BletchleyGeek

This is pretty good news. Things at Chernobyl sound pretty much back to normal or getting there. At least normal for Chernobyl 🙂
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-41-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR18LbQ1A3bKgy7AHcq0gpEdbzkN8jRhbjd-weL5ee82n-1aRJPwHwpORhc
Dave

"Generally" is a generous word here as salary in Russia, even just based on district, varies wildly as it does in most countries: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100972/average-monthly-income-per-capita-russia-by-region/
If Kyiv suburbs and out of the city dacha owners earn more or less than the average far eastern village is debatable but besides the point because we have photographic evidence of washing mashines, alcohol bottles, stacks of cash, valuables like rings, ipads,.. and everything else that can be carried and holds value found on rus soldiers or their vehicles. 
A sure sign of professionalism no doubt.
 

This comment...

This is what the PC and Woke Brigade of the West cannot grasp about Russia

...has absolutely nothing to do with Ukrainians being angry about Russian war crimes!

I KNOW exactly what it represents, and it has no place in this thread and that's why I'm calling it for what it is.

That's whether you, or anyone else likes it or not... it is trolling! 

Now I joined this thread after the first week of the war to read others views about the conflict, not to read about this sort of nonsense. Quite frankly, there's nothing that I am going to learn from this sort of socio-political diatribe, but there is a lot that I can learn about the military conflict. But these particular comments have no place here and are irrelevant to the topic. 

Tiresome and boring! Stop trolling!

This picture sums up quite well many of the things that are wrong with this war.
Last week a VICE journalist dashed into Irpin capturing many images of randomly murdered civilians. I guess now is evident to all the magnitude of the carnage in those suburbs of Kyiv. Perhaps not an orchestrated evil like Srebrenica, but likely to be the work of the thugs on Putin's "leibstandarte" troops. Eternal shame on the perpetrators, I hope that justice finds them all.
I agree with Kraze in one thing. The most likely peace that comes out of this war will just be the end of the first round in a series. French- German enmity played out across 150 years, and six wars (counting separately the Napoleonic ones). That's a grim baseline to compare with.
I don't think democracies can do much about this, right now, other than provide the material to Ukraine that ensures the defeat of Russia as quickly as possible, and to prepare as well as possible for the next one.

'Light' and 'heavy' are fundamentally logistical terms. It refers to how many linear metres on transport aircraft and ships are needed to get the unit into theatre, and then the flow of tonnage required to keep the unit in the fight.
Not coincidentally, there is a pretty direct relationship between that and combat power, but combat power isn't what it's meant to express. A mechanised battalion with APCs, IFVs, SPGs, and tanks is going to need a shedload of ships and flights to get all the men and kit into theatre, then a shedload more every day to keep up with the prodigious demand for fuel plus heavy and bulky ammo. Meanwhile, an entire mountain or airborne battalion could be squeezed into a couple of 747s, and kept supplied with a daily herc flight or two.
There is a famous photo from when the 173rd dropped into northern Iraq of a perversely overloaded paratrooper all but crushed under his kit. Similarly the paras and marines yomping and tabbing across East Falkland carried loads that were inhumanely heavy, but /logistically/ all those forces are considered to be 'light.' In fact, that /why/ those particular forces were used in those places.
 
Edit now I'm not on my phone ...
Ironically, for the actual soldiers - rather than the logisticians - 'heavy' forces tend to routinely carry less directly on their bodies since they always have a mechanical mule (truck, track, etc) with them, whereas 'light' forces have to literally carry all their stuff with them everywhere they go.
173rd:

Marine commandos:

Paras:

Apologies I was kind of referring to BornGinger's original post - The one that looked like an Excerpt from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"  - which curiously had some Russian Origins as I recall . As a complete aside - there is a good Novel by Umberto Eco  called The Prague Cemetery  which is an entertaining  (fictional) read on the subject .

You say that, but policies in New Dehli are changing. Lot of Indian nationals caught up in this war. Moreover India has to balance its desire to stay neutral in Europe vs. its need to protect against China. Were this a war in Taiwan, India would not be able to sit comfortably on the sidelines, and they ought to know that this conflict has direct bearing on an East Asian crisis in a few years. If I were the US ambassador I would make all that very clear to India, that their actions today will condition expectations against China. 
But Im just a rando on the internet, what do I know? Nothing. 

