petit_bateau
Active Member
Even the cats are at it in Ukraine
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
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petit_bateau
Active Member
Slovak S300 medium range SAM systems en route to Ukraine
Robin Horsfall on LinkedIn: You Got Fat! NATO, you got fat and flabby and lazy. You sat on the… | 592 comments
You Got Fat! NATO, you got fat and flabby and lazy. You sat on the laurels earned by and taught to you by the deaths of sixty million in WW2. You thought and… | 592 comments on LinkedIn
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Took over a month to close this deal. US and NATO have to get faster. Germany is simply dickin around with this decision on providing leopard 2, should have been on the train to Ukraine last week.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
I doubt any Western MBTs will be supplied since Ukraine lacks the training to use them. A more likely scenario would be T72s and other soviet weapons to Ukraine from Baltic states that can then be replaced by Western MBTs.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Looks like they are looking to provide 100 “Marder” light tanks though. It think the supplied equipment is shifting to a strategy that suggests this war may drag into a long one, and thus it's now time to supply equipment that Ukraine may use in the long run (and which NATO can more easily supply long term supplies for).
Scholz holds up German tank deliveries to Ukraine
Supposed to have been a done deal actually. Just like the s300 was supposed to ship soon. Anyway, just what rumor mill had last week. I see stopxrazypp has posted something. F'ing Scholz
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Be interesting to see how the actual operation and maintenance of the tanks would work. I suppose it's possible some Ukrainians have already been trained since they had been working with NATO.
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Here are the six Republicans who voted against investigating Russia for war crimes
Why would any US congress person vote against investigating war crimes? Would they have voted against the Nuremberg Trials?
Why would any US congress person vote against investigating war crimes? Would they have voted against the Nuremberg Trials?
GOP Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Scott Perry (Pa.) all opposed the bill.
Different people have different strengths. Putin is a first rate political operative. He maneuvered himself from obscurity to the president of the country in a few years. Since then he has established one of the most effective kleptocracies the world has ever seen. He has done a great job of neutralizing all possible rivals. In that, he's very smart.
One of the things he did in his rise to power was cripple the military because he knew all successful coups involve the military. Any military commander who shows too much leadership ability met with an accident. He has a mafia organization who regularly shakes down all military people for protection money. He has allowed corruption to run rampant in the military to further cripple them.
In his previous military ventures the military was good enough to do the job he wanted. They bombed Chechnya flat and then he put a puppet in power that kept the rebels on side. He then took a lightly populated portion of Georgia. His boldest move was to take Crimea and part of the Donbas, but that was at a time when Ukraine was in complete turmoil.
Yanukovych was Putin's puppet like Lukashenko in Belarus. The Ukrainians ran him out in Feb 2014. Yanukovych had weakened Ukraine to such an extent they had little to work with when Putin made his move.
The only other military operation Putin has done was Syria where he sent a small number of elite troops and the Wagner Group. If you look at the forces committed, they are very small:
Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war - Wikipedia
I believe there were some other small scale Russian "peace keeping" operations around the world, but they were even smaller than Syria.
All his previous military operations had a large political component. This is the first full scale military operation the Russians have tried since Afghanistan. Putin's weakness is he thought the Ukrainians would just roll over and let his military win, with a full scale war on their hands, his weakness as a military leader is showing. He's simply awful at military leadership and he let his political ambitions break the back of the military to a point where they are disastrously bad.
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The Marder light tank is really a rebuilt Marder IFV (infantry fighting vehicle). They are intended for export and I expect they are simpler in design and maintenance than modern MBTs. Equipment that is easy to use and easy to maintain the Ukrainians can use. The complex front line stuff that requires highly skilled technicians to maintain are off the table because they will take too long to learn to use.
A number of countries are sending things like armored cars and other equipment the Ukrainians can use without a lot of training.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Because the checks cleared?
The other problem with this visible Russian strategy is it is totally counterproductive:-
- It will not make Ukraine less inclined to fight.
- It will not make Ukraine more inclined to negotiate
- It will increase the urgency for weapons supply to Ukraine.
- It will add to the pressure to strengthen sections.
- It further damages Russia's international reputation,
- It undermines Russia friendly politicians and media worldwide.
- It means the control of the Russian media has to remain as tight as possible.
