Zveroboy1

There are different camera angles in the footage I provided and all. This would be way too much work to edit. And there is another video of the same meeting and exact same moment with a higher resolution where it looks perfectly normal. This is most definitely video compression artefacts. And why would you not simply green screen him with the microphone already present on the footage before editing it? Makes zero sense sorry.
Also have you ever considered the fact that the super long table he used during the talks with Macron could have been some sort of psychological trick? It is a common trick to destabilize your interlocutor. Having him sit on a slightly smaller chair etc. He did just that with Merkel who is known to dislike dogs by having one in order to make her uncomfortable.

I don't think Putin is ready to quit just yet personally. The land bridge to Donbas could be a way to save face and cut his losses but Mariupol is bound to fall sooner or later and then that would probably free up a lot of troops and the Russians could resume their advance towards the north. I don't see them achieving anything in the Kyiv meat grinder anytime soon unless the forces coming for the north east can reach the Kyiv suburbs.
There is one thing that makes a bit cautious though and that's why I try to remain measured : this war is covered in such a way that it is akin to a boxing match where you only get to see one half of the ring and one single boxer. You see one boxer taking a lot of punches but even though he is clearly fumbling a lot you are not really seeing how many of his own punches are landing.
Clearly the Russians are getting mauled but it is bound to take its toll on the Ukrainian side too in the long run and who knows how far Putin is ready to go.
 

Just like 80 years ago

Is there any chance you might limit your hammering to just on twitter? Sorry nothing personal but your name is one of a few whose posts I mostly skip reading because you don't contribute meaningfully in the name of relevant sources, analysis or expertise. 
Not trying to create "shots fired" exchanges with you or anyone but I wonder how many other forum goers I speak for in this regard. I understand emotions are high and people have things to say, but it would be great if this thread was reserved for high-quality analysis and posting of verified (or at least verifiable) information as it relates to military affairs. And no, two-sentence posts that are merely jumping on the Russia-bashing bandwagon don't count as high quality posts.
edit: been active and lurker on the forums intermittently since 2001, not just a new guy complaining...

what the hell is cancel culture even?  people have made choices about products they do or don't want to buy for various reasons for generations.  Now it's a pejorative term as if there is something wrong with deciding cause A means something to me and I don't want to buy products that undermine it.  Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back started the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  That was "cancel culture".

It is very hard to argue with this, under the circumstances. The *Russian people* are ultimately responsible for stopping this unconscionable aggressive war that their leaders have unleashed. If they do not, it is they who will bear the terrible consequences of failure.
[Sigh, I've bit my tongue on this one for a while now. Feel free to kick me out for a bit, @BFCElvis]
....That being said, I feel I must say that, like many others here, I am tired of you using your country's righteous anger as a cloak for beating the drums of anti-Russian bigotry on this board, which you have doing now, for page upon page:
- that Russians as a people are an ignorant easily gulled mob of Mongolized barbarians or bandits, deeply alien, with no indigenous culture
- that they 'live and breathe war', and that their neighbours have received nothing from them for centuries but invasion and rapine.
- Ergo, nothing but violence and treachery can be expected of such people, now and forever.
These are ancient slanders, and within living memory they carry the vile stench of Hilfswillige and gas vans.
(as noted, I have dear personal relationships who are all too familiar with where this kind of thinking leads)
...To take it further, I am a honestly a little suspicious you are presetting the table for the vengeful 'cleansing' of millions of ethnic Russians out of Ukraine once this invasion collapses and is repelled, as it will be.
I have never credited the 'neo Nazi / Banderist / Azov SS' agitprop pushed by Putin et al., nor its '2 headed coin' dog whistle, but it is surely true no side has a monopoly on bigotry, and I regret you are showing it here now.
Your anger towards Russians now is quite understandable, and I hope you are doing your bit for the defence -- but know that such binary Us/Them thinking ultimately undermines and retards the Ukrainian nation, condemning it to remain an 'Okrajina', disputed borderlands. Bloodlands.
Feel free to refute any of the above!
...Finally, in this time of crisis, I suppose the ultimate proof (or refutation) must be: how many ethnic Russian boys and Russian speakers are out there right now, fighting and dying for the blue and gold?
Slava Ukraine!  But keep your wits, remain civilised, and don't lose the peace!

