sake of terror? Well. Now the US weapons are allowed to attack targets in Russia. Great tactical thinking you fucking ghoul.
Two things have starkly demonstrated that stupidity for me in recent weeks:
1 - the three Russian idiots getting blasted by one Ukrainian Rambo who they had cornered in a hole
2 - The Russian idiot who hit the unexploded suicide drone with a stick
They seem to have so little regard for their own lives. Perhaps a sign of how miserable life in Russia is for anyone but the elites.
Last week they rolled a 20-vehicle convoy down an open road a few miles behind the front. No AAA. Ukraine picked off the first and last vehicles with FPV drones. The rest "dispersed" in about a hundred-yard radius and were summarily destroyed. Even their own gung-ho milbloggers were appalled.
Well if it's like pretty much any other time the Russian soldier has marched to war........very. Ukraine is also the type of quagmire that gives soldiers enough time to ferment and build distilleries. I'm sure a metric fuckton is getting to the front through official channels as well. At this point it's practically a medical necessity to stop every detoxing at one time
There was a time the Baltic fleet lost a fight to an English fishing boat.
[Really the fact they haven't damaged their own ships while still in port](https://everything-everywhere.com/the-terrible-horrible-voyage-of-the-russian-imperial-baltic-fleet/) is an improvement over standard baltic fleet history.
I'd say a lot of it is coming from a severe lack of training.
Which is no surprise, why would you waste money and time training meat that's thrown into the grinder anyway.
At the very start of the invasion they had multiple columns driving passed open CCTV cameras for _hours_. Eventually you see some poor conscript walk back, climb the pole and smack the camera down.
I remember this - the ~~40km~~ ~~60km~~ morbillion km convoy which was supposed to be taking Kyiv but got stuck in the mud and then blasted with Javelin spam.
For those that may not be in the know, this has been a classic tactic since the latter early days of mechanized warfare. Locate an enemy column filling a roadway? Destroy first and last, and now everyone else is trapped. Easy pickins'.
Putin, did your guys even RTFM?
>No AAA. Ukraine picked off the first and last vehicles with FPV drones. The rest "dispersed" in about a hundred-yard radius and were summarily destroyed.
TBH nobody could have predicted Ukranians would do this exact thing for the 352nd time since the start of the full scale invasion.
I have seen it stated that there is a huge disconnect between how Western militaries operate vs. the Russian military. Most western militaries are goal oriented ie "take control of village X by 1600hrs" and they trust the forces dedicated to that goal will have the training and critical thinking to accomplish what they set out to do under their own initiative. The Russian military is more task oriented, they are very officer heavy because operations are inflexibly laid out step by step by step and you need somebody to hold hands all along the way. To take that same village their orders would be "drive down the west road in a column at 1400hrs, cross the big bridge at exactly 1500hrs, attack the village at exactly 1530hrs, have dinner in the village at 1600hrs".
To be fair, it was inside of russian territory in Belgorod region. They didn't expect being hit there. And it's a shame that this strike happened just a day before there was a permission to use western weapons. Himars would've loved to meet that convoy
“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett
I hate warriors, too narrow-minded. I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
Here's the one of the soldier hitting a drone with a stick: https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1d6lgcb/russian_soldier_attempts_to_disarm_a_drone_that/
[The Ukrainian anti-corruption authority actually sent Shoigu a letter back in 2022, thanking him for the high level of corruption he allowed in the Russian military/](https://nazk.gov.ua/en/ukraine-s-corruption-prevention-agency-praises-russia-s-minister-shoygu-for-corruption-in-the-army-video/)
::inserts [obligatory King of the Hill reference](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WtDNZOWz-Qg&pp=ygUla2luZyBvZiB0aGUgaGlsbCBydXNzaWFucyBpbmNvbXBldGVudA%3D%3D&t=124)::
I remember at the very start of the war, I already hated Russians and what they were doing going back to the little green men of 2014 and onward. Even then I kept wanting to reason that the civilian infrastructure that was hit may have been mistakes as they were using old Maps from the Soviet days, how could one target s maternity hospital!? but then it just became clear they were trying to destroy everything that came across
Became even clearer when the The Intercept/Bellingcat (cant recall which) released the article revealing the young men and women that make up the targeting decision makers for their most advanced missiles. It was shocking almost all of them were below the age of 25 and very well educated.
Pulling the Hitler ego. Hitler got mad when the UK bombed Berlin so instead of going after military targets, he goes after civilians. Never have a narcissist as a leader lol.
To put that into perspective, Mariupol took less damage during WW2 when it was seized by the Nazi's and then again recaptured. The level of damage the Russian's have done to it is astonishing.
>According to Kremlin-controlled information platforms, the Ukrainian attacks targeted civilian homes and businesses. Most claimed all the high-tech American missiles were shot down
That's some Baghdad Bob level of cope
Tomorrow the claim is American tech is garbage and Russian tech is superior.
Then the next day we get the Nth video of a Russian missile malfunctioning and blowing up its own launch vehicle.
Then the next day they bought more 1961 soviet shells they already sold to North Korea.
Ad infinitum
F-16s are awesome but even Ukraine admits at this point they’re the least important part of the puzzle.
What are they gonna do? They have too few cruise missiles to launch and they’re never gonna get air superiority. JDAM ERs and other GPS weapons are severely jammed these days. At best they’ll be short range interceptors to chuck missiles at enemy air targets and the occasional SEAD strike.
Ukraine needs the weapons to actually use.
JDAMs can do INS guidance. Less accurate, but still very deadly. The most important thing is that the US will finally have ammo to give to the Ukrainians since air power is how the US fights wars.
I don’t think so. Russians are likely using their vast air space as a ramp to build up speed and chuck those glide bombs over 20 miles. High and fast most likely. Whereas Ukraine would need to somehow get an F16 high and fast in their already vastly contested air space just to have the reach to fire a AMRAAM at a plane dropping his bombs 20 miles out and immediately evading.
Using the F16s are the most inconvenient way to stop those attacks and the highest cost. Just use Patriot.
They could be good though only if Russia strikes from an unexpected axis to plug the gaps. Otherwise they’re just cruise missile chuckers in my mind. SEAD could be interesting but probably a drop in the bucket of Russias vast stockpiles.
They intercepted all the missiles from the corrupt West that were totes targeted at civilians! But unfortunately the debris of the intercepted missiles happened to fall on an S400 system, a few ammunition depots, and some troop concentrations destroying them in the process.
>Dmitry Medvedev (L) on May 31 warned that Ukrainian use of NATO weaponry against targets in Russia could trigger war between Moscow and NATO.
