How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Maquisard manqué]

11 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Exactly my point, which you seem to have missed completely.

 

Sorry, missed your plea. I agree - nationality is a construct, shouldn’t mean much.

I similarly object to reading bile throughout the thread. I mostly lurk for the actual news but sometimes the non military commentary just gets too much.

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, kraze said:

Every single russian knows full well this is a real war. It's just not war legally for obvious reasons - because if they called it a "war" officially - that would mean curfews, draft and totally obliterated economics.

Sociology is science and even in Ukraine polls always represented a real state of things.

In fact you could compare the results of "non-free" state polls with reality in the country and see they don't need to falsify those. 

Russia is a 140 mln pop country and even 1% of those being anti-war would've been enough to completely dethrone putin and eliminate his regime.

Yet you don't see anyone opposing the war. 

And yes - being apathetic is literally the same as supporting the war. For reasons pretty obvious.

Well, we don't agree. Sociology is indeed a science, but like any other science it usually doesn't provide sweeping answers like 'X = true or false'. More like: when we observe something using A, we can see that X = true while Y = Z in a majority of cases. There are also 'hard' sciences and 'soft' sciences and sociology is in the 'soft' dimension along with psychology and other. Which basically means that it's difficult to proof stuff in practical fashion (empirical). 
Now that doesn't mean those sciences don't give any information. But the general 'poll factories' are for profit companies and not at all comparable with qualitative scientific grade sociologic research. 

Actually from psychologic research we know that there are three personality types:

A - Troublemakers 
B - Oddballs
C - Wimps

It's not that people are either an A, B or C. But rather a person might be mostly of the B type in his work environment, while mostly A when he's with his football team. 
The most common behavior in any situation is the C type. 

A brainwashed, repressed populace conditioned into 'Wimp' behavior when it comes to state affairs, where troublemakers are either employed by the regime or jailed and oddball behavior probably gets you onto FSB lists and or into gulag quick.
Good luck believing that all those people are evil butchers celebrating the slaughter that's taking place in Ukraine. 

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Lethaface

[Maquisard manqué]

37 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Your western hypertrophied tolerance, false humanism and "real politic" led to Russian attrocities in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. Western world - the stronghold and the stream of civilization turned out to the bunch of frightened wimps which deadly scared of this "superstate", made from "s**t and sticks" and gave us "48 hours to new political reality". So, this is our right how to relate to Russians. Here, in ruined Mariupol and Izium, in looted, raped, murdered Kyiv outskirt cities and villages, here completely other reality, where all liberal or leftist ideology voices must shut up and keep silence until last Russian scum find own death here. 

Yes, even among SS troopers not all were murderers. But whole SS was criminal organization and the spot of blood fell to all. So this is no matter either private Vania looted or murdered or not. The spot of dirt on them all. 

This is not Putin loots and murders. This is Russian soldiers. This is not "SOME".  This is "USUAL". The army is a cross section of society. So it reflects Russian society. So if I hear "common Russians shouldn't bear the brunt of sanctions", "stop bulling and cancelling of Russian" etc., I say "Too few sanctions. Too few cancelling. Too few rusophobia". Russia must be destroyed, derashizied and de-nuclearezied.   

My hate speech is finished.

Sanctions, cancelling, political ostracism: all and more - yes. Agree to the end game too.

As to Lilly livered democracy, yes - they should be standing closer. But they aren’t because they did too much of that 20years ago, with less justification, and haven’t recovered from it.

now to save Aragorn regurgitating on his armchair uniform, I’ll leave you to it.

[Probus]

Let's stay on topic guys. If you want to discuss racism do it with personal messages not forum posts please. 

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Well, we don't agree. Sociology is indeed a science, but like any other science it usually doesn't provide sweeping answers like 'X = true or false'. More like: when we observe something using A, we can see that X = true while Y = Z in a majority of cases. There are also 'hard' sciences and 'soft' sciences and sociology is in the 'soft' dimension along with psychology and other. Which basically means that it's difficult to proof stuff in practical fashion (empirical). 
Now that doesn't mean those sciences don't give any information. But the general 'poll factories' are for profit companies and not at all comparable with qualitative scientific grade sociologic research. 

