Elmar Bijlsma

@Cederic @chuckdyke what on earth...
Are the two of you six years old,  or something?
 
Handbags at dawn, ladies. 
Sheesh. 

Is it me, or does a lot of the sound in the video of our favourite TikTok warriors sound like it was lifted from Call of Duty or somesuch?
No way was that a phone or Go Pro picking up actual combat sounds.

Is it me, or does a lot of the sound in the video of our favourite TikTok warriors sound like it was lifted from Call of Duty or somesuch?
No way was that a phone or Go Pro picking up actual combat sounds.

From footage I've seen, a fair few traded up. Lada instead of a washing machine.

OK, one political statement here and I don’t make any others on this vein.
I’m a Moderate Republican (original ideology of strong Federal Government, weak State Government), and I couldn’t, and still can’t stand the Jackass Trump. I felt his speeches were straight out of “Mein Kampf.” However, this war wasn’t because of his policies. I actually agree with his threat to the “free-loaders” in NATO to start paying their fair share commitments or he’d pull the U.S. out of NATO. That didn’t cause the war.
In 2014, when “the little green men” from Russia invaded Crimea, and the “vacationers from Russia” helped the Separs, Obama didn’t want to deal with the invasion, despite our treaty that required the U.S. to protect Ukraine from a foreign invasion, so he assigned the portfolio to Biden to handle. Biden did NOTHING, so as far as I’m concerned, this war results from the messages that The Obama Administration (failure to adhere to our treaty commitments), AND the message sent by the European NATO members that failed to live up to their commitments to NATO!
TLDR there is more than enough blame to go around, so how about stop with the childish “I know I did, but so did you” BS. No one can change the past, so everyone has to strive to learn from it and change themselves so they don’t repeat it.

This is exactly the point, though, only two hundred people were convicted at Nuremberg, and not all of them were hung. The world said let there be an end to it. For all my ranting about Scholz, that, defeat and occupation was enough to change Germany. I think there is an argument adding one zero to that number, but to do more than that is probably impossible, both physically and politically. We need to install a better government in Russia in away that gives some possibility of winning the peace.
I do nominate Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the very last hanging, she should have to watch all the other ones.

I really struggle to understand people that take this mobilization seriously.
To me it looks less like a military gearing up for large scale war and more like a cargo cult making something shaped like a military in the quasi religious hopes of getting their win in the Great Patriotic War to happen again.

Could be, but he does write about other frontlines as well. And the thing is I noticed DPR guys call the North a very specific area - North of Donets region. Finally, at Donetsk area it is not that bad for RU call it p*zdorez.  But at Lyman it does looks like p*zdorez for RU.
New update:

Yesterday UKR attacked Shadryholovo. RU claimed it failed and UKR retreated but today we got report from frontline and from locals that UKR control the settlement I believe RU almost lost Novoselivka and control only Northen part (above the road) of Drobishevo UKR continue to advance to Stavky and Kolodyaz (and probably already beyond) No information about UKR pushes north of Ridkodub. Now to Dvorichne

At 24-Sept RU claimed they counterattacked and captured Tavilzhanka Yesterday or today UKR made a push at Hryanikivka and currently occupy position along the railroad I got a feeling that breakout north of Lyman was to attract and burn RU reserves and the main strikes might happen here

I really struggle to understand people that take this mobilization seriously.
To me it looks less like a military gearing up for large scale war and more like a cargo cult making something shaped like a military in the quasi religious hopes of getting their win in the Great Patriotic War to happen again.

Yeah, I'm getting married tomorrow (it's 11 PM now in Poland, we are saying the vows at 2PM). Just as we speak the missus is getting annoyed that I nerd about the war on the internet  But it is 100% worth it!