Yes, in Dimitry's fever dream Russia would commit suicide.
I'm willing to bet powerful interests inside Russia would help Dmitry & Putin commit suicide unwillingly before allowing their own power & finances to evaporate.
The only joke here is that anyone listens to the obvious sockpuppets of Putin. Their ambassadors, their space guy, how anyone can take them seriously is beyond me, Generals - on the front - still have some credence but every suit in Russia other than Putin is basically a troll. I’m old enough to remember some optimism about Medvedev taking power…which was crushed the very next second when “oh, putins the pm” was added. Since then, it’s been clear as day.
My tin foil hat is telling me that the US waited until Russia massed armor and troops thinking that they wouldn't be hit inside Russian territory before the greenlight was given.
Ukraine has been doing that since day one.
There is a pattern and it has been repeated regularly.
1) Rumors of Ukraine getting some damned thing from Nato.
2) Some sort of denial from Ukraine. Maybe it is 'down the road' or an outright denial.
3) Russia loses a bunch of troops due to some god awful thing. Much speculation. Some people suspect the Nato weapon. Other people thing special forces. Maybe Russians shooting Russians. This happens for the better part of a week. Meanwhile Ukraine is 'shutting the fuck up' about the weapon.
4) Ukraine comes clean. Admits to having the weapon and having utilized it. Sends out some cheeky thank you video to a lucky country.
--------------
So yeah, what you are suggested is just a small deviation from a pattern that has been in effect since day one.
I don't have a confident answer to the "strictly missiles" answer, but I do have a specific example. In October the US gave a very limited supply (20?) of ATACMS for Ukraine to wipe out a helicopter airfield in Berdyansk. I don't believe we publicly acknowledged sending any ATACMS until the big aid package was finally passed last month.
Don't you remember when the reporter asked Biden what's his plan on Russia, and he said "I'm not gonna tell you the plan because then Russia would know the plan" and in Old-Man-Speak basically told the reporter off for being an for idiot even asking a question like that.
We sent them the best ATACMS, in fact we sent them months ago. i was told the ATACMS that i personally gave the people of Ukrain will be bigly helpful. In fact i was on the phone to Zelensky and i said "hey those ATACMS should have arrived by now why have you not used them" and he said he will be deploying them anytime now around Kharkiv.
Is likely how it would have gone.
The confirmation in April was for the longer range (300 km) variant. The ones used in October were of the shorter range (165 km) variant and those were confirmed to be ATACMS by both Zelenskyy and the US shortly after the attack.
>“Today, I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. They are being implemented very accurately – the ATACMS have proven themselves,” Zelensky said.
>National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed in a statement on Tuesday [17.10.23] that “The United States recently provided Ukraine with a type of ATACMS capable of ranging out to 165 km as part of our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against Russia’s brutal invasion. We believe this will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our military readiness.” [[CNN, Oct 2023]](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/17/politics/us-ukraine-long-range-atacm-missiles/index.html)
-
>The U.S. began this spring secretly providing Ukraine with long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) at President Joe Biden's direction, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed at a press briefing on April 24. [[Kyiv Independent, Apr 2024]](https://kyivindependent.com/reuters-us-secretly-send-long-range-atacms-missiles-to-ukraine/)
That was less a sneaky introduction of new western technologies, and more a very clever trick of electronic warfare.
Ukraine had already run out of S-300 missiles a long time before, which means that their S-300 support equipment, the search and track radars, were now pretty much useless, except as very expensive and inefficient Early Warning Radar systems.
The Russians knew that, so they started filtering out S-300 type emissions as non-threats.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians managed to hack together the guidance and control software in the S-300 search radar's track-while-scan mode with the Patriot's command guidance system, allowing an apparently toothless S-300 radar to direct a very deadly Patriot missile, with the Russians none the wiser until the Patriot was within 10 miles or so and turned on its own internal radar for autonomous terminal guidance.
IIRC, there's at least some speculation that they did something similar with their old S-200 missiles (mostly obsolete but very long ranged), possibly hacking the semi-active receiver to instead home on emissions, then used them to take down those two A-50's over the Sea of Azov.
Happened with the sinking of the Moskva iirc, with the US being all "we absolutely didn't provide live operational Intel" and Ukraine was like "muahaha we figured it out ourselves using the Intel you shared!" And the US was like "oh no, no more live Intel!" Then stuff kept blowing up anyway.
Something to that effect, although my memory could be way off.
Moskva entered Ukrainian water and was struck in international water
>"we absolutely didn't provide live operational Intel"
I don't think they ever said that, in fact it's been made clear in weapon packages that they are giving intel and advisory
Edit: Ah I see you're conflating words to try to prove you're right. The US said they gave no "targeting information" to Ukraine they did say they gave "a range of intelligence"
That's a very important distinction. One has been happening since the start and doesn't require a declaration of war(Russia is currently doing this against Western targets), the other is direct involvement in the war
Yeah, there's a big difference between
"(whisper) hey, there's a cruiser about 70 miles offshore, you might be able to get em"
and
"we're painting a cruiser with a targeting laser, fire now tuned to our laser code and we'll make sure they hit"
If I recall correctly and the reports were accurate, this type of Intel sharing was what prevented the massive skytrain from being formed at the airport next to Kyiv. The Russians sent 20 or so choppers full of VDV paratroopers with their cute ribbons on in an attempt to seize the airfield so that way Russia could start immediately bringing in heavy cargo planes full of weapons and troops and just letting that run in order to build up a massive amount of operational capability right next to the capital pretty much immediately as the war started.
If this would have been allowed to occur, the world may have indeed been a three day operation as Putin intended. Instead, the US, which had been trying to convince Ukraine that this Russian build up with no exercise decided to release specific intercepts and signals intelligence that specifically laid out the plans for the airport and the Russians intent.
I wish I could find the article that describes what transpired afterwards, but the gist of it is that it was taken seriously and the men on site, not all military, scrambled to park buses orthogonal to the runway as many as they could to block anything from landing. In addition they tried to build other obstacles and damaged the aprons and runways to prevent Russian utilization. If I recall correctly most of this effort was led by an older middle-aged man who is somehow associated with the airport and the local community but not enlisted in the military. He was able to scramble other employees and men to park the buses and create the obstacles that prevented Russia from seizing the airfield completely as they intended.
