G.I. Joe

Updated picture of UKR long-range drones with new model A-22 Foxbat, striking targets in Tatarstan Repuplic in 1200 km

And here is allegedly new extra-long range drone E-300 Enterprise of our "AeroDrone" company. It capable to carry 300 kg of HE and has a range 3100 km. Though it's unknown how much HE it can deliver on such range. This drone was presented in first time aboput year ago and developer have been searching a factory to manufacturing presumably in Poland. Maybe all tests already completed and soon we can see it in action
 

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-officials-report-massive-drone-attack-on-military-airfield-in-rostov-oblast/
 
Big Ukrainian drone strike on Russian military airfield near Morozovsk, Rostov. This Russian claim 40 drones, there were telegrams claiming even more. Clips show much less engaged by air defences.
 

"Will" rather reminds me of those teenage girls in the UK who thought it would be a good idea to travel to Syria and present themselves as child brides to ISIS. Its impossible for a sane person to even guess what they were thinking at the time.

Oh for principled leaders like this today… certainly not a loser in my opinion 
 

If you wish to privately reach out to talk about the ways in which proto/semi/fully fascist parties often cherry pick across traditional political lines, I'm happy to indulge in the conversation but there have been enough forays off topic lately here.

Not sure I can really agree with that...now feels like a good time to make a callback to @sburke's comment about extremism and reason. If I were running a unit in a professional armed service of a democratic nation, I wouldn't want to try to integrate a bunch of personnel who might have serious issues serving alongside and taking orders from men and women who might be of a different ethnic origin, follow a different religion (or no religion), be LGBT, etc. Far too much potential for disruption of good order and discipline.
Canada had some very unfortunate experiences back in the Eighties and Nineties after our Airborne Regiment became a "dumping ground" for personnel (often with far right tendencies) who had caused disciplinary issues elsewhere...

Not sure I can really agree with that...now feels like a good time to make a callback to @sburke's comment about extremism and reason. If I were running a unit in a professional armed service of a democratic nation, I wouldn't want to try to integrate a bunch of personnel who might have serious issues serving alongside and taking orders from men and women who might be of a different ethnic origin, follow a different religion (or no religion), be LGBT, etc. Far too much potential for disruption of good order and discipline.
Canada had some very unfortunate experiences back in the Eighties and Nineties after our Airborne Regiment became a "dumping ground" for personnel (often with far right tendencies) who had caused disciplinary issues elsewhere...

Per Baneman.....
 
 
Russian staff school forgot to mention this was supposed to be a joke. I do think Black Adder's prescription for the morale problem is dead on though, in the Russian context.

These recent videos of Russian armoured assaults are insane ! 🤯
I mean, I ( and almost everyone on this forum ) would be absolutely messing myself with worry if I even tried that in CM in a WW2 context. Are the Russian generals on drugs ?
Maybe it's just because I tend to be very logical, but I cannot wrap my head around this kind of behaviour after 2 (two !) years of seeing this sort of thing get smashed.

When the unified right wing National Corps slate only manages to get something like 2.5% of the total vote in Ukraine while rightest parties dominate Russia then this discussion gets very silly. 

It probably would be technically feasible to catapult launch an A-22 at maximum takeoff weight without overstressing the airframe, but my guess is they didn't feel it was worth the extra effort to rig up such a system. The equipment that could be stripped out during the drone conversion (seats, harnesses, radios, instruments, control columns, rudder pedals, etc.) probably already weighed more than the undercarriage. Having a look at the POH (downloaded from here), a stock A-22LS already has room for 200 kg / 440 lbs of payload, the drone conversion would probably already get that to around 225 kg / 500 lbs without major airframe modifications.

"extremist" and "reasoning" are kind of mutually exclusive.

This is not the first time we have seen evidence that the Russians are depleting their Soviet legacy reserves to stay in this war.  The slow but steady downgrading of equipment and troop quality is consistent.  The impact on this war are yet unknown.  Are Ukraine and Russia in a “race to the bottom”?  Not if the West can get its act together and ramp up production of modern systems.  We can easily crush Russia in a modern force generation war, the real question is whether or not we are willing to do it.
The “so what?” for the next war is that Russia as a regional threat (side stepping the nuclear equation) has been demonstrably reduced.  The spectre of hordes of T62s and T55s is laughable in this day and age. Russian military production is constrained and they are not going to be able to rebuild a modern offensive force quickly.  In fact we are not even sure what a modern offensive force really looks like but I do feel safe to say it is not whatever Russia has left.  Next gen will demand higher levels of technology: unmanned air and ground, distributed space based capability, AI supported C4ISR, PGMs everywhere.  All that takes a lot of investment and pivoting for a Russian military industrial complex designed to make tanks and IFVs.
This projects Russia into a serious security dilemma after the war: completely re-tool after the war, or stick with former conventional metrics and try to rebuild what hey had on 21 Feb 22.  In both cases they are heavily burdened by western sanctions and pressures.  Neither is a great option or easily done in anything less than a decade.
Another metric that Russia has essentially “lost” this war - they have likely dramatically reduced strategic post-war options as a result of this as opposed to expanding them.

