Roach

Ok, so I guess it is time for another talk on this.  The main reason there has not been a lot of discussion on the progress of the war itself is because not a lot is happening - or wait, is it?  And being human means we simply cannot accept reality for what it is, we need to start reading meaning and implications at every shadow in the dark.
Nothing is happening because the UA has run out of steam.
Nothing is happening because the RA has rebuilt itself into a lurking monster that can freeze this conflict in place.
Nothing is happening because it is all a [insert boogie-man of you choice] - Belarusian Front re-opening is popular.
Or here is a crazy idea, maybe nothing is really happening because it is the middle of a wet muddy winter.  Or wait a minute, maybe something is happening - https://www.forbes.com/sites/katyasoldak/2023/01/23/monday-january-23-russias-war-on-ukraine-daily-news-and-information-from-ukraine/?sh=72a88a92ba69  but because of unrealistic expectations we think nothing is happening.  
In fact we have become so fixated on questionable criteria of success that the fact that the RA is bleeding out appears to be getting lost in the noise.  https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-5500-russians-killed-last-week-war-defense-ministry-1777316 (that is 1/3 of what they lost in Afghanistan in ten years).
Oh but we all know the mighty Russian bear can generate millions of troops - which it has not - and come crawling out of the snow to retake all of Ukraine and usher in a new era of Russian dominance. 
And then pundits - seriously who are these guys? Say things like "Ukraine can only make progress with a deliberate offensive."  Well no sh#t Sherlock, it is what they have been doing since last Sep.  In fact the only successful defence-only operation was arguably in Phase I when the RA over-reached and collapsed out of the North.  Every major UA success to date has been a period of heavy RA attrition/manipulation followed by deliberate offensive pressure - fast in Kharkiv, slow in Kherson - outcomes the same.
"Oh dear, oh dear, Russia is going to win the war."  Well Piglet, no Russia has already lost this one - we are only negotiating what that looks like here. (The_Capt's all war is negotiation has clearly fallen on deaf ears.) 
"But, but, Russia wins unless we take back every square inch of Ukraine in the next week."  Well, ok by that metric then I guess we have lost this one but that is a terrible metric.  "Russia wins if Ukrainians keep dying" - another bad metric because last I checked this is a war and people are going to die from it for decades - see UXOs and landmines.  "Russia wins if Russia is not a smoking collapsed ruin with Putin hanging upside down from a telephone pole" - ok, seriously?
The worst case right now is that the front does not move an inch.  The conflict is frozen in place, locked in Korean style.  The specter of Russia somehow turning those buckets of Chinese chips into a C4ISR enterprise that can achieve: information superiority; wage a SEAD campaign for the ages and somehow regain air superiority - and invent a CAS/AirLand doctrine while they are at it; then establish the operational pre-conditions they needed on 24 Feb - make Ukraine go dark - literally and information-wise, cripple transportation infra-structure, and paralyze political/military strategic decision making - is f*cking laughable.   I mean if the RA still has those rabbits in its hat I will be absolutely shocked and of course ask the obvious question - "what the hell were they waiting for to pull them out?"
So conflict frozen.  So What?  Russia has already failed on both its made up and real strategic objectives for this war.  The real ones are stuff like:
- Take full control of Ukraine, install puppet government and run the nation like Belarus.
- Shatter the western world through a display of Russian Imperial might and re-assert Russian hegemony.
- Render NATO irrelevant and neutered.  With no doubt a longer term campaign to push them out of the Baltics through subversive means.
- Simply wait for a few months before weak-kneed European resolve collapses and they all start to buy Russian gas again - renormalization, Russian supremacy in its neighborhood, western "rules-based-order" a burning wreck, and sit back and let the autocrat club rule the roost.
Ya so not only did none of that happen, in many instances the exact opposite happened.  So for all you students of history I think I am on pretty safe ground when I declare that this is what losing looks like.  If on the weigh scales of history Russia gets "blasted and shattered Donbas, complete with reconstruction bill", and "Cut off and highly vulnerable Crimea", and "Strategic land bridge to nowhere", I think we can bloody well live with it.  If we cannot and that is what breaks us, then we never deserved to be in charge in the first place.
Russia just burned down its own storefront.  It has isolated itself from it best customers.  Its reputation on the global stage is in shambles, re-normalization is a very far off dream.  It has been militarily crushed - I mean this is 1991 where Saddam drove the coalition into the sea type of thing - by all old metrics of warfare Ukraine should be in an occupied insurgency right now, the reality we are in should not have happened. Russian hard power credibility is a joke.  And it is extremely vulnerable to really weak negotiating conditions. 
Further NATO has not been this unified since the Cold War.  Western defence spending has been re-energized for a decade at least - I mean seriously Vlad, read the f#cking room, we were half-way to debilitating defence cuts in the post-pandemic economy but then you made your "genius" chess move.  Europe is actually agreeing with itself.   The US has finally found something they can agree on, mostly.  And most importantly, I think the West finally woke up from its "New World Order" hangover and realized that one has to actually keep fighting to stay on top.
And finally here is the thing....this entire affair is not over by a long shot.  We have not seen anything that suggests the UA has run out of gas.  We are pushing more and more offensive equipment at the UA, which suggests that they are lining up for another operational offensive.  The RA is still flopping around with leg-humping in the Donbas.  Spending thousands of lives for inches, just like they did last summer.  So before we declare this thing "over" why don't we just buckle in and show something that most people do not get in the least about warfare...steady patience.  Games and movies are terrible at teaching this because they are entertainment.  War is more often a slow and steady grinding business, until it is not.   

