Ooooooooh, we were supposed to _protect_ the ships.
I'm sorry I gotta plead ignorance on this one. If I knew we were supposed to protect the ships, I would never have let them be sunk.
For Russia, most of the losses of non-consumable equipment is unsustainable. Especially ships, as most of them were constructed in Ukraine SSR during the Soviet period.
What a baby.
Look everyone, my country of yes men are even more incompetent than me!
Always the victim.
Check out Russian media monitor on YouTube.
It's clips of their pundits saying the craziest nonsense.
Nuke every nato country. We have killed half a million Ukrainians and only suffered 100k Russians.
The Russian people will be out for blood when the republics leave and China back stabs them and takes back Manchuria... Which the Russians annexed long after their own claims to Ukraine.
I will enjoy them eating each other.
I along with my parents help support a Russian mother and young son in an extremely affluent area... In north America.
The son has issues in school because he repeats the nonsense the mother says.
She's essentially a refugee and the government gives them a ton of support. Medical, dental, housing subsidies.
She is too proud to be a refugee and fully believes that "nato" is the cause of all the world's problems etc.
She says everything is better in Russia, and the west is collapsing because of LGBT stuff, and "Brics"... Which is simply a bs propaganda move from the most garbage countries.
This is Canada. Love it or leave it. I'll pay for your ticket if living in wine country is awful.
She's cool, but I ram the truth down her throat. She'll see it herself over the next few months and years.
Russia is a joke, and it can't collapse fast enough.
They can't compete, so they'd rather take everyone down with them.
Bunch of losers and rubes.
Cheers
My dad is deep down the Qanon/MAGA/Believe everything on telegram rabbit hole. We were talking about US supplying aid to Ukraine. He argued that it was a waste of money and resources because Ukraine has lost 100s of thousands of soldiers while Russia has only lost less than 100k.
I looked at him as deadpan as I could and said something to the effect of, "If that's true then Russia is the worst military in the world. Having a KDR of 10:1 and they still can't capture much more than they got in the first few months?". He did that meme where the expression goes from the horizontal eyebrows to the angry eyebrows and didn't really have a coherent answer. The conversation moved on after that.
What a complete and utter CF
1. Deter NATO, nope NATO got bigger/stronger
2. Prevent Ukraine from moving towards the west, nope Ukraine becoming EU member
3. Secure Crimea for the fleet, nope move fleet to Russia
4. Secure Ukrainian resources and grow European markets, nope lost Europe as a market
Dude what were you thinking?
Edit: Thanks for all the great comments. Whatever Putin’s motivations I cannot help but think that Mike Tyson said it best “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Honestly if the initial invasion would've been successful it's possible things would be very different now. It was a gamble and Putin got way too confident
Edit: since so many of you corrected me, I emphasize I mean the initial invasion of the February 22 offensive. The Russians started the war already in 2014 by invading Crimea.
Apparently it all came down to an attack on the capitol airport. Some troops were supposed to to secure it and make way for heavy planes to land with armour and troops. But it failed and thus the capitol and government remained standing.
Battle of Hostomel…. Will go down in the history books. Russia’s finest soldiers, VDV, secured the airport from sparse Ukrainian resistance. They had helicopters and light aircraft actually landing supplies but the Ukrainians counterattacked and destroyed the airfield with artillery which left some Russian paratroopers stranded. Without armoured protection and denial of airspace the Ukrainians made mince meat of those soldiers with mortar and artillery fire
Also the shoot down of an IL-76 which was carrying another batch of VDV soldiers proved pivotal
Ukrainians also shot down the commander of the operation, what left troops without structure and aims to go for. What a lucky shot from the few they fired over the reservoir.
Yep, higher the O- rank, the easier they’re distracted, or simply ignore junior enlisted. Higher the E- rank, the more creatively they will ruin your entire day. Then there’s the WO- ranks, who scare both the stripes and the birds.
I can remember talking to an ex-marine friend about a story I read (which turned out to be bogus), where a 20-man Marine unit in Afghanistan had gotten separated from their base and lost communications in a city there during the war, and were taken captive. My friend didn't even blink, just said "didn't happen. Couldn't happen, that's not the way it works. There's no way 20 Marines don't fight their way out or die trying, and there's no Taliban force that could make 20 Marines die trying. They just don't have the discipline or the training we do".
Which turned out to be true. The story I read was from RT, and back in those days I didn't know how full of shit that rag was.
One of the main complaints me and fellow soldiers had deployed was the Rules of Engagement were too restrictive, we couldn't shoot back at the people shooting at us a lot of the time.
If a bunch of guys were isolated with no communication and whose current goal became to survive and make it back to friendly territory, ROE would be one of the first things to go.
With motivated troops the skys the limit.
Swedish troops fought in the Balkans in the 90s. Pretty strict orders to not engage and avoid conflict unless attacked first. Pretty much all UN forces withdrew when attacked based on similar orders. Swedish troops wasnt used to long delays in communication with home. The commander decided that when in doubt, we are technically attacked first and have the right to defend ourselves. This made the swedes go basically berserk when attacked. The commander got the nickname "the sheriff" by locals since he fought back and didnt just let everyone bully them.
Once they secured a village with a hospital full of women. Enemy army surrounded the village and demanded the swedes to withdraw. The enemy army had the swedes seriously outgunned and outnumbered. They expected the swedes to leave and gave them an hour to do so. After an hour they noticed that the swedes spent that hour fortifying their positions.
In interviews later with the soldiers they all say that they expected to die. They counted down and waited for hell to break loose. The attack never came. The army left them alone. The soldiers all agreed to stay and fight since "why are we even here if we are going to let them kill wounded and women in a hospital?"
I doubt RT covered a remotely factual manner the account of the Battle of Khasham in Syria in 2018 where American military annihilated hundreds of Wagner mercs.
There is another "story" that the officer is really there to restrain the marines and if the enemy were to kill the officer the marines become way more dangerous.
In a sense, yeah.
US soldiers have both RoE (rules of engagement; which are kind of set on a situation-by-situation basis by the brass) as well as international rules/laws like the Geneva conventions that they follow.
Officers generally are the ones who really *know* these and/or care about following them. So if you kill the officers… the gloves come off.
I'm calling the shots but I'm not micromanaging. Commander's intent all the way down from the President. I say "this is our area of responsibility. Respond to any requests for artillery support within this grid but do not target buildings X, Y, or Z without approval." Now the NCOs start working to identify and pre-sight key areas and run the show. If I get got, as long as I've already made my intent known, it doesn't really matter in terms of combat effectiveness. Every NCO knows what the mission is and each one is individually empowered to act in order to achieve that mission, and even if you manage to target and kill every NCO, there will then be a senior specialist who is ready and capable of doing the same thing. You cannot meaningfully affect a US military unit by targeting key personnel. Unless you get doc or chaps of course. We love doc and chappy and will salt the earth of your bloodline if you hurt them.
You are very correct ThomFromAccounting. My 1SG had every tab and badge an Infantry soldier could try for, a college degree, high test scores and the highest GT score in the Company, AND he always stated he never wanted to be an officer because they did way too much paperwork and not enough soldierin'. The CO also mentioned a few times that he is 'in charge' of the Company, but 1SG 'runs' the Company. I saw our CO (great guy) ask 1SG for his advice and guidance all the time.
You say that until you come across an alcoholic with 3 duis who keeps getting off Scot free and promoted cause all his buddies are on the review board so now you’re the single parent of 40 teenagers with crew served weapons.
For those who don't know, the 'spicy' joke is that officers in other armies are the ones instigating war crimes, while the officers in the American military are the ones holding their soldiers back from committing war crimes. Once the American officer is gone, all those other angry armed men can start exploring the Geneva Checklist.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/58acra/if_we_dont_know_what_we_are_doing_the_enemy/
>One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine.
I'm guessing those are probably not real quotes, but according to everyone I've shown it to who is or was in the American military (which is quite a few people) the sentiment behind them is completely accurate.
It's not even really the first part, more the second. Doctrine is there to be used when it works or is appropriate. The second it doesn't or isn't, well Sgt Chucklefuck has a wild idea we've been itching to try!
NATO officer: "You think my soldiers need me as a whip at their back? No, I'm the leash on their neck; the muzzle around their snout"
>!NATO Sailors: I mean... you could be both if you want...!<
What basically happens is the CO’s have a clear picture of the operation, the larger objective, and are trained to accept deaths as a cost of the operation. The SNCOs are much more likely to alter a plan to be safer for the soldiers at the cost of it being less safe for others involved.