Sorry all for this pictures, but after this no one dares to accuse us in "racism", "bulling of Russians", "violation their rights" and other bull****. There many killed civilians were found in Irpin', but now our troops came to Bucha and have seen THIS. The nation, which let all of this must be punished. ALL, maybe except those, who actively represented own anti-rashism position before this nightmare.
GRAPHIC IMAGES!
Just tortured and executed civilans: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPSd5RMXsAoLdXy?format=jpg&name=900x900
The street of Bucha, littered with dead bodies of civilians: https://twitter.com/i/status/1509985789404459011
 

So we gotta get this guy playing CM
 

Here is a nice video on the Ukrainian Stugna P ATGM
Chris

There is a bunch of Russian offshore assets currently frozen. I'd like to think an international group of lawyers and finance folk are currently working out how to seize all that and place it in trust to fund the rebuild.

I don't get the focus on polls performed with unknown methodology, in an unfree state about an imaginary subject (there is no 'special operation', it's called war).
Even in peacetime in free countries polls are often problematic. No control questions, non-representative samples, insinuating methods of interview, unclear questioning/interpretations, etc.

Ukrainian army are now in Ivankiv, where the P-02 highway NW form Kyiv crosses the Teteriv river. So Russia appears to be completely abandoning the Kyiv axis now, not just trying to hold on with reduced forces but stop offensive action.
Bad news for any Russians who hadn't made it back past that river line yet - they're rather cut off now. No indication so of how many (if any) are now stranded.
(On the map, the red truck icons are from Russia withdrawing about 24 hours ago, so there's a lot here that's out of date).
(EDIT: I see The_MonkeyKing beat me to it just above).

BMP obr. 2022 "Metafor":

Waiting:

Ukrainain TD and Emergency service recovered Russian T-72B3, which fell from the tiny bridge to the river in first days of war. Crew is dead. One tanker could bail out, but was crushed by turret, when tank rolled over

It fully involved on Donbas, where the war has more "traditional" form. It involved in Sumy oblast and Kharkiv - Russian BTGs in Trostianets and Rohan' were defeated not with lihgt infantry (though with their assist). Our "line troops" too busy to make footage, also a censorship there is more tough than in volunteers/TD and Azov, which since 2014 have made PR for itself. You can see Oryx about our losses, we lost about 70 tanks. So, they in fight. 
Full picture, how our mech. and tank brigades fought, we can receive only after the war.

I have been thinking about this too.. many people are asking, where is the Ukrainian armor?  They do seem to be pushing light infantry to the front, with only scattered mechanized forces actually being used so far.  They are engaging the enemy with the smallest force required to do the job.. that is very smart... can it be that they have been husbanding there main striking power (mechanized forces) and waiting for the perfect opportunity? 
Granted it is a huge risk to concentrate mechanized forces for a counter-attack, the Russians do have a significant indirect fire capability at the BTG level (and the Ukrainians were taught that lesson in 2014).  But if they are holding these forces back, waiting for the intel to tell them the right place and time... it could be a huge knock out blow that nobody, especially the Russians, see coming.
Bil

Does anyone have any reliable data on this?  Ukraine losses are likely not small but as proportion of their overall combat power?  Also, I think conventional is more important here unless the UA cracks the code on how to get hybrid to conduct large offensives.
I am not sure if we are seeing stalemate or just a Ukrainian recon-in-force phase. 

'Dismembered' is a very interesting choice of word. Let me flip that on its head and float a  counterthesis that I've been thinking about lately.
....Like many others here, I started in this Mother of All Threads way back in late Feb. fairly sure that the Russians were going to leave 1000+ dead tanks along their northern 'Groupes Mobiles' routes, but wind up biting off and holding a big chunk of Ukraine, running roughly Kherson-Zaporozhe-Izium (the 'land bridge to Crimea' + Donbass). This would be enough for Putin to declare victory, and that's more or less where he seems to be heading now.
So yeah, we called it. Yay us....
But after reading the writings of the pros here and considering the documentary evidence, I find myself optimistic (nay Pollyannish) enough now to wonder how far the pendulum could possibly swing in the other direction.
Let's say the UA combat battalions prove willing and able to systematically envelop and demolish clumsy Russian defensive positions manned by undermotivated kids, and restore the entirety 2022 border? (I'm not talking about retaking Crimea btw, as I doubt the population there would support the UA as liberators)
...So if that's where the cease fire line is drawn, Putin is Napoleon and Russia is defanged for the moment, what then?
Can Zelensky create a stable (and honest) enough unity government and draw in enough Western/Asian investment to create a new Ukraine? With a shiny new Kharkov and Mariupol rising from the ruins, with chip fabs and GMP pharma plants that are cost competitive with, say, Thailand and Vietnam? As Germany showed, having your infra bombed gives you a reason to build anew....
And if that happens, do Belarus and even certain oblasts in the 'Great Russian' heartland itself (e.g. Kursk, Voronezh and.... wait for it, Donbass, Crimea) begin gazing longingly across the frontier -- the new European frontier -- as their remaining young people start voting with their feet?
....
Come on, who's coming with me? Anyone?
 