@Shady_Side - to add to my previous post and to provide a documented example of converting from one armoured platform to another, the British Army until fairly recently used to do a thing called 'Arms Plotting' which saw regiments re-role every few years - in the case of infantry from light role, to mechanised, to armoured infantry and in the case of the Royal Armoured Corps from formation reconnaissance to armour.  To give a flavour of what it takes to as you put it "they will be starting with crews that already know the fundamentals of armored combat" the links below will take you to the Regimental Journal of the Life Guards for 1980 and 1981 which describe the regiment's conversion from formation reconnaissance to armour.  Bear in mind that this regiment used to change roles about every six years so anybody in the regiment with longer time in than that would have been familiar with Chieftain rather than jumping straight into one from scratch, a luxury Ukrainian tank crews will not have.  Now I accept that the timescales to convert the regiment would be longer back then because of the demands of peacetime soldiering such as: handing over the old camp and equipment; taking over the new camp and equipment; booking training areas; letting soldiers go on leave; area cleaning; site guards; and, marching up and down the square but the bottom line is that the Life Guards took about a year to convert properly to Chieftain to the point where the regiment was capable of fighting effectively as an all-arms Battlegroup.  According to the 1981 journal, B Squadron took four months to fully convert to the point that it was capable of fighting effectively as an all-arms Squadron Group.
Acorn 1980 by LGregsec - Issuu
Acorn 1981 by LGregsec - Issuu

So, Bakhmut is irrelevant, and it doesnt really matter who holds the rubble, but what's the option? If Russia wants to advance there, and it appears they do, then presumably Ukraine wants to block them? Maybe not literally at Bakhmut, but if not there, then where? Ivanivske? Bohdanivka? Kalinina? Since Russia has the initiative there, Ukraine is effectively forced into continuing the fight there - or somewhere nearby.
The name of the place doesnt matter. What's going on there does.

Boris Johnson in his own words:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11667727/BORIS-JOHNSON-sooner-help-Ukraine-victory-sooner-suffering-over.html
The impassioned plea comes with a head-on dismissal of the escalation argument. Few at his level that I can recalled have been so blunt (see inside).
And here is another piece of jerky for the mass media to chew on:
And yes, I accept that when Putin eventually and inevitably loses, it will be difficult to explain it all to the Russian public. But he will find a way. He controls the organs of opinion. He still has very substantial support.
It is not our job to worry about Putin, or where his career might go next, or to engage in pointless Kremlinology. Our job is to help Ukraine win – as fast as possible.
 
 

Ref "most of" above - but thats the point, here. For WW2 the vast majority of the allies were unaffected by direct German action (eg. invasion). They suffered losses but not destruction of their nationhood, attempted annihilation of their population, etc. But Poland did, and even now I would be very loath to say to a Polish person that Poland has "forgiven"  Germany. Like Steve above, I'm pretty certain what my Polish relatives would say to that particular line; and if I pushed further I'm 100% certain they would get...excitable. We're only one generation removed from the war so things are still deeply remembered. Hell, the civil war in tiny, silly little Ireland is still a very touchy and quickly emotive subject.
The deeper, fundamental issue isn't that there is a war on; dehumanization is an unwanted aspect that, and as you very rightly note, is a very slippery slope. The Hereditary Enemy bull**** between France and Germany was exactly that - but because at no point did either country talk about extermination of the opposing population and annihilation of their culture. But the Nazis stated those exact goals for Poland and Russia. So the war in the East became utterly and maximally brutal because the aggressors stated aims were maximalist in the extreme.
So the real issue in this war, now, is that Russia under Putin has also stated its deliberate intention to erase Ukraine as a social entity, and, crucially, followed through on that intent.
The extreme nature of its war aims can only be countered by a completely unyielding and uncompromising defense - because the Russians have created that need. Every Russian soldier within the bounds of Ukraine is part of that horrific project of eradication of another people.
On the broader strategic level it is impossible for Ukraine to strategically defeat Russia. It only has a decent chance at the operational and tactical levels and there is no other path to victory than killing as many Russians as possible as quickly as possible. If dehumanization of Russian soldiers helps that then have it, Ukrainians. You face cultural and social genocide otherwise, so **** it. They started it - and they show zero signs of stopping.
In some ways, and on a more theoretical level, I don't really blame them, I blame Putin and his ilk. But I never forget that everyone knows right from wrong, knows that the repeated rape  of a child is just wrong, to stand by and allow it to happen is just wrong, to be part of an organization that perpetuates it is just wrong, to not say or do anything is just wrong. And I'm talking about Catholic Church in Ireland. I blame the Popes at the time and I blame every single Priest and Nun who stayed silent and did nothing. Collective guilt is absolutely a thing, when nothing is done by anyone to stop the wrong.
Russian soldiers in occupied Ukraine are not doing anything to stop this invasion, so every single one inside those borders deserves to die. Very simple - it's them or Ukraine dies.
That's not dehumanizing, that's the brutal truth Ukraine is living day to day.
---
P.S. I don't want to come across as browbeating in the above. It's tricky, with a tricky subject like this. I'm honestly interested in your response.

Dibbler cut his own throat?