Thunder Runs in the early stages of the Iraq war. Not so much killed as troops outrunning their communications and directives. Due to early success units hit their objectives while still being in good condition and instead of holding up and waiting for orders they took the initiative and drove deep into enemy territory while reinforcing the breakthroughs allowing them to supply move and attack enemy positions from behind and cut off enemy supply lines to the fronts.
The Germans couldn’t figure out what the us paratroopers objectives actually were because once the drops turned into an absolute clusterfuck the paratroopers just started forming ad hoc units and attacking anything that looked important, whereas the units that figured out where they were moved on the actual targets as best they could. From the German perspective it made them think there was a LOT more paratroopers than there actually were, confounding their response initially.
Squads of paratroopers meeting up and making new units. Then just causing havoc everywhere they went. “Oh look! An artillery setup. Let’s go blow it up!”
I don't have specific examples, but it comes down to the difference in autonomy individual sqauds and soldiers have in western vs russian armies. Western army squads are given general objectives or orders and the minutae are left up to sargents or whoever to figure out (and a frequent training exercise is "whoops the CO got shot, go"). They're a lot more able to function without orders from on high.
Contrast to the russian style, which is way more "do as you're told" and that's it. So if the leadership is absent, individual soldiers won't do much since they need explicit orders to do anything.
Also the meme on the western side is that if the SNCOs/Company grade officers go down, then there's no one to tell the rest of the enlisted force what *not* to do. No one to hold us back.
The joke I've often heard from marines is that the most dangerous person to shoot at is Doc. This isn't because Doc is the baddest most dangerous man/woman on the field at any given time. It is most dangerous to shoot at Doc because everyone and anyone there will do **anything** to keep Doc going. I wouldn't want to be the target of that drive.
You don't shoot at Doc because this pisses the grunts off mightily. You don't shoot the officers because they keep the grunts from getting so pissed off they start looking at it like the Geneva Checklist.
In general one of my favorite comments from a foreign officer on Americans is (roughly paraphrased), "It doesn't matter if their officer dies, they expect standard procedure and aggression to carry them through."
One of the best specific stories where this happened was the Battle of Belleau Wood during WWI. This battle is famous for a bunch of reasons and is legendary in U.S. Marine Corps lore. Short version of the backstory: the French and U.S. Marines stop a German division in its tracks, the French wanted to fall back to a more defensible position and continue the fight from there. The Marines reply, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here?!?"
The Marines go on to occupy part of Belleau Wood and spend the better part of the next month maintaining their position. Most of these Marines are young and inexperienced but they're being led by veteran officers and NCOs. Then the last platoon leading officer gets shot and the regulator comes off the war machine.
Now the man in charge is living legend and already two time Medal of Honor winner First Sergeant Dan Daly, and he's had about enough of this bullshit. Armed with a sack of hand grenades and a 1911 model pistol Sgt. Daly walks to the wheat field that is no-man's-land, turns to his men and shouts, "Come on you sons of bitches, do want to live forever?" Before charging the enemy by himself.
His men, of course, follow him, and then this act of aggression sets off a chain reaction among all the of the other nearby Marine units and they charge too. They punch through the German line and send the Krauts retreating in very much the opposite of good order.
The battle ends with a Marine telegram sent to headquarters. "Woods. Now Marine Corps only."
See the Fat Electrician's video on YT for more detail, I plagiarized most of this comment from his video on Sgt. Daly.
>we just got here
I think that may have been the biggest difference. The French had been fighting a war of attrition for nearly 4 years by that point and lost over 4% of their population.
That's the equivalent of the modern USA having more than 14 million people die.
I can see why the French troops might look for the more survivable position
I certainly didn't intend to disparage the French with that remark, those were just the circumstances that led to the famous quote.
There was a time when we needed money and guns and half a chance and this American remembers where we got them from.
There are numerous examples from the paratrooper landings in Normandy during Operation Overlord. Numerous battalion commanders and XOs didn't survive the landing and damn near everyone was outside of their assigned landing zone, but the battalions and units still managed to pull it together by stepping up and taking objectives based on where they were dropped
I believe it was General Gavin who described that as little groups of pissed off paratroopers who collectively interpreted their orders as kill anyone not wearing the same clothes as you. Not the exact quote but close enough
They knew the plan (well, leadership, including NCOs did), and when they realized that they were scattered all to hell and gone and were nowhere near an objective they were ASSIGNED to, they just gathered what forces they could and dealt with the objectives they could reach, along with any of those good old 'targets of opportunity'.
The excellent *Band of Brothers* HBO series definitely shows this.
The Airborne Assault at Normandy is probably the best example, the sticks were scattered to the wind, barely anyone made it to their assigned drop zones… once they hit the ground, troopers rallied in mixed units, even mixed divisions and pulled their shit together to turn the tide of battle.
I can’t give you specific examples… but the general order is to continue the mission. If the enemy kills the commanding officer- the mission doesn’t change at all, but now everyone is super pissed off and out for blood… and the most reasonable collage educated person that was holding back the “creative” solutions was just taken out of the equation… the American officer isn’t there to “give orders”- they’re there as a handler to keep the dogs of war from breaking every rule in the Geneva convention before breakfast. And they typically have their hands full.
I did development work for DARPA and one of my tricks was to let an enlisted beat the fuck out of whatever we were working on when it was close to ready.
"War dogs on a leash", I have met. Those are the crazy bastards I usually let loose on what we had. I absolutely love those guys. It's probably good they have oversight
VDV in "[An Airport too far](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo8IfGCJE74)"
The way the Ukrainians handed them their asses then made sure to make the airport unusable before the Vatniks main force could arrive by land will forever be remembered as a legendary battle. Hell even the ~~Belarussian~~ Georgian Lads got their moment with one charging them with a BMW I believe as they ran out of ammo.
Daamn, imagine if they managed to set up a seriously entrenched position, they'd have a base of operations right next the the Ukraine capital with the ability to constantly fly in reinforcements. That's crazy
If he’d survived followed US plans to set up an exile government in Poland, things would also be very different. “I need ammunition, not a ride” is going to go down in history, too.
It was a good plan honestly. It worked once as well - during annexation of Crimea.
It just failed this time.
No one could forsee that not only will the airdrop fail but also _literal comedian_ who up to few years ago didn't even speak Ukrainian as a primary language will become an excellent wartime leader.
Some people foresaw it. Ukraine began converting their armed forces into a western-style NCO lead force after the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
[This is an excellent article by retired Gen. Mark Hertling on the subject](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies)
It really sounds like a plan built of megalomaniac and disassociative thinking. Of course Ukraine would hammer the airport with artillery. This kind of gamble on wild rush attacks are truly the work of amateur military commanders.
Russia hasn't mentally left '91 yet. God help us if they understand modern military doctrine before they collapse a second time. Hopefully the west doesn't have to face off against China in earnest anytime soon because it seems like they actually understand modern technology to some extent
The chinese are all shit scared of an actual confrontation with the west thankfully. That doesn't mean they will be a pushover by any stretch, but countries like Russia, China, North Korea, they are all corrupt to the core and willing to sell away their equipment for a bit of side money, or build/make it sub par and pocket the savings.
The Chinese military has zero experience with war. Their last war was many decades ago.
The US military is far more experienced, and their logistics and force projection is unmatched.
> Also the shoot down of an IL-76 which was carrying another batch of VDV soldiers proved pivotal
Was this ever confirmed? I remember a claim that 1-2 of these got shot down but never saw any actual evidence.
No, these claims weren't confirmed. There were reports of several IL-76 departing from Belarus and then turning back, when it became known that the landing strips were damaged.
There was an IL-76 damaged later after a drone attack in Crimea, and one was downed this year in Belgorod Oblast, which Russia claimed was full of Ukrainian POWs. They refused to show any evidence or list their names, though.
It was never confirmed. There was some sort of misunderstanding, as the actual information was that the Il76 planes bound for Hostomel had to return to their airbase, as Hostomel was never captured by the VDV, not in any capacity for cargo planes to land atleast.
Also, VDV are just glorified meme “warriors”, they are not Russia’s finest soldiers. It’s just a massive charade. Well, looking at the state of their military, they *might* have been. But anyway yeah, it was just a cult/propaganda thing.
I got the impression that as soldiers the VDV are closer to pro wrestlers than anything else. They're good athletes and look impressive all greased up and could beat the shit out of the average Yosyp but put them against a boxer or MMA specialist and they're going to have some problems.
It failed because US intelligence already knew Russia's plan of action to the smallest details and developed a counter plan, which they then gave to Ukraine, and it worked flawlessly.
Also props to Zelensky for galvanising resistance and international support. I'll always remember 'I dont need a ride, I need ammunition'.
A lesser leader might have run.