Actually from psychologic research we know that there are three personality types:

A - Troublemakers 
B - Oddballs
C - Wimps

It's not that people are either an A, B or C. But rather a person might be mostly of the B type in his work environment, while mostly A when he's with his football team. 
The most common behavior in any situation is the C type. 

A brainwashed, repressed populace conditioned into 'Wimp' behavior when it comes to state affairs, where troublemakers are either employed by the regime or jailed and oddball behavior probably gets you onto FSB lists and or into gulag quick.
Good luck believing that all those people are evil butchers celebrating the slaughter that's taking place in Ukraine. 

 

Guys, his (Kraze that is) country is under attack. And even experts from the BBC are convinced at least 80% of the Russians are behind Putin and his war. Is this really the time and place to show how enlighted and wise you are? Let Kraze utter his anger and ignore it, if you like. But please stop this nonsical discussion about the Russian nation not being part of and responsible for the crimes commited in it's name.

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, womble said:

Rubbish. Utter poppycock. Sure, 1.4 million people all working together would be a big lever to unseat Putin, but he has more than half that number in the Federal Police alone, and has spent the last 20 years breaking up the opposition so it can't work effectively together. Also, that "1%" would be diluted among the entier population, so it would only take 2% actively opposing them to shut them down completely.

Don't get me wrong. I have great difficulty understanding how the Russian population as a whole can swallow Putin's self-contradictory nonsense justifications for the war to a sufficient degree that we see the bellicose support that we do, and I'm sure there are die-hard Russian Nationalists who truly think that Uncle Vlad is a saintly figure incapable of error, served by Angels. I think there does remain a sense of Russian exceptionalism that underlies their self-serving internal justifications for not "fixing or doing somefink" ever since the kleptocrats' thievery started undermining the initial successes of throwing off the old Soviet shackles. But I don't live there, and I can empathise with the wish to not be hospitalised by riot police thugs or sent off to the gulags. It must be difficult to see a way through for your average Russian-on-the-street, same as it does for your average Belarusian-on-the-street. And their leaders have been murdered, imprisoned or exiled as fast as they come forward, so there's nothing for opposition to crystallise around any more.

Edit: Russian opposition is another frog that has been gently warmed up and is about boiled to death by now.

+1 like but I'm out ;-). 
PS Those frogs have been shot, poisoned and prisoned. 

[Armorgunner]

19 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So we gotta get this guy playing CM

 

Very interesting analysis. So everybody who can offer an hour of time, look at this!

[Lethaface]

4 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Guys, his (Kraze that is) country is under attack. And even experts from the BBC are convinced at least 80% of the Russians are behind Putin and his war. Is this really the time and place to show how enlighted and wise you are? Let Kraze utter his anger and ignore it, if you like. But please stop this nonsical discussion about the Russian nation not being part of and responsible for the crimes commited in it's name.

I never said anything about not being responsible. And yes his country is under (brutal) attack, which is why I usually don't think/say too much about certain things. But he replied to me so I responded.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Lethaface

[Haiduk]

Reportedly Russian troops, which withdrew to Belarus, established there a market for selling and exchanging to each other with looted things. They carried all these goods by trucks. One of this truck, couldn't reach the border. Its seen, it carried three washing machines and many other

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[Armorgunner]

14 hours ago, ASL Veteran said:

 

I fought the NLAW, and the NLAW won  The clash, didn't know how right they were in 2022 

 

"I fought the  Nlaw and the Nlaw won
I fought the Nlaw and the Nlaw won
I needed money 'cause I had none…"

Edited April 2, 2022 by Armorgunner

[Taranis]

Ukrainian soldiers stand in the middle of destroyed Russian armored vehicles in the suburbs of kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday March 31, 2022. RODRIGO ABD / AP

* BMP-2 on the foreground

[Taranis]

