TheVulture

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

Did you read that? Cos it doesn't ring true with the eyewitness accounts of what's going on that we're getting here. It neglects to mention that the Russians haven't created the conditions whereby they can carpet bomb Kyiv, that the UA ABM establishment is shooting down the missiles that are targeted on central Kyiv.
I am deeply suspicious of its sources and its agenda. It's either woefully out of date, or ignoring the documented occurrences of war crimes and the massive war crime that is Mariupol and the incompetent or duplicitous failure to maintain "humanitarian corridors". A telling line from the article: 
Any claim that Russia is entirely telling the truth is either mendacious or so naive as to be negligible. Given the rest of the subtext in that article, I'm leaning towards the "mendacious" end of the spectrum. I do not believe that this is a leak of the Pentagon's "internal truth".

Edit: Oh, and the other aritcle you linked is blatantly written by Kremlin apologists. Probably in the actual Kremlin itself, from its none-too-subtle propaganda points.

Now what the hell does this mean? 
 
 

Now what the hell does this mean? 
 
 

Now what the hell does this mean? 
 
 

According to me, the shell will not be damage. This is really solid so no problem to let it rolling down. The problem is about the fuze. Sensitive things. That's why they let the shell rolling down with the fuze to the top. It will be better to put them on the shell directly down the hill near the 2S1 to be sure not to endomaged it.

What is the interest to damage the fuze ? You gain few seconds/minutes but the shell doesn't explose. Moreover, logistic is bad. Use well the few you've got. But that is an NATO spirit not a Russian one 😄

A shell whithout fuze is near a dead weight but the fuze is his brain and damaging it's a great risk of accident (premature explosion possible but the main risk is not function properly)

Invading Iran would not be smart period. Any President sending US ground forces to invade would need to get their head examined.

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tm2s82/russian_landing_ship_orsk_destroyed_at_port/
 
excellent drone video of the aftermath. One Alligator-class total loss, two Ropucha-class retreating, both on fire, one significantly.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

I think there's also a political component to what the MoD puts out. The goal right now is to rally countries to put as much diplomatic pressure on Russia as possible, and so they are not interested in saying "The Russian Army is pretty much beaten at this point".

This is wrong photo. If this not our PsyOps operation, Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.
Our SOF gave to him a place of rendezvous and when the tank appeared, the drone was took off to make shure this is not ambush. The tanker was captured and brought to safe place. Russian trooper reportedly will be interned to the end of war in comfort room with bath and TV. After war will over, he will receive 10 000$ of award for tank and he can apply for Ukraianian citizenship. 
Here the photo of catpturing. 
 

Anyone want to bet that after the war, some people in Russia will point to the absence of young men in LDNR as "evidence" that they were right about Ukraine committing genocide? 

Specially made medals for each city? Sounds like Russian war preparations and logistics were concentrating on the important stuff then.

Specially made medals for each city? Sounds like Russian war preparations and logistics were concentrating on the important stuff then.

It's from 11 days ago, so it's probably relatively safe. Although it might let the Russians know where some of their units are that they lost contact with
 

UKR soldiers destroyed Russian command center and seized situation maps for 10th of March in Kherson - Mykolaiv direction. Probably this happened around this data and was allowed to issue just now.


 
From the map Russian OOB here is next:
- 49 CAA (Southern Miliatary district, Stavropol)
---- 2 x BTG of 205th motor-rifle brigade
--- 2 x BTG of 34th motor-rifle brigade (mouyntain)
--- 2 x BTG of 108th air-assault regiment
--- 10th Spetsnaz brigade
--- 1st missile brigade
--- 90th SAM brigade
--- 227th artillery brigade
--- 66th control brigade
--- 32nd engineer-sapper regiment
--- 17th NBC-protection regiment
--- 512th separeate EW battalion
 
- 22nd Army Corps (Crimea)
--- 126th Coastal defense brigade (with 8th artillery regiment, 1096th SAM regiment)
--- 20th motor-rifle division (33th, 255th motor-rifle regiments, 944 SP-artillery regiment, 358th SAM regiment )
--- 127th separate recon brigade (recon batatlion + ELINT/EW battalion)
--- 11th air-assault brigade
--- 25th Spetsnaz regiment
--- 291st artillery brigade
--- 439th reactive artilelry brigade
--- 20th SAM regiment
--- 11th engineer brigade
--- 4th NBC-protection regiment
 