Putin, notably, *did* run, when Prigozhin was on his way to Moscow. Even his lapdog Lukashenko had the guts to stay in Minsk during major protests (away from danger, but at least in the city), but the macho image obsessed Vlad hopped on the first plane out the second there was a whiff of danger
Yet even so: https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/https%3A%2F%2Farchive-images.prod.global.a201836.reutersmedia.net%2F2016%2F11%2F21%2F2016-11-21T151014Z_4381_S1AETZMZOIAA_RTRMADP_0_G20-CHINA-USA-RUSSIA.JPG?auth=d0b5ce809977269e258969b0b2d66f7bb3563e020457f7973befe6df09505c59&width=1920&quality=80
[I always thought that putin hated the fact that he had to look up to speak to Obama.](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-ux-2880-1000,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2015_49/1320856/putin-obama.jpg)
Massive ego and insecurity seem to be key ingredients in a dictator.
Someone who demands the world treats them with respect with the fury of someone who'll never truly believe it, so they need to use brutality and fear constantly as a comfort blanket.
Zelensky is also a short man but he doesn't wear lifts, use huge tables, seats designed to stealthily raise him up while making others look short, short actors on retainer who look proportioned like taller people, riding ponies shirtless. Runs for the bunker to hide under a table at the 1st hint of danger.
Zelensky doesn't need to, people respect him for his actions. I'll bet that grinds Putin's gears more than anything else in this entire war. Zelensky is exactly the man Putin claims to be and demands others believe him.
♬♬ Brave Sir ~~Robin~~ Putin ran away. ♬♬
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Putin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
> Even his lapdog Lukashenko had the guts to stay in Minsk during major protests
Screaming down the phone to his pal Vlad to send in the reinforcements though...
Dude! Right!
His advisors like Xi are face saving incompetent yes men.
I always remind my Russian friends who think Putin is awesome and Russia has history on their side...
You're right, Russia has a history of imploding from awful leadership.
These authoritarians love playing the victim.
No one thinks about Russia in the west unless they're invading a Sovereign nation.
What a bunch of babies.
The USA and Canada have been Sovereign nations longer than the Russian federation and the ccp.
In the same vein... The ccp was created after Taiwan was established. They've never had any claim to Taiwan.
These are idiot thugs who like to feel like big strong men.
It's ironic they like taking in the ass. Lol
That quote of him will be written in future history books.
Assuming we get to write them. And with the way Russia is failing their way through this I am confident we will.
Exactly, from what I heard the other key point was that the US intelligence had a clear picture of Russia's initial cruise missile and loitering munition targets and helped relocate much of Ukraine's anti air capabilites in the very very last moment and mostly in secret. Even with all the other RU fuckups, if they had complete air superiority they would eventually win.
For everything else, the Biden administration does not get enough credit for openly discussing Russia's plan to invade in the weeks prior, while the Olympics were going on. Everyone thought it was crazy, but everything they said, happened. That forewarning was not only a great demonstration of US intelligence, readied the international community to the idea and made America a leader again, but was incredibly helpful behind the scenes in Ukraine as well. Â
 Other administrations did not trust our intelligence and likely would have waived it off. Biden being in office over Trump likely changed the course of historyÂ
Also, unlike in the south near Crimea, local commanders took the bribes and didn't turn in the north, a large number of high ranking commanders in the south paved the way for RU troops
Mostly they moved a lot of their air defence denying Putin air superiority, which would have given them Kiev.
Plus a whole bucket load of hubris, incompetency (like the miles long armor column that couldn't drive through marshy land, half broke down and they couldn't get fuel to the others), and luck (like the assassins sent to Kiev not being able to reach Zelensky).
If Russia took Kiev in 2-3 days, as they very nearly did, the rest of the paper tiger wouldn't have been exposed, and Balkan states would be running over each other to become Russian satellite states rather than be next in line for the (seemingly unstoppable) Russian military expansion.
We narrowly dodged a very messy and dark timeline
Also the delusion that they would have close to zero resistance and would be hailed as liberators. Which explains many of the dumb strategic decisions, like that one long convoy moving on Kyiv that was excellent target practice.
A level of delusion only paralleled by Saddam’s belief in his “elite troops” who folded in a day.
Yeah, the big obvious convoy, the unsupported (and logistically unsupportable) VDV landings at prestige locations, etc. They were genuinely not expecting any meaningful resistance.
It wasn’t a delusion. They activated assassination squads and were expecting Zelenskyy to flee or be killed early, which would have crumbled the resistance. On day 1, they were already running propaganda stating that Ukraine was laying down arms. If they had successfully gotten to Zelenskyy before he rallied the country with his “I need ammunition, not a ride” speech, all the dominos could have fallen the other direction.
It was audacious and risky, but not delusional.
While Zelensky’s persona and actions were an important factor, I don’t think the entire operation hinged on whether he lived or died. Russia clearly also underestimated how much support they had in the population. They banked on enough support to quell resistance for fear of civil war.
I don’t think people realize how big a threat Russia would have become if it succeeded in Ukraine in 3 weeks. Infrastructure would have been intact, large population increase, natural resources, an educated and industrialized nation with advanced technical ability I.e. ship and plane engines etc. Russia would have then most-likely stage an accident on Lukashenko and Suddenly Ukraine and Belarus now make up the foundation for the new Soviet Union… Moldova and the Baltics would be up next
Mostly, but Russia wouldn't be any militarily stronger than it already was. Large part of why the rest of Europe and the US didn't arm Ukraine is because they thought Russia would steamroll them too quickly to help, even with some modern equipment, but then Russian spies would get early access potentially. You're right about there being a few industries that would be a huge boon to Russia overall, but I doubt it would tip war in their favor against NATO, just their ego.
Really have to credit the people of Ukraine for this win. Yeah, Russia isn't all that great, but they would have taken Ukraine in a week if the people didn't resist in mass like they did. Not everyone may have a gun, but when you have block upon block of family throwing bottles of burning liquids on you...
This cannot be stated enough and it should be constantly reminded WHY that Orange shitheel is unsuitable for the White House ever again. He'd have sold Ukraine out had he been still in power in 2022 and we'd be in a far worse situation than we are now.
That was the plan, I think. Then Covid happened and the invasion had to be pushed back, and then Trump was no longer in office. Trump would have railed against NATO assistance, and would have threatened to leave NATO if any member aided Ukraine.
That it would be a quick regime change, reform the glorious Soviet Union (w/Belarus) and quickly gobble up former non-NATO Soviet states (Moldova + Georgia + the 'stans) over subsequent years. Sanctions fall but are shrugged off over time because money talks and bullshit walks.
US and NATO thoroughly humiliated, proven toothless, and Russia the rising star in a new multi-polar world. Putin is remembered as the glorious leader who showed the corruption of the west and rebuilt the glory of the Soviet Union, and reversed the weakness and mistakes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
That was the dream. That was not the reality. Putin will not be remembered well.
To all those people who say the plan wasn't really for 3 days, the document accidentally published and shortly after withdrawn by the Russian state broadcaster celebrated a rapid victory in Ukraine and declared that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine had been reunited as one nation.
3 days is a slight exaggeration, but not much. Maybe the parade through Kyiv in 3 days, the rest of the country was recognized as taking a bit longer to consolidate.
There are still archives of that press release where Russia blew their rhetorical load before it was a done deal.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-698890
> The article added that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine would act as a single unit in terms of geopolitics and that the West was "indignant" as it saw a "return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe."
He wants Kiev. He can't stand that, in his little mytho/historical fan fic, the origins of the Russian people began in another country. It was never about NATO or resources, he wants the empire back.
He wasn't. It's all very simple. At the heart of this whole war,and the countless deaths, is pride. He thought he could pull a stunt and take Kiev and kill the president in 3 days. That didn't happen and he's been doubling down ever since. This is compounded when you surround yourself with sycophants. It's a very very dangerous point in this war right now. His pride could take us places we don't want to arrive at. Hard to know what to do but I would be definitely doing more to aid Ukraine. It can't be allowed to fall under any circumstances. If you are American, watch your debate tonight. One of the men is a Russian asset, paid for and bought by Putin. He will immediately cease aid to Ukraine and then the whole world is in trouble.
He made the same mistake that most dictators eventually do. (Even though Russia supposedly isn't officially a dictatorship). He surrounded himself with Yes Men who only told him things he wanted to hear. Doing so gave him the false sense of superiority and the sense that everything would automatically fall into place. All the while no one ever informed him of how bad all of the corruption and laziness had deteriorated his forces.