I'm back. Week ago Kyiv and Kyiv oblast were under heavy attack of Shakheds. More than 30 in one launch. Alas at least five could breakthrough and hit several important substations in Kyiv, so our quarter for three days had only five hours with a power supply,mostly at the night. First day we also hadn't a water and heating. Latter was repaired on second day after the strike and this was in time,because we had -5 at that night. 
In other days electricity appeared some more, but anyway mostly at the nights or at the morning for 2-3 hours. So, we had opportunity to cook something and charge our phones. Several times we heated food in large can with dry spiritus and kept it in heating bateries. We were very angry, when have seen other districts around us with a light at the evening, but our several quarters were almost in full darkness.
Special thanks to Kinophile and other for notebook - it has powerful battery, so it's using as powerbank too ) 
Without electricity all cell towers around were either dead or had  so big abonents load, that internet almost didn't work. Sometime I cought Starlink, deployed by Emergency Service, but it was too far and connection was unstable - about 1-2 minutes. Single place,where I can catch cell phone internet was subway and streets, having power supply. But I had too much work out of my workshop, so almost hadn't time to track   news thoroughly.
At last at weekend, maybe in honor of Christmass our quarter got almost 24hours power 
Damn, I have to read a week of forum )

Young people get to eat a whole hamster for Christmas these days?
In my childhood we would dream of such luxury. We had to make do with a potato.
At Christmas we might dress up the potato with moss and pretend it was a real hamster.
Dad would make squeaky noises as mom carved the potato and we'd all laugh.

I do want to remind everyone that opinions in this thread are not determining whether Ukraine gets more or less support. Unless half the forum members are actually prime ministers and presidents and have kept mum about that for all these years. The discussion about what countries are/are not doing should be a whole lot more detached for that reason. No one here is pulling any strings and regardless of what we say this forum isn't changing the facts on the ground.

So maybe we should all step back from this sniping and recalibrate the discussion.

I want to build on this and hit a cancerous myth that is hijacking this board - the Ukrainian nuclear backstory myth.  Frankly it belongs to be in the outer darkness with the Bio Black Sites.  I also think it is dangerously skewing the views of some members and feeding into some really unhealthy narratives that are counter-productive and likely going to sour things going forward.
So looking this up the myth goes like this:
Back in the mid 90s Ukraine had a big suite of nuclear weapons it inherited from the break up of the Soviet Union.  Rather than hold onto them and being able to provide deterrence to Russian aggression almost 30 years later - Ukraine graciously decided to divest them back to Russia with the brotherly love of all mankind in their hearts.  The US and other nations then promised on a stack of Bibles and pictures of Baby Jesus that should any threat befall Ukraine, they would come riding over the hills like the Riders of Rohan and smote the threat with their mighty hands.  In 2014 - Russia did some shenanigan's in Donbas and Crimea, of which we all know and love, but the West yawned and went "well, are those really threats or is this kind of an internal issue?"  Poor Ukraine struggled on by itself to hold off the rabid Russian Bear until 2022 when it rolled its mangy a$$ over the border.  Ukraine is now calling in that nuclear favour...it is owed and "demands" the US and West honor its obligations and basically give Ukraine whatever it wants, whenever it wants because they gave up the nukes.  Further it is the US and West's fault for this war in the first place because we did not smite Russia back in 2014, so pay up and be quick about it. 
I get the impulse and given Ukraine's position it makes sense.  However, I would offer that "guilt, shame and demands" may not be the best way to go to guarantor the continued Western support Ukraine is going to need for about a decade after this war, let alone out the back end of next year.  But first lets beat up on that myth:
1.   Those nukes were nearly useless to Ukraine as deterrence towards Russia without significant cost and risks.  Yes there were a lot of nuclear weapons but they had never been given over to Ukrainian control, they were housed in Ukraine but Russian controlled the whole time.  Further, they were long range ballistic systems which were nearly useless at the tactical ranges Ukraine needed to deter Russian threats:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction.  Ukraine was a fledging ex-Soviet state and was hardly rolling in cash, so the option to re-tool those weapons was severely limited by resources.  Finally, if Ukraine had said "screw you, we are keeping them and re-tooling them" they would have seen heavy sanctions and possible military action from Russia or the West because loose nukes makes everyone really nervous.
2.  Ukraine was paid to lose the nukes, and freely took the money.  Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly "(301-8)" to take the payoff and get rid of the the things.  This was not arm twisting or coercion, it was opportunism: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/.  And smart opportunism for that matter because at the time they were more trouble than they were worth.
3.  The famous "security guarantees".  Promises of security for Ukraine.  Not even close.  These were assurances, which is diplomatic speak for "mayhaps", and Ukraine knew it.  The Budapest Memo is not a security guarantee or collective security agreement, not even close.  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/  It is a pretty vague agreement that the big powers would not pound on the small powers if they gave up their nukes.  Also the only security resolution mechanism was the UNSC, which of course was presided over by the big powers. Ukraine is a sovereign state and had its big boy pants on when it signed this thing and knew it was tying its security on the UN Charter - https://www.icanw.org/faq_on_ukraine_and_nuclear_weapons.  Which is great so long as a UNSC nation isn't the one to violate the freakin thing.
The US did promise to assist Ukraine should their sovereignty be threatened but the details of that assistance were never made concrete.  Frankly, given the assistance post-2014 and now I think the US is living up to its end of the agreement.
So as far as legal obligation, there is not one, never was. Ukraine took the money and avoided becoming a pariah by trying to become a nuclear power.  The US and West have actually delivered on assistance, to the point that Ukraine is winning this war.  Further there is absolutely zero obligation to assist Ukraine in its reconstruction after this war.  Here we are relying entirely on the good will and self-interests of the West, which is shaky ground on a good day.
What is true is the moral obligation.  How the EU got itself upside down on this whole Russian energy thing is beyond be, especially after 2014.  Hell Europe is still buying Russian oil: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europe-Is-Buying-All-The-Russian-Oil-It-Can-Before-Banning-It.html.  So ya, we definitely did not walk the walk on defending democracy or human rights in Ukraine against an obvious threat...we took the payoff.  But before anyone jumps on that one...big.boy.pants.time.  That is how the world works, as crappy and unfair as it is.  We have been doing business with dictators and autocrats all over the world - Saudi Arabia looking at you - and turned a lot of blind eyes in many countries.  Ukraine is getting the platinum response, it is about as good as it gets for an outside nation to be honest and if there is a shift in the political winds it could be cut off pretty quick.
So "DEMAND" all you like; however, you are not entitled beyond the good will of the West and a self-interest need to ensure the global order holds against Russian aggression. You want to come on this forum and conduct a regular routine of western bashing - Germany is literally on a weekly clock - just know you are doing service to Russian interests when you do.  You want to get emotional, totally understandable but 1) do not create or support mis/dis information in doing so, it is counter to everything we try to do here and 2) hold your own politicians to account when this is over, Ukraine has a obligation to itself and the decisions that led to this are not all on the West, and 3) remember that guilt and shame is not your best play here.
Let me finish by perhaps expanding on the Western point of view - well US/5EYES as I cannot say I am privy to the entire western bloc.  We are exhausted.  30 years of cat herding and dealing with everyone else's problems has not been rewarding.  Sure we got the power and money, but for the love of gawd the endless whining and biting has really taken a shine off the whole thing.  Terrorism, intra-state wars, insurgencies and now Russia is being a total dick and pushing us to the edge.  There is a sentiment in the western power bases that we are sick of the rest of the world and its bullsh#t.  Tired of spending endless streams of money and people on countries we wouldn't look for on a map, time zones away. 
Then there is the pandemic: the US lost nearly 1.1 million people, and with excess deaths that number could be over 2 million - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
And at the end of all that we get a global economic recession in the making.  So ya, snapping your fingers and waiving a Budapest Memo in our faces is likely to backfire really quickly.  The US is incredibly divided right now, and frankly so is Canada as a result of COVID impacts.  Good will for Ukraine is solid and damned well better hold; however, it is not guaranteed in the least.  So no, you need not grovel or "by your leave here" but maybe just try and remember who is on your side in this thing and sometimes we can disagree and even say "no" without going all millennial.
This thread stood up for reality when everyone thought we should get ready to bail and run on Ukraine -just this week I heard a retired Canadian 3-star say "there is no way Ukraine can secure victory in this conflict".  We stood against the crazy conspiracy theories on it all being Ukraine's fault.  We stood against mainstream "big money" analysist when they wrote the UA off.  And we should stand for the truth even when we don't like it.  If we can't do that then we should just close up this thread and we can all go to the Reddit threads of our choice and bask in those echo chambers of ignorance.