Russia has ensured the Ukrainians and their international support remain highly motivated., In most countries, citizens are calling for their governments to do more, and it isn't hard to understand why.
Russia seeking source more soldiers, this seems to me like the are doubling down on conventional war, that will be a slow process with heavy losses and will provide time for the sanctions to bite.
This war is such a disaster that you would think it would dissuade like minded dictators from following this path,
Putin might be having a bad day, here is some news to cheer him up:-
There is some questions about whether or not this is true, I guess we will find out in 1 year.
There is some questions about whether or not this is true, I guess we will find out in 1 year.
Additional details on the US activity to thwart Russian sponsored cyber hacking.
How Russia's Invasion Triggered a US Crackdown on Its Hackers
https://www.wired.com/story/russia-ukraine-us-hacker-counterattack/?mbid=social_tw_backchannel&utm_brand=wired&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter
How Russia's Invasion Triggered a US Crackdown on Its Hackers
https://www.wired.com/story/russia-ukraine-us-hacker-counterattack/?mbid=social_tw_backchannel&utm_brand=wired&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter
This is a bit worrisome.
The White House is freaked out that Putin's next big win could be in Paris
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/white-house-putin-paris-00024054
The White House is freaked out that Putin's next big win could be in Paris
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/white-house-putin-paris-00024054
Profile of the Head of UAF.
Ukraine’s 'iron general' is a hero, but he's no star
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/ukraines-iron-general-zaluzhnyy-00023901
Ukraine’s 'iron general' is a hero, but he's no star
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/ukraines-iron-general-zaluzhnyy-00023901
My understanding was that French farmers get a lot of EU subsides, exiting the EU and NATO would be a disaster for France.
The EU and NATO can survive without France, other countries are willing to join.
If Macron plays up the threat to leave the EU, and her support for Putin, he should win.
He also needs to introduce some measures to make life a bit easier for the average French household.
This is a video of a sending off ceremony for a unit the Russians have raised in a poor part of Russia to fight this war. In the comments people have been analyzing it. A number of elderly men, and they are wearing cheap boots you can buy at Walmart.
This is the B team being sent to replace the incompetent fighters who got themselves killed in the first round.
This is the B team being sent to replace the incompetent fighters who got themselves killed in the first round.
A lot of armies wore cheaper boots than that (UK and US) for a long time. Difference is they realised in the 90’s & started issueing better ones. The ones issued to UK known as “combat high” boots through the 80’s to early 90’s had a compressed cardboard unit fitted in the heal. We used to run in them a lot, most people with a forces background from that era have knackered knees because of them, my knees are pretty shot hence I no longer run for fitness. I’m preserving what’s left
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I think we in the west fail to understand the language of Russia in this war. We believe that they use words as we do and mean the same thing. Imo by now it seems pretty clear that Russia don’t care about the truth of their statements, they only care about what their statements can help them accomplish. In politics in general boths sides are trying to be as vague as possible as it sucks to make falsifiable statements and risk being corrected. Unlike in Engineering where you have to write specifications and code should do the same thing every time.
So when Russia says they want to denazify Ukraine, we in the west think about Hitler, swastikas, killing jews etc. This is not what Russia means, what Russia means is that Ukrainians who don’t want to be a part of Russia, who don’t want to speak Russian, who wants to be a part of EU[read Germany], who adops western values are nazis. And by denazify they mean kill the democratically elected leaders and replace them with Russian leaders, forcibly move women and children to concentration[filtration] camps, kill the 18-60 year old men etc.
So when people in the west say that Ukraine should try to make peace and give Russia the regions that they now hold, that is what’s would happen to the people living there. And that’s why Ukraine will not give up land and people.
So when Russia says they want to denazify Ukraine, we in the west think about Hitler, swastikas, killing jews etc. This is not what Russia means, what Russia means is that Ukrainians who don’t want to be a part of Russia, who don’t want to speak Russian, who wants to be a part of EU[read Germany], who adops western values are nazis. And by denazify they mean kill the democratically elected leaders and replace them with Russian leaders, forcibly move women and children to concentration[filtration] camps, kill the 18-60 year old men etc.
So when people in the west say that Ukraine should try to make peace and give Russia the regions that they now hold, that is what’s would happen to the people living there. And that’s why Ukraine will not give up land and people.
