What's going on in Ukraine?

[Kiwias]

The size of the peak on their caps!

It would fit Matt Gaetz perfectly

[Rinkals]

Look lads, I’ve got everything wrong on this thread, literally from page 1 to here, so don’t go acting all Billy Bigbaws about so called “providence” of that letter

[Hellraiser]

Look lads, I’ve got everything wrong on this thread, literally from page 1 to here, so don’t go acting all Billy Bigbaws about so called “providence” of that letter

Provenance?

[Slick]

Look lads, I’ve got everything wrong on this thread, literally from page 1 to here, so don’t go acting all Billy Bigbaws about so called “providence” of that letter

Provenance?

Told you.

[Ovals]

Getting the impression that, whilst Ukraine are exacting heavy losses, they're starting to lose the war in the East. Russia appears to be making slow but steady advances. Is there any new (NATO) equipment dues to come online that might reverse the Russian advances ?

[tabascoboy]

Getting the impression that, whilst Ukraine are exacting heavy losses, they're starting to lose the war in the East. Russia appears to be making slow but steady advances. Is there any new (NATO) equipment dues to come online that might reverse the Russian advances ?

Have to hope that while they may be losing battles it doesn't mean they've lost the war. It will be very hard to dislodge Russian defences that have time to bed in, but still the chance that their logistics among other things will prove to be too hard to sustain once they have destroyed or pillaged all that they can. For now it seems that slowing down Russian advances and planning more determined counter-attacks in late summer and autumn might be the limit of their ambitions but they must be taking losses on the ground.

If Russia get over-eager again and think they can push out westwards towards Odesa then they could get in trouble again by being overstretched, for now though they're intent on making ever more rubble in the south and east and "occupying" it.

[fishfoodie]

Pig-eyed, sack-of-shit explaining why it was necessary, & entirely proper to break Covid regulations, to have leaving drinks for No10 collegues



.... But some may disagree .....

[tabascoboy]

But it's not an occupation...

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree opening a fast track to citizenship for Ukrainian residents of areas controlled by Russia, a step toward annexing territory in southeast Ukraine.

also

When Russia’s army will lose combat effectiveness in Ukraine?

[Hellraiser]

Getting the impression that, whilst Ukraine are exacting heavy losses, they're starting to lose the war in the East. Russia appears to be making slow but steady advances. Is there any new (NATO) equipment dues to come online that might reverse the Russian advances ?

How are they losing? Tell me how? And do so without referencing the BBC, NYT, or any other big Western media organisation that has fuck all understanding of this war or war in general.

[Hellraiser]

[Hellraiser]

[tabascoboy]

Rustbuckets arrived in Melitopol

[Hellraiser]

Getting the impression that, whilst Ukraine are exacting heavy losses, they're starting to lose the war in the East. Russia appears to be making slow but steady advances. Is there any new (NATO) equipment dues to come online that might reverse the Russian advances ?

How are they losing? Tell me how? And do so without referencing the BBC, NYT, or any other big Western media organisation that has fuck all understanding of this war or war in general.

Just looking at the maps. There is also far less positive online stuff. Look at here. It was wall to wall Ukraine doing a number until the last week

[tabascoboy]

That's why everyone's talking about months or more likely years before this is over. Only at the will of those in the Kremlin with an unlikely unforced withdrawal will this be ended quickly and territories restored, otherwise UA just has to keep nagging at the West for support choose their battles well.

[Ovals]

Getting the impression that, whilst Ukraine are exacting heavy losses, they're starting to lose the war in the East. Russia appears to be making slow but steady advances. Is there any new (NATO) equipment dues to come online that might reverse the Russian advances ?

How are they losing? Tell me how? And do so without referencing the BBC, NYT, or any other big Western media organisation that has fuck all understanding of this war or war in general.

Just looking at the maps. There is also far less positive online stuff. Look at here. It was wall to wall Ukraine doing a number until the last week

I follow reports from all sorts of news agencies - and most reports talk of Russians gradually encircling Severodonetsk where they are now close enough to the city to use mortar rounds to bombard it.

[tabascoboy]

Oh look, yesterday another mysterious fire. N.B. Location was later updated to another church a little further away, 500m away from the Lefortovo prison, renowned for torture.

[Uncle fester]

I'm really struggling to get my head around Putin's deplorable lack of concern in his own troops' welfare.

You can't send young lads and lasses away to die without doing everything in your power to keep them safe and to look after them if worse comes to worst.

Russia aren't even recovering or burying bodies, or providing any support to bereaved families. The medical supplies are a joke. The, equipment, spares and fuel have all been (pardon pun) syphoned off.

Now it looks like they're going to send conscripts to pretty much certain death in obsolete vehicles with equipment their grandfathers might have used.

Plenty of stuff in this war has been dreadful, but this is a different form of scumbaggery.

It's not enough to make me feel sorry for the orc scummers murdering civilians, but it's sickening nonetheless.