Ok, let me hit this on the head one last time because it is going to a really bad place.  And I totally get the sentiment but we need to be absolutely clear on this point - being the 'good guys' and acting like a modern professional military means all the time, no matter what. 
No days off, no "revenge breaks" and definitely no "hey they are doing it."
Only a combat veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq can describe just how badly we wanted to call in an A10 and wipe out an entire grid square after one of your own goes home in a box.  Or retaliate when the insurgents did some really dark sh#t.
But that ain't the gig, ever.  The single biggest point civilians do not get about war is that 'killing' is not the hard part - the hard part is 'to not keep on killing'. 
We clipped guys for holding a cellphone in the wrong place for too long, chewed up teenagers digging hole in roads, and a hammered into meat a few farmers dumb enough to stick around.  We did it and high-fived when we dropped them.  We slept soundly that night and never thought twice about doing it the next day. 
But we never let that out of the professional box we kept it in - the second we did, and could no longer tell which way was up - even when the other team was basically operating on Genghis Khan ROEs - we would stop being soldiers and become something else. And then the whole thing starts to unravel.
The RA and Russia will pay for their actions for decades.  War crimes are one of the key indicators that the RA is in freefall and not a coherent fighting force - military discipline has fallen apart on a wide scale, and they are reaping that field this fall.
But we beat them by being better than they are, forever.    

In all the breathlessness, let's not forget this little delight.
Cliffnotes: deliberate targeting of a government building, causing three deaths, which did not lead to war. Sane people know that accidents happen, and that accidents - even careless ones - aren't a great reason to dial it up to 11

Russians must be in awe of UKR organizational talent. Not only did they manage to capture a city that voted 99.99% to be annexed by Russia without a fight, they even managed to bring along hundreds of civilian crisis actors to cheer them on while they strut around in the place.

Or shock. I'd go with shock.

This is a unique video for me. At 10.21 minutes of the video, I see people with whom I took refuge in the basement of the clinic after my apartment was left without windows. Later, I corresponded with a guy who is standing with a child in his arms, he said that they were evacuated on March 08. I offered them to go out with me on March 05, When the hospital staff decided it was time to evacuate but they refused and spent three days in the basement without electricity and water.
The video shows moments a few days after the start of active fighting for Irpin. By that time, evacuation corridors had already been organized. People knew in advance when and from what place the evacuation would be organized. I left Irpen on the fifth of February. Then there was no organized evacuation, no one understood exactly where the enemy was, where the safe route was. Everyone went to the bridge in the way that he considered correct. And some paid for their mistake with their lives. I went to the bridge alone on foot and I think I was lucky.
War brings people together. In the face of danger, everyone strives to do something to help others. Pharmacies distributed medicines to everyone for free, shops distributed food, a lot of volunteers appeared ready to help others. From the second day of the war, I was constantly in the local clinic. We unloaded humanitarian aid and food, carried the wounded (a point was set up at the polyclinic to stabilize the wounded before sending them to a military hospital). The victims, whom the doctors could not save, had to be buried right in the courtyard of the clinic, as the road to the cemetery was shot through.
 