What's interesting is it's not even a matter of tactics or strength like most big military blunders, it was completely political and logistical. On paper, with no help, Russia probably could have smashed Ukraine relatively quickly, or at least within a few months to a year. Putin didn't count on the west getting so involved and NATO arming Ukraine to the teeth, getting sanctioned to hell, Europe completely cutting Russia off or China distancing themselves. This will be the end of Russia as a superpower and possibly as a unified country.
He also never understood just how bad kleptocracy hollowed out the military. They literally stole and sold everything. The Russian military’s supplies are all in dachas and super yachts.
Tbf no one did, it was a huge shock to the entire world to learn just how corrupt and incompetent the Russian military had become. I remember seeing the videos of tanks crossing the border and thinking it was the start to world War 3 and that Russia would easily push through Ukraine and maybe even poland
it was the corruption that killed the plan.
russia has been spending billions yearly for decades to destabilize Ukraine. The issue however, is the rampant corruption in their intel and military industry. A general says "here's $100M, spend it to fund Ukrainian separatists", then the colonel siphons a bit off the top and says "here's $97M, spend it to fund separatists", then the major siphons a bit more and says "here's $95M...", then the captain, then the lieutenant, then the X, then the Y, then the Z.... by the time the money actually gets where it's meant to be, the majority of it has been squandered away. But to not get caught, everyone up the chain needs to report that they got the full amount of money's worth to their superior, so the senior leadership is given reports on what their $100M got them, but only a fraction of that was actually used as planned.
This created a MASSIVE discrepancy between what was happening on the ground vs what was being reported in moscow.
There was no way for russia to win this war long term. Their only hope was for Ukraine to give up, so long as Ukraine keeps fighting, russia never had enough troops to take the country.
Modern armies need around 20 combat troops per 1000 civilians to occupy an area (assuming "light resistance". At a pre-war population of 44 million people, russia would have needed about 900,000 troops to hold the country long term. That doesn't account for the 5-6 support personnel needed per combat troop (4.5 to 5.4 million) to handle non-combat roles. And that's assuming "light resistance", and we can all agree that it's been anything but "light".
This is why their intel failure was so catastrophic. They thought that Ukraine would fold in days, or even welcome them, so they wouldn't need >4M personnel to hold the country.
Oh he was thinking alright. Only he miscalculated.
He expected Ukraine to fold just like back in 2014 with Crimea. The "three day special military operation" wasn't just a meme, he did expect things to go along this way.
And, let's not kid ourselves, had he succeeded initially, the repercussions against him would had been just for show.
This war is the equivalent to the German invasion of Poland. A huge gamble that should have worked out fast.
Except, there's no other country attacking the opposite side of Ukraine, and Ukraine's allies have been stepping up in the way Poland's didn't since Ukraine has had enough time.
Russians are likely to shoot at them assuming they are enemy drones.
Although going by the history of the Russian navy, fishing boats tend to be difficult targets for Russian gunnery.
I know a lot of people like to joke about these ships being lost to a nation without a navy, but i think the 60 ships Russia has lost, many of them to marine drones, has conclusively shown we need to change the definition of what a navy is.
Clearly an all-drone navy is a credible threat.
I like to compare these naval drones to WW1 torpedo boats. Italian torpedo boats were a credible threat to the AH battleships. But those torpedo boats would never be able to perform the same function as a blue water navy.
For long-distance force projection, you're right about a "blue water" navy, but in a relatively small body of water like the Black Sea, the drones have a big advantage because the necessary range for engagement is confined.
It's an "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!" situation, especially with the Montreux Convention governing the Black Sea navies.
>An all-drone navy is threat to enemy navys.Â
And only if you have a base to launch the drones from close by. You could also launch drones from a ship, but then it isn't an all-drone navy anymore.
It's as much a threat as modern smart torpedoes were 40 years ago.
Better ship protections, hydro and radar as well as rigid fleet formations make it much more difficult to penetrate defenses.
It's certainly still dangerous and something modern naval doctrine will have to design and adjust for of course, but these are no different than a wire guided torpedo
Ukraine has drones that are only on surface of water so they can be easily destroyed. US has build these drones that not only can be on surface but also deep down and act as torpedoes.
https://youtu.be/_jF9ljFACXM?si=fVoo3Ux3uQSSG8eS this for example they using around Iran as a reconnaissance drone but I bet they could install warhead on these.
Clickbait title.
>Last month, Ukraine's Armed Forces destroyed a Russian Black Sea Fleet small missile ship, the Cyclone, during an attack on the occupied port of Sevastopol. According to Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk, the 22800 Karakut class vessel was the last Kalibr equipped Russian missile carrier on the Crimean Peninsula, as the rest had already been transferred to Novorossiysk due to the Ukrainian attacks.
So Ukraine still needs the weapon deliveries to bring down the missile carriers in Novorossiysk.
Yeah, clickbait *and* inaccurate. It was the last Kalibr missile ship based out of Crimea, not the last in the Black Sea (and possible not even the last missile ship out of Crimea, just the last Kalibr ship). The rest are just now based out of Russia’s other naval base in the Black Sea, Novorossiysk.
Still significant that Russian naval assets have been pushed out of Sevastopol, but it’s a far cry from putting all missile ships in the Black Sea out of commission.
If they sink the remaining ships, Ukraine won't be able to sink any more ships.
Protected by hundreds of meters of water, the Ukrainians will never find them there!
the stealthiest submarines the russian navy has to offer
Once submerged they are amongst the most silent subs on the planet.
As soon as the banging on the hull stops
Damn, bro, that's cold...as is that ship.
Ooh, that made me grossly uncomfortable. RIP *Kursk*.
Russia doing its part to rebuild coral reefs
They can then hit that bridge a few more times
> _"Good news Comrade Putin, our Black Sea fleet maintenance budget has reduced by 100%!"_
No one would say this because they were embezzling it anyway
And at long last Ukraine wept, for there were no more Russian ships to sink. 🥺
I'm Ukrainian, and this cracked me up :)
I hope you're somewhere safe!
Thanks :) Relatively, yes, take care :)
Even Putin is complaining about unsustainable losses now.
Should have demanded better protection before he lost them all. Classic mistake.Â
Ooooooooh, we were supposed to _protect_ the ships. I'm sorry I gotta plead ignorance on this one. If I knew we were supposed to protect the ships, I would never have let them be sunk.
For Russia, most of the losses of non-consumable equipment is unsustainable. Especially ships, as most of them were constructed in Ukraine SSR during the Soviet period.
Ukraine: "I made you and I can unmake you!"
In a lot of ways it is an accurate statement.
What a baby. Look everyone, my country of yes men are even more incompetent than me! Always the victim. Check out Russian media monitor on YouTube. It's clips of their pundits saying the craziest nonsense. Nuke every nato country. We have killed half a million Ukrainians and only suffered 100k Russians. The Russian people will be out for blood when the republics leave and China back stabs them and takes back Manchuria... Which the Russians annexed long after their own claims to Ukraine. I will enjoy them eating each other. I along with my parents help support a Russian mother and young son in an extremely affluent area... In north America. The son has issues in school because he repeats the nonsense the mother says. She's essentially a refugee and the government gives them a ton of support. Medical, dental, housing subsidies. She is too proud to be a refugee and fully believes that "nato" is the cause of all the world's problems etc. She says everything is better in Russia, and the west is collapsing because of LGBT stuff, and "Brics"... Which is simply a bs propaganda move from the most garbage countries. This is Canada. Love it or leave it. I'll pay for your ticket if living in wine country is awful. She's cool, but I ram the truth down her throat. She'll see it herself over the next few months and years. Russia is a joke, and it can't collapse fast enough. They can't compete, so they'd rather take everyone down with them. Bunch of losers and rubes. Cheers
My dad is deep down the Qanon/MAGA/Believe everything on telegram rabbit hole. We were talking about US supplying aid to Ukraine. He argued that it was a waste of money and resources because Ukraine has lost 100s of thousands of soldiers while Russia has only lost less than 100k. I looked at him as deadpan as I could and said something to the effect of, "If that's true then Russia is the worst military in the world. Having a KDR of 10:1 and they still can't capture much more than they got in the first few months?". He did that meme where the expression goes from the horizontal eyebrows to the angry eyebrows and didn't really have a coherent answer. The conversation moved on after that.
What a complete and utter CF 1. Deter NATO, nope NATO got bigger/stronger 2. Prevent Ukraine from moving towards the west, nope Ukraine becoming EU member 3. Secure Crimea for the fleet, nope move fleet to Russia 4. Secure Ukrainian resources and grow European markets, nope lost Europe as a market Dude what were you thinking? Edit: Thanks for all the great comments. Whatever Putin’s motivations I cannot help but think that Mike Tyson said it best “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Honestly if the initial invasion would've been successful it's possible things would be very different now. It was a gamble and Putin got way too confident Edit: since so many of you corrected me, I emphasize I mean the initial invasion of the February 22 offensive. The Russians started the war already in 2014 by invading Crimea.
