Grigb

Sorry, mate, it is wrong. Moscow and St. Peterburg much more liberal and knowledgeable population does not search for news in Yandex (it is heavily sanitized) and rarely use google for that (not that useful for Russian speaking news). Other less developed regions are searching in Yandex and google not because they do not trust official channels but because official channels are not generally useful. Even nationalists do not use official channels for news and look for their more useful unofficial alternatives using search engines. Also, in and on is not reliable metric to separate liberals and nationalists. It is an overblown issue nobody cares about.

I am saying there was nothing to deteriorate neither in 60s nor in 50s because there was nothing in the first place in the 40s. Red Army power is invention of Soviet propaganda and ignorant western historians/apologists. Let me remind you that during 40s Fins defeated Red Army twice. And RU officers admitting Ukraine debacle resembles Finish war debacle. With the Germans Red Army was throwing bodies and crappy tanks at them trying stay in the fight until allied pressure distracted enough German forces from eastern front for their defenses to start collapsing in 44. Do you know that did not have adequate AT gun until 45? Do you know that their main 76mm gun of their main tank T-34 had pathetic penetration (much worse then 75mm of Sherman) because they screw up production of AP shells and then they screw up their quality? More or less they managed to overcome that problem in 44 by starting to replace it with 85mm gun. Or that their infantry did not have close range AT weapons until they captured enough panzerfausts by the end of 44? That they were literally defenseless against prevalent at that time night bombers raids? Red/Soviet/Russian army was always clown show hidden under thick layer of propaganda and western apologia.

Western history books about Red Army and real Red Army are two different things. I will quote Russian translation "Conversations with Stalin" by Milovan Djilas Robbing, raping, attacking civilians while lying and denying everything. That is real Red Army discipline.

You can do it right now - take CMCW and assign either zero or negative modifiers for Leadership, Experience and Moral. That's a real Soviet Army for you. Soviet Army never was a capable force. My father was in the Soviet Army during Cuban crisis. He was right there (I saw his documents signed by Raul Castro). He told me American-trained Cubans were shocked to see how bad Soviet Army really was. But it was too late for them, we were already there. Then I asked how he was going to fight Americans - I wasn't, Americans would **** us, so as soon as command put us on high alert I laid down on arty ammo boxes to die instantly at least.

Me? Many westerners refused to believe that RU army is a clown show until war started. Let me remind you that epic fail with Grozny New Year assault happened just 3 years after USSR dissolution. It was the same Soviet commanders that NATO faced in 80s who did it. It is just they duped naive western experts in to believing that it was a fluke or Yeltsin fault but USSR army was not like this! If you are not aware of Contactless War bull****, then let's read some Russian related papers: This swedish guy got confused a timeline a little bit regarding origins of Contactless War - Russian publications appeared right after Gulf War. I remember them. In these publications RU military tried to make sense of what they saw in Gulf War (and later in Yugoslavia) because US ALB doctrine flew completely over their heads. So, they decided that US was pursuing new Contactless War doctrine which they thought was US illusion and stupid (because Americans are stupid.) Tactical and Doctrinal study of West in USSR was in complete shambles.

Sort of. The issue was that soviet generals rarely understood western tactical/doctrinal thinking. And did not care much because westerners were dumb coward capitalists. I doubt that the top even knew about US AirLand Battle in 80s because in 90s they were scratching their heads over Desert Storm. They later declared that US pursues new Contactless War doctrine [fighting without close battles relying on in shooting from a far with high tech weapons] and that was what they taught us in the late 90s, early 00s. Obviously, they declared that doctrine was dumb because it could work only against primitives like Iraqis, but it is ok for US because we are friends now and they do not need to worry about us.