Most of the wounded were civilians. I remember two cases in particular. In one, a man and a woman brought a dead child of 5 years old with a gunshot wound to the hospital. They tried to leave Bucha to the west, their car was fired upon by Russian soldiers. In the second case, a pregnant girl with a damaged spine was brought to the hospital. She and her husband were in their apartment when the shell hit their home. The husband died on the spot. she got a spinal injury. Unfortunately, as a result of this injury, her child also died. She lost her most loved people in one day.
 

I was born and grew up in former Yugoslavia (not Serbian) which does make me quite partial to Ukrainians. I checked with my former coworkers of Ukranian origins and they fully endorse the following:
https://www.patreon.com/uaexplainers
21 HOURS AGO
9 things people still don’t get about Ukraine
Thoughts from a bunch of stubborn Ukrainians after eight months of the invasion. Feel free to share this with people who still find it hard to understand why Ukrainians think or act in certain ways.
1. Ukraine will never surrender.
This is an existential war for Ukrainians. If we stop fighting, our homes will be turned into rubble, our children will be taken away, and our people will face mass terror. Every place that experienced Russian occupation in Ukraine has a similar story to tell: a story of mass graves, torture chambers, filtration camps, and forced deportations.
All that means that Ukrainians are prepared to fight no matter how long it takes – because they are fighting for survival. Nobody “makes” Ukrainians fight – not the government and most certainly not the Western arms. With or without military or political support from the democratic world, Ukraine will keep on resisting – because we are fighting for our right to exist.
For us, the reality of perpetual military resistance is more acceptable than the reality of the Russian occupation.
2. None of us is okay – even if we say we are.
In the first weeks following the February 24 invasion, Ukrainians were in a state of shock and terror. The shock passed, but the collective trauma never started to heal. Every day people across Ukraine keep dying from Russian shelling. Every week new stories of horror of Russia’s genocidal campaign emerge. Each week brings a new little catastrophe – and every week a little part of us quietly dies inside.
This has become the new norm Ukrainians are learning to navigate. So, when you ask a Ukrainian friend or colleague whether they’re okay, keep in mind that this question has lost its meaning to most of us. We are not okay and we don’t know if we’ll ever be okay again.
But we keep holding on. In a way, trying to be okay as Ukrainians is the final act of resistance against Russia’s attempt to wipe out everything that is Ukraine.
3. Ukraine is fighting against Russian colonialism, not just Putin.
Putin may have pulled the trigger, but the root of the invasion lies deeper than the current regime in Russia. For centuries, Russia has led colonial conquests from Eastern Europe to the Pacific Far East. It conquered and assimilated multiple indigenous peoples – and exterminated those who resisted.
Russian colonialism remained largely under the radar this whole time, and its crimes are much less studied. As a result, the Russian imperial worldview has remained unchecked and unchallenged – and has expressed itself in multiple invasions since 1991: Transnistria, Ichkeria, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria.
The war might be paused when Putin’s regime implodes, but Ukrainians know all too well that a lasting peace is only possible with a decolonized and disarmed Russia that rethinks its past and future.
Until then, the untamed beast of Russian colonialism will seek to continue its imperial conquest in Ukraine and elsewhere.
4. Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not “more Russian.”
Yes, most Ukrainians are bilingual. Yes, 26% of Ukrainians are Russian-first speakers and 27% speak an equal amount of Russian and Ukrainian in their daily lives. But do you know why?
While some foreigners still believe that it has mostly to do with ethnicity and political ideology, the widespread use of the Russian language in Ukraine is mostly the result of centuries-old Russification policy.
Since the 19th century, Ukrainians were deliberately banned from using their language in education, labor, and public spheres of life. The Russification process prevailed throughout Soviet rule. As a result, millions of Ukrainians switched to Russian and deliberately hid their Ukrainian traces. And Ukraine learned to exist successfully as a nation of bilinguals.
So, if you meet Ukrainians who speak Russian in their daily lives, do not assume they are “more Russian” than any other Ukrainian or that they support Russia in any way. They probably have a more interesting story to tell about language and identity – just ask them.
5. Ukraine never had a Nazi problem.
Not only Nazis in Ukraine had nothing to do with Russia’s invasion, but the entire notion of Ukraine being run by the far-right is and always has been ridiculous.
The story of a “dangerous Nazi regime in Kyiv” has always been nothing more than a Russian propaganda myth. The idea of “Banderites” running amok was first voiced on Russian state TV when Ukrainians went to the streets to protest against a corrupt dictatorship in 2013. As Russia invaded and destabilized parts of Ukraine in 2014, it kept weaponizing and feeding the Nazi myth thus justifying its involvement and legitimizing the occupation.
Ukraine’s far-right movements have always been marginal and never had more than 5% of public support combined. Unlike many European states that do have a problem with far-right populism or Russia – a country running on aggressive fascist ethnonationalism for decades – Ukraine never really had a Nazi problem.
There is nothing humane or intellectual in trying to justify a brutal genocidal campaign by parroting propaganda claims crafted by the Kremlin. At this point, anyone trying to counterbalance Russian war crimes by appealing to the “Nazis in Ukraine” narrative is either a paid Russian shill or just a useful idiot. There is no point talking to these people anymore – we just need to stop providing them with a platform for spreading fascist propaganda.