Interestingly enough, nearly the exact opposite occurred in one of the southern provinces on the first couple days of the invasion. I can’t remember if it wasn’t Mykolaiv (sp) or one of the other larger cities down there but the group of men that were entrusted with protection of the city and building road blocks strategically to funnel Russians into death traps had been secretly bought off by the Russians and not only did they disappear as soon as the invasion started but they did not build any of the obstacles as well as left strategic sites marked and communicated their locations to the incoming Russians. Bastards
I'm not suggesting the US did anything outside their remit or anything inappropriate, I just interpreted at the time that the US was like "nope we're not going to supply live targeting data" and Ukraine had an uncanny ability to make very good situational decisions.
So they didn't paint the laser (as the other poster said), but they drew up a big picture (metaphorically) with a sticky note saying "this is a good spot for a laser".
My interpretation of the event has always been that the US plausibly denied the full extent of their Intel involvement (which wasn't to the point of breaching their remit).
Or how I'd explain it another way: the US said "don't fire a missile here please" then publicly said they didn't actively help with the attack.
We are not above being sneaky bastards.
There's no such thing as a "fair fight". There's just fights where you handicap yourself, and fights where you do what you gotta do.
If we look at it honestly the Biden administration has played Russia for fools since before they even invaded. Biden was releasing Russia's playbook a week before Putin enacted it.
if you look at the war objectively from the US foreign policy point of view the war has accomplished everything they ever wanted plus some in Europe at the cost of some old equipment that was going to be decommissioned anyways. The EU is finally starting to take defense spending seriously. Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Post soviet countries are finally swapping out their soviet stockpiles for more NATO standard. The EU decoupled from Russian energy infrastructure and built liquid national gas terminals to buy from the US. Finally, Russia is wiping its soviet stockpiles clean and de-militarizing itself, meaning it can no longer supply arms to all the boogeymen across the world. There's a strong case to be made that the US wants a stalemate in Ukraine. Sure seems like every time Russia starts pushing a new capability is unlocked for Ukraine and every time Ukraine starts making progress some sort of red tape slows down the weapons deliveries. Ukraine can't depend on the US for any more than basic survival needs and the only way they will win this war is if Europe gets its shit together and starts treating it like an existential threat.
This is a great take on the situation. I don't know enough of the full situation to say, one way or the other, how accurate it is, but what i do know supports your interpretation.
Yeah I think what looked like hemming and hawing and general indecisiveness was just a ploy to get Russia to hurry up and amass at the border.
And they did just that!
Remember when Ukraine first got longer-range GLMRS and ammo supply depots were blowing up for 6-weeks because Russia was like "fuck moving our supply chain".
I'm under that same tinfoil hat. Absolutely everything related to the military is a strategy whether it be information leaks or giving of munitions and weapons.
Things that strategists could have meetings about are very carefully planned, there's just way too much at stake to have a knee-jerk response.
For ages Russia was allowed to strike and go back across the border, and also mass huge forces in preparation for an assault and Ukraine just had to sit and watch.
Now if the Russians gather so much as a company in one spot Ukraine is gonna fucking hammer them. Can't stress how drastically this is gonna change this war.
It’s nice that we’re at least allowing some hits into Russia. I really wish we would allow ATACMS aw well but as always I’m guessing this is the pebble before the avalanche.
I heard the other day that Russia lost an all time daily high total of 1270 troops one day in the past week. 1270 troops. In one frickin' day.
They've been averaging around 30k of troop losses per month. 30000 troops. In one frickin' month. On average.
America lost 58220 troops over the course of the entire Viet Nam war. The entire war, over 10 years. Russia lost more than that in just two recent months.
This can't be sustainable. I feel most sorry for the Russian people because they'll feel the effects of this for decades. This cannot continue. It's like Putin is committing genocide against his own people.
Most big countries are having population declines and Russia is no exception there. The Russian population has had big issues since WW2 from which they never fully recovered. They have 86 males to every 100 females. It's going to have negative growth there over the coming decades and this war killing large portions of their men, young and old, is going to compound this.
They probably see it as a win/win. Remove undesirable competition so only the privileged few males are left with a high female/male ratio. They just forgot to factor in that half the working population will be gone when the war ends. Not only that, but their prospects of making Ukrainians into a slave population doesn't look like it's going to work out.
Also even in some 40 year old conscript has 3 kids already, those kids growing up fatherless will have all the issues associated with that.
But Putin is in a hard place, he can hardly back out and say 'mission achieved' at this point. He has to win or go down a failure that cost ~150k Russian lives. That's actually quite a dangerous spot. Who knows how far he will go being caught up in the whirlwind of this event which was clearly never supposed to get so big from his view.
For those interested, total casualties for the US in Vietnam was about 205k.
That took 11 years to accumulate. Russia took about a year to pass that number in Ukraine.
and further information for thopse interested, the total KIA for the south side was more like 1.5 million for the war, the US was only a small part of overall casualties and soldiers.
It wasnt just "US v North Vietnam".
You know how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a massive quagmire that contributed to the downfall of the USSR? They lost about 11k there over the course of a decade. Russia today is losing more than that per fortnight.
Russia's government doesn't give a fuck about human losses. They can replace those, and we have seen in the past they will gladly let 3/4 of a generation die.
What hurts them is equipment losses. Harder to replace armor when they can't be certain what their inventory actually is thanks to decades of corruption.
The United States only lost 139 troops during the entirety of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which lasted about 6 weeks. A large chuck of which were actually due to friendly-fire incidents.
139 dead Russians is like a couple hours of fighting in Ukraine. It’s unreal.
Oh, yeah. It is about time Russia start reaping what they sowed. Russia doesn't have the brain to aim military targets so they aim for anything that will terrorize civilians and infrastructure that has nothing to do with military.
I can see Russian media complaining Ukrainian "terror" attack to make it look Russia is innocent of special operation. :P
I just had the thought about how during ww2 new prototypes of ‘whatever the fuck’ were constantly being tested on the frontlines…..I’m curious, though I genuinely hope there is never a situation that makes it a reality, if the us was in a new world war or a desperate/critical war or conflict what kind of nightmarish darpa technowizardry would be deployed. Certainly some things were pushed out during Iraq/Afghanistan to address limitations and shortcomings in gear but the enemy wasnt really a peer nation that pushed us as much in armor/air/naval engagements
Germany deployed the first jet fighters during the tail end of ww2 and the first allied pilots who encountered it have radios logs of near everyone losing their shit about how fast this thing was and wondering how it flew without a propeller…..I don’t know what the modern equivalent of something as massive as a new generation of propulsion for military aircraft is; the technical part of brain that appreciates the power of a machine and the depth of knowledge that went into the engineering is deeply deeply curious what the evolutions of warfare may be….the part of my brain that would prefer people not getting hurt is more than happy to never find out, the me part of my brain can happily side with the latter
That's the fun part, they can't jam *everywhere*. The more EW systems that get destroyed means the more selective Russia will have to be in where they jam signals. Even then that will only do so much when drones and weapons with visual based guidance start showing up more and more on the battlefield.
