panzermartin

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. 

The trouble with that is that Putin identifies himself as Russia, so an existential threat to his Regime is a threat to Russia...

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. 

panzermartin,

Believe the answer is sixfold: 1) combat test, 2) may be immune to all UKR SAMs, including S-300 series, 3) important target, 4) powerful 500 kg unitary warhead, 5) 2000 km range, and 6) missiles available, as opposed, to, say, badly depleted Kalibr stocks. The six listed are all valid military resons, but there are also such things as morale effects on both sides, demonstration of military potency and superiority of Russian arms in high tech warfare, negation of several reported shootdowns of Russian missiles, pressure on UKR government, pressure on NATO, US, etc., intimidation and resultant leverage. 

Let me also provide a Cold War perspective on hypersonic weapons. Per the CIA briefing at the Soviet Threat Technology Conference in 1985, the Soviets had seven (7) hypersonic wind tunnels; the US had one (1). As I said before I worked on NASP(National AeroSpace Plane, SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) and held all the security tickets to the program aspects. Part of what NASP involved were what we called NDVs (NASP Derived Vehicles), which were hypersonic craft without the ability to enter space. If you look at, say, an overhead plot of an S-300 defended zone vs a B-1B, the sites are set up in such a way that any aircraft attempting to get through will be in at least one, maybe several sites', coverage. As penetrator speed increases, the engagement zone shrinks. Go fast enough, and the once formidable S-300 coverage is now a collection of point defense systems, leaving gigantic holes through which to penetrate the strategic SAM defenses. Our hypothetical is now reality, and the Ukrainians are essentially operating, absent some sort of massive improvements I know nothing about, their best SAM systems as de facto point defenses. And Buk is even worse because it's got far less capable sensors, a shorter range missile, and I believe it's slower, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

I really don’t get that casual attitude to total annihilation?!

Russian drone videos of strike at Kyiv mall:
 

Well that sounds like a pretty... sound scenario. The thing that bothers me, is that so far those same spineless people had organized swift, minimal risk operations In Crimea and Eastern Ukraine , (green men, invisible tanks through the border etc,) defeated ISIS in Syria, earlier had turned Chechenya from a nightmare to a reliable bodyguard force and so on...All precise operations with guaranteed success and calculated risk. They even lost a jet to Turkey and didn't actually bother. What happened this time. Overconfidence or a screw turned in Putins head, to bet all in a gamble like this that could doom Russia...I knew from the moment they crossed the borders, that's a huge mistake. 
And on the spineless behavior you mention, I'm worried, if this extends to the nuclear forces chain of command. Or in that case self preservation will prevail 😐 Because we are heading that alley, I'm almost convinced. Negotiations so far seem like people from different galaxies trying to find common language. 

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 

On a second thought, that video is not that different from the poignant art produced by North Korean illustrators

 

Potential footage of it:
Never really got the hypersonic thing, but if we're going to see more gimmicky weapon systems maybe they'll roll an Armata out so the Ukrainians can blow it up.

If it was a Soviet era nuclear storage facility then I'm imagining that it was more of an underground heavily strengthened stockpile than a warehouse l

There are people dying on both sides of this conflict in horrible , painful ways . One thing to keep in mind  while we watch from afar  from 10,000ft . I'm trying to avoid the death porn  as much as I can .

Footage from Russian Ka-52, damaged during assault of Hostomel airfield 24th Feb. On 1:29 pilot says "Guys, I'm hit, keep control, emergency landing"
 
 

Putin is determined, he is already sending reinforcements from Armenia, Far East, Osetia etc to replenish losses. Unless there is a coup or something, I dont see this ending soon. And if the reinforcements dont work, maybe we can expect some sort of reserve mobilisation. He has no way out. 

Great news! The bomb shelter under Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the hit of 500 kg bomb. Now the rubbles removing have started to reach the entrance of shelter. There is still unknow about possible casualties among people which were inside the buiding and out of shelter. 

That is because we have largely been focusing on the military picture.  Nationally, Ukraine has had serious hurt put upon it.  Its national and economic infrastructure has been severely damaged, it now has to try and get those refugees back or it faces a human capital problem.  It has thousands of civilians still at serious risk and Russia could simply do more and more damage.  It is very likely that a tidal wave of aid will flow in from the West, further pulling UKR away from Russia but any good politicians calculus has to be how to get out of this and still be able to rebuild.  
I am not sure what people thought winning looks like in this situation but it was always going to be "the best bad".

