kraze
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Posts posted by kraze
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4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
This is getting dumber by the post.
Then why not have a "Ukrainian" drone smash into the very same theater? Why not have a bunch of Russian FSB agents running around screaming "Slava Ukraini!" as they shot innocent people? Why immediately blame Caucasians for the attack, and then try to establish a connection to Kyiv that has absolutely no precedence for existing?
My god... I feel like the intelligence level in this thread just dropped off a cliff.
Steve
because a drone with minimal victims or "bravely catching would-be terrorists before they can do the thing" doesn't mobilize Russia.
Nobody in Russia cares if a few people die, that's like an everyday thing.
Firing a bunch of Shmel rounds into a school building, burning a hundred children alive, does.
Are we really arguing if killing a whole bunch of people as some kind of a bloody propaganda ritual makes sense in Russia? Seriously? -
5 hours ago, Holien said:
That Russia is suffering a shortage of fast response armed units as they have been busy elsewhere.
Nah. Not the throne city. A capital of the empire is very well protected, especially after the "one day coup" last year.
Again this is not the first time. Putin blew up houses in Ryazan when he got first elected to justify invasion of Ichkeriya, FSB gassing everybody during Nord Ost with a hundred dead was there to excuse mass civilian murder in Ichkeriya, then he blew up a school in Beslan to justify the permanent "counter terrorist operation" there and in Dagestan that lasts for 20 years now. In 2011 Putin blew up Domodedovo airport to justify invading Syria and so on so forth.
It's like such a classic move at this point - I don't even. -
1 hour ago, billbindc said:
It is both an extraordinarily bad idea to assume that the regime's incompetence is always planned or that anyone in Russia is going to buy their bull****. Siloviks aren't magic.
There's nothing incompetent about it. That putin was going to order this wasn't a secret, in fact that's literally what western security services told everyone. Not to mention at this point it's a tradition in russia - whenever the need to sell any war (harder) in Russia arises - buildings, schools and subway stations immediately start getting blown up, often right after the Tsar gets re-elected.
Not to mention that "siloviks" who aren't "magic" couldn't catchthemselvesthe terrorists at the scene of the crime, but caught them with ease just a few hours later at the Ukrainian border. Because, of course, where else? Doesn't look like "incompetence" to me. -
9 hours ago, The_Capt said:
What is odd is why ISIL is picking a fight with Russia now? Russia did side with the Assad regime and is no friend to ISIL or Islamist extremism; however, why wage a high profile attack now? Are they thinking Russia is overextended?
ISIL has nothing to do with this. It was done by FSB, which already officially blamed Ukraine for the attack because we, of course, hired ISIL to bomb putin's fans and ISIL terrorists tried to escape to Ukraine where they were promptly caught.
The sole fact that no cops or military personnel were present at Crocus for about an hour should tell you everything you need to know.
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11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Exactly. What I think our Ukrainian friends are pointing out is that Putin genuinely has a large base of support that approve of him being President. That is absolutely the case, therefore if there had been an election and he didn't kill off his opposition he might still have been elected President.
However, to say this was an election is absolutely wrong on every single factual basis imaginable. As has already been stated, this was a predetermined propaganda exercise. The appearance of it being an election are deliberate, just as plastic fruit in a bowel is designed to look like real fruit.
Steve
It was a propaganda exercise only to show the world how fanatically russians really support him and the war. Like "look at how many really are supporting me and what we are doing in Ukraine, how can you even doubt my might, I have a hundred million of ein volk behind me".
As for opposition - I'd rarther call it 'competition'. Even Navalny was an avid supporter of war (or, rather, wars), he just thought he should've been the one leading it. It's literally the same opposition of Khruschev to Stalin or Brezhnev to Khruschev.
They all wanted to threaten you with nukes and occupy Europe. They just disagreed on the actual implementation. So it really doesn't matter who is currently in the opposition, they all share the same idea - unless someone starts wanting the throne - then they start falling down from the sky or out of windows until one remains and he gets to be a Tzar. -
13 hours ago, Haiduk said:
Completely agree. Of course, there were ballot papers throwings, but I doubt it were on 30 % level, as claimed some analysts. I've seen screenshots of Russian social media, where members of polling stations committees with visible scare tell each other that on their stations weren't any throwings, but Putin has won with overhelming margin. We all could see queues of Russian citizen in European countries, which demonstratively said they come to vote for Putin, in Germany they openly demontsrated DNR flags, and "St.Georgian stripes" - "out of spite to the whole world"
Yes, on some foreign polling stations Davankov has won - "liberal" and "anti-war" candidate of "New peoples" party, for which called to vote many of Navalnyi followers
But here is Davankov today have a meeting with Putin - his words is just "loyal oaths"
"I congratulate you with a confident victory! I want to say that these actions of Kievan regime has no excusses. I was in 29 regions during my election campaign and I can say in all regions people work for our victory. You absolutely said right that our common goal to win in SMO. It's very important do not remain this confrontation for our next generations. It have to be solved by our. And many people came to me on my meetings and say "Only Vladimir Putin capable to win in this conflict, I will vote for him"
Other Russian influent "liberal" from "libertarian wing" of Navalnyi team - Mikhail Svetov, who now migrated to Argentina said that vicotry of Russia will be profitable for Russian "relocants" (swaggering Russians hate the "political refugees" word concerning themeselve), because this will rise authotity of Russia and will force West to cancel sanctions, which in many things affect Russians abroad.