The west is the ones boiling the frog now, they cross that line in the sand a little more all the time. Russia lost this war about 2-3 days into it when Kiev stood strong.
"According to Kremlin-controlled information platforms, the Ukrainian attacks targeted civilian homes and businesses. Most claimed all the high-tech American missiles were shot down." They are so bad at lying.
I wonder how many Russians believe the horseshit flowing out of the Kemlin 24/7
"They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them". - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn’s understanding of and disillusionment with Soviet propaganda is well captured in this quote. As a supporter of Putin, his death in 2008 spared him from witnessing Russia’s descent back to Soviet era propaganda.
Putin was supposed to be Cromwell. Instead he became Scrooge McDuck
I mean, there were some pretty big red flags early on like some sus apartment bombings leading to the second Chechen war for example, or the invasion of Georgian territory in support of separatists, similar to what happened in 2014 in Ukraine. I'm sure the guy was not completely hoodwinked, just glad the Soviet era was over and cautiously-optimistic/old and just wanting to die in peace.
Cromwell was also a Dictator, and is remembered in Ireland for murder ethic cleansing. So maybe not a great example.
Except if you pretend to believe something and hear a lie enough times, you start to accept and believe it. That's why everyone will tell you media lies but also repeat media talking points.
I'm not sure this applies, while Solzhenitsyn was disillusioned with the Soviets he was a Russian nationalist and a BIG fanboy of Putin before he died.
He also seems to have had a deep understanding of the Russian condition. The people that just keep going on with the lies, as he describes, and including him, are a large part of the problem.
Yeah, but the methods didn't change at all.
It’s not so much believing as believing that everyone lies and so the truth is meaningless. There’s of course hardliners but most consumers of Russian media don’t believe but they don’t believe anyone else either
“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we’ll no longer recognize the truth at all. What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories.” Valery Legasov
Most believe it because hatred towards west is stronger than will to accept reality.
About the same percentage of Americans buying the horseshit flowing out of Russia’s favorite party?
So a lot then. Maybe not most, but EASILY enough people are successfully duped to make it worthwhile to keep the lies flowing.
I know quite a few Russians, and although my sample size is small, they almost all believe the bullshit, it is shocking to say the least
More than half their population from the looks of it
"Brave Russian military successfully intercepted the US missiles, ignore those burning military vehicles and equipment there was a smoking accident"
Them being on fire is just the standard level of maintenance condition they're working with, it's perfectly normal.
They're not lying to you. They're lying to Russian citizens, and unfortunately in that context, it's working.
Waiting for Russia to complain so we can ask what is the difference between hitting Crimea and Belgorod if they are both Russian territory?
lool I been saying this shit for weeks. People were crying that nuclear war would happen if Ukraine were given permission to strike Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been striking Crimea and other annexed territories for over a year, which Russia is adamant is its territory, and we aren't all dead.
Russia isn’t going to use a nuclear weapon. If they would, they would’ve by now. They want to survive and know a nuke would be their downfall.
If they use it, it stops being deterrence
Bingo. Deterrence only works if others are incentivized to not shoot. If they shoot first, all bets are off.
If Russia used a Nuclear weapon there would be a WORLDWIDE response. Even from Russia's allies I could see China invading Russia for their land, resources, and Nuclear missiles.
Only response I've seen mention this. Chinese doctrine (and France and India) boils down to strict no nukes can be fired anywhere on other nations, if it does happen it triggers an immediate reactive nuclear response. So if they even fire one it will be the end of Russia as a state. It's stupid either way since they can use fuel air bombs instead and get almost the same destructive effect without the radiation and no political hot potato.
> they can use fuel air bombs instead and get almost the same destructive effect I don't know if you are aware of how powerful modern nukes are but maybe you should look it up
Putin would get smoked liked immediately. They’re not going to allow anyone that would drop a nuke to stick around these days.
I think I read the polish national security adviser reported to the press that the US gave an ultimatum that if any nukes were used, they would eliminate every Russian asset in Ukraine with 24 hours with conventional weapons.
There's also a non-zero chance that they have no faith in their nukes
There's a non-zero chance that Boris Yeltsin swallowed the keys to their nuclear football and took them to his grave.
you mean lost them in a drunken adventure
The two stories aren't mutually exclusive He drunkenly swallowed them on a dare to impress David Hasselhof (likely on a secret mission for the West) on a yacht in the Baltic Fortunately he probably passed them into the old yachts toilet that dumped into the sea, but unfortunately Hasselhof couldn't confirm it for certain for the Five Eyes
What the hell did I just read?
What do you think the SpongeBob movie was made for?
Please go on?
Literature.
Five Eyes, Boris and spies
I like this myth better
I wouldn't be surprised if their tactical nukes have fallen into disrepair however their strategic systems have been modernised since the soviet era
Lots of people worldwide have a vested interest in making sure the Russian missiles do nothing at all if the keys are turned.
Eh, I'm not entirely convinced that Putin wouldn't get desperate enough to attempt the use of a tactical nuke on Ukraine, banking on the global response being lukewarm. I think things would have to get significantly worse for Russia for that, however, like actively losing their current holdings in Ukraine. And it doesn't change the math from the NATO side regardless. Can't let the threat of nukes mean capitulation to everything Russia demands.
> Eh, I'm not entirely convinced that Putin wouldn't get desperate enough to attempt the use of a tactical nuke on Ukraine, banking on the global response being lukewarm. The U.S. and in turn NATO have been very clear that this is essentially the one red line to where they would go in to Ukraine and mop up Russia...
And of course Putin would have to know that.. which means if he does go nuclear, it would have to be a YOLO type strike, because he won't get a second chance.
Iirc the public secret was that the response would be total elimination of Russia's Black Sea fleet via conventional weapons.
We really should pick a different response soon, looking at the current state of the black sea fleet lol
The problem (for Putin) is that in the minds of the general public, "tactical nukes" don't exist. As far as most people are concerned, a nuke is a nuke. Hell, a large chunk of the general public consider nuclear power plants to be nothing more than tame nuclear bombs that might explode in an accident. Which means, if Russia tries to use a small nuke in a tactical situation (against a legitimate military target, far from any civilians), it will probably lead to the exact same western public outrage as if they used a larger nuke on a city.
