panzermartin

Given that even barefoot Houthi could hit oil refineries deep in Saudi capital, I'm not surprised Ukrainians could attempt and succeed hitting infrastructure. I expected a drone attack though, its a bit shocking they did this with Mi-24s under the nose of the RA.

Oh, I was thinking about that movie too, (after seeing so many Soviet tanks on my screen for a month) . Not sure where this war will lead us but I suspect a lot of movies /series /docs (and games) will follow

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-drafts-134500-conscripts-says-they-wont-go-ukraine-2022-03-31/ Russians say they won't go to Ukraine but they had also said they are not going to invade.

Yes, I hear you. But I have to give some credit to people that have been bullied by Russia for almost a century. I was never in their place...But again the only thing I havent read here yet is that russians eat their toothpaste or something, we are heading in that untermenschen, russophobic rhetoric again it seems. We can do better... The funny thing is out of everyone, germans were the most murderous "species" in the recent history but being a part of our world we never treat them like we would treat Russia. They are respected, are the head of EU etc...We must come to realize fascism is an illness that comes from external factors primarily and not rooted in the genes of people.

For this to happen they still need a lot more brainwashing and more putinjugends. Obviously your tenacious defense played a role but they don't look like they actually want to fight in Ukraine in the first place how will they reach the Atlantic with that spirit. They will probably dissolve like in napoleonic times if they tried. But I understand your view on Russia though. And we may had some romanticed image of them, thinking they are one of us. I hope you don't prove us so wrong. I just think that your country was betrayed by western forces and that in these 8 years they should have either built a fully preventing deal and force or stay away completely. That mid solution was an invitation for Russia to wreck havoc on you. You may be happy fighting them and getting some revenge but I find it immoral that they are actually using you as the spearhead without putting their hands in the dirt. Now they can't of course but this shouldnt have happened in the first place.

Well, I clearly remember, on the events in Ukraine, many americans voting against Hillary to avoid WW3, even if they were not Trump fans. Hmmm...

We are acting like we (the people I guess) are going to win something from this war, while it's far from the truth. West is not as united as it seems. And this will be highlighted once the media gets bored from the war as its already starting . Many people at the states are angry with the handling of the Ukraine crisis since 2014 and have started facing shortages in food items and skyrocketed prices. Here in Europe...I don't want to think about what is coming but I can see the first signs. Gas is over 2e per liter, electricity is half a monthly wage. Ukraine is angry with NATO for letting their country get destroyed and I'm wondering how they imagine the day after the war is over, betrayed by the West and flattened by their neighbours. Germany clearly wasn't happy cutting painstakingly built ties with Russia, refused to embargo oil, and now it has to rely on ridiculously expensive LNG from the states. I bet France won't win really anything from this and will continue to get bullied from AUKUS like in the submarine torpedoed deal. Turkey, a pseudodemocracy/autocracy while always two faced and keeping close ties with Russia, is emerging as a respected key player and seems to win the impressions game, probably getting back on track with F35s *and* S400. While at the same time bullying NATO member neighbors and occupying northern Cyprus, wow! Lastly, it's an illusion that Europe can survive pretending that Russia doesn't exist on the map. I'm sorry but this what every serious analyst will tell us. Maybe people of the military and weapons industry can feel happy about the resurrection of NATO and army spending over welfare but the rest of us, not so.

So Russia is not losing after all, just stepping back for peace to come forward. A nation of chess players indeed

I see, thank you, so it seems there are still capable forces to fight.

Street fighting in Mariupol. Seems the city has fallen to Russians. Anyone know the numbers of the opposing forces here? I have read that 1500 Azov troops were the last defending force.

Yes good points, definitely not a fully comparable analogy, when outside the battlefield scope... More of a CM "what if", like revisiting the same mission with different units.

On the army effectiveness. I'm not sure a US force like in 2003 Iraq, would have captured Kharkov, Kiev or Odessa etc in less than a month, facing urban warfare and the same determined UKR defenders. Probably casualties would be way less but ground gains? Not saying the russian army is not poorly led, organized and under motivated but this is the most symmetrical large scale offensive we have witnessed since WW2. I remember how some 23mm ZU stopped dead a large swarm of 40(?l Gunship helicopters inflicting damages in most that put them out of the operation for weeks. And Iraqi army was bombed and sanctioned for a decade and was already crippled in 1991. Iraq, a much smaller country than Ukraine , fell after more than a month. But there were quite a few bloody battles afterwards, like Fallujah etc. ( But maybe the Russians should have studied this war after all).