They are sending the rabble and the poorer of the ethnic minorities to war. Putin doesn't care about their lives.*

Russia's advantage over Ukraine in this war is naval power and human resources. And I get the feeling that they'll keep throwing bodies at this war even if equipped with peaks and forks.

Meanwhile, each death on the Ukrainian side is a blow, never mind all the sophisticated equipment the country may be receiving.

This*
I read several articles saying that about 2 thirds of the dead and injured soldiers were from the poorest parts of russia or areas with unrests, they concluded that it looks like an hidden ethnic cleansing.

As the Brits discovered, giving potential rebels military training can be risky.

[Hellraiser]

[happytramp]

Hope that doesn't happen for their sakes. War like that will exhaust them

I really don't understand this mentality.... A nation of nearly 50 million people, trained, funded and supplied with the most advanced weapon systems available, by the richest nations on earth, passionately defending their homes and families Vs poorly trained troops, with crap moral, poor leadership, unable to replace lost equipment, driving around in tanks that were designed in the 50's....all the while their country is likely heading towards an economic collapse.

The map above says it best. They came to take a country and now their expending their army taking villages.

How long until they dust off their T-55's and put them into action? They were built during WW2.

[Rinkals]

This is just fucked up.



By trying to restrain Ukraine's response to Russian aggression, all that happens is that Putin gets the time he needs to rearm and regroup and the war will drag on for longer.

Anyone who thinks that appeasing Putin will bring peace hasn't learned from History.

[Grandpa]

This is just fucked up.



By trying to restrain Ukraine's response to Russian aggression, all that happens is that Putin gets the time he needs to rearm and regroup and the war will drag on for longer.

Anyone who thinks that appeasing Putin will bring peace hasn't learned from History.

I agree... they're in the war already. Ridiculous policy.

[TheFrog]

Key for this war is Western nations populations. As outrage at the war and interest for if vanes, and as the cost of the war starts hitting their wallets big time, there is a risk that they disengage and stop supporting their governments response to the Russian aggression.

In the meantime, Ukraine and civilians in particular pay a very heavy price. The Russian aren't interested in taking cities, they just level them off. And the shelling continues daily.

[TheFrog]

This is just fucked up.



By trying to restrain Ukraine's response to Russian aggression, all that happens is that Putin gets the time he needs to rearm and regroup and the war will drag on for longer.

Anyone who thinks that appeasing Putin will bring peace hasn't learned from History.

This is really poor but I believe the underlying issue is the lack of aircraft and weapons available in these countries once given away to Ukraine, those countries are naked.

I really think that it is time to launch the arsenal of democracy and start producing weapons to support Ukraine and arm European countries.

[Hellraiser]

[TheFrog]

One risk if this war is that Russia learns from its failures and reorganizes its forces.

[tabascoboy]

One risk if this war is that Russia learns from its failures and reorganizes its forces.

Which it has done to some extent, but the rot may go so deep and the losses of senior officers be so high that they will not be anywhere near as efficient as the reported 7:1 manpower advantage they have in Donbass means they should be. Sooner or later they will either have to fully mobilize to keep pushing in cannon fodder or simply consolidate what they have. However hubris seems to suggest they will always want that bit more, and they appear to have a massive supply of ordinance still to get through on the battlefields and for longer range punitive strikes.

The Black Sea fleet remains a PITA as do the bombers they can launch missiles from while well inside their own territory.

[Hellraiser]

[tabascoboy]

Well we don't have the same up-to-date info as the commanders on the ground, but hope this is the right call

[fishfoodie]

Well we don't have the same up-to-date info as the commanders on the ground, but hope this is the right call

They had to pick a place to stand & fight; & if they don't, then this will become the next Mariupol !

If they draw the Russians into a smaller area, instead of a the wide front they've had so far, then maybe they smash them enough to kill some more Generals, & drive their supplies, & morale down to levels they can't recover from.

There has to be a tipping point where the Russians can't resupply as fast as the Ukrainians can destroy, & bringing T-62s into the battles shows that point must be close. If this becomes a WW I long grind, then they may never be able to force the Russians to that point ?

[Hellraiser]

I've seen someone state that the terrain around Poposna isn't actually a great place to try and move troops and armour through as it's a natural choke point. The high ground acts like a funnel that compresses the area available to manoeuvre so theoretically concentrated artillery fire could do major damage. We'll see.

[Grandpa]

I've seen someone state that the terrain around Poposna isn't actually a great place to try and move troops and armour through as it's a natural choke point. The high ground acts like a funnel that compresses the area available to manoeuvre so theoretically concentrated artillery fire could do major damage. We'll see.

From STT Mapping... the Russians are coming over the hills (from the right).. however Ukrainian forces are setting up on the hills opposite...

[Hellraiser]

[The Druid]

This guy (Denys) has an excellent daily analysis of the current situation of events, because of the time difference he is also some hours in front of STT.
Equally as good as RT but more factual.

