Russian invasion of Ukraine

[LongTimeLurker]

18 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

Completely bizarre. I mean, I know we're in full-on Russia is bad m'kay mode, but 2 things -

1. They could at least ditch the vernacular and refer to them as homosexuals.

2. How on earth did they conclude the enemy combatants they encountered were homosexuals in the first place? Did they arrive waving Pride flags and riding on Mardi-Gras floats made up to resemble BMPs & BRDMs?  ....

Maybe worth bearing in mind that Scottish society is only 30 years or so beyond thinking a certain chant about Jimmy Hill was harmless banter. Why did the collective brain trust behind that little ditty conclude it about him or was it just the immediate go to insult used in any and all situations regardless of whether it actually made sense or not?

[Newbornbairn]

4 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Maybe worth bearing in mind that Scottish society is only 30 years or so beyond thinking a certain chant about Jimmy Hill was harmless banter. Why did the collective brain trust behind that little ditty conclude it about him or was it just the immediate go to insult used in any and all situations regardless of whether it actually made sense or not?

It's because he was English

 

 

[ICTChris]

 

Extremely close combat footage from Bakhmut, with Ukrainians firing across the street at Russians 20 metres away. You can see them using Bulgarian anti-personnel RPGs, the long thin missiles they use. More of them are being seen in footage in the last few weeks.

Strange to see the translations, the guys shouting “take that you bellend” at Russians they fire at and then chat about their lost gloves.

Edited March 4, 2023 by ICTChris

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

 

Extremely close combat footage from Bakhmut, with Ukrainians firing across the street at Russians 20 metres away. You can see them using Bulgarian anti-personnel RPGs, the long thin missiles they use. More of them are being seen in footage in the last few weeks.

Strange to see the translations, the guys shouting “take that you bellend” at Russians they fire at and then chat about their lost gloves.

So, pretty much any OF meeting, if you substitute the various pyros…

[ICTChris]

Ukrainians have made a missile with longer range than HIMARs.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-is-using-guided-rockets-with-more-range-than-himars-launched-ones
 

[Newbornbairn]

Shouldn't really be surprised. I read that in the Soviet era, most of the missile factories were in Ukraine and the first President was the owner of a missile factory. Also read that most of the heavy WWII fighting was in Ukraine and 40% of Soviet forces by war's end were Ukrainian. Looks like possibly the worst choice of country for Putin to pick a fight with. 

[Boo Khaki]

There must be bits of Ukraine where the ordinary lads on the ground are having to wrestle with their consciences to defend. Like if somebody invaded Bellshill, I'd be like, 'f**k that, you're welcome to it'. 

[LongTimeLurker]

On 05/03/2023 at 11:30, ICTChris said:

Ukrainians have made a missile with longer range than HIMARs.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-is-using-guided-rockets-with-more-range-than-himars-launched-ones
 

There are some people who think missile strikes like this recent one on Melitopol involve a longer range weapon not used so much previously and others who think the Ukrainians are simply taking more risks where driving a HIMARS vehicle up close to the front line is concerned:

Don't have a strong opinion either way on that.

Edited March 6, 2023 by LongTimeLurker

[MazzyStar]

On 10/02/2023 at 12:42, MazzyStar said:

 

Prominent twitter ukrainebro let’s the mask slip. The “NAFO” freaks obviously don’t see any problem with this. 

 

Not content with outing himself as a nazi, twitter brainlet Paul Massaro says this. 
 

That’s strange since he also has this badge:

[Guest]

13 hours ago, MazzyStar said:

 

Not content with outing himself as a nazi, twitter brainlet Paul Massaro says this. 
 

That’s strange since he also has this badge:

I saw your last post on him and assumed he was just a random twitter w****r. I now see he actually works for the US government. Oh well, just have to hope non-Americans are sufficiently enough informed to know to ignore his output.

[ICTChris]

Footage emerged on Russian channels of an unarmed Ukrainian prisoner being executed.  He shouts "Glory to Ukraine" before he's shot as he smokes his last cigarette.

[deegee]

43 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Footage emerged on Russian channels of an unarmed Ukrainian prisoner being executed.  He shouts "Glory to Ukraine" before he's shot as he smokes his last cigarette.

I seen that video yesterday and it’s gruesome viewing. The fella is taken down in a hail of bullets. You have to think this has pretty much been going on with both sides since the start.

Pity the poor families for the loss of their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. I wish for some resolution but think there’s a lot more of this type of killing before that happens sadly. 

[ICTChris]

There are lots of contradictory reports about Bakhmut - some places say that Ukrainians are withdrawing, there's reports that they are reinforcing Bakhmut so as not to give it up, some places say that Wagner/Russian troops nearby have run out of ammo, some say they haven't.