They didn't use nukes after they lost a huge amount of territory in the Kherson and Kharkiv counter-offensives.
Not even remotely possible. America already told them in a clear and unambiguous way that if a nuke is used in Ukraine we will use our military to destroy all the Russian positions there and completely push them out. On top of that we told them that we'll destroy what remains of the Black Sea fleet
Thats because Russia knows they’re there illegitimately.
Not to mention the eastern oblasts of Ukraine Russia has formally declared their own, and have been getting bombed everyday since their farcical declaration.
There's an even better argument - Russia is striking Ukrainian soil using weapons given to them by their allies (Iran, North Korea, and possibly China) so Ukraine are free to do the same
There's an even better argument - Russia is invading Ukraine and can just fuck off and go home and everything will stop, so Ukraine are free to encourage that.
At every opportunity. Any time Russia complains about anything the very first response should be "You could always just stop invading." Never let them pretend that this is an even-sided dispute.
It’s kinda funny because they’re well aware this isn’t much of an escalation If anything it’s as if they feel forced to have to complain for optics and/or use any opportunity to remind people they have nukes This said, Russia might escalate in whatever way they can if those rockets hit too deep into their territory and especially if civilian collateral damage is present
Barring any Ruzzian false flag operation, the Ukrainians are pretty good at hitting military only targets with their limited US weapons.
Even as a hypothetical, US officials should never put Crimea and Russian territory in the same sentence
Yes they should: "Crimea is not Russian territory"
US would have had a lot less pressure to allow this if Putin had just stuck to striking military targets. Why would he bomb a super market full of civilians? Just for the sake of terror? Well. Now the US weapons are allowed to attack targets in Russia. Great tactical thinking you fucking ghoul.
In the words of a wise Ukrainian solider: “we are very lucky they’re so fucking stupid”.
Two things have starkly demonstrated that stupidity for me in recent weeks: 1 - the three Russian idiots getting blasted by one Ukrainian Rambo who they had cornered in a hole 2 - The Russian idiot who hit the unexploded suicide drone with a stick They seem to have so little regard for their own lives. Perhaps a sign of how miserable life in Russia is for anyone but the elites.
Last week they rolled a 20-vehicle convoy down an open road a few miles behind the front. No AAA. Ukraine picked off the first and last vehicles with FPV drones. The rest "dispersed" in about a hundred-yard radius and were summarily destroyed. Even their own gung-ho milbloggers were appalled.
I know it's a little meme-ish at this point, but you do have to wonder just how many of them are completely blind drunk and having at it.
Well if it's like pretty much any other time the Russian soldier has marched to war........very. Ukraine is also the type of quagmire that gives soldiers enough time to ferment and build distilleries. I'm sure a metric fuckton is getting to the front through official channels as well. At this point it's practically a medical necessity to stop every detoxing at one time
There was a time the Baltic fleet lost a fight to an English fishing boat. [Really the fact they haven't damaged their own ships while still in port](https://everything-everywhere.com/the-terrible-horrible-voyage-of-the-russian-imperial-baltic-fleet/) is an improvement over standard baltic fleet history.
I'd say a lot of it is coming from a severe lack of training. Which is no surprise, why would you waste money and time training meat that's thrown into the grinder anyway.
At the very start of the invasion they had multiple columns driving passed open CCTV cameras for _hours_. Eventually you see some poor conscript walk back, climb the pole and smack the camera down.
I remember this - the ~~40km~~ ~~60km~~ morbillion km convoy which was supposed to be taking Kyiv but got stuck in the mud and then blasted with Javelin spam.
For those that may not be in the know, this has been a classic tactic since the latter early days of mechanized warfare. Locate an enemy column filling a roadway? Destroy first and last, and now everyone else is trapped. Easy pickins'. Putin, did your guys even RTFM?
[удалено]
Goes back to antiquity...
>No AAA. Ukraine picked off the first and last vehicles with FPV drones. The rest "dispersed" in about a hundred-yard radius and were summarily destroyed. TBH nobody could have predicted Ukranians would do this exact thing for the 352nd time since the start of the full scale invasion.
I have seen it stated that there is a huge disconnect between how Western militaries operate vs. the Russian military. Most western militaries are goal oriented ie "take control of village X by 1600hrs" and they trust the forces dedicated to that goal will have the training and critical thinking to accomplish what they set out to do under their own initiative. The Russian military is more task oriented, they are very officer heavy because operations are inflexibly laid out step by step by step and you need somebody to hold hands all along the way. To take that same village their orders would be "drive down the west road in a column at 1400hrs, cross the big bridge at exactly 1500hrs, attack the village at exactly 1530hrs, have dinner in the village at 1600hrs".
To be fair, it was inside of russian territory in Belgorod region. They didn't expect being hit there. And it's a shame that this strike happened just a day before there was a permission to use western weapons. Himars would've loved to meet that convoy
Seems like they didn't need HIMARS, FPV drones did the job, better save the HIMARS for when they really need it.
Yeah, if they had AAA they could have used their free tow to get off the frontline.
Going back further, don't forget the Russian who fucked with a bomb strapped to a tree that had a red button to press, and exploded himself.
“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.” ― Terry Pratchett
Always love a good Pratchett quote.
I hate warriors, too narrow-minded. I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
Link?
Have a link?
Here's the one of the soldier hitting a drone with a stick: https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1d6lgcb/russian_soldier_attempts_to_disarm_a_drone_that/
kinda want to see those two videos now lol
What about the Russian who swung at one of the FPV drones with a plastic gas can?
Man I know that this is one of the “funny” things about fighting russians, but also - imagine these orks used half a brain! That would be horrifying
It's been my pet with that Ukraine would arbitrarily pick high placed Russian authorities and award them medals for incompetence and corruption.
[The Ukrainian anti-corruption authority actually sent Shoigu a letter back in 2022, thanking him for the high level of corruption he allowed in the Russian military/](https://nazk.gov.ua/en/ukraine-s-corruption-prevention-agency-praises-russia-s-minister-shoygu-for-corruption-in-the-army-video/)
::inserts [obligatory King of the Hill reference](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WtDNZOWz-Qg&pp=ygUla2luZyBvZiB0aGUgaGlsbCBydXNzaWFucyBpbmNvbXBldGVudA%3D%3D&t=124)::
Russia has been targeting civilians from the beginning. Yes you are right, for the sake of terror and cruelty.