Wasn't sure to post this, but do it anyway. 
I understand you are now angry, it is logic. I don't know how I would have felt.
However, in my experience with Russian people they are ordinary people like the rest of the world. Every three has rotten apples. Unfortunately these have concentrated at top of the leadership pyramid in Russia.
 
As we have seen in the past, for example Germany before and during WW2, at times the conditions for a people are such that they can 'let' these things happen. That doesn't mean that all / most Russians by heart are the same as the policy of their country.
May peace be with you and Ukraine.

I am afraid this is the only part that really made sense for me in the whole thing : the Ukrainians having had to shift forces elsewhere before the invasion to react to the positioning of Russian forces in Belarus and thus weakening somewhat the Donbas front.
As far as encirclements are concerned, the only two places that look really threatened right now are the north east area from Shostka to Chernihiv and the south east area between Lysychansk and Kupiansk. And in both cases it looks like there is still a long way to go before they are complete.
And seeing how sluggish the whole Russian advance has been so far, it sounds likely that the defending UA troops could just pull back in time before they're trapped and thus avoid being encircled. Now the only real danger is perhaps becoming more vulnerable as a result if they're forced to leave their dug in positions they have had years to consolidate to move in the open.
And this is something I have been wondering too. To what extent does the UA have some freedom of maneuver outside of built up areas to reposition and counter attack ?

In several of the Ghettos the Nazis let Jewish councils form. Then when it came to deportations, they made the councils write up the lists for who would go on each train load. If the councilmen didn't comply, the Nazis would put them on the list and then get a new group to do what they wanted. Or worse just grab people off the streets. Some councils, supposedly in an attempt to preserve their communities, began to collaborate and pick people they thought the community could do without. Many deluded themselves into saying that the deportations were just to another ghetto. Both of which is deluded thinking, but also what can you do? Whats the alternative, really? These things are really hard to sort out and its absolutely the case that some perpetrators of crimes can themselves be victims. When your country is invaded and your country is subjugated you do what you have to to survive and, if you can, save your family and your community. In the USSR, the line between bandits and partisans was often gossamer thin. But again what can you do when its your ass on the line? 
The 'c'est la guerre' attitude feels good in the moment, and it feels good to just shoot looters. But could you judge someone whose robbing a shop because the owner left and theyre hungry, or they have people to feed? Often this kind of 'cowboy' justice doesn't do a good job differentiating. But what can you do when the court house is bombed daily? Its too complicated for us to sit in our comfy chairs and decide. 

Interestng, that claimed this is result of dogfight between two Russians and one Ukrainian helicopter., but probably this is propaganda.
Our media speaks alot of the MiG-29 pilot "Ghost of the Kyiv", and even posted his photo in cocjpit - as if shot down already 20 Russian air targets and one time was shot down himself, but I think this is some sort of "Enemy at the gate" film story, though such ace can really exist, but with mucj lesser number of victories.

Some pro Russian sources are reporting Russian forces have reached Brovary only 10 kms or so from the eastern side of Kyiv and attacked a checkpoint there. 50.490147, 30.736567

And there is this map showing the Russians deployment, bypassing cities that has been retweeted by OSINTtechnical.

Could they have really reached the eastern outskirts of Kyiv?
Edit : last confirmed position appears to be around Pryluky which is 100 km away so most likely just guesswork, or just some forward elements.

Not every statement that some Ukranians do not agree is Russian propaganda. There is WESTERN academic system studying on the history for long time, which is neither pro Russia nor pro Ukraine. If you want me to explain the history of Russia and Ukraine, their culture connection, and why Ukraine uses the trident symbol on their coat of arms, it will be very long. There are quite a lot publications on this topic,  so don't worry about their views' independency. I can't imagine that they are all controlled by the Russians.
BTW, in fact, Czech and Germany has culture connection.