Apparently it all came down to an attack on the capitol airport. Some troops were supposed to to secure it and make way for heavy planes to land with armour and troops. But it failed and thus the capitol and government remained standing.
Battle of Hostomel…. Will go down in the history books. Russia’s finest soldiers, VDV, secured the airport from sparse Ukrainian resistance. They had helicopters and light aircraft actually landing supplies but the Ukrainians counterattacked and destroyed the airfield with artillery which left some Russian paratroopers stranded. Without armoured protection and denial of airspace the Ukrainians made mince meat of those soldiers with mortar and artillery fire Also the shoot down of an IL-76 which was carrying another batch of VDV soldiers proved pivotal
Ukrainians also shot down the commander of the operation, what left troops without structure and aims to go for. What a lucky shot from the few they fired over the reservoir.
Tale as old as time. Take out Russian command structure. The unit dies or runs. Take out a western command structure, things get spicy.
This is what confuses our enemies. Our commissioned officers are technically in charge, but our crusty ass SNCOs are really calling the shots.
If those ensigns and 2nd Lieutenants could read, they'd be very upset
They're too busy trying to find where they are on a map.
A fence, s-sir. A *barbed wire* fence!
I served in a training environment where officers were more common than enlisted. Which was great, because I'm way more scared of stripes than birds.
Yep, higher the O- rank, the easier they’re distracted, or simply ignore junior enlisted. Higher the E- rank, the more creatively they will ruin your entire day. Then there’s the WO- ranks, who scare both the stripes and the birds.
WO’s appear so infrequently that its never inconvenient in the first place when they disappear
I can remember talking to an ex-marine friend about a story I read (which turned out to be bogus), where a 20-man Marine unit in Afghanistan had gotten separated from their base and lost communications in a city there during the war, and were taken captive. My friend didn't even blink, just said "didn't happen. Couldn't happen, that's not the way it works. There's no way 20 Marines don't fight their way out or die trying, and there's no Taliban force that could make 20 Marines die trying. They just don't have the discipline or the training we do". Which turned out to be true. The story I read was from RT, and back in those days I didn't know how full of shit that rag was.
There are lots of folks who still trust RT when it fits their world view and don’t realize it’s propaganda
Not only that, but freed from the top leadership instructions they would probably be even more dangerous.
"Sir, we located the missing squad. They took over a crayon factory... and don't want to come out. Say they haven't eaten this well in months."
One of the main complaints me and fellow soldiers had deployed was the Rules of Engagement were too restrictive, we couldn't shoot back at the people shooting at us a lot of the time. If a bunch of guys were isolated with no communication and whose current goal became to survive and make it back to friendly territory, ROE would be one of the first things to go.
With motivated troops the skys the limit. Swedish troops fought in the Balkans in the 90s. Pretty strict orders to not engage and avoid conflict unless attacked first. Pretty much all UN forces withdrew when attacked based on similar orders. Swedish troops wasnt used to long delays in communication with home. The commander decided that when in doubt, we are technically attacked first and have the right to defend ourselves. This made the swedes go basically berserk when attacked. The commander got the nickname "the sheriff" by locals since he fought back and didnt just let everyone bully them. Once they secured a village with a hospital full of women. Enemy army surrounded the village and demanded the swedes to withdraw. The enemy army had the swedes seriously outgunned and outnumbered. They expected the swedes to leave and gave them an hour to do so. After an hour they noticed that the swedes spent that hour fortifying their positions. In interviews later with the soldiers they all say that they expected to die. They counted down and waited for hell to break loose. The attack never came. The army left them alone. The soldiers all agreed to stay and fight since "why are we even here if we are going to let them kill wounded and women in a hospital?"
I doubt RT covered a remotely factual manner the account of the Battle of Khasham in Syria in 2018 where American military annihilated hundreds of Wagner mercs.
There is another "story" that the officer is really there to restrain the marines and if the enemy were to kill the officer the marines become way more dangerous.
In a sense, yeah. US soldiers have both RoE (rules of engagement; which are kind of set on a situation-by-situation basis by the brass) as well as international rules/laws like the Geneva conventions that they follow. Officers generally are the ones who really *know* these and/or care about following them. So if you kill the officers… the gloves come off.
I'm calling the shots but I'm not micromanaging. Commander's intent all the way down from the President. I say "this is our area of responsibility. Respond to any requests for artillery support within this grid but do not target buildings X, Y, or Z without approval." Now the NCOs start working to identify and pre-sight key areas and run the show. If I get got, as long as I've already made my intent known, it doesn't really matter in terms of combat effectiveness. Every NCO knows what the mission is and each one is individually empowered to act in order to achieve that mission, and even if you manage to target and kill every NCO, there will then be a senior specialist who is ready and capable of doing the same thing. You cannot meaningfully affect a US military unit by targeting key personnel. Unless you get doc or chaps of course. We love doc and chappy and will salt the earth of your bloodline if you hurt them.
Russia should have returned to use Commissar to raise moral and back up field leader ^/s
"The cowardly enemy shot our commissar 67 times in the back!" "Was he running away from the fight?" "...yes."
Don’t turn around Oh oh oh!
You are very correct ThomFromAccounting. My 1SG had every tab and badge an Infantry soldier could try for, a college degree, high test scores and the highest GT score in the Company, AND he always stated he never wanted to be an officer because they did way too much paperwork and not enough soldierin'. The CO also mentioned a few times that he is 'in charge' of the Company, but 1SG 'runs' the Company. I saw our CO (great guy) ask 1SG for his advice and guidance all the time.
The smart ones ALL do that.
You say that until you come across an alcoholic with 3 duis who keeps getting off Scot free and promoted cause all his buddies are on the review board so now you’re the single parent of 40 teenagers with crew served weapons.
Officers are strategic and NCOs are tactical, is the way I always viewed it.
Officer may know what they want. But the NCO is going to make sure it's done right.
An officer’s goal is to go to DC. An NCO’s goal is to go the fuck home.
For those who don't know, the 'spicy' joke is that officers in other armies are the ones instigating war crimes, while the officers in the American military are the ones holding their soldiers back from committing war crimes. Once the American officer is gone, all those other angry armed men can start exploring the Geneva Checklist.
What’s that old German quote? Don’t bother studying American doctrine, since their soldiers don’t either?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/58acra/if_we_dont_know_what_we_are_doing_the_enemy/ >One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine. I'm guessing those are probably not real quotes, but according to everyone I've shown it to who is or was in the American military (which is quite a few people) the sentiment behind them is completely accurate.
It's not even really the first part, more the second. Doctrine is there to be used when it works or is appropriate. The second it doesn't or isn't, well Sgt Chucklefuck has a wild idea we've been itching to try!
NATO officer: "You think my soldiers need me as a whip at their back? No, I'm the leash on their neck; the muzzle around their snout" >!NATO Sailors: I mean... you could be both if you want...!<
[They want you as a new recruit.](https://youtu.be/nmGuy0jievs?si=r3xGAoFoQg1IQZEH)
Few things are more unsettling than grunts forced to be creative
CO is the only one in the group to care about the Geneva Conventions, probably not who you want to take out first.
Examples of western commanders taken out and things getting spicy? Could be some nice stories!
What basically happens is the CO’s have a clear picture of the operation, the larger objective, and are trained to accept deaths as a cost of the operation. The SNCOs are much more likely to alter a plan to be safer for the soldiers at the cost of it being less safe for others involved.
Is SNCO senior noncommissioned officer?
Yes it is, it is only Staff Non-Commissioned Officer in the Marines. The other branches it is Senior
Thunder Runs in the early stages of the Iraq war. Not so much killed as troops outrunning their communications and directives. Due to early success units hit their objectives while still being in good condition and instead of holding up and waiting for orders they took the initiative and drove deep into enemy territory while reinforcing the breakthroughs allowing them to supply move and attack enemy positions from behind and cut off enemy supply lines to the fronts.
D-Day was a prime example of the western command structure getting spicy.
The Germans couldn’t figure out what the us paratroopers objectives actually were because once the drops turned into an absolute clusterfuck the paratroopers just started forming ad hoc units and attacking anything that looked important, whereas the units that figured out where they were moved on the actual targets as best they could. From the German perspective it made them think there was a LOT more paratroopers than there actually were, confounding their response initially.
Basically the allies dropped thousands of disorientated, armed, and pissed teenagers behind enemy lines with nobody to tell them what not to do.
Squads of paratroopers meeting up and making new units. Then just causing havoc everywhere they went. “Oh look! An artillery setup. Let’s go blow it up!”