If we mean what we stand for then this isn't about what we want, it is about what the populations within those regions want - we cannot go back-sies on democracy because we don't like the result. 
And now we get down to it. What is democracy? What is a "region" with a right of secession? What is a "population"? What is the franchise? We get into gerrymandering discussions here.
To take the case of Northern Ireland. What gave the six counties the right to secede from the rest of Ireland? (in reality it was military power through the gun running to Larne and the British Army mutiny in the Curragh). But what is the franchise? Whole of UK (which would have lost)? Whole of Ireland (which would have lost)? Whole of Ulster (which would have lost)? On a county by county basis (which would have shown four counties in favor of secession)? So what we ended up with was four Protestant counties and two subject Catholic counties making a six county statelet which was (just about) large enough to be viable and with a (then) inbuilt 66/33 Protestant majority. i.e. it was an entirely illegitimate project.
So when we move to Ukraine. What was the mandate behind Donetsk or Luhansk having any legitimacy as a separatist region? There is none. The majority of the population in both oblasts wanted to stay in Ukraine. There was no problem until Russia sent it in agents provocateurs to stir up trouble because they could not accept being defeated in the Maidan. So I do not see that Donetsk, Luhansk or Crimea have any legitimate right to secede. And when you add to the fact that the Russians have engaged in ethnic cleansing to clear out the Tartars and plant Russians in Ukraine to generate an artificial majority, the fact that the pro Ukrainian parts of the population fled from Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea how do we say we can have a fair poll today. Like take Crimea, do Russian settlers who moved in get a vote because they live there now? And the family who's house they live in who are refugees in Kiev don't get a vote?
No.
This is not a question of pseudo independence referenda (and why would Ukraine subject to this if Russia is not going to allow Buriyta and Chechnya and other regions secede). Yes, if people in Donbas want to have Russian language rights and the right to send members of Parliament to Kiev they should (after a period of weeding out traitors who should lose their Ukrainian citizenship).
 
You have some places like Scotland for example which entered a voluntary union with England in 1707 or whatever and therefore can have a natural justice right to undo that (it is still a separate country with a separate legal system). Greenland is hundreds of miles from Denmark. And even there whether they have a right to secede or not is an open question. But what gives the Donbas the right to secede from Ukraine? To my mind, nothing. And sorry, regardless what the current quisling "government" there says or the remains of the population that currently inhabit that place.
 
Have they a right to citizenship in Ukraine or to leave peacefully to Russia? Yes. Have they the right to live in peace? Absolutely. The right to raise their kids in Russian language schools? 100%. Have they the right to declare themselves independent of Ukraine and ask Russia for "protection"? Hell no.

Do we even need to?
It's like a fight where the some guy approaches you with a knife, and you then draw your pistol. He responds by drawing another knife. Do you really need to draw your second pistol?

Agree completely. Just replace "russians" with " 1942 Germans" and think if any of your issues with kraze's rhetoric are still problematic. Yes, there's a lot collectively wrong with russians, ultimately it is their culture ( understood anthropologically) that time and again is enabling aggression and genocide, same as was the case with imperial/ Nazi Germany and imperial Japan (and many other). There's nothing racist in pointing that out.
Even outside the Ukraine itself, West's strategy now is to inflict pain and costs on Russia as a whole, which means first and foremost on your average "innocent" russian. Yeah, it's ugly, and yeah, that's how war between nation states works and there's no way around that. If anything, Ukrainians are showing a remarkable restraint so far, refraining from indiscriminately shelling Belgorod for example. 
To be honest, I personally don't feel fine with both of these notions on emotional level, but this is a problem of our sensibilities, which are just not compatible with situation of open war. I hate the fact that I have to deal with this emotional burden, but I 100% blame it on the russians.

The man is from a country fighting a war against genocidal enemy. His is a different perspective. I think that this would be the case for many other forum members, if we were in his place.  War is by definition collective violence and by definition makes people guilty by association and enemies for no other reason, than their nationality. This extends to emotions about the enemy, which of course tends to be hate. 
The imperative not to say anything racist or "hate-speachy" is something for people not concerned with life or death or, yes, feelings of revenge for the destruction of their country and barbaric murder of their compatriots.   Let us respect that this is a different situation and move along. Nobody is required to support what Kraze is saying but it should be acknowledged this is something else than trolling about WW2 war crimes or Middle East ethnic issues, which the forum rules are intended to prevent.

Newest LivemapUA update🙂

It's like I said several times already. Germany is scared of "Alleingänge". If you want weapons from them, increase the pressure until not delivering stuff becomes the "Alleingang".

"They need a numerical superiority of at least 3 to 1."
 
Yes. Locally, you dumb arse. Even a certain corporal had better military sense then this uni(n)formed clown.
 
 

"They need a numerical superiority of at least 3 to 1."
 
