beardiebloke

Goes back o=to the 14th century! But more commonly from the 17th. British Monarchs were reknowned for being out for number 1 even when treaties were involved (not that  am aware that any other Medieval or Early Modern monarchs were any better ...)

Russian on the video says "he was a mercenery", showing his body armor with scull patch, but that guy cried in Russian and was weared in common National Guard "summer olive" uniform. International Legion is under GUR
About cutted hands, first time this was in Kyiv oblast in first month of war, but that were dog's paws. Buriats or Tuvians eat the dogs like Koreans, and maybe it was their "hunting custom", which could become as a"fasion" in some Russian units. Also you can recall that slur name of Russians "katsaps" has turk-language origins and means "butchers, slashers". Though also a version exists that it has Ukrainian origin means "like a goats" (because Moscovites traditionally had beards, often similar to goat beards, when in Ukraine, like and in whole PLC beards were rare and mostly among aged nobles)

The idea of partisans rising up and lack thereof is disappointing is a ridiculous notion, their value is in intelligence gathering. End of the day, satellites, and monitoring can only do so much, and much that is controlled by foreign powers, (and those foreign powers are terrified at "excessiveness") Ukraine of course will have their methods of intelligence gathering, and getting them killed when we have HIMARS firing at rear areas is silly as hell.

I've discovered my own cache of top secret government documents. Its totally legit, I swear!
 

Would it be possible to limit the name calling, "rural dimwits" "right wing looney's" and focus on the war in Ukraine? 
Thank you.

A short video of Tatarskii at a Kremlin reception last year.
Here's the approximate translation of what he says, "Hi to everyone from Georges Hall. Here are the names of our regiments that fought and beat different bitches. In short, 200 years ago we took all of Europe and bent them over, and this time it will be the same again, we’ve got everything going for us - not just some abstract allied forces but a Russia with nuclear weapons, with an army, with the mobilisation, that’s going to happen so that we can arm ourselves.  Anyway we're going to give it a go, because we won't  get a second chance. I congratulate everyone who’s made it this far.  
 
We will conquer  everyone,  we will kill everyone, we will steal everything we need and everything will be the way we like it.   Go with God."
 
 

Vladlen Tatarskiy is not his real name. He is Maxim Fomin, citizen of Ukraine, lived in Makiivka. His family had strong pro-Russian moods, and Fomin wrote "My father in 1991 told me: Remember, we will still fight with banderovites in future". Nor surprising, if father has choosen such name for own son - Vladlen is a Soviet name from 20th years, acronim from VLADimir LENin. In 2011 Fomin was jailed for armed robbery. He was in correctional facility in Horlivka in 2014, when it was shelled during warfare around the city. He escaped and joined to local detachment of Bezler. Thoough later he moved to "LPR". During the war he developed himself as talented propagandist and soldier-blogger, so quickly gained large popularity. Since 2020 he moved to Moscow. When the war began he enlisted to 11th "Vostok" brigade (Khodakovskiy). 
As told Beleg85, Tatarskiy was active propagandist of volunteer movement, in everyway tried to improve militarty equipment, especially in part of drones and protected radios. He tough criticized MoD and it full incompetence in modern warfare. Also he stood for complete elimination of Ukrainan state as a goal of "SVO". 
Also interesting fact. Today three other odious persons - Girkin, Gubarev (first "peoples governor of Donbas") and Kalashnikov (propagandist) declared about establishing of movement "Club of angry patriotes". Their claimed goal - to withstand to possible coup attempt from the side of pro-western oligarchs, when Russia will be on the edge of military defeat. 
As we know, Girkin and his followers are in the very bad relations with fraction of Kadyrov/Prigozhyn and also with Khodakovskiy. So maybe GUR attempt, but maybe inner showdown. 

This is one of those ho hum things that it actually kind of significant. It's the EU acting as a single entity in activity just adjacent to fighting a war. Imagine, if you will, a Russian negotiator's reaction working in that light on a final agreement to the idea that Ukraine will forego NATO but be in the European Community. That gives you a sense of the phase change that just occurred. 

In this video, they say these French shells are manufactured with powder sourced from Sweden. Production of powder will be done in France next year. Each shell is x-rayed as a quality control step. One week's production is 630 shells.
 

Prophetic words.
 
 

Another good one with english subtitles. Interview of UAF with a lot of topics covered:
* mobilisation/rotation
* people
* wagner
* in house dron dropping system development
 

OK for those that think sanctions are not working this interview is pretty good and balanced on what we know about the state of the Russian economy...
 
