fry30

Thanks @Haiduk
That pic of the village is very good example of where CMBS fails in depictions of defence. In any game,  once I've flattened a village to this extent,  everyone is dead because they're functionally out in the open. Reinforcements have nowhere to go to - House Rubble gives very little protection in game and basements are simply not modeled.  This makes CMBS urban games very "unrealistic",  in that a defence cannot be tenacious if everyone dies in minutes from airbursts.
  We're not going be gaming Bakhmut or Kiev anytime soon.
 
 

What's the difference practically between sincere and false? None, in his position in the Russian military, he's effectively a PR speaker. If you want to change his mind, give Ukraine more missiles, tanks, APCs, artillery so he can choose to either die in Ukraine or retreat to Russia and continue spouting his views safely there.

Hey man don’t knock it.  I personally think that Prigy is at the lake house trying on different beard and wig combos until Vlad makes weekend getaways.  Now it is truly a forbidden love that must be kept away from the world, spiced with a hint of danger.  It will be fun for awhile but it is doomed.  Prig will get bored and Putin will eventually have to let him go…likely into the lake with a cinder block to keep him warm.  But for now:
 

I clicked to 3 random points.
Says UA treats prisoners worse than ISIS and the Chechens
Excuses UA PoWs being executed as work of "adrenaline"
Says Bucha was committed by Ukrainian artillery while Russians were handing out humanitarian aid
Hope this waste of a human being catches a bullet and doesnt live to tell the tale.
Or maybe he should enjoy ISIS prisoner treatment in his last days, I dont recall them ever doing Prisoner swaps for some reason.
 

Praise be. 
 

The Pentagon may finally be getting it.

Last couple of days it kinda looks like Ukrainians have an easier time advancing. Which given they just bumped into the Surovikin Line is kinda counter intuitive.
That leaves me with the impression that the Russians degraded their manpower and defensive capacity in front of their main line to a degree that their main line of defence is now largely ineffective. Are we once again very lucky they are so f-ing stupid? Or am I seeing things that aren't there?

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

It could go either way and we don't know definitively yet but elements in the German government are clearly pushing the idea that the Russians didn't stop an attack by amateurs with their professionals on site and didn't do the pig obvious thing (go public) that would have stopped the attack in its tracks. Those are extraordinary claims that will require extraordinary proofs...not a recitation of maybes that have all the hallmarks of a false flag operation or look like over worked attempts to explain away the much simpler realities. That's not directed personally at you, to be clear, but at the faction in the German government that seems dead set on complicating Berlin's support for Kyiv. I'm not someone who denigrates German efforts on Ukraine generally but in this case it very much looks like German intelligence that has gotten pretty much everything wrong for a long time is going all in on the bit.

If Ukrainians take Crimea, that is 100% certain to happen. The UKR are not going to be fooled twice and leave in place a fifth column ready to make trouble again. This, and some images of Russian PoWs getting a kick on the bottom or some other humiliating treatment. Look at WW 2 images of Germans surrenderring or having surrendered - that kind of behaviour is bound to happen, because soldiers on the good side are not angels themselves, just fighting for a vastly better cause and most of the time, not incentivised to commit outright war crimes.
So it is the duty of UKR PsyOps units to counterballance those images with the horrors of Bucha or indiscriminate attacks on cities, etc. They are good at this so I am confident the public opinion effect will be minimised. Unless the Western governements actively look for excuses to cut aid to the Ukraine, in which case their propaganda machine will be engaged to amplify the sad lot of the Russians being ethnically cleansed. But that would be a result of a shift in policy, not a reason for it.

What facts?  All we have seen so far is opinion.  Sure we have Ukrainian posters who assess “zero chance of insurgency” but I think it is fair to say they are not really in an objective position right now…and no one is going to blame them for that.
The only “facts” I can see are here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea
This says based on 2014 census that 67.8 of the Crimean population identified as Russian.  I seriously doubt that number went down in the last 10 years given the situation.  Everything else being posed is pure speculation and opinion.  The Russians will all leave.  The West will invest billions into what could be a front line region in a hybrid war…hell we will be lucky if we can get countries to invest in western Ukraine if Russia is still being the a$$hats they are likely going to be.  The logic of “well all the trouble makers will leave and only the ‘good’ Ukrainians or neutrals will stay while we drop billions into reconstruction is pretty tenuous at best.  
This is not over hyping in the least.  Overhyping is Tom Clancying the scenario where Russia start to support insurgency with WMDs.  As a baseline going in we are talking about “liberating” a region that has been living under Russian governance for a decade.  A region where we have seen some actions but no real insurgency or insurrection against Russian occupation for that same decade, even as this war unfolds.    
As to previously already re-liberated regions simply rolling over.  Well first of all we really do not know what they did [aside: Slovyansk has a population of about 100k, Crimea is over 2.2 million].  We do know LNR and DPR sent tens of thousands to fight the UA and I do not think they all did so at gunpoint.  And second, how quickly we forget the problems with Russian sympathizers and actions at the beginning of this war (eg Kherson).  And of course we have not discussed Russians simply sending “insurgents” over the border to make lives miserable…like they did the last time. 
This is a highly complex situation rooted deeply in the human space and that is never simple or easy by any stretch.  We are best prepared understanding the risks up front and ready to deal with them than pretending they can’t possibly happen.