It is unlikely they ever had any superiority except numbers. It was based solely on their racial superiority attitude + relentless propaganda of their superiority which they believed. For example, during Damansky Island conflict in 1969, Soviet officers were told that their new secret T-62 had superior armor protection compared to other tanks. So, they attacked poorly equipped Chinese infantry without infantry or pretty much any support. Outflanking they arrogantly presented their sides to Chinese positions and Chinese infantry promptly took out leading T-62 with simple RPGs and forced other two to retreat. After a while Chinese took it out of the river (it was battle on river ice around river island) and now it is in China museum. AFAIK Soviet infantry officers were also butthurt over claimed Soviet BTRs bulletproof protection after using BTR-60 in battle. They were told BTR-60 is bulletproof but were not told that it depends on the distance and angle. I am of impression that US analysis 1973 Judgment day war pushed US Forces to revaluated their position - Syrian assault was pretty much done according to Soviet doctrine. Against modern but modest Israel Anti-tank defense it failed spectacularly. It showed to US that soviet numerical superiority good on paper but does not work in real life. Soviets switch to a more defensive doctrine was more of reaction to the threat of high tech weapon fielded about that time which Soviets could not realistically counter (Contemporary Soviet joke - soviet electronics are the best in the world. They are the biggest and the heaviest!). Also given aggressive rhetoric of Reagan-Thatcher and failing economy, home pressure due to Afghan war/Chernobyl disaster and absolutely rotten state of Soviet governmental apparatus they realized they will need soon western help and decided to play nice.

I said they though they were much superior only to start realizing around 1985 that something is wrong. Thermal sights shocked them. Also they were butthurt over stingers in Afghan. That and overall USSR and Army state in the late 80s forced them to start reevaluating their superior attitude.

Yes. They thought they were much superior at least with land forces until middle of 80s.

Biggest mistake western analyst make regarding Ru artillery is counting number of Russians tubes thinking they produce the same firepower per tube as western ones. It is not the tubes you need to count but round expenditure per gun. Soviet/Russian arty love to exaggerate the firepower by inflating number of tubes while decreasing available rounds per gun for engagement. They love to say we have ****load of tubes per km of front or we just engaged enemy target with ****load of tubes, go, there is nobody alive there (RU infantry goes, UKR infantry climb out of dugouts and shoots RU infantry to pieces - rinse and repeat until some parts of RU artillery finally zeroes on actual UKR firing points then UKR infantry retreats to the next defensive line). But if you look at actual expenditure per gun the picture is different. For example, during Goose Green battle UK 3 tubes expended 900 rounds. That is 300 rounds per gun per engagement. Battle was bloody but it was won. On other hand during the battle for hill 776 the VDV 10 SPGs expended 800-1200 round (depending on the period you take). That is 120 rounds per gun per engagement. The result - two pieces got broken, at least 40% of own troops got hit by friendly arty fire, defense collapsed, and company was overrun and destroyed. On paper 3 UK tubes vs 10 RU tubes in support look bad. In reality though... According to reports small drones like quadcopters are not that useful against artillery - range, time and wind issues. What is needed is a bigger one (akin to airplane not copter) comparable to Orlan.

I am not Steve and for sure I can be wrong but: According to famous rant of Murz published at the beginning of June the greater part of available fighting-capable RU infantry is either killed or wounded... Within month or two [means July-August] either Mobilization starts or there will be shameful peace...defeat. Given stated losses normal country would already start to retreat in May as per Steve prediction. But Russia is a pressure cooker. It will stay visibly intact longer than other countries. Then it is going explode. Given Murz statement it should be July-August.

I did not mean it was taken from movie. I meant this video looks like it was created the same way Russians cheap TV shows are created.

Bad Voice Acting skill? Starting from the very first words (confirmation of report about UKR patrol). They are so unnatural that the first time I saw the video I closed it immediately. Single swearing? They do not swear but when they run to wounded Ukrainian a hot headed one said single swear word means killing him. That is the most dramatic moment with the most dramatic effect from swearing. This is where you put swearing if you are script writer of cheap military TV show with limited amount F-bombs per minute of show.

Just in case you still need it: Universal remote control, put it on the docking station - [message from] Valery.