Some of the Key Points (many we know already)...
 We don't know the true metrics as all we are told is what the Russians tell us and there is no independent verification. So IMF and World Bank are just repeat what they are told by the Russians and the key leadership in the Russian Rostadt has been replaced three times by the Putin Goons until they got the right person in place. Q2 of 2022 Russia stopped reporting the information required to the IMF and World Bank. Russia is lying about the figures - Shock horror!!! Any quotes about value of Roubles is BS as it is not being traded so if you hear someone say the Rouble is fine it is BS as it is not being traded!! The Russian state is propping things up with Foreign Reserves He even quotes photos of Refrigerators being stripped of chips to feed the military production lines. Oil sales Russia is losing money on any oil it sells as it costs more to transport and extract than what they can get for it... Some international companies are still trading in Russia. Russia Economy is now smaller than Chile Russian Gas is now no longer needed by Europe -
  LNG has replaced any losses of Russian Gas - On a personal note my Gas Tracker rate is now 1/2 or what it was costing, still high but
has come down...
  To build new pipelines from Russia for Gas it will take 6 years to build to the Asian markets - Russian gas is just being burnt off at the moment... (If they could even get help building them)  
 

1 year of the war is passed. From the start of the invasion and to the huge count of air and missile strikes. One of my friends has been killed by wagner artillery in Bohorodichne village near Bakhumt. My father-in-law has been killed by storming the defensive enemy positions in the Kherson region 1st of October. I gave 3 of my salaries (all what I have)on the first day of the war on the military budget. Thanks to all of you, thanks for your help. Taking carry of our refugees, helping our soldiers to destroy enemy forces with AT weapons, artillery, APS, AFV, and Tanks, peoples who served in foreign legions. Thank you for giving billions of money to support our economy. Special thanks to battlefront for small support for me, when I asked about a discount, they gave me 2 games with all DLCs for free - I didn't expect this. Some of my relatives were in Kherson in occupation, and all high-value electronic and expensive things were looted from them by Russian forces. And now we don't fear rocket strikes (10 times they exploded 700-1000m from my house) we don't fear nuclear threat, we don't fear the second army in the world and you shouldnt. Sorry for we English would that what I want to say for all of you, I can tell you many things about the war but first i will try to improve my language knowlages.

“How long, oh Lord, how long” -Psalm 13

Yeah, it's from French actually. Sorry used wrong Polish version instead of English one.😉
 
Interesting read from RUSI:
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ending-russias-invasion-requires-reframing-discourse-diplomacy

It's perfect. We can have fun with its various Iterations,contractions, expansions, alterations, verbability, etc

Some proof that this doesn't only feature in CM 😉

 

I already used the "I will take the Ring to Mordor!" meme last June. Plus ca freeking change....
🇺🇦
 

I had the pleasure to attend this talk by Prof. Michael Clarke a couple of weeks ago.
He's an ex-RUSI Director General and active academic.  No breaking news here but a good summary including some interesting historical background and global context. 
The video didn't include the Q&A afterwards which went a little off the rails with one audience member saying she was scared of getting nuked and that we should have a dialog with Russia 😬.  He responded by acknowledging that it was possible that the fighting stops with some never ending negotiations about Crimea/Donbas but seemed to portray this as a rather bleak future.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I had the pleasure to attend this talk by Prof. Michael Clarke a couple of weeks ago.
He's an ex-RUSI Director General and active academic.  No breaking news here but a good summary including some interesting historical background and global context. 
The video didn't include the Q&A afterwards which went a little off the rails with one audience member saying she was scared of getting nuked and that we should have a dialog with Russia 😬.  He responded by acknowledging that it was possible that the fighting stops with some never ending negotiations about Crimea/Donbas but seemed to portray this as a rather bleak future.
 
 
 
 
 
 

They should send them anyway, considering the gravyty of the situation.

Think it depends on setting, because on mine you did it.  Typical, upper management comes in just in time to cut the ribbon....

I think it might actually be a good idea to get 10 modern western MBTs into the hands of the UA as soon as possible. I'm not saying that 10 are going to change the course of the war or these super weapons will take Moscow or anything like that. I do think it would be very useful for the UA logistics and planning to deal with a few. It has been mentioned that their size and weight might be problems. What better way to find out than to have to move 10 Challys from Lviv to the eastern front. Figure out the problems for 10 so that you are ready when 100 show up. 
It could be months before meaningful numbers of MBTs start arriving. In the meantime if the UA could take an experienced tank company and put those 10 Chally's into it, train them up for a few weeks and put them to use. Again, not saying miracles are going to occur and they will single handedly wipe the RA from the face of the earth. Saying it might be very useful for them to see what the enhanced FCS, thermals, armor and digital integration add to their capabilities in comparison to the T72 variants they have been running. It should also give them a very good idea of the maintenance and logistics requirements that they can then extrapolate to determine what they'll need when the larger batches arrive. 
The flip side is maybe they will all be mangled wrecks smoking on the battlefield within a week. In which case some of us will be happy that our theory of tanks not being worth it on the modern battlefield has been proven. Conversely, they might do an extraordinary job and some of us will be happy that our theory that tanks are alive and well is proven. Until they get them in range of the enemy I don't think that question will be answered.
I for one am very curious as to what they will bring to the table and how they can be used. I've thought a bit about what @Splinty said in reference to the Bradleys. He thought they might show the most promise by using their vehicle thermals and FCS for better target identification and destruction. The big tanks might be best used that way as well and be more survivable at the same time. I don't think they are a silver bullet but I do think they have promise to give a substantial edge to the corrosive warfare already employed by the UA. 
Of course some of you will say that it can't be done. That a single short company can't be fielded because they have to have x,y and z to make it work. Well, the UA doesn't fight by western doctrine and we have repeatedly pointed out that they are pretty good at their hybrid systems and integrating new stuff into it. It could be a good opportunity for experimentation.