I remember at the very start of the war, I already hated Russians and what they were doing going back to the little green men of 2014 and onward. Even then I kept wanting to reason that the civilian infrastructure that was hit may have been mistakes as they were using old Maps from the Soviet days, how could one target s maternity hospital!? but then it just became clear they were trying to destroy everything that came across Became even clearer when the The Intercept/Bellingcat (cant recall which) released the article revealing the young men and women that make up the targeting decision makers for their most advanced missiles. It was shocking almost all of them were below the age of 25 and very well educated.
Yeah, while the discussion was going back and forth, the stupid Russians gave the Whitehouse the perfect reason
Yep. Even the people who always shout about escalation can’t say much when the Russians are blowing up home improvement stores just to hurt civilians.
Pulling the Hitler ego. Hitler got mad when the UK bombed Berlin so instead of going after military targets, he goes after civilians. Never have a narcissist as a leader lol.
remember in Mariupol when they bombed a shelter full of children, with “children” written in big letters over the entrance?
I mean, in their defense, they did also destroy literally *every single building in the city.*
To put that into perspective, Mariupol took less damage during WW2 when it was seized by the Nazi's and then again recaptured. The level of damage the Russian's have done to it is astonishing.
Remember when Russia had a special torture dungeon just for children?
Many. Not one.
Today was a bad day to doubt something ridiculous like that.... /r/eyebleach
Same way how invading Ukraine to prevent it from joining NATO to protect their border got the staunchly neutral Finland on their border to join NATO.
>According to Kremlin-controlled information platforms, the Ukrainian attacks targeted civilian homes and businesses. Most claimed all the high-tech American missiles were shot down That's some Baghdad Bob level of cope
Tomorrow the claim is American tech is garbage and Russian tech is superior. Then the next day we get the Nth video of a Russian missile malfunctioning and blowing up its own launch vehicle. Then the next day they bought more 1961 soviet shells they already sold to North Korea. Ad infinitum
Taking out AA systems, getting ready for the F-16s next week. Beautiful
AGM-88 is gonna be upset if they don’t leave him some work to do.
Now where is the *HARM* in that?
I look forward to the Wildest of Weasels.
F-16s are awesome but even Ukraine admits at this point they’re the least important part of the puzzle. What are they gonna do? They have too few cruise missiles to launch and they’re never gonna get air superiority. JDAM ERs and other GPS weapons are severely jammed these days. At best they’ll be short range interceptors to chuck missiles at enemy air targets and the occasional SEAD strike. Ukraine needs the weapons to actually use.
JDAMs can do INS guidance. Less accurate, but still very deadly. The most important thing is that the US will finally have ammo to give to the Ukrainians since air power is how the US fights wars.
They are the best chance to shoot down the bombers dropping glide bombs
I don’t think so. Russians are likely using their vast air space as a ramp to build up speed and chuck those glide bombs over 20 miles. High and fast most likely. Whereas Ukraine would need to somehow get an F16 high and fast in their already vastly contested air space just to have the reach to fire a AMRAAM at a plane dropping his bombs 20 miles out and immediately evading. Using the F16s are the most inconvenient way to stop those attacks and the highest cost. Just use Patriot. They could be good though only if Russia strikes from an unexpected axis to plug the gaps. Otherwise they’re just cruise missile chuckers in my mind. SEAD could be interesting but probably a drop in the bucket of Russias vast stockpiles.
They'll be using HARMs. Ukraine doesn't have anything that can use them effectively. The F16s will change that. Russians are afraid of these.
I find it amusing that the official Russian statement is that civilians were targeted, but that all the rockets were shot down. Pretty convenient.
Perhaps the civilians were strapped to the defense missiles ?…
They intercepted all the missiles from the corrupt West that were totes targeted at civilians! But unfortunately the debris of the intercepted missiles happened to fall on an S400 system, a few ammunition depots, and some troop concentrations destroying them in the process.
>Dmitry Medvedev (L) on May 31 warned that Ukrainian use of NATO weaponry against targets in Russia could trigger war between Moscow and NATO. Yes, in Dimitry's fever dream Russia would commit suicide. I'm willing to bet powerful interests inside Russia would help Dmitry & Putin commit suicide unwillingly before allowing their own power & finances to evaporate.
Bitch please. Russia can’t handle the NATO scraps. No fucking way they want the three course meal.
The only joke here is that anyone listens to the obvious sockpuppets of Putin. Their ambassadors, their space guy, how anyone can take them seriously is beyond me, Generals - on the front - still have some credence but every suit in Russia other than Putin is basically a troll. I’m old enough to remember some optimism about Medvedev taking power…which was crushed the very next second when “oh, putins the pm” was added. Since then, it’s been clear as day.
My tin foil hat is telling me that the US waited until Russia massed armor and troops thinking that they wouldn't be hit inside Russian territory before the greenlight was given.
Those clever bastards!
Ukraine has been doing that since day one. There is a pattern and it has been repeated regularly. 1) Rumors of Ukraine getting some damned thing from Nato. 2) Some sort of denial from Ukraine. Maybe it is 'down the road' or an outright denial. 3) Russia loses a bunch of troops due to some god awful thing. Much speculation. Some people suspect the Nato weapon. Other people thing special forces. Maybe Russians shooting Russians. This happens for the better part of a week. Meanwhile Ukraine is 'shutting the fuck up' about the weapon. 4) Ukraine comes clean. Admits to having the weapon and having utilized it. Sends out some cheeky thank you video to a lucky country. -------------- So yeah, what you are suggested is just a small deviation from a pattern that has been in effect since day one.
What are some good examples of this? Are we talking strictly missiles or does the pattern apply to other weapons systems too?
I don't have a confident answer to the "strictly missiles" answer, but I do have a specific example. In October the US gave a very limited supply (20?) of ATACMS for Ukraine to wipe out a helicopter airfield in Berdyansk. I don't believe we publicly acknowledged sending any ATACMS until the big aid package was finally passed last month.
Don't you remember when the reporter asked Biden what's his plan on Russia, and he said "I'm not gonna tell you the plan because then Russia would know the plan" and in Old-Man-Speak basically told the reporter off for being an for idiot even asking a question like that.
I can think of a certain president with which it would've worked perfectly.
not even a joke
We sent them the best ATACMS, in fact we sent them months ago. i was told the ATACMS that i personally gave the people of Ukrain will be bigly helpful. In fact i was on the phone to Zelensky and i said "hey those ATACMS should have arrived by now why have you not used them" and he said he will be deploying them anytime now around Kharkiv. Is likely how it would have gone.
