Russian invasion of Ukraine

[LongTimeLurker]

12 hours ago, Ray Patterson said:

What no posts for an entire day?

Would this be a push for Mariupol or for Melitipol as they're both in the same general direction, no?
 

 

Or split the difference and go for Berdiansk? As things stand the Russians need to keep the frontline not too far from where it is now so all three of those cities are outside easy HIMARS range to keep having a relatively secure land bridge to Crimea.

The problem the Russians have is that it's only a matter of time until the 150 km range and relatively cheap GLSDB missiles for the HIMARS systems start to arrive. That will make holding the present frontline irrelevant on keeping the land bridge reasonably secure from missile attack and will lead to many more scenes like this (the Storm Shadows supplied by the UK that can do it now are much more expensive and limited in number

 

so given that backdrop there's likely no need to be in a massive rush to reach the Sea of Azov right now from a Ukrainian standpoint.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Dundee Hibernian said:

I'm not going to argue with you, history will tell us if this is indeed the case: the point I was making concerns the media, and looking around newspaper and other media sites today, it looks like they don't want to report on this in any detail or at all. 

If it's a big lie/forgery that Putin is pushing, I thought someone would come out very quickly and refute this on the Western side, and it would be covered in major news sites. 

It's old news, and Putin hasn't published the draft treaty he showed the Africans. A few days after the March 2022 meeting in Istanbul the full scale of the Russian slaughter of civilians at Bucha came out, Boris didn't arrive till a week later when I suspect the deal was already dead, after Bucha any compromise on territory was off the table politically for Zelensky.

Edited June 18, 2023 by welshbairn

[Guest]

That OmegaSpeedyPro account looks like its AI advertising given the age and gender demographics of this site fits the target market for those watches.

[Dundee Hibernian]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

It's old news, and Putin hasn't published the draft treaty he showed the Africans. A few days after the March 2022 meeting in Istanbul the full scale of the Russian slaughter of civilians at Bucha came out, Boris didn't arrive till a week later when I suspect the deal was already dead, after Bucha any compromise on territory was off the table politically for Zelensky.

Thanks for that, l can't recall details of an agreement being common knowledge at the time.

As for Johnson (please don't call him 'Boris'), I'm of the thought that any involvement he's had would have been of personal benefit to him alone. 

[dirty dingus]

2 hours ago, OmegaSpeedyPro said:

The Americans have a lot to answer for here. 

Installing bio labs all over Ukraine. 

Backing the coup of a democratically elected leader who just so happened to want closer more positive relationship with the Russian federation.

Installing there own puppet leader instead .

The most corrupt hopeless president in American history and his crime family sending hundreds of billions of American tax payers money to the  most corrupt inept government in Europe to fight a proxy war with Russia all the while America is literally crumbling. 

A puppet globalist actor comedian now in 'charge' who has outlawed opposition political parties, arrests political opponents shuts down newspapers and TV stations that oppose him and even bans the Orthodox Catholic Church, says he's fighting " Tyranny".

He refuses to denounce nazism in the countries military and government and there awful behaviour and practises in the Russian populated areas of donbass. 

There is no path for victory of any sort for Ukraine they have allowed themselves to become globalist America puppet plaything at the expense of its very existence. 

The Russian federation with take control of its lands in Donbass and protect it people there. 

It will keep control of its historic Crimea region and the rest of Ukraine will be a shell of a country and when trump takes over the white house in 2024 it will become a Moldova on a large scale. 

 

 

I see Rajamaki has lost the plot after leaving the Ton.

[welshbairn]

23 minutes ago, Dundee Hibernian said:

As for Johnson (please don't call him 'Boris'), I'm of the thought that any involvement he's had would have been of personal benefit to him alone. 

It was no doubt all posture, he keeps switching from impersonating Churchill to Trump, he was imagining himself as Churchill that day (You shall fight on the beaches, you shall fight on the landing grounds, you shall fight in the fields and in the streets, you shall fight in the hills; you shall never surrender!).

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by welshbairn

[Cosmic Joe]

1 hour ago, Dundee Hibernian said:

Thanks for that, l can't recall details of an agreement being common knowledge at the time.

As for Johnson (please don't call him 'Boris'), I'm of the thought that any involvement he's had would have been of personal benefit to him alone. 

That's an absolute given. 

Has anyone ever known a Tory whose main interest in life was not looking after number one? 

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Or split the difference and go for Berdiansk? As things stand the Russians need to keep the frontline not too far from where it is now so all three of those cities are outside easy HIMARS range to keep having a relatively secure land bridge to Crimea.