Yes. Locally, you dumb arse. Even a certain corporal had better military sense then this uni(n)formed clown.
 
 

"They need a numerical superiority of at least 3 to 1."
 
Yes. Locally, you dumb arse. Even a certain corporal had better military sense then this uni(n)formed clown.
 
 

"They need a numerical superiority of at least 3 to 1."
 
Yes. Locally, you dumb arse. Even a certain corporal had better military sense then this uni(n)formed clown.
 
 

Looks like continuation of previously seen (from a different viewpoint) combat at pit mine in Bakmuts’ke (48.67652° N, 38.10503° E):
 

As funny as it is, it is from a TV/film set. Somewhere on Twitter someone posted a picture of him with a clapper board in front of his face but I can't find it now. But that is why the pedestrians aren't acting realistically.
EDIT: found it
 

I think the funniest thing about this clip is that the pedestrians are only mildly worried and slightly inconvenienced about the threat of being decapitated by a drunk lunatic. It's Monty Python levels of absurdity.
Maybe they are used to him? Anybody who knows the context?

I am not really sure why anyone believes that "mobilization" is some sort of magic spell that will solve this war for Russia....on either side of this equation.  We have covered this before but a review may be in order.
Key here is the term "peer-conflict".  That means a relative symmetry between military capability and architectures to the point that numbers start to matter in determining outcome.  In this situation theoretically the side with the higher force ratios will have a better chance of winning.  At this point this conflict is nowhere near a level of qualitative parity.
Beyond the morale issues, which are legion, a loose measure of military quality is DETO - Doctrine, Equipment, Training and Organization.  (Before anyone weighs in, yes there are about a half dozen national variations on this that take into account everything from policy to infrastructure, but lets keep it simple).
So, yes, Russia has a big scary population base - we are probably talking 30+ million fighting age males, assuming you could tap even 10 percent of that - excess and fit-ish - that is 3+ million troops Russia could throw at this war.  Assuming mass conscription doesn't trigger a major political upheaval; the first problem is you have to turn those 3+ million civilians into combat capable military formations - something the Russian have demonstrated problems with before the war. 
Second major problem is that one has to turn them into military fighting formations of the same or better quality than the UA.  And remember the UA is already force generating and will continue to do so long after this war is over...because Russia.  So Russia has to go from zero to hero faster than the UA are already doing.  Now before someone spouts of "mass has a quality all its own" - a truism which has died an ignoble death in this conflict - in modern warfare one still needs relative parity for quantity to matter.  I welcome any nation to try low quality human wave attacks on the modern battlefield.  In fact the UA is demonstrating the exact opposite right now - high quality empowered small is kicking dumb-large to death.  So now in order to mobilize Russia needs to meet a bar it did not have on 23 Feb, let alone in time to get out in front of things now.
Third major problem, Russia does not even have the essential skillsets to create a peer military.  And I am talking everywhere.  For example, in order to create an ISR architecture on par with the West they need an entire military ISR complex that does not exist anywhere near that level.  It took the US decades - dating back to AirLand Battle (hey go check out CMCW while you are at it!) - to construct the ISR architecture they are pumping into Ukraine right now.  Further Ukraine has a home grown system they 1) have training and technical support for from the west, 2) have a 6 month head start, and 3) are not living under crippling sanctions.  Some Iranian drones do not make an ISR architecture, it is what you plug those drones into.
So Russia can "mobilize" all it wants; however, it will be mobilizing a Cold War era military, one worse than it had before this war.  They will be nowhere near DETO parity with the UA for maybe a couple decades.  With their new drones they can watch all those columns of T55s, driven by conscripts with a months training, supported by a rickety logistics corp get hammered by HIMARs and next-gen drone swarms.  
I will give the Russians points for stubborn, they have that in spades.  This war is clearly at the "cut your losses" point.  The RA has left as much hardware on the battlefield as the Iraqi Army did in the Gulf War - when you are in that league, get out!  Mobilization will not save them, this is not 1941, it is 1905.

Heya Charles! Long time no see. How is the brain in a jar doing?
I particularly enjoy the Kherson part as it was so obviously a trap and the Russians fell for it anyway. Only to find it was both trap AND decoy. The whole thing is just a layer cake of cunning plans.