Topic: Russian Invasion of Ukraine[In Progress] - page 174. (Read 77449 times)

I've never heard anyone in a real leadership position in Russia make much mention of the use of nuclear weapons at all, let alone any 'promises'.  It goes without saying that any nuclear armed country reserves the right, and probably has plans to, use nuclear weapons if there is an existential threat.  So the non-crazies in Russia are not in the habit of saying it.  Of course the Russians have their contingent of crazies in their political classes who will say (and may well do) any damn thing.  Unlike in the U.S., these types don't really seem to get a hold of any real levers of power.  Yet.  Thank God.

On the other hand, you cannot turn around without bumping into someone who 'knows' that Putin is a maniac who is minutes away from pushing the button.  And since it is said so often (in the echo chamber) most people believe that they have in fact heard it straight from the horse's mouth too!

Russia seems to have planned to straight-out win in a conventional way any altercation they cannot avoid, and their plans seem very sound so far and it looks like they could handily beat NATO so long as they stick to their game.  A lot of the things have gone better than they probably hoped for (foreign relations and trade in particular.)  The Collective West is in panic mode for want of decent analysis and planning, and they really don't know whether to shit or go blind at the moment.  That (and pretty much that alone) is what is causing a fair amount of risk to the planet at this time.

Here's the reason why US troops or Nato troops will need to be brought into the war, if it is to continue. If this happens, it will be interesting to see if Russia follows up on its promises for nuclear war.


WashPost: Experienced Ukrainian Soldiers 'Are All Already Dead or Wounded'

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https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63645
From The Washington Post, "Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow":

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine — The quality of Ukraine's military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv's readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of Russia's invasion early last year, compared with about 200,000 on the Russian side, which has a much larger military and roughly triple the population from which to draw conscripts. Ukraine keeps its running casualty numbers secret, even from its staunchest Western supporters.

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Oh, the mythical counteroffensive... sure, keep your eyes on Bahkmut, no need to notice the 40 thousand motorised troops being massed in the Zaporilla area. Do not look there, nothing is going to happen in the next 3 weeks. Nothing at all.  An the explosions in Sebastopol were again, RF soldiers smoking by the gas barrels. There is no resistance and no partisans in the zone. Nothing happening.

It's so good to hear that you're doing fine. Stay safe!

Russia claims to have destroyed more HIMARS than Ukraine actually, but HIMARS continue their job silently, killing Russians and destroying their equipment every day.
Even old good TB2 Bayraktar seems to be still in action, despite that Russian already destroyed all Bayraktars that Ukraine had:
https://t.me/operativnoZSU/85654

Since the topic [POV] War in Ukraine is closed and i don't have time to wait for an answer from @icopress, will answer here


Everything is good with himars, i saw few some time ago  
It's just became an ordinary thing with a lot of work to do, so noone hype about that anymore.  

Downing a Mig would take a least a well thrown stone, a shotgun is what sunk the Moskva. Unless that's a fake or someone smoking by the gas tanks.

I do not care much about that type of myths, they mean nothing and I do not give credit to interviews on their own. But, there are too many indications, including videos, that Wagner is sending the recruited convicts under threat of execution to the riskier tasks. There is also some video evidence of pretty much suicidal attacks.

So, Bakhmut is located in a lowland. Dumb Ukrainian military. All Russia has to do is break down the dam and flood her.

Russia doesn't want to destroy Bakhmut. The whole Russia original idea was to save Ukrainian and Russian property and lives from the corrupt US/Zelensky regime. And they are still trying to do that, even though they are being forced to protect themselves in violent ways.

The whole idea behind Russia entering into Ukraine in the first place, was to stop the US/Zelinsky regime from criminally killing a bunch of unarmed people in the Donbas area, and other areas.

Geographically, Bakhmut is located in a lowland, and all the dominant heights around the city have long been controlled by Wagner. I don’t know what political and image dividends Ukraine is trying to extract by continuing to hold the city, but from a purely military point of view, this is madness, comparable to exchanging a bishop for a pawn in a chess game. The sacrifice may be justified if you have a sharp attacking combination play, but now it looks like a rather pathetic attempt to just buy some time to prepare for the mythical counter-offensive to Melitopol to cut the land corridor to the Crimea. It seems that this is the ultimate dream of Ukrainian military strategists.

How enlightening. Western leaders don't care what happens to Ukrainians. Of course, they actually dislike death for them in humanitarian ways. But that's only second (or less) to what they really want.

What do they really want? Empty Ukraine of anybody that is not of a formal-Western-goals mindset, and replace them with 'Westerners'. And do it without risking any more of their Western chattel than necessary. Get Russia to do it for them. "We'll cross the bridge of taking care of Russia when the time comes."

Russia's nuclear missiles are so large that they almost don't need to be nuclear. Fill them with something a bit stronger than TNT, and they might do just about as good a job as the nukes would... minus the radiation. Is it time for Russia to eliminate the people of the West and take over their lands? Is that why Russia isn't winning as fast as we have thought they would?

Maybe we are looking at this whole thing from the wrong direction. Maybe the super-rich are using Russia to take over the world by depopulating every other country, starting with Ukraine. Maybe the US will go the way of Ukraine, later, in some strange, strategic way.

However...


Tucker: Zelenskyy is demanding you send your kids to war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG8uLFHJWVE

The RF economy is quite resilient in general and exports measured in USD necessarily have to go up as prices are now under inflation pressures. But do not forget that those are big numbers, people running from the country tell a different story and a multi-decade long population decrease also tell a different story.