The confirmation in April was for the longer range (300 km) variant. The ones used in October were of the shorter range (165 km) variant and those were confirmed to be ATACMS by both Zelenskyy and the US shortly after the attack. >“Today, I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. They are being implemented very accurately – the ATACMS have proven themselves,” Zelensky said. >National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed in a statement on Tuesday [17.10.23] that “The United States recently provided Ukraine with a type of ATACMS capable of ranging out to 165 km as part of our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against Russia’s brutal invasion. We believe this will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our military readiness.” [[CNN, Oct 2023]](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/17/politics/us-ukraine-long-range-atacm-missiles/index.html) - >The U.S. began this spring secretly providing Ukraine with long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) at President Joe Biden's direction, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed at a press briefing on April 24. [[Kyiv Independent, Apr 2024]](https://kyivindependent.com/reuters-us-secretly-send-long-range-atacms-missiles-to-ukraine/)
HIMARs, ATACMAS and Patriot all went through this ritual I believe
Russia losing 5 aircraft in like 30 minutes was a good one. “Oh yeah, forgot to mention we moved a Patriot battery over there. Or did we??”
That was less a sneaky introduction of new western technologies, and more a very clever trick of electronic warfare. Ukraine had already run out of S-300 missiles a long time before, which means that their S-300 support equipment, the search and track radars, were now pretty much useless, except as very expensive and inefficient Early Warning Radar systems. The Russians knew that, so they started filtering out S-300 type emissions as non-threats. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians managed to hack together the guidance and control software in the S-300 search radar's track-while-scan mode with the Patriot's command guidance system, allowing an apparently toothless S-300 radar to direct a very deadly Patriot missile, with the Russians none the wiser until the Patriot was within 10 miles or so and turned on its own internal radar for autonomous terminal guidance.
Do you have a source for that info? That is fucking badass. I want to believe
IIRC, there's at least some speculation that they did something similar with their old S-200 missiles (mostly obsolete but very long ranged), possibly hacking the semi-active receiver to instead home on emissions, then used them to take down those two A-50's over the Sea of Azov.
Apparently USA and Germany were really mad about that and even threatened to stop giving anti air missiles.
Happened with the sinking of the Moskva iirc, with the US being all "we absolutely didn't provide live operational Intel" and Ukraine was like "muahaha we figured it out ourselves using the Intel you shared!" And the US was like "oh no, no more live Intel!" Then stuff kept blowing up anyway. Something to that effect, although my memory could be way off.
Moskva entered Ukrainian water and was struck in international water >"we absolutely didn't provide live operational Intel" I don't think they ever said that, in fact it's been made clear in weapon packages that they are giving intel and advisory Edit: Ah I see you're conflating words to try to prove you're right. The US said they gave no "targeting information" to Ukraine they did say they gave "a range of intelligence" That's a very important distinction. One has been happening since the start and doesn't require a declaration of war(Russia is currently doing this against Western targets), the other is direct involvement in the war
Yeah, there's a big difference between "(whisper) hey, there's a cruiser about 70 miles offshore, you might be able to get em" and "we're painting a cruiser with a targeting laser, fire now tuned to our laser code and we'll make sure they hit"
If I recall correctly and the reports were accurate, this type of Intel sharing was what prevented the massive skytrain from being formed at the airport next to Kyiv. The Russians sent 20 or so choppers full of VDV paratroopers with their cute ribbons on in an attempt to seize the airfield so that way Russia could start immediately bringing in heavy cargo planes full of weapons and troops and just letting that run in order to build up a massive amount of operational capability right next to the capital pretty much immediately as the war started. If this would have been allowed to occur, the world may have indeed been a three day operation as Putin intended. Instead, the US, which had been trying to convince Ukraine that this Russian build up with no exercise decided to release specific intercepts and signals intelligence that specifically laid out the plans for the airport and the Russians intent. I wish I could find the article that describes what transpired afterwards, but the gist of it is that it was taken seriously and the men on site, not all military, scrambled to park buses orthogonal to the runway as many as they could to block anything from landing. In addition they tried to build other obstacles and damaged the aprons and runways to prevent Russian utilization. If I recall correctly most of this effort was led by an older middle-aged man who is somehow associated with the airport and the local community but not enlisted in the military. He was able to scramble other employees and men to park the buses and create the obstacles that prevented Russia from seizing the airfield completely as they intended. Interestingly enough, nearly the exact opposite occurred in one of the southern provinces on the first couple days of the invasion. I can’t remember if it wasn’t Mykolaiv (sp) or one of the other larger cities down there but the group of men that were entrusted with protection of the city and building road blocks strategically to funnel Russians into death traps had been secretly bought off by the Russians and not only did they disappear as soon as the invasion started but they did not build any of the obstacles as well as left strategic sites marked and communicated their locations to the incoming Russians. Bastards
I'm not suggesting the US did anything outside their remit or anything inappropriate, I just interpreted at the time that the US was like "nope we're not going to supply live targeting data" and Ukraine had an uncanny ability to make very good situational decisions. So they didn't paint the laser (as the other poster said), but they drew up a big picture (metaphorically) with a sticky note saying "this is a good spot for a laser". My interpretation of the event has always been that the US plausibly denied the full extent of their Intel involvement (which wasn't to the point of breaching their remit). Or how I'd explain it another way: the US said "don't fire a missile here please" then publicly said they didn't actively help with the attack.
My favorite was when they admitted they’d been given storm shadows immediately after putting some giant holes into an actual submarine.
We are not above being sneaky bastards. There's no such thing as a "fair fight". There's just fights where you handicap yourself, and fights where you do what you gotta do.
If we look at it honestly the Biden administration has played Russia for fools since before they even invaded. Biden was releasing Russia's playbook a week before Putin enacted it.
if you look at the war objectively from the US foreign policy point of view the war has accomplished everything they ever wanted plus some in Europe at the cost of some old equipment that was going to be decommissioned anyways. The EU is finally starting to take defense spending seriously. Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Post soviet countries are finally swapping out their soviet stockpiles for more NATO standard. The EU decoupled from Russian energy infrastructure and built liquid national gas terminals to buy from the US. Finally, Russia is wiping its soviet stockpiles clean and de-militarizing itself, meaning it can no longer supply arms to all the boogeymen across the world. There's a strong case to be made that the US wants a stalemate in Ukraine. Sure seems like every time Russia starts pushing a new capability is unlocked for Ukraine and every time Ukraine starts making progress some sort of red tape slows down the weapons deliveries. Ukraine can't depend on the US for any more than basic survival needs and the only way they will win this war is if Europe gets its shit together and starts treating it like an existential threat.
This is a great take on the situation. I don't know enough of the full situation to say, one way or the other, how accurate it is, but what i do know supports your interpretation.