6. Ukraine is a democracy. Zelensky acts as our representative.
Ukraine is not perfect. The issues with social trust, corruption, and poor state management have persisted for decades and hurt our country in various ways. But Ukrainians always fought back whenever authoritarianism loomed over: they protested in 2004 after a rigged election, and overthrew a corrupt wannabe dictator in 2014.
And yes, Ukraine still has a lot to improve – which would have been a lot easier if we didn’t have to constantly defend ourselves from Russia’s territorial aggression since 2014. But despite an external threat, Ukraine remained devoted to democratic values and reforms.
Not many people understand that Zelensky – a President who received 73% of the public’s vote in 2019 – always speaks and acts on behalf of the Ukrainian people. Following the full-scale invasion, Zelensky’s actions received praise and support from 91% of Ukrainians.
There has never been such a clear connection between the President and the people in Ukraine – and there are probably not a lot of examples of such political unity in modern-day democracies. All notions of Zelensky forcing anything onto Ukrainians are completely out of touch with reality.
7. We will not shut up. Not anymore.
For too long, the Ukrainian perspectives were silenced by Russia and pro-Russian sentiments around the globe. Like many other nations colonized by Russia, Ukraine had to shut up and, at best, politely debate whatever Russians had to say.
This colonial legacy has stayed long after 1991. Ukrainians were consistently denied agency: their pro-EU and pro-NATO choices were explained through conspiracies about the “US and NATO aggressive expansion.” Discussions about Ukraine often happened without Ukrainians themselves but with well-established carriers of the Russian colonial views on Ukraine.
All of this must remain in the past. We will not shut up and listen to another round of Russian imperial bull****, casual tone-deaf Westsplaining, or another Russian state-sponsored gaslighting campaign.
As the genocide against our people continues, we will remain unapologetically Ukrainian – and we will make sure our voices are loud and clear from now on.
8. Yes, we think all Russians are responsible for the war.
Ukrainians do not blame just Putin or the elites for the war – we blame the entire Russian nation. Putin and his cronies do not personally launch high-precision missiles at residential buildings. They don’t torture and mutilate civilians living under occupation. They don’t take away Ukrainian children and don’t try to “re-educate” them. They don’t loot, rape, and murder us. They don’t attack Ukrainians abroad or online. Ordinary Russians do all those things. All while the rest of them are silently and passively going along with the genocide for 8 months – or running away from their country and responsibility.
Those who fight against Putin’s regime carry the burden of responsibility as well. Even if they tried to make it right – they failed, and that’s just a fact. They failed as a state, as a society, and now millions of Ukrainians are suffering from genocide because of this ongoing collective failure.
Until Russians recognize and own this political responsibility, there is nothing for us to talk about. Ukrainians have the right to a safe space without Russians – without their point of view, narratives, or offers to help. And there’s nothing hateful about that. It’s a matter of personal safety and healing trauma.
Keep in mind that, unlike most people around the world, Ukrainians have lived close to Russians for centuries. We speak and understand their language – and we can follow their conversations on social media and in real life. We know how xenophobic, chauvinistic, and cynical the average Russians are. And we perfectly realize how their imperial attitudes have made this war possible in the first place.
9. Ukrainians are afraid of what comes next. But we won’t surrender to our fears.
Some people think that Ukraine’s stubbornness may lead to a full-blown world war or a nuclear catastrophe. What these people fail to understand is that Ukrainians want peace more than anyone in the world. It’s our homes getting pillaged. It’s our children being murdered.
The only country that tries to occupy a sovereign state all while blackmailing the rest of the world with nuclear catastrophe is Russia. Like it or not, the genie is out of the box – Russia is already a fascist dictatorship on nukes that invades its neighbors. It is already a threat to global security – and this has nothing to do with the way Ukraine resists. The entire notion that Ukraine can “escalate” the war by defending itself from an invasion within its internationally recognized borders is just absurd victim-blaming.
Ukrainians are afraid every night as we go to sleep and every morning while reading news of more death and destruction. But if we let our fears consume us, Russia will most likely win, and its illegal invasion, genocide, and nuclear blackmail will be rewarded. And this outcome is exactly what leads to another world war.
As Dmytro Kuleba recently said on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, “It’s absolutely normal not to have fear, yet to be afraid.” And that is exactly how it feels to be Ukrainian these eight months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCcph9srHSw&t=4333s

There is an interesting interview with Polish volunteer sergeant fighting in Ukraine. It is one and a half month old and unfortunatelly no ENG subtitles are available, but there are interesting tactical and organizational details from the ground that are nevertheless relevant and worth to share here. Some are already known, but since he is unusually vocal (within Opsec) plus has a lot of practice it may be worth to bring them on this board:
1.The guy serves as platoon commander (practically down to 12 men + 5 absent) from April. His men are in Separate Special Battalion serving as "Battle Detachment" (re: all kind of missions including SF ones) subordinated to one of the regular brigades, probably mainly at Kharkiv front (undisclosed).