[Hellraiser]

Looks like the Yanks are going to approve sending HIMARS to Ukraine next week.

[TheFrog]

So he is saying what is happening in the East is significant.

I am worried about Ukrainian exhaustion.

[convoluted]

One risk if this war is that Russia learns from its failures and reorganizes its forces.

^^^ This is exactly why China is a current World Superpower.

Not to hijack the thread, and I intend this as my only post on the matter, but ...
The United States didn't lose in Vietnam: the Viet Cong had been all but wiped out by the end of 1969, and then the 1972 Christmas Bombing of Hanoi hammered North Vietnam into a concession it had always said it would never accept -- Hanoi signed into the 1973 Peace Agreement.
And South Vietnam was thriving in well-fed relative peace and with a population rigidly opposed to a North Vietnamese takeover.

But the wretched Democrats gained control of the US Congress and immediately set about successfully sabotaging the forces of both South Vietnam and the Khmer Republic (Cambodia).
Consequently, the1975 Oscars Ceremony would degenerate into a fawning tribute to the subsequent Indochina victories of both Pol Pot in Cambodia and Hanoi in Vietnam.

Understand that it was China, not the United States, that was the big outside loser when Saigon fell.

More than a decade earlier, China had convinced the Cambodian Communist leader Pol Pot to break from his Hanoi sponsors and forge national independence (to be done secretly at that stage, as North Vietnam's military aid would be needed to break the Cambodian army).
For their part, the Vietnamese Communist Party overlords always saw each of Cambodia and Laos (along with South Vietnam) as lands of rich resources to be plundered, their populace to become serfs of Hanoi, and with Pol Pot seen as merely a 'useful idiot' to help the Viet Reds complete their plan, forged decades earlier, of an Indochina bloc under Hanoi's thumb.

But to Vietnamese Red chagrin, they would later find that it was Pol Pot who had used them; not the other way round.

Look at a map and you will see what China saw in mid-1975: a million hostile Soviet troops on their shared border; a Soviet ally to its immediate south in the newly-united Vietnam bristling with the latest military equipment that Moscow had pumped in in total violation of the 1973 Peace Accords; Laos with an occupation force of 40,000 Vietnamese Communist troops; and with nearby India firmly in the Soviet orbit.
All Beijing had as a holdout in the region was the Khmer-Rouge controlled Cambodia.

Through the near-entirety of the Khmer Rouge horror years in Cambodia, Hanoi uttered not one international word of dissent against Pol Pot's regime. Instead it made repeated alternating attempts to sweet talk/threaten Pol Pot into returning to the Indochinese Communist Party fold and submission to Hanoi.

Unsuccessful, Hanoi then knew that invasion was the only way it would ever obtain Cambodia's rich resources of fish, timber, rice and fruit.
Aware that the Vietnamese Reds would be coming, Pol Pot initiated barbaric border raids into Vietnam in Attack Is The Best Form Of Defence mode -- a futile defiance, as Hanoi smashed into Cambodia on Christmas Day 1978.

Hanoi quickly took most of Cambodia, while the surviving Khmer Rouge retreated to prepared fallback positions in the western ranges bordering Thailand.

China saw no other choice but to react to the overthrow of its Cambodian client state.
Beijing launched a furious onslaught into northern Vietnam to 'teach Hanoi a lesson'.

But it was a Chinese humiliation.
While Vietnam had battle-hardened troops armed with the very latest Soviet hardware, China's equipment was long-past its Use By date and its military had not been exposed to full-on combat since the Korean War of near-30 years earlier.
And the mountainous terrain favored Vietnamese defence over Chinese aggression.

The Chinese withdrew, mumbling about having 'delivered' that 'lesson' but reality was that it was the Chinese who had been given a wake-up slap in the face.
For the next few years the Beijing leadership pondered and deliberated and debated before the tumultuous decision was made -- the schooling on the Vietnamese border taught China that it had no choice other than to flip course and modernize.

The first step would be to produce the required steel.
I was working in the small iron-ore mining community of Paraburdoo way up in the middle of Western Australia when some time in the mid-80s we were told that the Chinese premier would be coming to town to sign agreement with Hammersley Iron to move the entire nearby Mt Channar to China minus the dirt.

So the Chinese leader flies to Perth, disembarks only to change planes, then swoops in on us -- the first visit by any Red Chinese premier to anywhere in the Western world being to little old us.

And that was how it all started ...

(Apologies if a little garbled. Written off the top of my head -- which doesn't mean made-up!! -- in an immediate unplanned response to the quoted post)

[Rinkals]

...I intend this as my only post on the matter...

[Hellraiser]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles ... -%20112017

[tabascoboy]

OMFG, this is actual Russian propaganda from Tsargrad TV which is a channel run by the Russian Orthodox Church. As much as many of us feel depressed about the state of the UK this is priceless

Obviously this is a transcript in translation

[FalseBayFC]

Some British cannibals singing a pop song