41 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

1st AK (DPR): 1st motor-rifle brigade, 3rd motor-rifle brigade, 5th motor-rifle brigade, 9th motor-rifle regiment (naval infantry), 11th separate motor-rifle regiment "Vostok", 100th Republican Guard motor-rifle brigade, Commandant regiment (military police),  2nd separate tank battalion "Diesel", separate recon-assult battalion "Sparta", separate motor-rifle assault battalion "Somali", 1st SOF battalion "Khan", 3rd SOF battalion,  artillery brigade "Kalmius", separate AD battalion, 1st-6th battalions of territorial defense, separate UAV company, separate EW company

Number of personnel (on paper) - 35 000 

2nd AK (LPR): 2nd motor-rifle brigade, 4th motor-rifle brigade, 7th motor-rifle brigade (initillay was in DPR subordination), 6th Cossack motor-rifle regiment, separate recon battalion, 4th separate tank battalion "August", artillery brigade, separate AD battalion, commandant regiment (military police), 14th territorial defense battalion "Prizrak" 

Number of personnel (on paper) - 15 000

TO&E of their brigades mostly matched to Russian motor-rifle brigades. 

Both AKs are subordinated to 12th Reserve Comamnd of Russian armed forces. 

Thanks a lot ! Very instructive as always !

[BeondTheGrave]

Jesus **** guys. Plz just hit the ignore button and move on. Two pages of the Jew's role in Russia and whose the real racist? What a waste of everyones time. 

Regarding our conversation about going all in Steve, this seems like 'all in' militarily lol. Weve moved past the kitchen sink and are ripping the copper out of the walls now. 

Wonder how much ex-Soviet kit the US/Germ/Et Al still have. Will those South Korean T-80s and BMP-2s be traveling to Ukraine? I wonder if India could be induced to sell some of its ex-Soviet kit. 

[Haiduk]

3 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Thanks a lot ! Very instructive as always !

I added in the post some info about new-formed rifle regiments from conscripts

[Haiduk]

6 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I wonder if India could be induced to sell some of its ex-Soviet kit. 

India will not. They were oriented to Russia and even didn't join to sanctions.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

 

This gu is calling the Russian pullout from Kiev "organized and well executed". Opinions? 

I too am surprised we are not seeing entire formations surrendering after being cut off. Maybe this is coming in the next days?

Russian had so much trouble sustaining their forces and attack how can they now all a sudden execute a organized fighting retreat?

This feels very much like a deliberate "golden bridge" strategy by the UA.

The NW forces could have theoretically been trapped harder & sooner south of Ivankiv, but this would have trapped them in with all the civilians, still in range of Kiev, turning the area into their own Mariupol.

I think the UA made certain to keep a golden bridge through Ivankiv, for humanitarian reasons (to shorten their peoples suffering, not the Russians), to avoid a large scale "classic" kettle which would have required heavy investment (and inevitable losses) and to shut the attack down sooner.

"Letting" them leave frees up UKR forces sooner, conserving their own combat power, which is strategically more useful than a bunch of dead Russians from already beat up and mentally defeated formations.

Those units are not going to be rushing back into contact with the UA.

====

Despite our collective dismissal of Russian combat effectiveness the UA is very much treating them as a highly dangerous foe.

The battles for Bucha/Irpin were not easy and despite every single negative the Rus forces came awfully close to Kiev. Now, I'm not saying they would have been a real danger (Kiev is huge and eminently suitable for defence) but still - they got pretty damn far.

There is still significant planning and command capabilities at certain levels of the RA, certainly enough to execute a covered retreat, repo forces and attack elsewhere. They're not done yet.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Kinophile

[BeondTheGrave]

2 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

India will not. They were oriented to Russia and even didn't join to sanctions.

You say that, but policies in New Dehli are changing. Lot of Indian nationals caught up in this war. Moreover India has to balance its desire to stay neutral in Europe vs. its need to protect against China. Were this a war in Taiwan, India would not be able to sit comfortably on the sidelines, and they ought to know that this conflict has direct bearing on an East Asian crisis in a few years. If I were the US ambassador I would make all that very clear to India, that their actions today will condition expectations against China. 

But Im just a rando on the internet, what do I know? Nothing. 

[Seedorf81]

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

And how would that happen exactly? Officials selling the Javelins to god knows where?

The Russians would pay big bucks for one of those, no doubt. 