Now, paying for war is expensive, so great to look at the "income" side, but, in your view, what is the daily cost of keeping the army and the mercenaries active? (hint: some sources speak of between 0.5 and 1 billion a day). This means that only paying the war effort has already eaten more than half of the exports, and that is without considering the need to replace "tanks" and other weapons platforms, which it may simply be not possible.

Another year of war, another 300 billion that will be taken from schools, medical, roads and infrastructure, factory products, ... But, if you think that was part of the plan, ... great, all going to plan.

The reason why it is not a good idea (and against regulation) to fly without one's transponder activated is that other planes won't know you are there.  It must have been the case that the Russian planes needed to do an emergency fuel dump and simply didn't notice the drone ;^  The only lives which were put at risk were Russian ones and those availing of civil aviation.  Anyway, shit happens.


Those troops stuck in Bakhmut, once deprived of drugs and and electromagnetic zombification methods or whatever is happening to those poor fuckers in Ukraine, they might even come to their senses and fight with the Russian FOR their country rather than fighting for the Zioncons to dismember and de-populate it.

Himars? What Himars? When was the last time you heard about one?
And those "interviews", you really learned nothing from ghost of Kiev, babushkas destroying
Russian drones with cucumber jars, and ukrainian grandpas shooting Migs with shotguns?

No one shot him down, they just pissed on kerosene with a nearby flying plane and he himself fell.

I do not think there is an advantage to the attacker, irrespectively of the means of each. For what I am getting in interviews the RF does advance, but the cost in lives is very high. Basically they are sending "human decoys" to "detect" Ukrainian positions. Ukraine would have left the place if they felt it was not the right place.

I am going to leave to you to think why have they decided that it is the right place. Why are they there, why are they holding the place and what they may be waiting for. You do not need to be a genius to answer that.

As side note, the range of HIMARS means they do not have to be "there".

Meanwhile, the RF air force has decided that it is ok to down US drones in international waters. I wonder what may happen next.

TOS-1A, good that you mentioned it. Destroying it gives vey powerful and nice fireworks. And best part that cheap kamikaze FPV drone is enough to destroy it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUZmJgWo_t4
https://twitter.com/Freedom_Slips/status/1625900171895934976

Yeah, yeah, because RF destroyed more Ukrainian artillery than they actually had.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-putin-winning-the-world-order-is-changing-in-his-favour/

"Russian merchandise exports in 2022 set a historic record of $591.5 billion, and the surplus in trade in goods also turned out to be a record $332.4 billion,
follows from the data of the Federal Customs Service (FTS) on foreign trade for the last year published on March 13 and historical data from Rosstat."

Lookie, lookie. An correspondent who covered CIA stuff in South America, finally telling us what is really going on in Ukraine.


Ukraine's Death by Proxy

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https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/ukraines-death-by-proxy
There are many ways for a state to project power and weaken adversaries, but proxy wars are one of the most cynical. Proxy wars devour the countries they purport to defend. They entice nations or insurgents to fight for geopolitical goals that are ultimately not in their interest. The war in Ukraine has little to do with Ukrainian freedom and a lot to do with degrading the Russian military and weakening Vladimir Putin's grip on power. And when Ukraine looks headed for defeat, or the war reaches a stalemate, Ukraine will be sacrificed like many other states, in what one of the founding members of the CIA, Miles Copeland Jr., referred to as the "Game of Nations" and "the amorality of power politics."

I covered proxy wars in my two decades as a foreign correspondent, including in Central America where the U.S. armed the military regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala and Contra insurgents attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. I reported on the insurgency in the Punjab, a proxy war fomented by Pakistan. I covered the Kurds in northern Iraq, backed and then betrayed more than once by Iran and Washington. During my time in the Middle East, Iraq provided weapons and support to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) to destabilize Iran. Belgrade, when I was in the former Yugoslavia, thought by arming Bosnian and Croatian Serbs, it could absorb Bosnia and parts of Croatia into a greater Serbia.

Proxy wars are notoriously hard to control, especially when the aspirations of those doing the fighting and those sending the weapons diverge. They also have a bad habit of luring sponsors of proxy wars, as happened to the U.S. in Vietnam and Israel in Lebanon, directly into the conflict. Proxy armies are given weaponry with little accountability, significant amounts of which end up on the black market or in the hands of warlords or terrorists.
...

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What counterbattery? Ukrainians have no artillery worth mentioning there

Time to wait for more help from the West. But it is also time that this help will not be coming, or will be reduced.

Search here for a whole bunch of articles about the wart - https://www.censored.news/.


Ukrainian Official Says Kyiv Doesn’t Have the Resources for a Counteroffensive

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https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/13/ukrainian-official-says-kyiv-doesnt-have-the-resources-for-a-counteroffensive/
A senior Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post that Kyiv doesn’t have the resources to pull off a big counteroffensive in the coming months as Ukraine is lacking skilled troops, munitions, and other equipment.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack,” said the official, who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity. “If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs.”

The official said Ukraine doesn’t have “the people or weapons” to pull off a counteroffensive. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people,” the official said.
...

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Wait for the TOS to fire, send counterbattery fire, wait for the next TOS. Repeat.

Artillery range wise, there is nothing to be done. Does not matter if you use napalm or frag, RF does not have the range advantage, nor air advantage, nor terrain advantage. Intelligence wise and location, Ukraine is getting plenty of "Gospel from the Sky" and has quite an active partisanship work behind enemy lines. This battle place has been chosen by Ukraine and Wagnerites are trying to prove a point... at any cost.