Shoigu was one of the very few high ranking officials in Russia that supported the war. Gone missing? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/03/23/7333825/index.amp

Mariupol is in ruins and I regret I never had the chance to visit south coast of Ukraine. The greek community there dates from the ancient times, and expanded after the fall of Constantinople and Byzantium from people that fled the ottoman purges. So much history lost in a few weeks, so sad. I wonder how trapped people there can still cope with no water, food or heating. The greek consul there was the last EU diplomat to leave Ukraine, and he compared Mariupol to cities that were wiped out from war, like Guernica, Aleppo Grozny, Stalingrad...

I forgot to add about the sanctions earlier, that practically half of the world is still doing business with Russia. China, India, who is at the moment buying 4x more discounted oil from them, Pakistan who continues on their common gas pipe, Gulf states from Saudi Arabia to UAE who seem to start distancing from US and of course Turkey, the favorite bad boy of the West that is still occupying northern Cyprus 50 yrs later and is as much a fan of revisionism as Putin. Lastly, and not less importantly, Israel seems to not be that harsh on Russia and its one of the few that didn't send weapons. So, they might not ran out of tires after all , and might not collapse so easily and could find workarounds even in military tech, especially from China that the West (and primarily US) taught them everything and made them the production giant they are today. Good job capitalism.

The key thing here is about the "people". I'm not a fan of the way USSR functioned. Though some good things came out of it. I don't agree that some humans are fundamentaly flawed either. Russia will have to change after this, I just hope it doesn't happen with a big boom.

Strange I haven't seen many tanks with winter camo in Ukraine. Destroyed or not.

I don't see how Russia and current administration will ever restore relations with the West after all this mess. After some point they may not care at all. Now most of the media depicts them as orcs, hitlerisks, institutions boycott swan lake or Dostoyevski and so on. Imagine after some more months of shelling Ukrainian cities... They are down the road of no return. I don't think any other nation has done more harm to itself with a single military action in human history, and it seems it was due to tragic miscalculations. Besides Ukraine, I'm actually very sorry about Russia too. My father was a kid under the Nazi occupation of Athens, the famine killed hundreds of thousand people here, and his only hope was listening with a forbidden set, to BBC radio Moscow. The victories of the red army and liberation marked his life, and he was the one that made me a WW2 buff. He introduced me to the series, "unknown war" with Burt Lancaster, that was a brilliant doc on the eastern front, and I got hooked. I grew up with an admiration for the sacrifice of russian (and all Soviet people) ,(despite my nick ) This war has put a big stain on Russia, that perhaps is not what it's people, rich culture and achievements like sending first man in space, really deserved.

Of course not. But if they fall down they might try to take us with them. At least this is what Hitler had in mind.

Losing Ukraine is an existental threat to Russia in way, from a strategic perspective. And what about devastating sanctions that will starve its people and destabilize the state.

It's like WW2 again and the russian losses ratio are starting to look like those against Werhmacht, even in later stages of the war.... I think another thing that might have played a role in effectiveness of Ukraine, is that most officers have been trained under the Soviet doctrine at least until 2015, so they know exactly how the Russians are planning an offensive,the backup plans etc etc. And the russian army is playing by the book it seems over and over again. Combined with new tactics implemented by the West it's catastrophic.

If we were listening to Poles and Zelensky we would be already in nuclear war. I'm more worried than in the cold war era, the people in charge seem to not have a real grasp of the grave situation. We may laugh here with the tractors but Russia is still good old Soviet union when it comes to the rocket nuclear arsenal but actually far more lethal due to the advanced delivery platforms. This is bigger than we can handle and maybe Kissinger was right.

Teslas are not made for war. Keep your batteries charged just in case

Russian media states they used the Mach 10 missile for the first time in Ukraine. Looks like a very expensive weapon meant to counter NATO warships, why use against a warehouse

It's still early to tell. They still think they can get a win out of this. Things will get uglier once this doesn't happen.