dan/california

Her facial expressions are amazing. "holy bleep we can go to gulag for this!" expressed in one magnificent eye roll. This was in RUSSIAN, on Russian TV. May be the best sign yet the Russians will just crack.

And hey, now they are in an excellent position to set a truck or two on fire, take the cash payment the Ukrainians are offering, and head for the Polish border. Its a win/win.

What did Steve offer?

A hundred cruise missiles and this excuse for an army will run all the way to the Urals. Someone should mention that to Putin.

Can't let the best be the enemy of the good. Nalvany is NOT perfect, we aren't going to get perfect. But Nalvany has many acceptable positions, and he has some semblance of a power base that is not based in the military or the security forces. He would obviously have to make certain guarantees to get full western support. He is anti corruption and pro rule of law, that isn't nothing.

Putin bet it ALL on a short victorious war. Like so many before him, that isn't what he got.

Let me wait until morning to get completely morbid again.

I hope there is a plan to win the peace if by some miracle we get one. It would be worth ANY amount of money to turn Russia into a Functional country. I mean a plan for getting Russias troops out without most of them starving to death. I mean a plan for not just reversing the sanctions but actually reversing the sanctions damage. I mean we need to do everything that can be done. Of course it all depends on Putin "retiring", and a sane person taking over. And and a top level sweep out of the really bad people. But if we get a sane person we need to SUPPORT them. An enormous relief package for Ukraine obviously, EU, NATO, the whole deal. I suspect Belarus would beg Zelensky to be their President, too.

Ironically impassible mud, and therefore being channeled onto not nearly enough road is what sunk that one, too. Or it was right up there, after being a bad plan, made with bad intelligence to start with.

More fascinating tire analysis. The same conclusion but more so.

Steve went into some of this, but it isn't so much that they didn't know it was a bad plan, as that they were afraid to tell Putin it was a bad plan. Also the plan was made far worse by epic corruption all the way up and down the chain of command. There was probably a GREAT deal of reluctance to tell Putin his bad plan was going to be much worse because of the actual state of the army. So the paper capabilities of many units were just fiction. Throw in an initial assumption of very little resistance that is world historically bad, and they have made themselves a proper mess.

Food and vodka are the obvious choices.

Get him....

This is the single most useful piece of information I have seen all week. Really informative, his whole feed is excellent. We need to get a copy of the game.

This Gentleman was last seen at the Polish Ukrainian border asking if he could trade some very interesting documents for a visa and an apartment.

I think we aren't giving suicide drone/loitering munitions enough credit, if the insurgents have enough of those a fire base is just a killing field in the absence of some way to defend against them.

Thus begins an a tech spiral just like the one that has been driving tank guns, and tank armor for a hundred years. Drone suppression will be its own MOS if it isn't already. I thought I remembered something about the Marines at least testing something. Any idea of how many targets it can engage per minute? I mean the Russians can't seem to pay for gas, but someone competent will show up with eighteen wheeler loads of little flying day wreckers eventually.

This guy isn't giving Russians tea and cake...

http://deryugina.com/a-view-from-russian-academia/ A post by a Russian Academic about what is happening inside Russia. Good read, complicated situation.

And if was correct when written it is the part that went out of date the quickest.

i don't think drones, and AA fire are best modeled parts of CMBS...

The massively increased indiscriminate bombardment of civilians. Again the fly wheel of barbarity just starts spinning faster and faster. It will end with Ukrainian girls blowing themselves up at checkpoints, and vengeful/deranged phd students cooking tailored viruses in basement labs. Or we send a few cruise missiles and this excuse for an army breaks and runs. I like the second option.

I think the Ukrainians opinion is that they can just stop shooting. Dead school children have that effect. As I posted earlier the cycle of barbarity is spooling up. Nato needs to interrupt this before people on both sides start doing absolutely bat **** crazy things.

Can't seem to get back to it, but I just saw a credible post, if you can use that term in this enviroment, that Ukrainian Special forces were going to change how the treated Russian artillerymen. Their mothers are going to get a different kind of phone call.

The only way to counter small drones is with a laser. Guns don't have the range to prevent them from calling fires on you, and missiles are so expensive that using them is just another way to lose the war. I guess there will be lot of drones hunting other drones, too. But I think that takes to long tp prevent the enemy getting valuable intelligence/fire direction information. If wasn't a we don't care what it cost area of work last week, it sure as bleep will be by Monday.