2. Those multinational experienced guys (US, Frenchmen, Poles, Ukrainians and several others) have clearly very different tasks than most common infantry fighting in the trenches- they serve as "fire brigade" in case Russians attacks will brake through. They see periods of very intense fighting, much more than most common soldiers. Interestingly, he claims it is common practice to form such ad hoc local QRF at the brigade and sometimes battalion level. After some time such units are treated as "specialists", taken out of regular order of battle and if having good reputation may be "borrowed" to other brigades for special tasks. Thus they are almost constantly in fight, experiencing problems with fatigue and lack of sleep.

3. Their equipment reflects that- he started with AK 74, but know uses Grot rifle and M14 for sniper tasks, good quality vests and uniforms. He claims many soldiers he served with, including Americans, will prefer those weapons to M4's that are also in use but have reputation of being too fragile in frontline conditions, difficult to keep clean and prone to jamming. He says US M67 granades are also used, but have 5-sec. delay that is way too long in battlefield conditions (mind- probably assaults), so most soldiers in line prefer old F1. It is interesting that he participated in some "water-environment" sabotage missions deep behind enemy lines (planting explosives) armed chiefly with his 9mm pistol.
Entire platoon also have two sets of NVG's for entire unit, which they found very lucky to have- common soldiers rarely have such items.

4. Battlefield effectiveness of AT weapons is also widely different from theoretical. AT-4's serve at max. 150 m but usually closer, NLAW's 6-800 m (platoon get a lot of NLAW's but they had no spare batteries, which shocked soldiers who considered it a sabotage on behalf of "unmentioned" provider state; it almost get them killed). Team's sole Javelin set is effective up to 1500m in practice, but only if line of vision is unobstructed, and similarly they have great problem possessing only pair of batteries- thus they need to allow armour get closer than theoretical range. Infantry is rather vulnarable to RU tanks, since they improved tactics to "shoot and scoot" from 2kms afar, behind practical range of a Javelin: "Unlike at early campaigns, they rarely go into open and creatively use cover and concealment now, preferring their famous carrousel tactics."

5. His and other platoons often do infiltration tactics; it is also visibly different between regular Ukrainians units and Territorial Defence that former prefer aggresive forms of defences- active patrolling, inflitrations, ambushes etc. while latter stick to their trenches, which they nonetheless hold valiantly. His platoon would penetrate several kms deep inside enemy lines on fairly regular basis. They usually move by pickups and technicals- after engagement they instantly mount them and drive at very high speeds, which is dangerous by itself [I also heard from several other accounts that number of common driving accidents due to enforced speed is very high in this war, especially directly behind the front]. Also despite many people demanding Ukrainians getting on the offensive (material was recorded before it) he says this small tactic is exteremely costly for Russians, so we should not expect in this war "massess of armour that will break the front, which will lead to nothing, them being sorrounded and suffering extra casualties". Instead they kill Russians at very high rate every day, devastate their logistics and only later will be able to penetrate the front [Nice practical translation of @TheCaptain theories about "attrition to manouvre" and internal fractures that lead to RU collapse].

6. As a rule they were often outnumbered and almost always outgunned; it stand out that front is often very thinly manned and soldiers dispersed, like a weak team solely holding even large village. Russians also visibly improved their tactic over time- they tried night infiltration, learned how to sneak over the minefields and tried to lure his team in the open. Still, his opinion on them as soldiers is low. There are very detailed desciptions of small unit actions, for example when his platoon defended a village against Russian assault for two sleepless nights, resulting only in 29 eliminated Russians and BMP.

7. Very high regard for Ukrainian determination- especially in June, he says army was basically holding only on its morale and sheer middle finger energy. Even "QRF" elite units in his sector lacked any heavy weapons except several rusty RPG's, they were constantly observed by several drones at once and subjected to constant artillery barrage. Still, they usually defeated muscovite assaults. In one such actions they were aided on flank with 7-man Ukrainian recon team from HQ, armed only with small weapons that successfully stand against armoured assault. Visible recogntition of morale as deciding factor here; for example cases of wounded soldiers leaving hospitals to join collegues at the front are common.

8.Very often they participated in "emergency" missions to plug the whole or counterattack; in one of such they have 17 men to stop expected massive assault of entire BTG and were suddenly joined by colonel, who took rifle and manned the trench with them (attack didn't came in the end). High opinion of Ukrainian officers, who usually share the same burden as common soldiers, in contrast to Russian practices. Also international troops who get this far are only crack volunteers with right psyche determined to stay in the fight- despite witnessing fires no NATO soldier ever ecnountered they get used to this situation and learned how to behave. He notes that other volunteers, not less professional, brave or skilled in direct combat, simply did not have nerves to be in this kind of war and left [another common thrope- even long wartime service in NATO armies did not provide them with adequate experience against heavy fires].

9. This soldier, just as many other volunteers and Ukrainians, is visibly shocked by bestiality of Russian way of war- it is beyond just Bucha and Irpien, but in every village and town atrocities are common, there are also often civilians lying dead in countryside or murdered on roads. He descibes a situation when Russians purposfully shoot passing cars but initially targeting only backseats. Drivers speed up to escape, they take the turn and meet a hidden defence point when they are frontally gunned down in group. This way many cars created a barricade from vehicles and dead civilians that blocked the road in case of Ukrainian advance. Such behaviour of course only stiffened Ukrainian morale.

Ok, sorry for long post. There is another interview with sgt. Krzysztof X that came out several days ago when he give details of offensive in Kharkiv, if you will be interested I may sum up his experiences.

I hope you remember this 52 year old housewife? There was an article about her in the Times at the very beginning of the war.