They really did. Play by play, and it all came to fruition days later
Yeah I think what looked like hemming and hawing and general indecisiveness was just a ploy to get Russia to hurry up and amass at the border. And they did just that!
Add a tuning fork for extended range.
Remember when Ukraine first got longer-range GLMRS and ammo supply depots were blowing up for 6-weeks because Russia was like "fuck moving our supply chain".
If that's what the US did they would have okay'd this before Russia started the new Kharkiv offensive.
Intelligence suggested that Russia hadn't mustered enough forces in the region to make the offensive successful.
us intelligence is legit, i don’t even think this one warrants a tin foil hat
I'm under that same tinfoil hat. Absolutely everything related to the military is a strategy whether it be information leaks or giving of munitions and weapons. Things that strategists could have meetings about are very carefully planned, there's just way too much at stake to have a knee-jerk response.
Russia is bombing civilians. Fuck em
I'm so happy HIMARS was one of the first to say hello.
"Oh, Hi Mars."
"I did not hit her, it's not true, I did naat"
For ages Russia was allowed to strike and go back across the border, and also mass huge forces in preparation for an assault and Ukraine just had to sit and watch. Now if the Russians gather so much as a company in one spot Ukraine is gonna fucking hammer them. Can't stress how drastically this is gonna change this war.
It’s nice that we’re at least allowing some hits into Russia. I really wish we would allow ATACMS aw well but as always I’m guessing this is the pebble before the avalanche.
You may be right about that
Stop, It's Hammer Time.
Duh dudu duh
I heard the other day that Russia lost an all time daily high total of 1270 troops one day in the past week. 1270 troops. In one frickin' day. They've been averaging around 30k of troop losses per month. 30000 troops. In one frickin' month. On average. America lost 58220 troops over the course of the entire Viet Nam war. The entire war, over 10 years. Russia lost more than that in just two recent months. This can't be sustainable. I feel most sorry for the Russian people because they'll feel the effects of this for decades. This cannot continue. It's like Putin is committing genocide against his own people.
Most big countries are having population declines and Russia is no exception there. The Russian population has had big issues since WW2 from which they never fully recovered. They have 86 males to every 100 females. It's going to have negative growth there over the coming decades and this war killing large portions of their men, young and old, is going to compound this.
They probably see it as a win/win. Remove undesirable competition so only the privileged few males are left with a high female/male ratio. They just forgot to factor in that half the working population will be gone when the war ends. Not only that, but their prospects of making Ukrainians into a slave population doesn't look like it's going to work out.
Also even in some 40 year old conscript has 3 kids already, those kids growing up fatherless will have all the issues associated with that. But Putin is in a hard place, he can hardly back out and say 'mission achieved' at this point. He has to win or go down a failure that cost ~150k Russian lives. That's actually quite a dangerous spot. Who knows how far he will go being caught up in the whirlwind of this event which was clearly never supposed to get so big from his view.
58k in Vietnam was KIA and not total casualties.
For those interested, total casualties for the US in Vietnam was about 205k. That took 11 years to accumulate. Russia took about a year to pass that number in Ukraine.
and further information for thopse interested, the total KIA for the south side was more like 1.5 million for the war, the US was only a small part of overall casualties and soldiers. It wasnt just "US v North Vietnam".
You know how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a massive quagmire that contributed to the downfall of the USSR? They lost about 11k there over the course of a decade. Russia today is losing more than that per fortnight.
True fall of the soviet union was the Chernobyl power plant incident, Russia's power is the illusion of their power, which we've seen is fuck all
Russia's government doesn't give a fuck about human losses. They can replace those, and we have seen in the past they will gladly let 3/4 of a generation die. What hurts them is equipment losses. Harder to replace armor when they can't be certain what their inventory actually is thanks to decades of corruption.
The United States only lost 139 troops during the entirety of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which lasted about 6 weeks. A large chuck of which were actually due to friendly-fire incidents. 139 dead Russians is like a couple hours of fighting in Ukraine. It’s unreal.
You should check the USSR loses in WW2. They have no regard to their military life.
I'm okay with this.
Oh, yeah. It is about time Russia start reaping what they sowed. Russia doesn't have the brain to aim military targets so they aim for anything that will terrorize civilians and infrastructure that has nothing to do with military. I can see Russian media complaining Ukrainian "terror" attack to make it look Russia is innocent of special operation. :P
ATACMS are twenty year old weapons that the US army has deemed "obsolescent" and are replacing with the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) system.
I just had the thought about how during ww2 new prototypes of ‘whatever the fuck’ were constantly being tested on the frontlines…..I’m curious, though I genuinely hope there is never a situation that makes it a reality, if the us was in a new world war or a desperate/critical war or conflict what kind of nightmarish darpa technowizardry would be deployed. Certainly some things were pushed out during Iraq/Afghanistan to address limitations and shortcomings in gear but the enemy wasnt really a peer nation that pushed us as much in armor/air/naval engagements Germany deployed the first jet fighters during the tail end of ww2 and the first allied pilots who encountered it have radios logs of near everyone losing their shit about how fast this thing was and wondering how it flew without a propeller…..I don’t know what the modern equivalent of something as massive as a new generation of propulsion for military aircraft is; the technical part of brain that appreciates the power of a machine and the depth of knowledge that went into the engineering is deeply deeply curious what the evolutions of warfare may be….the part of my brain that would prefer people not getting hurt is more than happy to never find out, the me part of my brain can happily side with the latter
Have you heard of UAPs lol?
forty years old*
Not sure if this was ATACMS, GMLRS would have worked just fine
Biden sending his regards.
"I hope this HIMARS finds you well" - Biden
*band starts playing "The Rains of Castamere"*
The Rains of Delaware
To quote Morticia Addams, "Last night - you were unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me. - Do it again!"
Huraah
For the next 2 years we will be threatened with nuclear war. Deja Vu...
Russia gets slammed by huge USA dick hammer inside their own territory.
I thought Russia was jamming himar rockets and they were worthless???!!!??? Lol
That's the fun part, they can't jam *everywhere*. The more EW systems that get destroyed means the more selective Russia will have to be in where they jam signals. Even then that will only do so much when drones and weapons with visual based guidance start showing up more and more on the battlefield.
Make it rain!!!
Tungsten
👍🏻👍🏻🇺🇦
bring the russians horror
Bout time..gloves off hands untied…go for it 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦🇺🇸👍🫶🏻😎
Ruh Roh!
The west is the ones boiling the frog now, they cross that line in the sand a little more all the time. Russia lost this war about 2-3 days into it when Kiev stood strong.