BlackMoria

I've been trying to keep up for half the day but I'm still 10 pages behind... So, no idea wether the discussion has already moved on.
I, too, had the impression that generally people get attacked rather quickly here for voicing caution or not chiming in with Ukraine for total victory. Well, this whole war is a very emotional topic, we all have a hard time discussing purely in a rational way.
So, here's my subjective and rational 2 ct. I'm all for supporting Ukraine in defeating Russia, so the Ukrainians can live their lives they way they want. I couldn't care less lines on maps, though. So, if a prolonged war is about saving Ukrainians from suffering under Russian occupation, I'm fine with that. If it is about about making lines on the map look like 2014 - not for my money.
When I say, I'm for supporting Ukraine, I say that because I can afford it. My girlfriend told me yesterday that she did the calculation and probably her low wage won't be enough to pay the bills this year. She takes some pride in being able to fend for herself despite a lot of hardship she had to go through in her life. It's not her fault that Russia attacked Ukraine, it's not even her fault she has gas heating - she was lucky to get the flat she has. Why do I tell that story? Because of course there is a cost/gain calculation here, even if it's about doing The Right Thing (tm). Obviously hurt pride weighs less than suffering from being attacked or from brutal occupation. But when we talk about retaking lost territory for the sake of restoring border lines... righteous as it may be, in what way is that really different from hurt pride... ? Does the gain outweigh the costs? At some point I for one can't say it does with any real conviction.
Go ahead and stone me now, here take a bag of pebbles.

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

I always think of this quote, in moments like this.
"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.  No one know the shape of that future ...or where it will take us.  We know only, that it is always born... in pain."
G'Kar
Za'ha'dum, Babylon 5

I always think of this quote, in moments like this.
"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.  No one know the shape of that future ...or where it will take us.  We know only, that it is always born... in pain."
G'Kar
Za'ha'dum, Babylon 5

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

My sense of all this is it seems the start of 'end game'.   The great russian bear is cornered.   But an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered.  There will be much roaring and bellowing and hissing and one can get very severely savaged if one makes a incorrect move or action to confront the beast.   But the bottom line is this.  The bear knows it is cornered and it will do anything to escape its fate, which is why this is the most dangerous moment in the hunt.   The hunters must be thoughtful, determined, resolved and patient to close with the beast and finish it off.   That is where I think we are on the cusp of.  The final fury before the bear is laid low.   There is deadly danger for everyone involved in this figurative dance of death.
My analogy and sense of where I think we are right now.

"Come, Comrade Girkin.... the view from this window is breathtaking this time of year..."

Quiet, knave!!!  This is not a stick but a finely crafted Lance Mark I.  Made by the finest armorers in Russia.  😁

I would say all of the above. 
1. Russian pronouncements tend to overblown when they talks quantities of something.
2.  Based on a video earlier of a russian ammuntion train taken by someone amongst the ammo, the artillery ammo was heavy corroded, especially the fuzes.
3.  Based on villages and cities leveled during far eastern offensive a few months ago and the many videos of landscapes that look like the surface of the moon, I would say there was zero consideration of ammunition expenditure concerns.  I think that is catching up with them now.
4.  Russian ammunition dumps have all sorts of 'accidents' as we observed over the last six weeks. Mountains of the ammo is going up in spectacular explosions.
5.  I am certain that all facets of russian military capabilities are being stressed by the sanctions and corruption.

Some humor....

Some humor....

Some humor....

About a week ago, there was video of Excalibur rounds hitting soft skin vehicles and a dugout.  Those are clearly airburst rounds... the signature explosion is unmistakable.
Edit:  I was an artillery officer for 17 years and a forward observer for most of that time.  Airburst rounds go off at a optimal 7 meters for variable time (VT) fuzes.  Depending with distance and angle of view, that is low enough that an airburst can be mistaken for a normal point detonation fuze burst.  So chances are good that airburst fuzes are being more commonly used...but we are not clearly seeing it in videos...because the 7 metre height and seeing if from a drone video (mainly overhead angle) from hundreds of metres distance makes the airburst look like a ground graze burst.

Some humor....

Some humor....

Some humor....

About a week ago, there was video of Excalibur rounds hitting soft skin vehicles and a dugout.  Those are clearly airburst rounds... the signature explosion is unmistakable.
Edit:  I was an artillery officer for 17 years and a forward observer for most of that time.  Airburst rounds go off at a optimal 7 meters for variable time (VT) fuzes.  Depending with distance and angle of view, that is low enough that an airburst can be mistaken for a normal point detonation fuze burst.  So chances are good that airburst fuzes are being more commonly used...but we are not clearly seeing it in videos...because the 7 metre height and seeing if from a drone video (mainly overhead angle) from hundreds of metres distance makes the airburst look like a ground graze burst.

Some humor....

Some humor....

About a week ago, there was video of Excalibur rounds hitting soft skin vehicles and a dugout.  Those are clearly airburst rounds... the signature explosion is unmistakable.
Edit:  I was an artillery officer for 17 years and a forward observer for most of that time.  Airburst rounds go off at a optimal 7 meters for variable time (VT) fuzes.  Depending with distance and angle of view, that is low enough that an airburst can be mistaken for a normal point detonation fuze burst.  So chances are good that airburst fuzes are being more commonly used...but we are not clearly seeing it in videos...because the 7 metre height and seeing if from a drone video (mainly overhead angle) from hundreds of metres distance makes the airburst look like a ground graze burst.

Some humor....