But isn’t a “domestic” enemy someone whose position is forbidden?  There weren’t a lot of protections granted communists in the US back during the Cold War.  For example, if one was a firm communist they were not going to be employed within the defence department.  Roll forward to modern era, devoted fundamentalist Muslims did not fare much better.  This “freedom” concept really appears to be selective when viewed through a historic lens.  Sure, a US citizen can be free to express whatever they wish, but to do so without consequences from both private and public sectors has clearly been demonstrated as false.  Once a society allows for negative consequences as a result of free speech or association, it is no longer “free”.  This inconsistency appears migratory and frankly unfairly applied historically.  Try being a black civil rights movement in the 1930s in the South.  Not a whole lot of freedom of speech and association in that period for that demographic. LGBTQ in the 50s?
So what, as it relates to this war and situation?  Within the US, and other modern democracies, I do not think this is a case of “autocratic control” but you are very correct in calling it out as a slippery slope.  I think it is a case of “when does speech and association become a threat to national security?”  When is it honest political discourse in an open and fair democracy, and when does it become too dangerous to tolerate?  Obviously sharing information on how to build and deploy a WMD should not be covered in “freedom of speech”.  Nor should sharing of classified information.  But when does political discourse cross that line?
The US currently has elected officials who are pretty actively supporting a foreign powers agenda.  To the point that they are blocking military aid to an ally in the middle of an existential war.  At what point does this stop being “open and free political discourse” and become “paid foreign lies by a domestic enemy?”
I honestly do not know.  I have watched my country wrestle with this.  I think our “hate speech” laws are in fact dangerous.  But clearly there is a point, even within free democracies where we cannot tolerate free expression.  For this war, where that line is drawn could very well impact its outcome and what the region looks like. 

100% agree, and we actually need to export more gas to keep Europe supplied. And the more we export the less the Russians can charge, regardless of who they arfe selling to. The ban was a bad idea to start with, or brilliant way to get a bit of negotiating leverage the administration will be just as happy to give back. 

I'm not sure sharing a culture war "own the libs" video is really helping make your point, unless your point is that this kind of sensationalist propaganda exists, which we already know because that's what this branch of the conversation is about.
What I hope to get from this thread, and other serious conversations on the internet, is something that sifts out examples that are cherry-picked to push an agenda, something that tries to go beyond the usual ideological points-scoring. To really understand what is going on in a way that will lead to better outcomes in the future, we need to be data-driven, we need to consider analysis from experts in the field, we need people to make cases based on evidence that can been broadly and independently corroborated.
To be clear, I have nothing against propaganda per se. It has its uses, in particular to influence people who are politically uninterested and/or ignorant. When discussing propaganda it is perfectly reasonable to say that "people can believe what they want" because the goal of propaganda is not to educate but to influence. In a country with freedom of expression and freedom of religion, we should accept that there is always some portion of the population that is going to hold convictions based purely on vibes and woo. When bad guys try to leverage the democratic power of those people, bad stuff happens, and that's the price we pay for living in a democracy. I can assure you, it does not work the same way under an authoritarian government.
But in a scholarly environment, or a professional environment, or a (mostly) serious discussion like this thread... That's where I think letting this kind of propaganda in the door is counter-productive. It might give us an insight into how people think, and how those with power are trying to influence people to think, but at the end of the day that's only one small component of the issue, and due to its sensationalist nature, it can distract from more important signals. It's more helpful and more interesting (to me) to think about the effect of this propaganda than to simply parrot it.
For example, here is a recent article discussing how LLMs can aid in disinformation campaigns: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827024000215
Or - and apologies for the sidetrack into my own personal area of expertise - here is part of an ongoing investigation into a multi-year probably state-sponsored operation to try subvert a key piece of infrastructure used in computers and other devices all over the world: https://research.swtch.com/xz-timeline
That is what these guys are up to. I want to talk about how we can defeat that stuff, to protect the democracy and freedoms we hold dear.
Let's go back to Ukraine. Perun responds with facts to pro-Russia critics on his previous video who falsely claimed that of course the Russian export industry is suffering because that's just how it goes in war. Spoiler: that is not how it goes.
 