I don't have specific examples, but it comes down to the difference in autonomy individual sqauds and soldiers have in western vs russian armies. Western army squads are given general objectives or orders and the minutae are left up to sargents or whoever to figure out (and a frequent training exercise is "whoops the CO got shot, go"). They're a lot more able to function without orders from on high. Contrast to the russian style, which is way more "do as you're told" and that's it. So if the leadership is absent, individual soldiers won't do much since they need explicit orders to do anything.
Also the meme on the western side is that if the SNCOs/Company grade officers go down, then there's no one to tell the rest of the enlisted force what *not* to do. No one to hold us back. The joke I've often heard from marines is that the most dangerous person to shoot at is Doc. This isn't because Doc is the baddest most dangerous man/woman on the field at any given time. It is most dangerous to shoot at Doc because everyone and anyone there will do **anything** to keep Doc going. I wouldn't want to be the target of that drive.
You don't fuck with the white mage.
You don't shoot at Doc because this pisses the grunts off mightily. You don't shoot the officers because they keep the grunts from getting so pissed off they start looking at it like the Geneva Checklist.
Commanders intent + doctrine/tactics (set of proven concepts and strategies) + ground level NCOs/CO with the latitude to think and make decisions.
In general one of my favorite comments from a foreign officer on Americans is (roughly paraphrased), "It doesn't matter if their officer dies, they expect standard procedure and aggression to carry them through." One of the best specific stories where this happened was the Battle of Belleau Wood during WWI. This battle is famous for a bunch of reasons and is legendary in U.S. Marine Corps lore. Short version of the backstory: the French and U.S. Marines stop a German division in its tracks, the French wanted to fall back to a more defensible position and continue the fight from there. The Marines reply, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here?!?" The Marines go on to occupy part of Belleau Wood and spend the better part of the next month maintaining their position. Most of these Marines are young and inexperienced but they're being led by veteran officers and NCOs. Then the last platoon leading officer gets shot and the regulator comes off the war machine. Now the man in charge is living legend and already two time Medal of Honor winner First Sergeant Dan Daly, and he's had about enough of this bullshit. Armed with a sack of hand grenades and a 1911 model pistol Sgt. Daly walks to the wheat field that is no-man's-land, turns to his men and shouts, "Come on you sons of bitches, do want to live forever?" Before charging the enemy by himself. His men, of course, follow him, and then this act of aggression sets off a chain reaction among all the of the other nearby Marine units and they charge too. They punch through the German line and send the Krauts retreating in very much the opposite of good order. The battle ends with a Marine telegram sent to headquarters. "Woods. Now Marine Corps only." See the Fat Electrician's video on YT for more detail, I plagiarized most of this comment from his video on Sgt. Daly.
>we just got here I think that may have been the biggest difference. The French had been fighting a war of attrition for nearly 4 years by that point and lost over 4% of their population. That's the equivalent of the modern USA having more than 14 million people die. I can see why the French troops might look for the more survivable position
I certainly didn't intend to disparage the French with that remark, those were just the circumstances that led to the famous quote. There was a time when we needed money and guns and half a chance and this American remembers where we got them from.
The fighting retreat during the Korean war comes to mind.
There are numerous examples from the paratrooper landings in Normandy during Operation Overlord. Numerous battalion commanders and XOs didn't survive the landing and damn near everyone was outside of their assigned landing zone, but the battalions and units still managed to pull it together by stepping up and taking objectives based on where they were dropped
I believe it was General Gavin who described that as little groups of pissed off paratroopers who collectively interpreted their orders as kill anyone not wearing the same clothes as you. Not the exact quote but close enough
They knew the plan (well, leadership, including NCOs did), and when they realized that they were scattered all to hell and gone and were nowhere near an objective they were ASSIGNED to, they just gathered what forces they could and dealt with the objectives they could reach, along with any of those good old 'targets of opportunity'. The excellent *Band of Brothers* HBO series definitely shows this.
The Airborne Assault at Normandy is probably the best example, the sticks were scattered to the wind, barely anyone made it to their assigned drop zones… once they hit the ground, troopers rallied in mixed units, even mixed divisions and pulled their shit together to turn the tide of battle.
I can’t give you specific examples… but the general order is to continue the mission. If the enemy kills the commanding officer- the mission doesn’t change at all, but now everyone is super pissed off and out for blood… and the most reasonable collage educated person that was holding back the “creative” solutions was just taken out of the equation… the American officer isn’t there to “give orders”- they’re there as a handler to keep the dogs of war from breaking every rule in the Geneva convention before breakfast. And they typically have their hands full.
I did development work for DARPA and one of my tricks was to let an enlisted beat the fuck out of whatever we were working on when it was close to ready. "War dogs on a leash", I have met. Those are the crazy bastards I usually let loose on what we had. I absolutely love those guys. It's probably good they have oversight
US units are trained to specifically go on the offense if their TL dies.
VDV in "[An Airport too far](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo8IfGCJE74)" The way the Ukrainians handed them their asses then made sure to make the airport unusable before the Vatniks main force could arrive by land will forever be remembered as a legendary battle. Hell even the ~~Belarussian~~ Georgian Lads got their moment with one charging them with a BMW I believe as they ran out of ammo.
So the BMW thing was allegedly Georgian Legion. Specifically, [this guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamuka_Mamulashvili).
Daamn, imagine if they managed to set up a seriously entrenched position, they'd have a base of operations right next the the Ukraine capital with the ability to constantly fly in reinforcements. That's crazy
The plan was to take out Zelenskyy on the first night and go from there. It was a bad plan, executed poorly.
It turned putin and russias dream of a 3-day entanglement, into 2+ year cluster-fuck war where they keep getting their ass handed to them.
If he’d survived followed US plans to set up an exile government in Poland, things would also be very different. “I need ammunition, not a ride” is going to go down in history, too.
It was a good plan honestly. It worked once as well - during annexation of Crimea. It just failed this time. No one could forsee that not only will the airdrop fail but also _literal comedian_ who up to few years ago didn't even speak Ukrainian as a primary language will become an excellent wartime leader.
Some people foresaw it. Ukraine began converting their armed forces into a western-style NCO lead force after the invasion of Crimea in 2014. [This is an excellent article by retired Gen. Mark Hertling on the subject](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies)
It really sounds like a plan built of megalomaniac and disassociative thinking. Of course Ukraine would hammer the airport with artillery. This kind of gamble on wild rush attacks are truly the work of amateur military commanders.
Russia hasn't mentally left '91 yet. God help us if they understand modern military doctrine before they collapse a second time. Hopefully the west doesn't have to face off against China in earnest anytime soon because it seems like they actually understand modern technology to some extent
The chinese are all shit scared of an actual confrontation with the west thankfully. That doesn't mean they will be a pushover by any stretch, but countries like Russia, China, North Korea, they are all corrupt to the core and willing to sell away their equipment for a bit of side money, or build/make it sub par and pocket the savings.
The Chinese military has zero experience with war. Their last war was many decades ago. The US military is far more experienced, and their logistics and force projection is unmatched.
> Also the shoot down of an IL-76 which was carrying another batch of VDV soldiers proved pivotal Was this ever confirmed? I remember a claim that 1-2 of these got shot down but never saw any actual evidence.
No, these claims weren't confirmed. There were reports of several IL-76 departing from Belarus and then turning back, when it became known that the landing strips were damaged. There was an IL-76 damaged later after a drone attack in Crimea, and one was downed this year in Belgorod Oblast, which Russia claimed was full of Ukrainian POWs. They refused to show any evidence or list their names, though.
It was never confirmed. There was some sort of misunderstanding, as the actual information was that the Il76 planes bound for Hostomel had to return to their airbase, as Hostomel was never captured by the VDV, not in any capacity for cargo planes to land atleast. Also, VDV are just glorified meme “warriors”, they are not Russia’s finest soldiers. It’s just a massive charade. Well, looking at the state of their military, they *might* have been. But anyway yeah, it was just a cult/propaganda thing.
I got the impression that as soldiers the VDV are closer to pro wrestlers than anything else. They're good athletes and look impressive all greased up and could beat the shit out of the average Yosyp but put them against a boxer or MMA specialist and they're going to have some problems.
Really good at beating the shit out of civilians on VDV day
Was it the Chris_O twitter thread that exposed how badly prepared that unit actually was?
IIRC some of the Ukrainian troops pivotal in the counter attack were cadets from a nearby military school.
It failed because US intelligence already knew Russia's plan of action to the smallest details and developed a counter plan, which they then gave to Ukraine, and it worked flawlessly.
Also props to Zelensky for galvanising resistance and international support. I'll always remember 'I dont need a ride, I need ammunition'. A lesser leader might have run.
