Russian invasion of Ukraine

[welshbairn]

Crimea will not come into play except in the minds of lunatics, neither will the pre February 2022 Donbass lines. This guy sounds like he's either got a bit overexcited or is two sandwiches short of a picnic. 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by welshbairn

[jagfox]

More tanks  self-propelled artillery for Ukrainian Defence Forces and from an interesting source...

[jagfox]

Russian Equipment losses during 2022 Invasion of Ukraine

[jagfox]

 

 

[ICTChris]

Ukrainian drone drops a munition through the sunroof of a vehicle used by Russian soldiers.

This looks kind of amusing and like a video game but the full video is horrific, one of the Russians falls out of the car and crawls away holding his guts in, another is pretty clearly severely wounded or killed. 

[bennett]

2 hours ago, jagfox said:

 

 

 

A division of StJonstone fans could probably take Moscow. 

[Bairnardo]

 
A division of StJonstone fans could probably take Moscow. 

They would distract the Russian reconnaissance forces with clever cardboard decoys

[welshbairn]

14 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Ukrainian drone drops a munition through the sunroof of a vehicle used by Russian soldiers.

This looks kind of amusing and like a video game but the full video is horrific, one of the Russians falls out of the car and crawls away holding his guts in, another is pretty clearly severely wounded or killed. 

I doubt a soldier would put an LOL emoji next to that, give that they've likely seen what high explosives do to their friends.

[Bairnardo]

I doubt a soldier would put an LOL emoji next to that, give that they've likely seen what high explosives do to their friends.

I think you are being naive if you don't think Ukranians are revelling in Russian suffering tbh, whether it's real or not.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I doubt a soldier would put an LOL emoji next to that, give that they've likely seen what high explosives do to their friends.

I think you are being naive if you don't think Ukranians are revelling in Russian suffering tbh, whether it's real or not.

Ukrainians working from a basement flat in Kyiv or Lviv, sure. I don't think most front line soldiers would see it as a joke. "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of thing.

[Bairnardo]

Ukrainians working from a basement flat in Kyiv or Lviv, sure. I don't think most front line soldiers would see it as a joke. "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of thing.

I hear you. "To my brothers that have died, by my sight and by side" etc.

Not when they steam into your homeland, and rape and murder your people though I imagine

[LongTimeLurker]

There's another one doing the rounds today showing a Russian soldier walking along nonchalantly chatting on his phone in a video chat session boasting about a mission he was just part of before something detonates in his immediate vicinity and it's very much game over. The drone clips we are seeing like the sunroof one are still the Ukrainians own DIY efforts. The latest hi-tech American kit in that regard is only just arriving.

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I hear you. "To my brothers that have died, by my sight and by side" etc.

Not when they steam into your homeland, and rape and murder your people though I imagine

I don't think you're getting me, they'd be glad it happened, I just don't think they'd find it LOL! 

[Loonytoons]

 
A division of StJonstone fans could probably take Moscow. 

Only to lose it in spectacular fashion very shortly after.

[supermik]

Couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff about this whole shitshow. Putin was always looking to try and act the big man to try to cover up his small man syndrome. As for all the faux grief about brits being killed, captured or missing, what the f**k does it have to do with us in the first place? Why go there if not ordered to do so? Are we the only country in the world that should be taking aid to them? Would they be front and centre to help us out? Don’t remember getting many maximum points from these c***s at Eurovision….

Edited April 29, 2022 by supermik

[Elixir]

The baw sack faced clown again having to come out with this, knowing fine well the Ruskies are merely dick measuring whenever they mention nukes or WWIII.

Quote

Posted at 20:02

Russia does not consider itself to be at war with Nato - Lavrov

EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV

Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met UN chief Guterres earlier this week

Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said his country does not consider itself to be at war with Nato, according to state news agency Ria.

He says such a development would increase the risk of nuclear war, which cannot be allowed, Ria reports.

Lavrov has also said Russia is not threatening anyone with nuclear war, but accuses Western nations of doing so.

The foreign minister blames stalled peace talks with Ukraine on what he calls Kyiv's desire to "constantly play games", Ria reports.

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Elixir

[ICTChris]

Reports that UK intelligence have heard that Putin will use the May 9th parade / celebrations to declare formal war on Ukraine and begin a general mobilisation.

Not sure I believe it. Clearly Putin doesn’t want to do this and I don’t think he will be in a position where he feels he has to at that point.

[Binos]

10 hours ago, Elixir said:

The baw sack faced clown again having to come out with this, knowing fine well the Ruskies are merely dick measuring whenever they mention nukes or WWIII.