They have, but just imagine floating that idea in a brewery in Prague circa 1943. You may have ended in the river...
You raise a good topic of discussion, that this is not just a test of wills, ideologies, means, etc. but also a battle of myths. The Ukranian myth will go on since many Ukrainians have chosen to fight rather than roll over. One of the causes of this war is the Russian myth of cultural, military and political hegemony over all the lands east of the Vistula. This mythical dimension is strong for both sides in this war.

Russians landed airmobile unit from four helicopters in the outskirt of Mykolaiv
Reportedly four Russian Il-76 landed on Hostomel airfield.
UKR 93rd brigade seized most of the E101 road Bachivsk - Kipti and entered to Ukrainian border in Bachivsk area (Sumy oblast)
Russians entered to Konotop (Sumy oblast) and put ultimatum to the mayor to give up the town, else it will be grounded with artillery
Russian forward group entered to Peremoha village on Brovary direction
95th air-assault brigade is conducting some offensive actions in Horlivka direction, but there is many controversal information
Russian ship on the horizon in Odesa

Regarding the Russian army being perceived as a paper tiger.
It appears more obvious every day that the Russian army was overrated and people underestimated the extent of the cronyism, corruption and its low level of readiness (among other things).
And I don't want to downplay the difficulties the Russians are encountering here, some of them are looking quite serious even potentially crippling and the litmus test of the war is exposing weaknesses in the Russian army that were not necessarily obvious before. But I feel it is becoming maybe too much of a meme and an hyperbole at times.
This is of course fuelled by a justified indignation and understandable but reducing this war to a meme instead of looking at it in a dispassionate clear-headed way is a pitfall that might make it hard to assess the situation and the outcome properly.
I'd like to point out for the record that I think Putin made a big mistake here, that I don't see how he can win strategically and that I root for the Ukrainians. If we could get rid of another dictator and stop this resurgence of authoritarian regimes across the world, I for one would be delighted.
One thing is clear from this though : the Russians are losing the information warfare side of the conflict quite badly. And this is fairly surprising to me. Not so much the heart-warming global public outcry and backlash Putin is facing, but the quasi absence of a Russian response to steer the narrative. Or if there is one it is inaudible.
But what I find a lot less surprising personally is how chaotic and messy this war is and how many mistakes we see from the Russians.
I wonder if this prevalent attitude and perception are not caused by two factors:  aren't people using the American military as a yardstick and haven't they forgotten what a peer or near-peer conflict looks like?
We, as wargamers, should know that modern warfare is brutal, messy, lots of things go wrong etc. This isn't the war on terror. Having the battlefield littered with destroyed or abandoned military equipment perhaps shouldn't be so surprising.
Finally the Russians were never going to measure up to the level of proficiency of the US army. They were never going to conduct a clean, bloodless precision war. Maybe Putin deluded himself thinking it was possible. But this has never been the Russian way. Brute force rather than finesse is more in line with the traditional Russian approach. And I aware that the Soviets were able to carry out maskirovka and elaborate offensives in the past but what would be unacceptable losses for a western military is probably just "you don't make an omelette without breaking eggs" for the Russian mindset.
Cliff Notes :
The Russian army was overrated but this is a near-peer conflict.
 

I also would like to know exactly what happened at the Hostomel airport and wonder if someone has established a clear timeline of the events. Maybe Hayduk knows.
The Russian launched an air assault with Mi-8 helicopters, then the Ukrainians claimed they retook it with a counter attack, but the next day the Russians were saying they were still in control of it so it is hard to tell. And the air transport plane(s) that were shot down, was it a second wave to reinforce the first VDV troops there? And in the end were they relieved by ground troops?
Seeing as Bucha is just south of the airport, it is clear that there must have been some serious fighting there for sure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/us/politics/russia-ukraine-war-deaths.html

Here is the statement of the Russian embassy in Canada (Canada has a very large Ukrainian diaspora population):
 