One more influent "liberal" blames Ukrainians that Putin again came to power (!!!)
Nobody did so much for promoting of current president of Russia, as Ukrainians. Those Russians who tired of 25 years of dictatorship in Russia - do not forget to give thanks brothery Ukrainain people for more 6 years under the thumb of regime
He meant Ukrainains with own "unjustified rusophobia" and mockery over impotent Russian opposition forced liberals to vote for Putin. They are all clynic idiots, sicking with chauvinism.
Any who now will say about "innocent peaceful Russians, who are just hostages of Putin's dictatorship" - go to hell and damn you! They just voteed for a war and loyality to Putin's policy. Only one type of real good Russians exists - those, who openly say that Russia is a rashist state, who stand for Ukraine victory, support UKR army, recognize collective responsibility and agree that Russia have to pay reparations, who consider Russian soldiers are not "our poor boys", but invaders, murderers and rapers, which went at war just for money, Rashist ideology or just for opportunity to kill, who sit in jails for own position, who at last fight with a weapon in free-Russia units or make diversions inside Russia.
So, I wish Russia to burn in flame, collapse and croack in agony. In order our planet at last get rid of this stinky sh...t spot on the map.
Exactly.
All those excuses about "fear" and "brainwashing" don't quite survive when faced with the reality of russians voting for putin en masse in Europe.
They all know full well what they are doing and why - and quite willingly so. -
3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
It's been a while since we've dug into the "court politics" inside of the Kremlin. With Putin's sham election complete, now is a good time to look at what might be going on behind the scenes. Here's a recent in-depth look at Russian politics (the real ones) from The Atlantic Council. I've only started reading it, but it looks quite interesting as it's looking at who might succeed Putin when he eventually retires (likely death in office, but who knows).
Steve
wouldn't call it a sham election though. Ironically this was probably one of the fairest ones since he was elected for the first time. Russians did show up in droves to support the war.
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3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
I have not heard or read the full transcript of Zelensky's speech. But from the bit posted at the bottom of the previous page, I don't see him saying that. What I see is a leader commenting that there's too much staff and too many do not have frontline experience. That is a Soviet legacy problem that's been mentioned more than a few times since the war started in 2014. If it's as true as it seems to be, then Zelensky stating it right out in the open is a good sign.
There's roughly 300k in the frontline, which conservatively is about 200k support personnel (could be pushing 225k). The total Armed Forces is about 1,000k. That means there's roughly a 9:1 ratio between non-combat and direct combat personnel. I don't know if that's a reasonable number, but to me it sounds like too much for a force that is mostly ground based, has no significant military commitments outside of its country, has a relatively short logistics tail, and is focused on a single (albeit long) front. Even if the ratio was changed to 8:1 it would effectively double the combat component.
As for rotating units, we know this is a problem. It's good to have this being mentioned as a priority to address. One of the criticisms of the summer offensive was that the 10+ newly raised brigades could have been used as rotation and reinforcements instead of being bled white in fruitless offensive actions. I disagreed with this as the offensive was building up and even with hindsight I don't think I can agree with that position.
Steve
Problem is that Zelensky aimed this at people who are absolutely clueless about the army or the war.
Because what he said is "too many do not have frontline experience" - but then he immediately promoted exactly those people? Sounds like a logical action.
Two years ago I've vaguely said that Zelensky is, to put it lightly, not a very good leader. Yesterday you saw a major reason why. Because you don't fire the main commander of an army with zero explanation why. Unless of course that explanation is a childish envy. I know that our Western friends here don't know what really is going on here, but this didn't come out of the blue, Zelensky had led a smearing campaign against Zaluzhny for a while with all state media taking major dumps on him almost daily. Seeing as how Zelensky already all but ruined the Western support - not saying it outright doesn't matter anymore.