[womble]

India must be in a bit of a twizzle, right now. They need Russia as a counterbalance to China, but this war of Putin's is driving the Russians deeper into Xi's arms. And Modi is a wannabe Putin, an autocrat and Nationalist by instinct, in charge of the world's "largest democracy". And then, there's Kashmir.

[c3k]

15 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

The Russians would pay big bucks for one of those, no doubt. 

Referring to the Russians wanting a Javelin, from a supposed Ukrainian black market. Since China has been producing their own version of the Javelin, the HJ-12 (export version is HJ-12E) beginning ~2014, I would only assume that Russia has some samples at hand already.

 

[BeondTheGrave]

19 minutes ago, womble said:

India must be in a bit of a twizzle, right now. They need Russia as a counterbalance to China, but this war of Putin's is driving the Russians deeper into Xi's arms. And Modi is a wannabe Putin, an autocrat and Nationalist by instinct, in charge of the world's "largest democracy". And then, there's Kashmir.

Russia hasn't been a viable counterbalance to China for some time and I think thats why you've seen India moving towards the US, including this new QUAD organization. Modi may want to be the Indian Putin, but really he needs the US and the west far more than he needs Russia. India would much rather the next war with China be fought in Taiwan than in Ladakh or along the Indo-Pakistan border. So in Indo-Pacific terms allying with the US makes a lot of strategic sense. 

But I also dont know that Indian policymakers quite realize that these things dont really keep themselves contained to just the region where the crisis erupts. Inaction or a movement closer to Russia now could have repercussions the next time Chinese troops decide to bash in the heads of Indian soldiers on the top of a mountain. India may want sanctions, which last time the US gave them including the forced sale of Tik Tok. But if they wont play ball in Ukraine maybe next time that doesnt happen. 

Theyre in quite a pickle, and this is an important moment for Indian foreign policy going forward. Are they a reliable ally or just one of convenience against China. 

[Phantom Captain]

43 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

 

Despite our collective dismissal of Russian combat effectiveness the UA is very much treating them as a highly dangerous foe.

 

And this is why they are beating them at the tactical level.  Despite the fact of their poor performance we do see the destruction, damage and death they cause.  

Even a terrible army can still wreak all havoc and can't be dismissed.  Mass does count for something and the hoard can and will still kill, rape and loot despite being awful at what they are trying to accomplish.

I think this war is going to have much higher casualties, across the board, in a shorter period of time than we have seen in a long time.  And we still don't even really know the numbers in the Donbass.

[Kinophile]

Yah the JTO is a big grey area to me.

My impression is of Russian forces driving DLPR  conscripts I to assault after assault to grind down the UKR , and seems to be slowly working. Sorta.

 @Haiduk  has stated the JTO force have an extensive and in depth defensive network of strong points and defensive lines. Not an easy nut to crack, esp by low quality DLPR (even with RUS cores).

I've definitely read reports that the Mariupol assault is a Russian core with a big DLPR and others as the actual assault mass.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Kinophile

[Haiduk]

It's claimed Javelin hits T-72B3. No evidences this is exactly a tank, but somehing really burnt

 

[Haiduk]

31 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

 @Haiduk  has stated the JTO force have an extensive and in depth defensive network of strong points and defensive lines. Not an easy nut to crack, esp by low quality DLPR (even with RUS cores).

I've definitely read reports that the Mariupol assault is a Russian core with a big DLPR and others as the actual assault mass.

 

"Regular" LDPR forces and LDPR conscripts are different by quality forces. Enough number of LDPR fighters have significant combat experience, gained for theese years in Donbas terrain conditions or at least their motivation sometime even higher, than regular Russians troops. Since war began, many retired LDPR "veterans" turned back in own units. Some of their special units have enough number of Russian volunteers - retired soldiers and officers, passed many conflicts. But anyway about half +/- of their troops are just "15 000 RUB contractors", which enlisted to army mostly for salary, than because of ideology. But even their level anyway higher, than conscripts.  

But problems of poor discipline in many units, poor technical conditins of vehicles, poor maintanence and supply and armamemt of mostly Soviet period didn't allow them to achieve objectives without support of Russian troops.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Haiduk