CNN reported that a NATO intelligence official briefed them that Russian casualties in the battle of Bakhmut have outnumbered Ukrainian ones by 5 to 1.  If that's even anywhere near true it shows why the Ukrainians have continued to fight, that's a lot of Russian forces who can't fight more - not to mention the equipment and ammunition spent to capture the city.

[welshbairn]

A Russian perspective, google translated from Telegram, apologies. Artyomovsk is the Russian name for Bakhmut.

Quote

#Sad

Alas, there is no time now for some lengthy comments on the course of hostilities, which I usually write in longreads in LiveJournal, so I will write here briefly a simple and obvious fundamental thing. In several parts.

So that by the transition from joy over the capture of Artyomovsk, if it has time to happen before the Subsequent Events, to the actual Subsequent Events, fewer reader templates would be torn into pieces. I would like to at least slightly reduce the chances of society sliding into the stage of mass public approval of the events a la February 1917, although it is in this direction that the outstanding talents of our military-political leadership are dragging us.

I repeat, I will write simple, completely obvious things. And yet, most are not aware of.

I.

For 100+ years, defense, when it exists and works, has been based on three things - experienced middle-level personnel, working communications that allow them to lead troops, that is, first of all, on personnel of this connection, on signalmen, and on artillery, that is, again, on experienced skilled gunners.

In turn, an offensive operation consists of, conditionally, an "investment phase", when you incur losses, breaking through the enemy's defenses, if you, of course, break through it. Other things being equal, you incur losses, as a rule, much larger than the defending enemy, and the "phases of making a profit", when front breakthroughs are realized in rapidly collapsing boilers, in which the very frames remain, on which the enemy built everything that you broke through with such difficulty. Their death or captivity in the boiler - this is the main "income" of the operation. If the enemy has time to escape, to pull the troops out of the “cauldron”, even if he abandons heavy equipment, the results of the operation become doubtful, because you laid down your hard-to-renew resource in the form of people, and the enemy, having gutted your advancing units properly, dumped.

Who remembers, at the final stage of the capture of Lisichansk, I wrote in LiveJournal about this. "Valuable military experts of the enemy" will flee from there - the front will then stabilize for a long time in the Seversk region, because ours, exhausted by the battles for Severodonetsk, Lisichansk and other captured settlements, will collide with the enemy, who will have something to "sit down" to defend not only in terms of some then fortifications, but also in terms of communications and artillery.

What will the capture of Artyomovsk mean now? What the enemy considers the area's defensive potential to be exhausted. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not satisfied with the ratio of losses between attackers and defenders, and it is quite possible that it is already withdrawing the most valuable units, valuable personnel from the city, replacing them with mobs and "terodefense". The task of which surrogates is to let those who will continue to gut the next "stormers" leave, put themselves in order and take up new positions of new defensive lines.

Russia will receive the ruins of the city and its environs, a sea of PR and victorious reports. And then...
t.me/wehearfromyanina
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151.3Kviews
Mar 4 at 22:35

II.

And then the Armed Forces of Ukraine will begin to use the reserves that they accumulated all the time while we spent our reserves, poorly trained and managed, in "assaults" on the front from Vugledar to Kremennaya.

All the time while the RF Armed Forces fought last summer, autumn and winter in a patchwork of RF Armed Forces, “leopards”, “Akhmats” and various PMCs, the Armed Forces of Ukraine learned to fully fight with “large battalions”, brigades, and then the corps that they are now creating in rear and run in for the time that they bought the defense of Artemovsk.

The RF Armed Forces broke their sharpest "tank wedges" at the very beginning of the war and during the "de-escalation", then diligently finished them off in smaller, but no less schizoid mass events. Already in the summer, the old T-72s were massively pulled from storage to the front, the reactivation of antique T-62s began, the "bald" early T-72s and T-80s, which came as replenishment to the tank units of the Republics, became commonplace. Of course, combat losses corresponded to the level of protection of the vehicles ...

However, it is not only the tanks that matter, and not in them in the first place, not in the hardware. The personnel on our side, who could still become the motorized rifle "shoulder" of these "tank wedges", were lost, worn down. Experienced scouts and sappers were lost on "assaults".

In general, the word "storm" has become an indulgence for any whoredom. The lack of normal reconnaissance, training, training of personnel, for any losses, including the loss of equipment. The continuation of "meat assaults" on enemy positions on a huge front by poorly trained troops in a situation of an acute shortage of artillery ammo for the sake of capturing Artyomovsk is a crime, the consequences of which we will soon face.

We will face when the Armed Forces of Ukraine introduce their trained units into battle, capable of working at a completely different level of speed and quality of decisions than ours. Fresh reserves capable of quickly breaking through the defenses and moving further into the breakthrough, bypassing and covering our units. Doing it quickly, maintaining secure, closed communications, and adequate real-time control.