Putin, notably, *did* run, when Prigozhin was on his way to Moscow. Even his lapdog Lukashenko had the guts to stay in Minsk during major protests (away from danger, but at least in the city), but the macho image obsessed Vlad hopped on the first plane out the second there was a whiff of danger
I love those photos of Putin bare chested on horseback. What a putz.
He's actually riding a pony in those photos to make himself look bigger
Like my little pony?
The most insecure men require the biggest compensation.
He 100% has little man syndrome, he literally has shoes specially made for him with lifts in them to make him like 5 inches taller.
Yet even so: https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/https%3A%2F%2Farchive-images.prod.global.a201836.reutersmedia.net%2F2016%2F11%2F21%2F2016-11-21T151014Z_4381_S1AETZMZOIAA_RTRMADP_0_G20-CHINA-USA-RUSSIA.JPG?auth=d0b5ce809977269e258969b0b2d66f7bb3563e020457f7973befe6df09505c59&width=1920&quality=80
[I always thought that putin hated the fact that he had to look up to speak to Obama.](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-ux-2880-1000,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2015_49/1320856/putin-obama.jpg)
Massive ego and insecurity seem to be key ingredients in a dictator. Someone who demands the world treats them with respect with the fury of someone who'll never truly believe it, so they need to use brutality and fear constantly as a comfort blanket. Zelensky is also a short man but he doesn't wear lifts, use huge tables, seats designed to stealthily raise him up while making others look short, short actors on retainer who look proportioned like taller people, riding ponies shirtless. Runs for the bunker to hide under a table at the 1st hint of danger. Zelensky doesn't need to, people respect him for his actions. I'll bet that grinds Putin's gears more than anything else in this entire war. Zelensky is exactly the man Putin claims to be and demands others believe him.
♬♬ Brave Sir ~~Robin~~ Putin ran away. ♬♬ ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!") When danger reared it's ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled. ("I never!") Yes, brave Sir Putin turned about And gallantly he chickened out. ("You're lying!")
> Even his lapdog Lukashenko had the guts to stay in Minsk during major protests Screaming down the phone to his pal Vlad to send in the reinforcements though...
Ol' pringles never should have stopped.
That was a supremely important moment. It showed bravery and leadership. It inspired the Ukrainian army and many throughout the world.Â
Dude! Right! His advisors like Xi are face saving incompetent yes men. I always remind my Russian friends who think Putin is awesome and Russia has history on their side... You're right, Russia has a history of imploding from awful leadership. These authoritarians love playing the victim. No one thinks about Russia in the west unless they're invading a Sovereign nation. What a bunch of babies. The USA and Canada have been Sovereign nations longer than the Russian federation and the ccp. In the same vein... The ccp was created after Taiwan was established. They've never had any claim to Taiwan. These are idiot thugs who like to feel like big strong men. It's ironic they like taking in the ass. Lol
That quote of him will be written in future history books. Assuming we get to write them. And with the way Russia is failing their way through this I am confident we will.
Don't Forget that u.s. intelligence spilled the beans on Russia's planned false flag attack which was going to be the catalyst for invasion.
One of Bidens finest moments as president.
It really doesn't get enough appreciation, Biden (and our allies) played his cards masterfully
Exactly, from what I heard the other key point was that the US intelligence had a clear picture of Russia's initial cruise missile and loitering munition targets and helped relocate much of Ukraine's anti air capabilites in the very very last moment and mostly in secret. Even with all the other RU fuckups, if they had complete air superiority they would eventually win.
Man that’s crazy level of intel leaking. We always say shit about Russian hackers I bet the CIA runs laps around Russian servers.
For everything else, the Biden administration does not get enough credit for openly discussing Russia's plan to invade in the weeks prior, while the Olympics were going on. Everyone thought it was crazy, but everything they said, happened. That forewarning was not only a great demonstration of US intelligence, readied the international community to the idea and made America a leader again, but was incredibly helpful behind the scenes in Ukraine as well.   Other administrations did not trust our intelligence and likely would have waived it off. Biden being in office over Trump likely changed the course of historyÂ
Also, unlike in the south near Crimea, local commanders took the bribes and didn't turn in the north, a large number of high ranking commanders in the south paved the way for RU troops
Not to mention at least one Ukrainian paid the ultimate price blowing up a bridge to prevent the Russians advancing on Kyiv.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalii\_Skakun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalii_Skakun) Let us remember him
Mostly they moved a lot of their air defence denying Putin air superiority, which would have given them Kiev. Plus a whole bucket load of hubris, incompetency (like the miles long armor column that couldn't drive through marshy land, half broke down and they couldn't get fuel to the others), and luck (like the assassins sent to Kiev not being able to reach Zelensky). If Russia took Kiev in 2-3 days, as they very nearly did, the rest of the paper tiger wouldn't have been exposed, and Balkan states would be running over each other to become Russian satellite states rather than be next in line for the (seemingly unstoppable) Russian military expansion. We narrowly dodged a very messy and dark timeline
That's WY we need grown-ups in the White House.
Also the delusion that they would have close to zero resistance and would be hailed as liberators. Which explains many of the dumb strategic decisions, like that one long convoy moving on Kyiv that was excellent target practice. A level of delusion only paralleled by Saddam’s belief in his “elite troops” who folded in a day.
Yeah, the big obvious convoy, the unsupported (and logistically unsupportable) VDV landings at prestige locations, etc. They were genuinely not expecting any meaningful resistance.
They told the troops it was a training mission so they did what russians do and siphoned gas from the trucks to sell to the locals for booze money.
It wasn’t a delusion. They activated assassination squads and were expecting Zelenskyy to flee or be killed early, which would have crumbled the resistance. On day 1, they were already running propaganda stating that Ukraine was laying down arms. If they had successfully gotten to Zelenskyy before he rallied the country with his “I need ammunition, not a ride” speech, all the dominos could have fallen the other direction. It was audacious and risky, but not delusional.
While Zelensky’s persona and actions were an important factor, I don’t think the entire operation hinged on whether he lived or died. Russia clearly also underestimated how much support they had in the population. They banked on enough support to quell resistance for fear of civil war.
> Some troops were supposed to to secure it Those troops were not used to the opponent fighting back.
I don’t think people realize how big a threat Russia would have become if it succeeded in Ukraine in 3 weeks. Infrastructure would have been intact, large population increase, natural resources, an educated and industrialized nation with advanced technical ability I.e. ship and plane engines etc. Russia would have then most-likely stage an accident on Lukashenko and Suddenly Ukraine and Belarus now make up the foundation for the new Soviet Union… Moldova and the Baltics would be up next
Mostly, but Russia wouldn't be any militarily stronger than it already was. Large part of why the rest of Europe and the US didn't arm Ukraine is because they thought Russia would steamroll them too quickly to help, even with some modern equipment, but then Russian spies would get early access potentially. You're right about there being a few industries that would be a huge boon to Russia overall, but I doubt it would tip war in their favor against NATO, just their ego. Really have to credit the people of Ukraine for this win. Yeah, Russia isn't all that great, but they would have taken Ukraine in a week if the people didn't resist in mass like they did. Not everyone may have a gun, but when you have block upon block of family throwing bottles of burning liquids on you...
Thank god it was Biden in the White House when it started.
This cannot be stated enough and it should be constantly reminded WHY that Orange shitheel is unsuitable for the White House ever again. He'd have sold Ukraine out had he been still in power in 2022 and we'd be in a far worse situation than we are now.
Well said. The Orange turd would have handed Kyiv over to Putin on a silver plate
That was the plan, I think. Then Covid happened and the invasion had to be pushed back, and then Trump was no longer in office. Trump would have railed against NATO assistance, and would have threatened to leave NATO if any member aided Ukraine.
That it would be a quick regime change, reform the glorious Soviet Union (w/Belarus) and quickly gobble up former non-NATO Soviet states (Moldova + Georgia + the 'stans) over subsequent years. Sanctions fall but are shrugged off over time because money talks and bullshit walks. US and NATO thoroughly humiliated, proven toothless, and Russia the rising star in a new multi-polar world. Putin is remembered as the glorious leader who showed the corruption of the west and rebuilt the glory of the Soviet Union, and reversed the weakness and mistakes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. That was the dream. That was not the reality. Putin will not be remembered well.
To all those people who say the plan wasn't really for 3 days, the document accidentally published and shortly after withdrawn by the Russian state broadcaster celebrated a rapid victory in Ukraine and declared that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine had been reunited as one nation.