Everything else including tiny details (perfect framing; rush to check dead and wounded as if there is no danger of dying UKR soldier pulling pin of grenade on them) is not. There was no real discussion. One said **** him and other, commander, immediately rejected it without any thinking or hesitation as if he is hero of cheap military TV series - good guys do not do that! Let me quote my self: Not only their voice acting skill is poor". Voice acting is NOT swearing. Lack of swearing is on top of extremely fake intonations and dialogs. Also I need to point to their use of single swearing word - conveniently it was used exactly where would make the most dramatic effect for the audience from the point of view of a script writer. Currently there is an internal but informal scandal in RU army (akin to big Torpedo Scandal) that they lack drones and bad at integrating them compared to UKR army. The first purpose is to counter that narrative - it implies they have enough drones to use them at the squad level and drones are successfully integrated. No, they did a very cunning propaganda trick. After AzovStal surrender RU nationalists feel betrayed. They expected brutal executions. Instead, they got reports that at least some Evil Nazis were put to hospitals (at least initially indeed they were). RU nationalists blame traitorous pussy Army for the lack of brutal resolve. So, the second purpose is to show that RU solders feel the need to brutally kill Evil Nazis, but they are commanded by cool headed commanders who make sure Russian hands stay clean. Not a bad propaganda trick, Ivan, I will give you that!

Unfortunately, the source is RUMINT. It is an interesting channel if you like to know fresh Kremlin rumors and that's all.

Not only their voice acting skill is poor, they did not say syka, blyat, na hui, ebat or pidori. They said once zahyichim him and that's all. This is not how Russian soldiers talk.

This video looks like fake - Russians look and sound like they are acting (amateurishly)

Russians helped Germans to start whole things. Then almost lost to them and survived due to the help from countries across channel/pond only to grab significant portion of Europe to murder, enslave and steal. Can we deal with Germans next time without Ivan? They are kind of buzzkillers. Sometimes literally.

Suspected number floating around is less than 2 dozens. Correction - this is not the final number.

No, burning hulks on Russian TV is a minor problem. Warrior armed with clip fed unstabilized RARDEN. According to the Russian IFV doctrine (Ukrainians do not know any other yet) it is utter ****e. It is like WW1 technologies. It is like arming soldiers with Mosins. UKR soldiers will start bad mouth them as soon as they get inside. UKR press will amplify these talks and UKR opposition will use them to punish Zelensky. Then UK press will pick them up and amplify them in UK and UK opposition use them to punish BoJo. We will have complete ****e storms in two countries for several weeks. So, please no Warriors for Ukraine.

There are no Chieftains around. There are Warriors around but without special armor package they lose their main advantage. Weapons wise Warriors (unlike Marders) are incompatible with Ukrainian aka Russian aka Soviet IFV doctrine. It will be PR disaster for British Army because Ukrainians will extensively bad mouth them.

I parsed his blog again and found something interesting. He got an unofficial reply from RU MOD regarding his rants. Young MO officers read Murz and shake hands for courage. They read in private chats. Only now they are preparing for Minsk-3 We won't pull, they say If everything is how it is now, we won't pull So, basically unofficially Russian officers more or less believe they cannot win but they plan to stay in the fight long enough for a new peace deal akin to Misnk-2. That's their end game.

All Murz rants are interesting and often very amusing. Ukrainians should get him a medal but only after the war - he already talks too much for a Russian. Only his reputation protects him from disappearing in podval. Shurygin is literally Russian Baghdad Bob (he did the same thing but in Russian for Russians). That is his job. Anything he says must be thrown in a dustbin. Murz loses his temper because he is butthert Shurygin lies too much. It is usually like this - the situation on the Russian side becomes worse and worse, Murz becomes more and more upset. He reads Russian propagandists' "opinions" how wonderful everything is, got butthert and BAM, we have another hilarious rant about true situation on the Russian side.

Yes, they have an additional role as execution squad. Interestingly, rumors claim they usually visit too independent separatist who publicly became to unloyal to Russians government. It's just these separatists, usually were criminals as well. For example they did not execute notorious torturer Kozitsyn and his band despite them being too brutal even by Russian standards. Loyalty is the key in Russian System. Rumors said they killed Mozgovoy and Bednov aka Batman. Yes, anyone with a little bit of brain knew the situation was a complete disaster and even usual Wagnerite big payment could not cover it.