 

There will be a whole lot more dick measuring when trump gets back in 

Although according to Stormzy he has a mushroom

[dorlomin]

Longish post so I will stick it in spoiler tags for those just browsing through. 

Gerasimov, the Chief of Staff for Russia is rumoured to have taken over the direct command of forces in Ukraine.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But this is a very unusual move. They just appointed a new commander a couple of weeks ago. Their offensive in the "JFO" or Donbass has stalled. You will read many experts suggesting strongly they are running out of manpower. The UK has suggested they have lost about 15000 soldiers KIA. To put that into perspective. In two months from a force of 180 000 the Russians have lost as many killed as the 1 million British and Canadians lost in 3 months in Normandy. That would put them in the roughly 8% of forced dead.  These losses were against the Soviet equipment the Ukrainians had. Now western heavy equipment is starting to show up, like the alleged M-270 an absolute killer of artillery and the German SPG. 

This is a war of choice by Russia. And Russia will have to face that they are rapidly getting into a situation where not only can they not win, but they can very likely start to loose badly. I see people questioning the Ukrainian ability to take territory. But taking territory from dead men is not that great an achievement. The first wave of western equipment was largely defensive infantry weapons. Things like NLAWs are designed to be last ditch, if everything goes to shit weapons. If your airpower, artillery, armour and even IFVs have failed and your foot soldiers are face to face with enemy armour. 

But now they are sending in a steady stream of more advanced, longer train but much more powerful stuff. Starting with the M777. These are long ranged and hard hitting artillery with advanced shells that will do a much better job of killing infantry is trenches than the current D30s Ukraine uses. The higher tech stuff being posted on here is designed to do what is called "counter battery fire". That is you work out where their artillery is shooting from and you hit them fast while their artillery people are manning the guns rather than in bunkers. Some of these will be invaluable. Artillery is a maths heavy part of war and via good counter battery fire plus the likes of the Switchblade drones its likely Ukraine will start getting people with those skills. Skill kill if you will. 

Russia is being reported as planning to perform a call up of reserves. This will mean they have to legally call the war in Ukraine a war, not a special military operation. Conscripts can only serve outside of Russia in a war. This may explain why you are seeing comments from Russians on their TV that this is a war against NATO. Prepping the people for Putin saying his Special operation is not so special and now has collapsed into actually being the worst executed war by a major land power since France in 1940. But a reservist is not a soldier. It would take months of physically get them fit enough and refamiliarize with equipment and train with the unit they are supposed to form. 

All that PT shit soldiers do, there is a reason for it. Its a bloody physically demanding job. You can do a 20 mile march with 40kgs of kit and at the end of hit have to make a series of short sprints in an attack while keeping your head together enough to coordinate with the others in your platoon or whatever. Also you can just pull 40 blokes from playing Eldering and tell them they are now a platoon. Takes time to sort it out. Ukraine started pulling its reserves 2 months ago. Though they have are still in the process. It takes a lot of time to find the space to train, the trainers, the equipment, put it all into a working army. (Though Russia is likely to just dump un-retrained randoms into already broken formations)

 What all of this means? Well most of what I have written is what you will read experts saying. Now we have to interpret it. Russia is built around Putin, the whole political economy is built to support one man with circles of influence emanating out from him. If this war does become a disaster obvious to the Russian people, it will take tremendous repression to keep him in power. Even if they can make it seem a success ambitious people within the regime may seek to replace him. So his life likely depends upon Russians supporting him thus the war appearing successfully internally to the Siloviki and externally to the masses. The wars progress is serious enough that his key military man is (perhaps) on site to run it hands on(?). The US has indicated that its wallet is wide open and they see Ukraine winning as now strongly in their national interest. 

This may be the most dangerous moment in our lives. People with everything to lose and access to nuclear weapons. But they chose this war and the only way to not get them into that situation would have been to allow them to win (though here the Ukrainians get a vote, they got stuck in hard). 

Happy Saturday, enjoy the football. 

[dorlomin]

12 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Ukrainian drone drops a munition through the sunroof of a vehicle used by Russian soldiers.

This looks kind of amusing and like a video game but the full video is horrific, one of the Russians falls out of the car and crawls away holding his guts in, another is pretty clearly severely wounded or killed. 

And a supposedly trained soldier getting into as obvious a target as a car under what they should assume is mortar or artillery fire. No armoured vehicles, not even 4*4 trucks. Not having decent bunkers to jump  into, so lazy or untrained. Id guess they are the LPR\DPR "conscripts" using civvy vehicles on a modern battlefield. 

There is a reason they are dying in numbers. Many of them are not really soldiers in any real sense of the word. Kids with guns. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by dorlomin