 

[MazzyStar]

13 hours ago, FreedomFarter said:

I saw your last post on him and assumed he was just a random twitter w****r. I now see he actually works for the US government. Oh well, just have to hope non-Americans are sufficiently enough informed to know to ignore his output.

He’s popular with the “NAFO” accounts on twitter. The whole NAFO thing was started by the twitter user @/Kama_Kamilia, who openly posts far right rhetoric. They’re a real bunch of freaks (almost exclusively living in western countries) that treat this war as some sort of entertainment. 
 

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

A Russian perspective, google translated from Telegram, apologies. Artyomovsk is the Russian name for Bakhmut.

 

A very clear perspective on why Ukraine has fought so hard to slow the Russians in Bakhmut.

4 hours ago, ICTChris said:

There are lots of contradictory reports about Bakhmut - some places say that Ukrainians are withdrawing, there's reports that they are reinforcing Bakhmut so as not to give it up, some places say that Wagner/Russian troops nearby have run out of ammo, some say they haven't.

CNN reported that a NATO intelligence official briefed them that Russian casualties in the battle of Bakhmut have outnumbered Ukrainian ones by 5 to 1.  If that's even anywhere near true it shows why the Ukrainians have continued to fight, that's a lot of Russian forces who can't fight more - not to mention the equipment and ammunition spent to capture the city.

Indeed, if the Ukrainians have come anywhere close to a 5:1 ratio, the Russians will have squandered a huge portion of the recently mobilized manpower based upon reports of where they were sending those troops. Reports suggest Bakhmut has cost over 10,000 Ukrainian casualties, and while that seems high to me, the place is an absolute meat grinder. Even if its only 2,500-5,000 casualties, that could be between 10,000 and 25,000 Russian casualties. That’s 10-25% of the recent numbers…and if that’s correct, another callup will be necessary in Russia.

As mentioned in the Telegram post above, Ukraine has used the fight at Bakhmut to buy time and pull the Russian fangs. The Ukrainians will launch a new counter-offensive…first question will be where, the second is when, the final one is will it succeed? There are three obvious options…Mariupol…Melitopol…and toward Rostov-on-Don (home run attack) from north of Donetsk. Mariupol is the best strategic choice, Melitopol is the best propaganda and morale choice, and a drive to split Donetsk and Luhansk (and possibly actually invade Russian territory) would threaten to end the war quickly and force the Russians to decide on how willing to escalate they are (for that reason, this option is very unlikely, but would be a complete surprise to the Russians).

To successfully attack toward Melitopol, I would expect indications of an offensive in the Svatove region, threatening Luhansk and drawing Russian forces before an armoured thrust to the Sea of Azov.

[Guest]

USA have said they now believe the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged by non-state actors sympathetic to Ukraine, hostile to Russia, or both.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-intelligence-suggests-pro-ukrainian-group-sabotaged-nord-stream-pipelines-nyt-2023-03-07/

[vikingTON]

5 hours ago, FreedomFarter said:

USA have said they now believe the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged by non-state actors sympathetic to Ukraine, hostile to Russia, or both.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-intelligence-suggests-pro-ukrainian-group-sabotaged-nord-stream-pipelines-nyt-2023-03-07/

Not to worry, it's just about ready to be recast by the Western media from 'heinous act of international terrorism' to 'glorious act of self-defence'. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/07/officials-believe-pro-ukraine-group-sabotage-nord-stream-pipelines

A reminder that anyone who called bullshit on this lie at the time was of course merely a running dog of Russian imperialism.

[vikingTON]

On 28/09/2022 at 03:27, TxRover said:

They now lose the ability to supply a large portion of Northern Europe, while Southern Europe, which has been somewhat less vehement in opposition to Russia still can receive gas (Yamal to Poland/Germany to tease with; BlueStream and Turkstream to Turkey and export facilities there; and TANAP to Bulgaria…plus Brotherhood/Soyuz which transit Ukraine to Hungary and Italy).

Blowing up Nordstream hurts all the players you named EXCEPT Russia…Occam’s Razor applies.

On 27/09/2022 at 18:54, TxRover said:

To provide continuing “excuse” for not providing gas. Plus, may cause blame to be passed around the West…was it the Yanks, to raise gas prices, was it the Hungarians who have other routes for gas, was it…

It also serves their plans to provide gas and oil to India and China to replace the European markets.

[vikingTON]

Quote

 

My impression from previous conversations is that the German investigators do not yet have any results that they can or want to communicate, simply because the evidence is far too thin,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

“We have to continue to ask the question: who had an interest in the detonation, why were only three of the four strands detonated, and who is benefiting from the very uncertainty, speculation, an accusations?” he added.

 

Good to see such a commitment to transparency about the destruction of a key part of national infrastructure, rather than utterly pathetic, primary school level deflection, from the mainstream conservative movement of Germany.