Nah. NATO’s Reanimation is seen as a major accomplishment here - even largely as bipartisan, and a reversal of at least some of USA failures. Not to mention that it is intrinsically a win for the post WWII stability that has enabled economic growth. Imperfect, challenges along the way. But proven by events to still be of great value.

Some understanding for kraze might be in order, he is Ukrainian no? Lives in Ukraine? We know from Bucha that Russian "filtration" meant executing men in fighting age. We also know that they are doing their best to suppress pro-Ukrainian sentiment in the occupied regions, and that means such things like possibly imprisoning, killing people found to harbor those sentiments, etc.
God forbid, had Kiyv completely fallen, Haiduk certainly would probably need to hide and delete his social media postings and anything relating to this forum certainly. (I dunno if kraze is in Ukraine or is Ukrainian but if so, the same applies to him) I won't begrudge someone who is watching the destruction of their country and the attempted wiping of their fellow people reacting with disdain and anger for Russians, when the current expression of Russia in Ukraine illustrates a deep, very deep rot in Russian society, with devastating suffering for Ukraine as a result.
I like your thinking! Wiki says Greece has a lot of Leopard 1s, maybe another ring agreement, Leopard 1s for 2s from Germany. Western MBT for Ukraine, and Germany can pretend they are Greek tanks and not German tanks.

We've done it before. (not crowdsourced of course, government funded) Look up "Megatons to Megawatts" for some interesting reading. It's a little known fact that for 20 years, HALF of all US electricity production from nuclear energy (So about 10% of total) used to be Soviet/Russian nuclear warheads decommissioned due to arms control treaties. The project was a solution to the maintenance of security over thousands of nuclear warheads to prevent diversion of the SMN (special nuclear material). Through various processes it was downblended into harmless (from a "go boom" standpoint) useable fuel for regular nuclear power plants in the US. Thousands of warheads. What better way to make use of old warheads than keeping the heat and lights on. Beats burying them somewhere.

Dave

Whose grass mod are you using?

While I do like to bash Germans while driving German car to a German pub for German beer with German sausages, I do believe we must not rush to conclusions and blame Germans engineering. This war is not like NATO led war. UKR are using arty much harder to compensate disparity in numbers and save lives. Obviously, things are going to break. They are going to break whether they are German, French, Polish or US made.
But what is important is the NATO long range artillery is doing good work. RU does not distinguish between types now. They say just NATO long range artillery for CAESAR, Crab, Pz2000 or M777 and you can see the pain on their faces (I watch videos) when they talk about that arty. The usual RU derision of NATO arty disappeared completely.  Everybody is doing excellent work.

All right guys, this is a post where I spill my guts in quite an emotional manner, please move along if your're not up for it.
I'll start with stating that I'm really fond of this community that I accidentally found thanks to @Der Zeitgeist. While we differ in perception of some minutiae of the events unraveling in front of us, we all seem to share the same view on whats right and moral in this context. And that is really a lot, more that I could expect from most of my average 'real', 'physical' acquaintances.
For my whole life, since I was an 8 years old kid listening to my grandpa's war tales, I was deeply interested in all things military related. It is easy to get a young boy interested  in this kind of stuff - the power, the agency, the feeling of purpose this provides is unmatched by anything else in the world. Of course  when you're still an adolescent, your understanding of what war/ armed conflict means cannot be deep enough. As I was entering my adulthood, even studying military history academically, I grew to hate the very notion of armed conflict and violence. I guess getting the real grasp of what war means to a regular person was too much to me at this point. I retained my interest, but didn't really pursue it apart from theoretical knowledge. Especially, I dodged the last years of draft i Poland - neither me, nor Polish civil society in general was really ready for it in early 2000's. I was living my life happily since then, like if "The End of History" was and undisputed fact of life.
And it really changed with the start of war in Ukraine. I could easily picture myself in the position of average Kyiv or Kharkiv citizen, a guy in his late 30s, with a reasonable career in IT, concentrated on making a living for his wife and young kids, who is suddenly confronted with the need to physically fight for all that is important for him. 
Of course, in this great community we mostly  concentrate of relatively coldly analysing what is going on, trying to get a grasp of events the way a historian narrates the Battle of Kursk - it is of course THE WAY to practically understand the events and be able to draw conclusions. That's how a commander should look at it, putting his feeling aside. This however isn't the only way to talk about war, especially it isn't the only "right" way to do so. 
On a personal or local society level, what this war is is the fight between right and wrong, between liberty and slavery, between good and evil. Of course, if you are a mature individual, you understand that the good and bad are very relative terms, and it's best to avoid such violent situations at all. Yet, it if comes to the conflict like this, for me the only true way to talk about the people on the very front line, in the trenches facing The Enemy, is poetry and epic prose. The cold analysis is of course important to practical understanding of the situation, yet it doesn't do justice to a person giving his or her life for a greater cause. Having said that, I run at a few videos kept very much in the spirit I outlined here:
A music video to Sabaton's 40:1 song, really fitting the evens of the first few weeks of war. We might've forget it already, but the first days were about the grassroots citizen resistance that in many cases stopped the orcs. Videos from February and March are really reminding of what it is all about:
Here's an Azov oath from 2015, it's as powerful as it gets:
And a subtitled Ukrainian anthem:
There's a conclusion to this rant - today I sent a letter to my local Territorial Defense brigade. They are overflowing with volunteers at the moment, but I'll should be able to join in the winter, early next year at the latest.
It's OK, I'll have the time to get used to morning jogs I guess.