This actually is a good sign. The White House has something the GOP wants and Johnson seems willing to trade for it. As the US is already cranking out record amounts of fossil fuels, it's also unlikely to change much in the real world. 

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/white-house-open-ending-lng-export-pause-push-ukraine-aid-sources-say-2024-04-02/
Let the horse trading commence!
Forget the talking heads, my old friend @Vet 0369, 'follow the money' crosses all partisan lines, everywhere and at all times!

What do you mean “Even worse …about it?” The day that someone, anyone, “can do something about it” is the day this country ceases to exist as a Republic guided by our Constitution! It is extremely pitiful when someone complains that an opposite point of view, no matter how distasteful it is to another should be forbidden. The oath I swore for over 60 years both in the military and in Federal Government service “To protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign AND DOMESTIC….” Is deeply ingrained in me. The First Amendment protections of free speech and freedom of association doesn’t apply to just you alone, and I will fight to the death to preserve YOUR right to speech and association even when I think you’re a left-wing nut case! Will you guarantee the same to me and others? It sure doesn’t look it from your statement.
 
 

If valid - this my friends it what drone superiority looks like.

Remains of "Aeropract" A-22 small aircraft, turned into drone was recovered on the impact place in Yelabuga
Maybe it would be better to dismount chassis and launch the plane with catapult - instead of chassis weight to put more HE
 

This is the key point to take away from the rather tedious past couple days on this thread.
The challenging part is that propagandists can come up with reams and reams of verbose, officious-sounding nonsense much faster than anyone can challenge it. This was already the case before large language models made it trivial to create pages of vaguely reasonable-sounding claptrap at the push of a button. Now it is worse. And when those propagandists are also working for authoritarian states that exercise near-totalitarian controls over the media landscape within their borders, they are also able to capture plenty of real-life stories that support the views they want to shape, while suppressing the spread of content that does not.
Out here in the actually-free world, the propaganda coming from these authoritarian government mouthpieces seems laughably ineffective. How could anyone believe something that is such unabashed, unadulterated, full-blown propaganda? They're not even pretending it's otherwise! And yet, people believe it. "Free thinkers" with chips on their shoulders about their own government get bamboozled into believing that they are the ones living in an authoritarian state, actually. And then the "news" coming out of other authoritarian states can surely be no more fake than their own news, and, by the way, what is news other than propaganda, at the core? There are no facts, only interpretations, you see. This is why I don't mind you doubting. What is truth, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?
It is depressing how many people fall into this hole.
This is not only why it is important to counter the Kremlin's lies, but also to consistently push back against the same kind of democracy-eroding rhetoric coming from media and political figures in parts of the world where there still is freedom of expression and freedom of association and so on. The people pushing it tend to either be useful idiots, or privileged enough (through age, wealth or power) to be insulated from the consequences. In both cases, not the best folks to be looking toward to inform your view of the world.

Free e-book: War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World (Project MUSE - War in Ukraine (jhu.edu))
Found this e-book which is a collection of essays on the invasion (it's from John Hopkins University, released under a Creative Commons licence). The contents and authors are:
The Ukraine War and Global Order => Hal Brands

1 Ukraine, Russia, China, and the World => Stephen Kotkin
2 Why Putin Invaded Ukraine => Michael McFaul and Robert Person
3 Strategic Fanaticism: Vladimir Putin and Ukraine => Lawrence Freedman
4 The Failure to Deter: US Policy toward Ukraine and Russia from the End of the Cold War until February 24, 2022 =>
Michael Kimmage
5 How the War Will End => Anne Applebaum
Part ii: The Conflict
6 The Russia-Ukraine War: Military Operations and Battlefield Dynamics => Michael Kofman
7 Russian Military Resilience and Adaptation: Implications for the War in Ukraine and Beyond => Dara Massicot
8 Planning for the Worst: The Russia-Ukraine “Tiger Team” => Alexander Bick
9 US Strategy in Ukraine => Kori Schake
10 Nuclear Lessons and Dilemmas from the War in Ukraine => Francis J. Gavin
11 Fallacies of Strategic Thinking in the Ukraine War  => Thomas G. Mahnken and Joshua Baker
Part iii: Global Dimensions and Implications
12 The Ukraine War and Global Cleavages => Ashley J. Tellis
13 Putin’s Point of No Return  => Andrea Kendall-Taylor
14 Accelerating Profound Changes Unseen in a Century: Chinese Assessments of and Responses to Russia’s Invasion 
of Ukraine  => Bonny Lin and Brian Hart
15 The European Union as a War Project: Five Pathways toward a Geopolitical Europe => Mark Leonard
16 Lose-Lose: The Economic Sanctions of the Russo-Ukrainian War => Daniel W. Drezner
17 America’s Global Role in the Shadow of the Ukraine Conflict => Peter D. Feaver and William Inbode
It's 300-odd pages long in total, but each chapter is it's own essay which should make it a little less daunting. Some distinguished names have contributed; Laurance Freedman, Anne Applebaum, Dara Massicot, Kofman.
I've only read the first few chapters but so far, so good.
 