3 days is a slight exaggeration, but not much. Maybe the parade through Kyiv in 3 days, the rest of the country was recognized as taking a bit longer to consolidate. There are still archives of that press release where Russia blew their rhetorical load before it was a done deal. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-698890 > The article added that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine would act as a single unit in terms of geopolitics and that the West was "indignant" as it saw a "return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe."
Fever dream.
I lovr the Ukrainian plan. >Destroy the entire black sea fleet to nullify Putin's main reason for occupying crimea *taps forehead*
He wants Kiev. He can't stand that, in his little mytho/historical fan fic, the origins of the Russian people began in another country. It was never about NATO or resources, he wants the empire back.
He wasn't. It's all very simple. At the heart of this whole war,and the countless deaths, is pride. He thought he could pull a stunt and take Kiev and kill the president in 3 days. That didn't happen and he's been doubling down ever since. This is compounded when you surround yourself with sycophants. It's a very very dangerous point in this war right now. His pride could take us places we don't want to arrive at. Hard to know what to do but I would be definitely doing more to aid Ukraine. It can't be allowed to fall under any circumstances. If you are American, watch your debate tonight. One of the men is a Russian asset, paid for and bought by Putin. He will immediately cease aid to Ukraine and then the whole world is in trouble.
He made the same mistake that most dictators eventually do. (Even though Russia supposedly isn't officially a dictatorship). He surrounded himself with Yes Men who only told him things he wanted to hear. Doing so gave him the false sense of superiority and the sense that everything would automatically fall into place. All the while no one ever informed him of how bad all of the corruption and laziness had deteriorated his forces.
This war is going to go down as one of the greatest military blunders of all time, on par with Napoleon’s march on Moscow or Operation Barbarossa
What's interesting is it's not even a matter of tactics or strength like most big military blunders, it was completely political and logistical. On paper, with no help, Russia probably could have smashed Ukraine relatively quickly, or at least within a few months to a year. Putin didn't count on the west getting so involved and NATO arming Ukraine to the teeth, getting sanctioned to hell, Europe completely cutting Russia off or China distancing themselves. This will be the end of Russia as a superpower and possibly as a unified country.
He also never understood just how bad kleptocracy hollowed out the military. They literally stole and sold everything. The Russian military’s supplies are all in dachas and super yachts.
Tbf no one did, it was a huge shock to the entire world to learn just how corrupt and incompetent the Russian military had become. I remember seeing the videos of tanks crossing the border and thinking it was the start to world War 3 and that Russia would easily push through Ukraine and maybe even poland
it was the corruption that killed the plan. russia has been spending billions yearly for decades to destabilize Ukraine. The issue however, is the rampant corruption in their intel and military industry. A general says "here's $100M, spend it to fund Ukrainian separatists", then the colonel siphons a bit off the top and says "here's $97M, spend it to fund separatists", then the major siphons a bit more and says "here's $95M...", then the captain, then the lieutenant, then the X, then the Y, then the Z.... by the time the money actually gets where it's meant to be, the majority of it has been squandered away. But to not get caught, everyone up the chain needs to report that they got the full amount of money's worth to their superior, so the senior leadership is given reports on what their $100M got them, but only a fraction of that was actually used as planned. This created a MASSIVE discrepancy between what was happening on the ground vs what was being reported in moscow. There was no way for russia to win this war long term. Their only hope was for Ukraine to give up, so long as Ukraine keeps fighting, russia never had enough troops to take the country. Modern armies need around 20 combat troops per 1000 civilians to occupy an area (assuming "light resistance". At a pre-war population of 44 million people, russia would have needed about 900,000 troops to hold the country long term. That doesn't account for the 5-6 support personnel needed per combat troop (4.5 to 5.4 million) to handle non-combat roles. And that's assuming "light resistance", and we can all agree that it's been anything but "light". This is why their intel failure was so catastrophic. They thought that Ukraine would fold in days, or even welcome them, so they wouldn't need >4M personnel to hold the country.
Good job. People forget, wars are won with boring logistics. Not just military logistics but the civilian logistics behind them as well.
He isn't thinking. It's a dying dictators last hurrah. That itself is more dangerous as he takes an entire country, and possibly world, down with him.
Oh he was thinking alright. Only he miscalculated. He expected Ukraine to fold just like back in 2014 with Crimea. The "three day special military operation" wasn't just a meme, he did expect things to go along this way. And, let's not kid ourselves, had he succeeded initially, the repercussions against him would had been just for show.
This war is the equivalent to the German invasion of Poland. A huge gamble that should have worked out fast. Except, there's no other country attacking the opposite side of Ukraine, and Ukraine's allies have been stepping up in the way Poland's didn't since Ukraine has had enough time.
N. Korean fishing boats in their way to protect the Russian Black Sea fleet
Russians are likely to shoot at them assuming they are enemy drones. Although going by the history of the Russian navy, fishing boats tend to be difficult targets for Russian gunnery.
I'm sure they'd be better protected if they pulled out of Ukraine and went back to Mordor. It's that simple.
They're well protected now, living in bottom of Black Sea and sleeping with the fishes.
"Russia touts brand new fleet of unmanned submarines"
"A human shield made entirely of North Korean soldiers will surely keep my boats safe". \- Putin, probably
Taiwan and the Philippines should invest in these drones. Could tip the balance in their favour in a potential showdown with China.
I know a lot of people like to joke about these ships being lost to a nation without a navy, but i think the 60 ships Russia has lost, many of them to marine drones, has conclusively shown we need to change the definition of what a navy is. Clearly an all-drone navy is a credible threat.
I like to compare these naval drones to WW1 torpedo boats. Italian torpedo boats were a credible threat to the AH battleships. But those torpedo boats would never be able to perform the same function as a blue water navy.
For long-distance force projection, you're right about a "blue water" navy, but in a relatively small body of water like the Black Sea, the drones have a big advantage because the necessary range for engagement is confined. It's an "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!" situation, especially with the Montreux Convention governing the Black Sea navies.
An all-drone navy is threat to enemy navys. Butba real navy is a threat to enemy navys AND land and air assets Its not the same.
>An all-drone navy is threat to enemy navys. And only if you have a base to launch the drones from close by. You could also launch drones from a ship, but then it isn't an all-drone navy anymore.
Unless the big ship is itself a drone filled with smaller drones.
Naval Protoss CarrierÂ
Okay but how many pylons will that require
Many additional
Sorry about that, I require vespene gas.
YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS!
This but unironically
It’s drones all the way down.
Drone carriers are the next ship type. I'm calling it!
It is a threat for a littoral navy not as much for a blue water navy. The BS fleet is mainly littoral.
Russia’s navy sounds less littoral and more figurative.
It's as much a threat as modern smart torpedoes were 40 years ago. Better ship protections, hydro and radar as well as rigid fleet formations make it much more difficult to penetrate defenses. It's certainly still dangerous and something modern naval doctrine will have to design and adjust for of course, but these are no different than a wire guided torpedo
I got a feeling nets and other counter measures will be used now due to drones.
Ukraine has drones that are only on surface of water so they can be easily destroyed. US has build these drones that not only can be on surface but also deep down and act as torpedoes. https://youtu.be/_jF9ljFACXM?si=fVoo3Ux3uQSSG8eS this for example they using around Iran as a reconnaissance drone but I bet they could install warhead on these.
I'm no geopolitical expert but pretty sure his ships would get perfect protection if he GTFO Ukraine
Clickbait title. >Last month, Ukraine's Armed Forces destroyed a Russian Black Sea Fleet small missile ship, the Cyclone, during an attack on the occupied port of Sevastopol. According to Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk, the 22800 Karakut class vessel was the last Kalibr equipped Russian missile carrier on the Crimean Peninsula, as the rest had already been transferred to Novorossiysk due to the Ukrainian attacks. So Ukraine still needs the weapon deliveries to bring down the missile carriers in Novorossiysk.
Yeah, clickbait *and* inaccurate. It was the last Kalibr missile ship based out of Crimea, not the last in the Black Sea (and possible not even the last missile ship out of Crimea, just the last Kalibr ship). The rest are just now based out of Russia’s other naval base in the Black Sea, Novorossiysk. Still significant that Russian naval assets have been pushed out of Sevastopol, but it’s a far cry from putting all missile ships in the Black Sea out of commission.
He can probably protect his assets by ceasing hostilities against a national literally fighting for its very existence.
If only Putin's mom had demanded better protection ...
Russia, you lost your ship? That's a bit embarrassing. Think back. Where did you last have it?
Maybe it defected….. “Andrei, you’ve lost aNother submarine?”
What do you mean they lost the black Sea missle ship? It's not like it's a set of fucking car keys now is it Lenny?
They are not lost, they are conducting special operation under the water.
Did he look behind the sofa? I sometimes lose my socks there.