Regarding the Russian army being perceived as a paper tiger.
It appears more obvious every day that the Russian army was overrated and people underestimated the extent of the cronyism, corruption and its low level of readiness (among other things).
And I don't want to downplay the difficulties the Russians are encountering here, some of them are looking quite serious even potentially crippling and the litmus test of the war is exposing weaknesses in the Russian army that were not necessarily obvious before. But I feel it is becoming maybe too much of a meme and an hyperbole at times.
This is of course fuelled by a justified indignation and understandable but reducing this war to a meme instead of looking at it in a dispassionate clear-headed way is a pitfall that might make it hard to assess the situation and the outcome properly.
I'd like to point out for the record that I think Putin made a big mistake here, that I don't see how he can win strategically and that I root for the Ukrainians. If we could get rid of another dictator and stop this resurgence of authoritarian regimes across the world, I for one would be delighted.
One thing is clear from this though : the Russians are losing the information warfare side of the conflict quite badly. And this is fairly surprising to me. Not so much the heart-warming global public outcry and backlash Putin is facing, but the quasi absence of a Russian response to steer the narrative. Or if there is one it is inaudible.
But what I find a lot less surprising personally is how chaotic and messy this war is and how many mistakes we see from the Russians.
I wonder if this prevalent attitude and perception are not caused by two factors:  aren't people using the American military as a yardstick and haven't they forgotten what a peer or near-peer conflict looks like?
We, as wargamers, should know that modern warfare is brutal, messy, lots of things go wrong etc. This isn't the war on terror. Having the battlefield littered with destroyed or abandoned military equipment perhaps shouldn't be so surprising.
Finally the Russians were never going to measure up to the level of proficiency of the US army. They were never going to conduct a clean, bloodless precision war. Maybe Putin deluded himself thinking it was possible. But this has never been the Russian way. Brute force rather than finesse is more in line with the traditional Russian approach. And I aware that the Soviets were able to carry out maskirovka and elaborate offensives in the past but what would be unacceptable losses for a western military is probably just "you don't make an omelette without breaking eggs" for the Russian mindset.
Cliff Notes :
The Russian army was overrated but this is a near-peer conflict.
 

DNR gangstas (my guess)

US seems to agree with you there. Ultimately thats probably the correct assessment, though timeline could be sooner or later (4 weeks, maybe 2, maybe 10) depending on battlefield breaks. But all Russia has to do is mobilize more of its military districts and it will double the attacking force. Russia is a bear. It wont kill you with tricky poisons, or a special attack, or some quick and surgical bite. If the first bite doenst get you, it will crush you under paw and squeeze the life out of you. 
I've said it up thread (a while upthread at this point) but it bears repeating. The short victory phase is over. Were in phase 2, the siege. Ukraine will lose this phase of the war if Russia is allowed to complete it. It will be long, it will be bloody on both sides, and it will be messy. Putin will not come out of this looking like the judo master. He has probably broken Russia's great power status. But none of that matters if your sheltering in Kyiv. The only hope is that NATO and the US can somehow fundamentally change the dynamic of this conflict to force a withdraw OR someone from inside the palace changes it for us. Phase 3, if it comes, will be the insurgency phase and will be a constant and unending nightmare for Russia. Probably an insurgency on the scale of the Second World War. The difference is I 100% believe the west will flood Ukraine with arms, maintaining a very high intensity and lethality of conflict. 
Personally I dont think that assassination should be the tool in the arsenal of a democracy. Democracies shouldn't target individuals. But if there was a time for the west to pull out a targeted operation, now would be one. Then again a solution like that would open up the very real risk of a civil war in a nuclear armed state. Also not a positive outcome. 
Regarding CMBS, if Russia pushes this to phase 3 I think the tune will be very different. The Russian army is going to come out looking a lot better if it wins, because failures can be blamed on the 'soft' side of the military. Personnel, doctrine, operational concept, soft factors like radio management, leadership. CM is fundamentally based on tactical sized units, fighting based on a rigid interpretation of TOEs, with a perfect understanding of doctrine and a high quality of execution. All thats to say, is the problem that the T-72B3 is a bad tank or it was used improperly? Is it that it was driven poorly or that it couldn't hold up at all? CMBS already reflects this lethality and TBH if you employed your battalions like the Russians seem to be, I bet you could reproduce a lot of these actions. Technical data will surely (hopefully) change some values though and give us a much better and more accurate simulation, but I suspect we wont see a huge revision in how Russian equipment is judged. After all its been the assumption since the 1940s that the basic Russian soldier was poorly trained, led, motivated, and fed.  