A good thing for our survival was that Zaluzhny could say no to Zelensky and you now know why it mattered thanks to Shuster's book. Problem is - Syrsky doesn't say no. And it's the reason why he was chosen. And, unfortunately, we will have a lot of tragedies going forward because of this. -
21 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Most people are ignorant of history, even their own. It isn't a Western thing. History is also distorted to suit the politics and culture of the present. That also isn't a Western thing, as evidenced recently by book bannings and overtly politically established teaching standards in the US amply demonstrates.
So if you want to scream hypocrisy, that's fine. But just remember it applies to your country/culture as much as it does everybody else's.
As an American who does not fall into the category of thinking "history is boring", I can say that it is commonly understood that the West "said one thing and did another" when it came to punishing Nazis for their crimes. Whether it be using Nazi science and technology solidly connected to warcrimes and genocide, creating the myth of "good Nazi" to excuse working with war criminals, or understanding the role of the Catholic Church in providing escape routes for the worst of the worst of the Nazis... the information is out there for anybody who cares to look at it.
That said, you are wrong that West views the Red Army as "liberators". The entire Cold War was spent vilifying the Red Army specifically and the Soviet Union generally. Only the hard right and hard left whackos push back on that narrative, mostly by factually flawed "whataboutisms" and false equivocation of real events. The closer someone in the West lives to the old Soviet sphere, the stronger the roots of disinformation. However, what you are talking about is mostly a phenomena of the areas administered by the Soviet Union (internal and external), which makes sense since the last thing the Soviet Union would teach is "the Red Army was monstrous".
A correct and academic view of the war clearly shows that the Nazi regime raised and recruited a large number of non-German units primarily for maintaining order within its borders of the Reich through terror, murder, rape, plunder, and the whole list of horrible things Humans do to one another. Ukrainians were also recruited explicitly for roles in the Final Solution, in particular camp guards. Eventually those units were incorporated into the Waffen SS and the interplay between guards, "police", and soldiers was blurred even more. The same was true for the Germanic SS units, especially the Totenkopf Division.
So, bottom line, is that not all Ukrainians who were part of the Waffen SS committed the worst sort of war crimes, but the units themselves did. Therefore, they should not be celebrated as freedom fighters, but instead correctly labeled instruments of terror. Even the cooks and the clerks had their role to play in those crimes, just as the cooks and clerks in the Russian army today do.
Steve
So if that was true - how come a supposed raping/terrorizing SS soldier was never accused in Nuremberg and instead got a Canadian citizenship?
Shouldn't that be a big no no in 1954 when there was a ton of witnesses alive and Canada itself fought in WW2? And he wasn't the only one who got the citizenship by far. I mean if he is a war criminal then he should've stood trial. There were 78 years to do it, no? He wasn't hiding.
But now he is a war criminal out of the blue without the trial or proof because exactly ignorance.
If SS Galicia committed such horrible crimes against locals - we would be seeing evidence of that every step of the way as Ukrainians are rather touchy regarding traitors of their own during those times. We would be seeing court cases all over every territory and from relatives they tortured and raped. No? Certainly not getting citizenships in Canada.
Or maybe they were indeed used to fight russians.
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Regarding Hunka.
There's a reason Nuremberg trials never accused that specific division of any single warcrime. And russians, who were a part of it, tried. Oh they did. Don't you doubt it for a second. And then suddenly a Canadian citizen of 69 years gets to be a war criminal because current year.
Because to a westerner the whole "SS" thing when mentioned means 100% Hitler worshipping fanatics, yet Red Army is viewed as liberators despite ending up raping through half of Europe. Naturally russians exploit this lack of knowledge to no end. -
26 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
@Haiduk @Kraft @Locke 'n' Load @L0ckAndL0ad and others
Pekka is a firm supporter and I appreciate his constant exposure of RUS stools and narrative through his "vatnick soup" series. Is this thread accurate?
it is accurate
and it is what ultimately saved Odesa from occupation. Because we didn't yet know how truly brutal collaborators and traitors will be.
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Well I mean if Britain just let Germany simply occupy its share of Poland without any action - there would be no war, am I right?
that's literally not a joke but a russian logic. If you defend yourself - more bullets get to fly. -
25 minutes ago, Astrophel said:
Russians need to learn what is being done in their name, and that there is NO reason to fear Nato or USA. Russian soldiers need to embrace the surrender option. People in the occupied territories need to get more sensible advice than currently emanates from Kyiv.
Russians know what is being done in their name. In fact that's why they hired putin to do it in the first place.
Russian soldiers don't want to surrender because surrender means inability to kill, loot, rape and torture human beings. Why would they want to deny themselves things they want and reasons they are here?