I don't see how this is going to work. While it looks like you are right and many Russians do want to have a "strong man" at the top who somehow restores Russia to its former glory, how can you force them to change their mind? There is no historical evidence that punishing a people for their government ever worked (correct me if I missed something). There are a bunch of countries which had sanctions imposed on them for decades like Cuba, Iran, North Korea. Did they overthrow their government? No, on the contrary isolation help the respective regime to tighten its grip.
As a German I'd say let's look at what we can learn from history: As Steve pointed out, after WW1, Germany was isolated and severly punished. What good did it do? It only served to give the Germans a deep feeling of humiliation combined with growing resentment towards democracy. The latter because a) they actually stuck to the Versaille Treaty and paid the reparations and b) since democracy really has to be learned, the democratic parties grew quite detached from the people and often only served their own needs. Added to all that came worldwide economic crisis of 1929 which struck (as far as memory serves) Germany the hardest in all of europe. Enter Hitler, the "strong man" who gave the people a feeling of "being someone again", improved the economic situation (doesn't matter that hald of it was based on plans of the previous government and the other half was indebting the country like there's no tomorrow, what counts is perception). By contrast, after WW2, the (western) Allies helped Germany and after a relatively short time Western Germany was welcomed back to international community (again, doesn't matter that this in large parts wasn't kindness but needing the Germans agains the Soviet Union and the Marshall Plan helped the US at least as much as it helped Germany, again, what counts is perception).
So, now there is Russia. After the fall of communism what happend? In Russian perception democracy just meant a weak and always drunk Boris Jelzin who stood by and watched while corrupt oligarchs together with "Western" capitalist companies plundered Russia. This in combination with seeing how the once mighty Soviet Union was now, as Russia, only called a "regional power" by western politicians that could do nothing to prevent the former enemy (USA = NATO = EU (perception...)) from encroaching on their borders. Enter Putin. And I fail to see how this would change with further isolating Russia after a hypothetical regime change.
That said, I'm no Russia-Apologist, it doesn't justify attacking another country. Still it would be a grave mistake not to see that pattern and to draw the necessary conclusions from it.

It's of no use in the tactical scale of CM but can we have it as a flavor object pls 😄

And this is a prime example of “if we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.” We learned a lesson from the WWI vengeance reparations, and not only didn’t impose massive reparations on Germany after WWII, as far as I know, but we implemented the “Marshal Plan” to help rebuild BOTH Germany and Japan. Seems to me that those policies had MUCH better results than “vengeance based reparations.” Vengeance is also what has continued the millennium long blood feuds that still exist in many countries.

This is exactly why I would argue against massive reparations against Russia for starting this. After WWI,even though U.S. President Wilson argued against them, the UK and France insisted on them to “punish” Germany and make sure they wouldn’t have a viable military again. Well, we all know how that worked out. “Vengeance is Mine say that the lord,” meaning we have no place exacting it.

I second this. The aftermath of a possible Putins loss could be a russian weimar republic. Possibly they will emerge opposite forces in Russia, like the communists vs nazis in the 20s and what if a more radical leader takes over in Kremlin? Germanys hatred towards the world was mainly built from isolation, national humliation, and ultimately poverty, and I'm already seeing Russia taking that route. That's why West must be careful how to handle a defeated Russia. Since you can't kill it and you can't cage a wild animal forever, you have to somehow pet it. But maybe things will be more straightforward, although the first attempt in 1990s after the collapse of Soviet union didn't go very well judging from today's unprecedented crisis. 

Yes, the de-nazification of Germany could only happen because 1) Germany was utterly defeated all the way to Berlin, and 2) Germany was occupied by troops that literally could force locals out to take a look at the camps.
Neither of these things are set to happen in the current war.
I'm worried that this war might end more like WW1.. an economically devastated and empoverished nation free to brew up new "stab in the back" legends and elect even worse leaders than before.

Many of the commentators writing articles in major media outlets are the same ones who were cheer leading the US into invading Iraq in 2003 so I take what they say with caution. They are the same crowd who advocated for aggressive US expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union. Long discredited by the results of their push to spread democracy at the barrel of a gun, they now using this opportunity to push for aggressive US posturing. They have an agenda they are once again trying to push. 
Caution by the US is warranted. In 1951 after initial North Korean invasion, the US pulled off the Inchon landing and the US euphoric at the turn of events and got aggressive moving North. Then China stepped in.
Right now China is embarrassed at Russia's performance and indicating they would prefer a negotiated settlement and restraint. They have also indicated they want to avoid being sanctioned. Watching the reaction of average Chinese citizens on the street, most indicate they don't approve of the invasion and side with the Ukrainians, but also of note is if Russia was attacked then China should help Russia.
We're in the Cold War 2.0 and one of the features on the Cold War was proxy wars. No matter how this ends we're probably in for a long period of more proxy wars...

panzermartin,

Let me answer your Su-25 RTB question in a particularly unforgettable way. In the Georgia WAr, an Su-25 took a direct engine hit by a Buk and made it back to the base. The hit obliterated the engine, but an armored firewall between the two engines kept the disntegrating engine from destroying its neighbor. Compared to a Buk direct hit, a MANPADS to an engine, barring, say, a catastrophic fire or such, is exactly why the plane, a shameless lift of the Northrop Grumman YAX-9, was able to survive the hit and RTB. It's also why the plane, like the one that became the A-10, had two engines and fully redundant flight controls.

Regards,

John Kettler

I read that even the Germans didn't inflict so much  damage on Kharkiv. This war will stay as a monument of stupidity of Slavic people killing each other for the sphere of influence of foreign powers. Ukraine is becoming Syria and Russia will be back to the 90s. And rest of Europe will sink in economic crisis when it was obvious its future lied in coming closer with the East . Well whoever planned all this, well done.