 

On victory and defeat - because it is the basis of so much “proof” on the opposing sides of this thing.  In warfare victory and defeat are very slippery concepts.  One can win a war by all metrics and wind up losing in the long run (see European Allies after WW1 and 2).  The vice versa is also possible (see Japan).  So whenever someone jumps in with the “Ukraine is obviously losing, Russia is winning” or vice versa, without clearly defining what that means, I get suspicious.
For now the best way to try and determine what victory/defeat means in this war, one needs to come to a common understanding of what the initial political and strategic goals of this war for each side were and were not.
When I am looking at the “winning/losing” equation I am using the following objectives.
For Ukraine:
- the survival of the state as independent and sovereign.
- the creation of a narrative of effective resolve and resistance that draws in international support.
- shape and set the conditions for enduring security integrity at wars end (this one is key to effective reconstruction and recovery).
For Russia:
- the complete political absorption control of Ukraine as a vassal state or sub-state.
- a clear demonstration of Russian power within its Near Abroad designed to push back on Western encroachment and reinforce the notion that other states within this region need to “stay in line”.  This one plays to both external and internal audiences.
- any and all erosion of NATO unity and resolve, as well as a draw back of US influence in the region.
For the West (we often forget we have a win/lose calculus here as well):
- A clear demonstration of the western rules based international order.  Russia must be forced to get back in line and face punitive measures for an illegal invasion that violates the rules we constructed.  To this end we support Ukraines objectives; however, we do not need all of them in full to achieve ours. We do need a clear demonstration of western unity and resolve as a foundational underpinning for that western rules based order.
- Any opportunities to expand western influence and control - see Sweden and Finland.
- the reduction of Russia as a security threat to Europe and globally.
- Avoid a catastrophic collapse of Russia at all costs as it would make the overall regional situation, and possibly global one much worse.
You will note that for me none of these are tied directly to lines on the ground.  I do not believe that where this war ends drive those strategic objectives (within reason of course - if Russia takes Kyiv the viability of Ukrainian state is greatly diminished).  
By my metrics, Russia has already pretty much “lost” this thing.  They can hold onto to what they have now but none of their strategic objectives are accomplished.  They end the war in worse position than when they started it.  Their only Hail Mary is that western support and attention dries up over time and they can exploit that to try and pull this one out of the dumpster.  The odds of full Russian control over Ukraine by this point are pretty damn low.  Much worse than at wars beginning.
Ukraine has two out of three, that last one of setting conditions for enduring security has not been accomplished. Ukraines long game is to enter into western economic and security mechanisms.  They definitely have earned that but we have the thorny issue of Russia still able to make trouble and project that into Ukraine.  We can live with a level of this a la South Korea, but I suspect we will need this thing to hold more water to work.
The West is doing well but we are not there yet, and things could still go bad quickly.  We definitely have shored up influence, control and unity. And we have managed to reduce Russian threats pretty significantly as the Russian military has been shattered. What we do not have are the conditions for long term stabilization. Russia is neither a zero-threat nor stable in the long term.
So to summarize…on victory/defeat so far:
Russia - nope.
Ukraine - OK, but not there yet.
West - meh, so long as we don’t blow the whole thing up.
I hope this is useful for the next time someone rolls through here with “well obviously Russia is winning” due to some headline about a tactical twitch somewhere.  They likely are not using the same metrics I do and in many cases have ulterior motives for painting this war in a certain light.

Ukrainian manufactured Aeroprakt a22 ultra light aircraft being used as a kamikaze drone on Shahed factory. Range to target ~ 1200km.
Supposedly this one didnt hit the factory but a building (dormitory) infront of it, but there was another explosion, maybe that one hit the production facility 
 
Maybe instead of scrapping A-10s, they should be converted to well armored drones?😄 This plane survived 8 hours in russian airspace