Sorry but this makes very little sense from a couple perspectives.  I am not sure why so many people need to somehow find a dark genius in Putin's actions and strategy.  I guess some have invested so much in making him the boogey-man that their own interests are at stake here while others sound like they are on the Russian payroll.
So internally, starting a war and then losing it has never been a smart path to reinforcing internal control.  The worse one loses the more internal (not less) internal tension it creates.  This reinforces the idea that a quick war may have solved some of those internal issues.  Why try and suppress free press when they are crowing a quick victory parade in Kyiv?  So the idea that this was all a clever ploy to get a better domestic grip does not make a lot of sense unless you can get a quick win, which did not happen.  Every day Russia bleeds in Ukraine makes things worse, not better.
Resource grab.  Well first off, if this was the aim they missed it:

https://www.flandersinvestmentandtrade.com/export/sites/trade/files/market_studies/Ukrainian Energy Market_0.pdf
Russia already had the Crimea.  It might have grabbed that thin sliver in the south and took a few nibbles from that big eastern field but the majority of that field is still in Ukrainian hands.  This might have been a goal on the initial invasion but the debacle we have seen unfold for a month now does not support an oil and gas grab strategy.
Further, resource-wise this makes little sense.  Russia is sitting on 4.8% (ish - number swings around depending where you look), while Ukraine has a whopping .06%.  Gas is even crazier with Russia at 25% and Ukraine at .6% (https://www.worldometers.info/gas/#:~:text=There are 6%2C923 trillion cubic,levels and excluding unproven reserves).
Why on earth would Putin risk the massive sanctions, which further exacerbate his domestic troubles, in order to try and grab a fraction of a ridiculously small share of oil and gas?  There are significant Black Sea reserves (https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/02/28/as-russia-closes-in-on-crimeas-energy-resources-what-is-next-for-ukraine/?sh=5ef9b6d829cd) but why wage a freakin land war all over the place if all you want to do is exploit offshore gas in a region where you already have vast naval superiority?
Finally, how exactly has Putin achieved any of these strategic aims thus far?  He has to try and keep a lid on over 10k dead (and times-3 wounded) to avoid domestic pressures, increasing economic failure due to sanctions - leading to domestic pressure, and zero to show for it in "black gold", that you can only sell to China - who is going to gut you price-wise - thanks to said sanctions.  
There is no master plan here, or at least not anymore.  Being an ex-KGB autocrat, Putin demonstrate acumen at subversion strategies; however, on this one he tried to "go loud" and is likely suffering from Dunning-Kruger shock right now as he slowly realizes that he is nowhere near as smart as his cronies have been telling him. 
 

"Uganda Finds China’s Leverage Is in the Fine Print of Its Lending"
"A clause in an agreement with the African nation has stirred a flap over whether the country signed away financial control of Entebbe International Airport"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/uganda-finds-chinas-leverage-is-in-the-fine-print-of-its-lending-11640601003
Yoni Netanyahu didn't like this. 😑
All of Turkey's next generation drones are going to use Ukrainian engines. Even more importantly, after failing to secure licensing from Germany for MTU engines for the Altay MBT, Turkey struck a deal with Ukraine to develop an engine using Ukrainian technology.
Fun fact: Erdoğan tried to use his 'personal relationship' with Shinzo Abe to get Mitsubishi engines, but the deal failed. Had it succeeded, the Altay would have been a Korean tank with a Japanese engine. 🙂

A couple of things: 

1. Bret Stephens doesn't know anything at all about Russia. Zero. 
2. It's *very* early. The effects on the Russia economy have just begun, the war is still ongoing. 
3. Every war he fought before ended in victory. Not this one.
4. Every war he fought before didn't turn Russia into a pariah state. This one has and will.
5. It's very clear that there are strong divisions between the FSB/MOD/SVR/Presidential office that this war broke open.
6. Cargo 200 has just begun.
 
I could go on and on but you get the point. Stephens is a hack and you're better off ignoring him.