VDV forces of 7th air-assault division (mountain)
--- 2 x BTG of 56th air-assaulr regiment
--- 2 x BTG of 247th air-assault regiment
--- 1141st artilelry regiment
 
 

Actually there is one area where CMBS  might be overmodelling the Russians in a way that players can't do much about: ERA and active defense systems. The t-90s and upgraded t-72s in CMBS tend to come fully stocked with ERA packs and Shtora. On the evidence of what we've seen in Ukraine so far, they are significantly lacking in ERA coverage, particularly on the hull sides. Tanks in Ukraine seem rather more vulnerable to infantry AT weapons (aside from the Javelin) than the in-game counterparts. At least when it's my guys committing suicide by using their AT-4s to achieve nothing but drawing fire.
On the other hand, it's hard to say how much of that is selection bias. By definition, the ones we see photos and videos of are the ones that have been successfully knocked out, not the ones where someone missed, where a hit didn't penetrate, or where ERA was present and worked,

I think it is because Putin its assuming that everyone is operating in the same world view that he has. Countries "applied to join" the Warsaw Pact because Russia had a strategic military use for them, combined with an ability to force them. I suspect he genuinely believes that e.g. the baltic states had pro-western governments put in and then instructed to ask to join NATO so that NATO could expand. In this world view the governments of 'minor'  countries are chosen by the covert decisions of the 'major' ones, and the idea of being responsive to the wants and needs of the population doesn't come up. 
In this world view, since the givens government of Ukraine wasn't chosen by Russia, then of course it was imposed and forcefully maintained by the west.  And the west have no legitimate military strategic interests in Ukraine unless their goal is to be able to threaten Russia.
The Western view of course is that countries get to choose their own governments,  and that countries can freely decide to join a security alliance (if they meet the entry conditions), and that this is a good thing because ultimately mutual defence reduces the chance of wars and leads to rising prosperity for all. 
As an aside,  Putin also has the "American disease" of assuming everything is about Russia, in the same way that Americans think that everything is about America ("why did Russia invade now? Let's look at what has changed in the USA recently to see what has caused this..." Ukraine might will view NATO membership as directly related to Russia, for obvious and entirely valid reasons,  but for the west,  Ukraine joining NATO isn't really about Russia. I'ts about extending the "peace bubble" to protect the lives and enhance the wellbeing of everyone inside it. 
But that's not something Putin would do,  so it's not something that he believes anyone else does either. 

I think it is because Putin its assuming that everyone is operating in the same world view that he has. Countries "applied to join" the Warsaw Pact because Russia had a strategic military use for them, combined with an ability to force them. I suspect he genuinely believes that e.g. the baltic states had pro-western governments put in and then instructed to ask to join NATO so that NATO could expand. In this world view the governments of 'minor'  countries are chosen by the covert decisions of the 'major' ones, and the idea of being responsive to the wants and needs of the population doesn't come up. 
In this world view, since the givens government of Ukraine wasn't chosen by Russia, then of course it was imposed and forcefully maintained by the west.  And the west have no legitimate military strategic interests in Ukraine unless their goal is to be able to threaten Russia.
The Western view of course is that countries get to choose their own governments,  and that countries can freely decide to join a security alliance (if they meet the entry conditions), and that this is a good thing because ultimately mutual defence reduces the chance of wars and leads to rising prosperity for all. 
As an aside,  Putin also has the "American disease" of assuming everything is about Russia, in the same way that Americans think that everything is about America ("why did Russia invade now? Let's look at what has changed in the USA recently to see what has caused this..." Ukraine might will view NATO membership as directly related to Russia, for obvious and entirely valid reasons,  but for the west,  Ukraine joining NATO isn't really about Russia. I'ts about extending the "peace bubble" to protect the lives and enhance the wellbeing of everyone inside it. 
But that's not something Putin would do,  so it's not something that he believes anyone else does either.