Sensible advice that emanates from Kyiv to people on occupied territories is to survive at any cost short of treason. There's nothing else they can do.
For someone who follows the war closely for 18 months you seem to not follow it close enough.
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2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Ukraine claims to have destroyed 4500 Russian tanks, but Oryx has "only" confirmed a bit more than 2000.
Oryx uses visual data to confirm stuff. Photos/videos only. Somebody has to spend time taking them across the 2000 km frontline while getting shelled. And that's exactly what their disclaimer says right there.
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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:
I think I read somewhere that the reason the Kadyrov troops are kept behind the lines is not for prestige reasons but that they are basically blocking troops - since they are not ethnic Russians, they are used to terrorise the actual Russian troops and keep them in line.
And since they are spared actual combat, their losses are low and their morale and allegiance are kept high. Any truth to that?
They block anyone who is wearing an army uniform and running away. Kadyrov troops are as ethnic russians as any other russian. What is even an "ethnic russian"? If a soldier from Tyva is an ethnic russian why a guy from Chechnya isn't?
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
That statement alone sends shiver up the spine. And I know you damn well mean it, you have every right to…but, shivers.
the other alternative is them killing you. Not sure if that one's better than preventing them doing this via prison.
after all the reminder here is that this isn't some border dispute. This is russians and their collaborators wanting to completely eliminate Ukrainians. We can not exist in a russian world. They don't see us being alive as an option.
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10 hours ago, Twisk said:
Are we sure that Putin ordered the killing?
Prig betrayed his master. Keeping traitors alive sends a signal to other would be traitors that they can get away with it. There can be no one else to benefit so much from it.
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if only russian AD shot more of these "drones" daily
but if they killed prig... well... too bad it wasn't us. -
On 8/21/2023 at 4:55 AM, Artkin said:
But who volunteered to drive the truck?
don't need to volunteer when the delivery job order pays well
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On 8/13/2023 at 2:23 PM, Haiduk said:
This is just "the art of headline". Decision was made by National Security Council. Zelenskiy as a Supreme Comamnder has a right now due to this decision to make a directive for Ground Forces chief Syrskiy (who by the law is responsible for work of enlistment offices) and he by own order can fire these chiefs. But I mostly agree about populism. These people has high officer ranks - majors, lt.colonels, colonels. Nobody has a right to reduce them to privates and send in trenches. If they "clean" after investigation, they can be directed in some warm place in HQ, where they will fu...k field comamnders for keeping of Soviet-time journals piles. If such "valuable cadres", which forever stuck in USSR times will led a battalion this can led to the same tragedy as assault of 7th company of 116th mech.brigade on 27th of July near Robotyne. All company to this time considers itself as MIA.
yep, but one of those (Yegor Smirnov) was ordered to be sent to the frontlines in another populist move and since he most definitely holds a rank of major I wonder how's that gonna go. No way he gets to order around a battalion or even a brigade as his rank demands. No way.
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8 minutes ago, poesel said:
Zelenskyy fired all the heads of the regional recruitment centers. @Haiduk - could you maybe comment on this?
Can give you my take. Internal populist move designed to outshine a bunch of recent scandals.
It's illegal to fire someone without a cause, especially when these firings are ordered to be made by a person with no jurisdiction (Zaluzhnyy) because we have special committees that can do that legally - and amplified by corrupt courts those heads are getting restored to their workplaces in a month tops.
Move along. -
1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
I love those Darth Putin posts!
That is quite the impressive mushroom cloud. From an optics factory? I wonder what sort of chemicals might an optics factory have that would produce such an explosive effect? That is one heck-of-an explosion, complete with materials being lifted several hundred meters (look to the right side).
Is this a smoking accident or did Ukraine visit Moscow with some drones?
Steve
there are several videos near that factory that show 120mm shells casually lying around, apparently getting thrown away by the explosion
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11 minutes ago, Hapless said:
Meanwhile, in Russia:
That is a chunky, visible, photogenic mushroom cloud.
Nolan taking notes on practical effects for the next movie in the quantum mechanics cinematic universe.
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4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:Quote
The jails aren’t filling up with them — they’re brimming with pro-democracy opposition leaders and anti-war activists instead.
A war criminal responsible for killing everyone in MH17 Girkin and his supporter/nazi Navalny I presume. Which one is pro-democracy and which one is antiwar I wonder.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
This morning russian propagandist singer Shaman posted a video with a fully mixed and mastered song about this terrorist act. The guy and his team must be really really talented to fully write, arrange and produce a song and a video in just 1.5 days.
But hey - I'm just a mad conspiracy theorist.