The problem the Russians have is that it's only a matter of time until the 150 km range and relatively cheap GLSDB missiles for the HIMARS systems start to arrive. That will make holding the present frontline irrelevant on keeping the land bridge reasonably secure from missile attack and will lead to many more scenes like this (the Storm Shadows supplied by the UK that can do it now are much more expensive and limited in number

 

so given that backdrop there's likely no need to be in a massive rush to reach the Sea of Azov right now from a Ukrainian standpoint.

Why do that, when you’re already driving down the roads to Mariupol? You “settle” for Berdyans’k and you setup the possibility of truce lines keeping Mariupol in Russian control…you drive to the sea east of Mariupol, and you basically regain all the Ukrainian coastline as the Russians withdraw into Crimea due to supply issues, and then that brings the sole bridge and primary ferries that supply Crimea into range.

[Newbornbairn]

A pretty good description of the fight for the airport in the early days of the invasion

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

Why do that, when you’re already driving down the roads to Mariupol? You “settle” for Berdyans’k and you setup the possibility of truce lines keeping Mariupol in Russian control…you drive to the sea east of Mariupol, and you basically regain all the Ukrainian coastline as the Russians withdraw into Crimea due to supply issues, and then that brings the sole bridge and primary ferries that supply Crimea into range.

Don't have a strong opinion on this and don't doubt for a second that the Ukrainians intend to retake all three cities mentioned.

[Moomintroll]

6 hours ago, FreedomFarter said:

That OmegaSpeedyPro account looks like its AI advertising given the age and gender demographics of this site fits the target market for those watches.

I thought it was PB ripping the pish out of the virgin.

[Newbornbairn]

[Moomintroll]

50 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

Just like their wee fascist pals in the Ustase.

[alta-pete]

1 hour ago, Newbornbairn said:

Bought the print version this morning. Didn’t read. 

[MONKMAN]

I read an article online, early in the war, about the practise in the Russian military known as dedovschina.  New recruits are often humiliated by their superiors in what's seen as establishing the chain of command, and often leads to recruits being sexually assaulted and raped.  A truly vile nation. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

4 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

I read an article online, early in the war,  

That makes you a junior officer on Pie and Bovril. Get some maps and you'll be a General in no time.

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, MONKMAN said:

I read an article online, early in the war, about the practise in the Russian military known as dedovschina.  New recruits are often humiliated by their superiors in what's seen as establishing the chain of command, and often leads to recruits being sexually assaulted and raped.  A truly vile nation. 

The Russian practice in the Soviet and later (until recently, and now again) eras was two years of service, two draft “classes” every year. The rule of seniority was very important, to the extent the senior draftees lorded over the the fresh fish. A good part of it was the lack of true NCO’s, with the “sergeants” and such simply being draftees with a little extra training and very little authority. That left the work that an NCO would do in most Western armies to be done by Officers, and since the Officers stayed in separate quarters there was little to prevent such behavior.

[ICTChris]

They tried to crack down on the hazing early in Putin's Presidency and I think they had some degree of success.  There was a case where a conscript lost both his legs due to a hazing incident, he became an MP in Putin's party and campaigned against it.  I do think that the base level of brutalisation and violence in the Russian military is still very high and that has a lot to do with the number of war crimes committed.  Dedovschina is part of that.

There are a couple of pretty amazing videos that have emerged - one shows Russia using an old tank packed with explosives as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) to attack Ukrainian positions.  The tank was immobilised by a mine and then blown up by an RPG shot generating an absolutely massive explosion.  Pretty amazing that some Russian units are now reduced to the tactics of ISIS in the war.

 

There is another video of Ukrainian Naval Special Operations Forces infilitrating a Russian trench and the close quarter combat that ensues, where a number of Russians are killed at close range.  I won't link to it but if you search Telegram or Twitter for Ukr SOF you should find it.  It shows the reality of taking opponents positions and also displays the tactics and rules of engagement of the Ukrainians.

Edited June 19, 2023 by ICTChris

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Biden really needs this wrapped up before next November.

That’s if the 25th amendment hasn’t been invoked by then.

[welshbairn]

4 hours ago, ICTChris said:

There are a couple of pretty amazing videos that have emerged - one shows Russia using an old tank packed with explosives as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) to attack Ukrainian positions.  The tank was immobilised by a mine and then blown up by an RPG shot generating an absolutely massive explosion.  Pretty amazing that some Russian units are now reduced to the tactics of ISIS in the war.

 

 

Hope the Ukrainians who fired the RPG survived the explosion, must have at least shat their pants.