I agree with Haiduk and Steve that there won't be any pro-russian insurgency in Crimea in case of UKR troops going in hot. But, yes, it is going to be hard to govern, for sure. Something good to look forward to anyway. 
It is quite hard to predict how the events will unfold exactly from now on. That raid was definitely fun though, even if only symbolical.

Actually it's interesting the number that were smiling or laughing about the hack ... not exactly the signs one would expect of a population which 90% supports the putinists!

They sure do, and they rewrite them every few years.

Speaking of lacking confidence…
In other events elsewhere we have violation of 🚭 in Crimea…
…and across the strait in Krasnodar kraj, Russian Federation. One of the most important, if not the most important Russian port in the Black Sea.
Edit: Bonus entry from Ben Hodges.
Sovjet being Sovjet, it maybe reflects all of the above and all at once?

Engineers: *also* bad at graphic design

not every day but many times in CM   🤣

What are you on about, just little malfunctions of ballast pumps and immediately claims of successful Ukrainian attack! Pff, the drone footage is from video game for children. In worse case just unfortunate manufacturing problems, covered by warranties or insurance. The shipyard that built such marvelous ship stands ready with duct tape or glue, and it be as good as new in no time. Towing it because of fuel shortage, too much weaponry on-board. That’s all!
Or for all you know, just secret functionality of declining cannons to 30 degree angle. Special anti-submarine features being recorded for first time. Which western ship has such features? Ha, tell me which one! Landing ships are built in this way in Russia, makes disembarking and unloading much faster than any western vessel.
No way this is really happening, just keep calm wait for reliable Russian footage of perfectly intact ship.

Of course!
That is why we can't give Ukraine Javelins, because Russia said it will nuke us. But wait, they didn't.
Oh but that is why we can't give Ukraine HIMARS, because Russia said it will nuke us. But wait, they didn't.
Anyway, this is definitely why we can't give Ukraine tanks and IFVs, because Russia said it will nuke us if we do. But wait, they didn't.
But it definitely is why we can't give Ukraine proper air defense systems, because Russia said it will nuke us. But wait, they didn't.
This time though, this is why we can't give Ukraine Western tanks and IFVs, because Russia said it will nuke us. But wait, they didn't.
It is however most definitely why we can't give Ukraine long range missiles, because Russia said it will nuke us if we do. But wait, they didn't.
And of course we can't give Ukraine the cluster ammo, because Russia said it will nuke us if we do. But wait, they didn't.
But this time. This time for sure! This time we can't help in any other way, whether it's the grain deal (also known as "Russia manufacturing famine in the third world", something Russia does for fun every once in a while) of jet fighters or more missiles, because Russia said it will nuke us if we do!
...
I took a tram in the city the other day, and saw a teenage girl with Ukraine pin on her backpack. She was wearing a glove over the stump where her right hand should be, and had some black cloth covering part of her thigh where something took out bunch of flesh. World doesn't need more of these.
But keep coming up with reasons why Russians should be left alone murdering and crippling more and more Ukrainians. Keep calling looking for solutions "bloodlust". I'm sure it's easy and fun thing to do. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the eyes, if I did, but you do you.

This thread just helped me out with the same issue : ) 

So hopefully both Girkin and Navalny will have another live debate quite soon. Now about who sleeps near the toilet.

Please take The Bomb discussion to latest Oppenheimer review comments section (or Barbie Movie if you prefer).

Some words about survivability of modern western armor. 
Other words of soldier of 47th mech.brigade: "If we didn't have it [western armor], our brigade would no longer exist"
47th brigade has most unpleasant and hard work - to gnaw through most dense defense lines, attracting the enemy on itself. Yes, they lost destroyed and damaged already many vehicles, but this brigade moves steady tree-liine for tree-line through totally mined fields and enemy artillery fire. Any other brigade on Soviet BMPs or even on M113 already would be lost own offensive capabilities. 
 

As of this morning (apparently) Twitter links will no longer open for those of us that will not be signing up for it, so please add a synopsis if the only information linked is their truncated format.