Without getting into the weeds on this, targeting civilian buildings in and of itself, is not a violation of the law of war, context matters.
deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime.
targeting civilian buildings occupied by enemy military units or accidentally hitting civilian buildings while targeting enemy units is not.
Amnesty International always takes an extreme view of this, they also accused U.S./UK/NATO of war crimes for doing similar acts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
 

Sorry, I no longer manage to keep up with this thread. It was probably discussed over and over. I just don't get all the glee here. Or well, I get it, I'm routing for the Ukrainian Army and I hope they can hold until all the promised help arrives. But while I see that it seems like the Russian offensive doesn't work as planned - though, who knows what the plan really was? - and logistics appear chaotic and all... I keep looking at the map and for me it looks like the Russians are making quite some progress towards the Dnepr. Maybe that was the goal all along? Or at least Plan B? Occupy Eastern Ukraine with the Dnepr as a border? Once the Russians are there they will be very hard to dislodge. Politically it would be possible to sell this as something like a buffer zone for Donetsk/Luhansk and Crimea. Attacks on Kiev and from Kherson west/north would serve the purpose of binding Ukrainian reinforcements. Just a thought and maybe someone with more than just wargame experience can correct me if I'm wrong.
I also keep thinking about what Putin himself said back in 2014 or 2015. "If I really wanted to invade Ukraine I'd be in Kiev in 2 weeks." (not 48 hours, mind you - btw. where did that number estimate come from, does anyone know?)

For the merging of mods; I did a little bit of work to combine all those mod for a semi-realistic infantry experiences. Where soldiers will have a lot of gear and uniform variations. 
As I'm only editing and merging mods; all the rights are belong to their original creators and please do not use this for any kinds of profit making. Thanks. 
I also put my personal CMBS mod collection in the download link.
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https://icedrive.net/s/aj33B94vPPYRgjZv89PuvTDtQ1wa
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Showcase:

We had a long seminar on the Ukraine crisis at my Uni today, if they post a video I'll upload it. (not sure, there were tech problems) Mostly it was everything a lot of you guys already know, and to a room of undergraduates. The crowd skewed older, 20-22, but much of the discussion varied from basic questions about historical context to ideologically driven questions about how to 'make the world a better place.' Most of the students had their hearts in the right place and brought some interesting questions. 
Some interesting points that came up: Our resident expert on political economy had a lot to say about sanctions and Russia's future. He suggested that in the short term the Russian economy was heavily insulated from economic shocks. Its war chest was large and sanctions, while bold in concept, were not as extensive as the west makes them out to be. My previous predictions of doom (I believe I compared the Russian economy to Chernobyl) may have been a bit..... enthusiastic. He suggested that between access to Chinese markets, German reluctance to pull the plug on gas, and the watering down of SWIFT sanctions, the situation today isn't as bad as first appears. On SWIFT specifically the prof said that banking sanctions are all or nothing, if even one bank is excluded it will become the breathing tube for the rest of the economy. So long as banks in Russia are willing to play ball, and the west doesn't plug the tube, a single bank can float much of the rest of the system. More troubling in the long run, he suggested that this sanctions regime has probably destroyed the Russian economy for a generation, and a bad generation it will be. He pointed out, correctly, that Russian manufacturing lags behind the rest of Europe. This is because the ruble is artificially overvalued thanks to oil. More people buy oil, more people want rubles, more people want rubles, ruble price goes up. But Russian industry isn't up to the value of the ruble and that blocks foreign investment. What little foreign investment there has just died. China was building a new Jetliner with Russian companies. That will almost certainly die thanks to western sanctions. So will most east-west trade deals with Russian businesses. Companies will still want to make one of deals with Russia (we'll buy x mil bbls of oil at y price) but nobody will make long term deals with a country that is so economically self destructive all the time. The situation that Russia is facing is the same as Venezuela in a way. Tons of economic potential but nobody is willing to make a deal or help them out because of poor policy. The only exception is in Oil (Russia has more mineral wealth of course, but its biggest and most valuable is oil). Several problems with Russian oil. First sanctions will crash the price of Russian oil. Bad but not catastrophic. Second and more catastrophic, Russian oil is extremely expensive per bbl to pump. It and Canadian oil sands (said the professor) are the most expensive to pump in the world. Much of this is down to geography. Russian oil is remote, its really far from its customers, and its in some pretty bad terrain above the Arctic circle. Saudi Oil, on the other hand, is the cheapest /bbl. Third Russia will never pump more oil than it does today, in a broad sense. That is, the world is moving away from petroleum energy just like it did with coal and wood and dung. The single greatest 'sanction' the EU could impose is a law banning gas heating in new construction. And theyd be glad to do it, because its green. Between green energy and green cars and green cities, the world is going to use less and less oil. Russia will be the first to suffer. 
Both the military historian and the Russian historian were pretty set that Ukraine would not last much longer without a fundamental revision in the conflict. The Russian historian was pretty convinced that Putin would not lose power to a popular movement in the short term, though he did note that the last two times regime change came to Russia it was after a failed war. He felt though that this conflict, while embarrassing, was not so bloody or onerous as World War One. More of a risk was the oligarch and military classes. They have less tolerance for failure and economic chaos. Putin, the thought, is more likely to drink polonium tea than he is to be gunned down in a dacha basement. Both also agreed that if the fundamental situation did not change, the Russian bear would eventually squeeze the life out of Ukraine. Though one student did ask a question that went mostly unanswered about parallels to Iraq. Hard to convey exactly what was said, I think that many of you would agree with most of the facts they laid out but some would definitely challenge the tone. Shame @The_Capt wasn't there to ask a more stark question about the possibility of an insurgency. 
RE social media the group also pointed out something everyone should remember, lot of bad videos out there, lot of partial information. Everything we see here in this thread, on Reddit, on Twitter is very biased. Even if the person who filmed it didn't think so, there are strong perspective biases that were getting here. We maybe see 1% of whats really going on. 1% of 1%. Just because I havn't seen T-90s doesn't mean they arnt out there (plsplspls post every T-90 or BMP-3 vid you see, and if you see a wrecked T-14, put that pic in a mail and send it to me!) Just because we see a pattern evolving doesn't mean our analysis is based on good info. I dont mean to poo-poo everything were doing here or what were posting, I just want to throw in a little cold water and put things into perspective. It was a point, to be honest, that hit me close to home. 
We also had a few Ukrainian students come and say a little bit. A former Yugoslavian professor also reminded the room that its all abstract theory and ideology when youre in a classroom in rural Ohio. Its a lot different when its your home, your family, your life on the line. That was a bit of cold water I think. I bring it up just so that we can all take a second to think about the real people, Russian and Ukrainian, who are dying over things were writing pet theories about. For us its info-tainment. For them its life and limb. Respect to those risking life and limb to bring us news and updates.  
If I think of anything else worth mentioning I will, if they post the video link (again, there were tech problems they may not) I will. Mostly though the questions were pretty basic, but from the sense of the student's questions more generally it seemed like most were genuinely curious about the context of the conflict rather than the type whose already decided ahead of time. We also have a good bunch here though. I also have a vague feeling that Zoomers, for better and worse, are very open to new ideas. I dont want this to devolve in to a generational schlacht so Ill stop, I think Elvis barely survived this mornings slap fights.