Topic: Russian Invasion of Ukraine[In Progress] - page 339. (Read 78223 times)

If only the glorious Russian army could man up and fight the real Ukrainian forces instead of killing unarmed civilians:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61036740

"Marines are trained that as we go past bodies on the ground we put a controlled pair into them to make sure they are dead.
Unless needed for interrogation, wounded enemies are just hassle."

Comment about some filmed incident from battle of Fallujah

It probably is. They shouldn't have bothered taking prisoners just to kill them unarmed.

We (professional U.S. soldiers in the late 1980's) were instructed that the Geneva Conventions prohibited shooting 50 cal rounds at enemy soldiers in combat.  Thus, we were to aim at their BDU and LBE gear.  (Battle Dress Uniform and Load Bearing Equipment (e.g., suspenders.))  Honestly, some of the Geneva Convention stuff was a little on the ridiculous side.

I was in uniform at the tail end of the 'Reagan buildup' since it was a good way for college drop-outs to make up for their lost scholarships and grants.  Based on my various observations since that time, I suspect that it was one of the most professional militaries in the history of the world.  That would be in 'peacetime' of course.  I don't doubt that the professionalism waned pretty quickly in combat conditions, or at least as fast as the civilian leadership wished it to.  Iraq-I was over so quickly that I don't think the troops really had time to turn characteristically evil, and in most segments that I (in a combat arms unit) was exposed to it just wouldn't have been very cool to most people to rape and murder civilians and that kind of thing.

From what I could determine, moral, spending, etc were way down for a good decade after Vietnam.  As much as I (might seem to) shit-talk the American military and more generally the American power structures, I have to say that the U.S. Army really did a fairly good job on a difficult task of getting things turned around in the 80's.  Could be that the Vietnam war damaged psychos were exiting by the early 80's enough to help, and it is also the case that the military could be (and generally were) at least a little bit selective about who they allowed in.

Later things got a little more 'Jewy' with the neocons infusing the upper policy ranks, and they seem to delight in goy performing atrocities against one another.  I doubt that professionalism is as much of a training target in today's U.S. military as it was when I was in.  I could be wrong, of course, because I have almost no exposure to these things now.

The Ukrainian forces don't seem to be too bothered by the Geneva convention either.Is this not classed as a "war crime"?
https://twitter.com/Rolando02660530/status/1511949674676035586
https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1511760338743545858

The Russian troops suffered heavy losses in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv, so they withdrew the remnants of their troops, but of course they did not forget to embellish everything, as if it was a good gesture related to the negotiations in Turkey. Now they are concentrating all possible troops to the eastern border of Ukraine in order to attack with everything they have. They are mobilizing the population in Donetsk, people don't want that. They mobilized my uncle from Debaltseve, he is a simple builder, he does not know how to fight and there are a lot of people like that. It looks like some sort of madness. The only thing the Russian army is capable of is to fire long-range missiles on the entire territory of Ukraine...

Ukraines army is about 240,000.  Russia already has 160,000 in Ukraine and they're rotating in new conscripts.

They have had to scale down their priorities and retreat from the west after losing several times more soldiers in just a month than the last Chechen war, which lasted 10 years.

Maybe Putin wasn't paying attention in "How to invade a country" class when they covered overwhelming force.  Russia is really good at fucking up and making what should be a quick invasion and turning it into a long drawn out blood bath.

Interesting confusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbXx6Hcxejg

I think Russia plans to conduct this operation with limited personnel, emphasizing the dominant superiority in military equipment. For the Russian army, there are no problems with logistics, military plants are operating normally, the state defense order has been 100% stable for many years, Russia is well prepared not only for economic sanctions, but also for military operations on the territory of Ukraine. It is naive to believe that Russia will run out of money when Europe alone buys gas from Russia for a billion dollars a day. It is even more naive to believe that Russia will run out of food and weapons. Ukraine has not even really been bombed yet. I think the blow in the Donbass will not be the last, but rather the first really strong one.

Putin has an unlimited mandate for this operation, including the ability to make the entire territory of Ukraine west of the Dnieper uninhabitable for the next hundred years. The people of Russia will not forgive him only for abandoning his originally declared goals, and Putin knows this. But the mass genocide of Ukrainians due to a nuclear strike is not consistent with the current strategy of minimizing civilian casualties, so this alignment will be a technical victory for Russia, but an actual defeat for Putin, with long-term reputational losses in the eyes of history.
There is a saying in Russia, "war is bullshit, maneuvers are the main thing." The Ukrainian army is actually immobilized by the lack of fuel and air control, and is deprived of the ability to freely maneuver, while the Russian army is mobile and can create a local numerical advantage in different parts of the front. I think the tactics of the Russian generals is to deprive the army of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of general coordination and divide it into separate groups, this elephant needs to be eaten in parts.
Your concern for the prestige of Russia is very touching, thank you.

Sounds like a rhetorical question... obviously they don't "have" any such super-capabilities. The retreat from Kyiv, mobilization in DNR/LNR, and a few thousand troops from Karabakh and Osetia is all they can afford to throw at one last push in Donbas.

Other than that there's just nukes.

Seems like there's a decent chance one of the cliffs notes for this chapter of the Global History books will be about what corruption did to Russias Military and Putins miscalculation in relying on the reputation of his army rather than his actual army.

Maybe Putin will be the new Potemkin. 

Again, talking about rationalisation to justify an assassin, there is yours.

By the way, I am not sure who is "you" in your mind. I am myself, and have my own views.


As per the rules of war, any non-belligerent country can sell weapons to whoever they decide. As per the rules of international trade, any country can choose the terms in which they decide to trade with others. Some NATO countries are selling supplies to Ukraine and, to be honest, they could be selling much more dangerous equipment and are restraining from it.

About training "thousands of soldiers", that is a claim that would need substantiation, but still, the neutral countries can do so within their rights.

Not giving asurance to Russia that Ukraine won't join NATO is just polite way to say no without closing doors completely. But now even Zelensky aren't making false illusions that Ukraine will be accepted into NATO one day. Same stuff applies to Gerorgia too probably.
NATO didn't got involved into this war directly. Training troops isn't something significant. NATO did same thing in Afghanistan and some other countries. And all these trainers already left country since start of war. Sending weapons is another question, but it's not direct involvement. Not just NATO are doing it, but also neutral countries like Finland.


Actually, nobody knows real number of victims and I doubt that numbers can be called low. Just in Bucha there was hundreds of dead civilians. We can only imagine how many people were killed in Mariupol.
And we aren't talking about accidentally killed civilians. From what we can see that Russians are killing civilians intentionally.

I know, you guys are great at acknowledging facts post festum, but you don't return stolen goods
or money or pay reparations

United Kingdom Parliament Investigation
An in depth investigation into the Libyan intervention and its aftermath was conducted by the U.K. Parliament's House of Commons' cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee, the final conclusions of which were released on 14 September 2016 in a report titled Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options.] The report was strongly critical of the British government's role in the intervention. The report concluded that the government "failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element." In particular, the committee concluded that Gaddafi was not planning to massacre civilians, and that reports to the contrary were propagated by rebels and Western governments. Western leaders trumpeted the threat of the massacre of civilians without factual basis, according to the parliamentary report, for example, it had been reported to Western leaders that on 17 March 2011 Gaddafi had given Benghazi rebels the offer of peaceful surrender and also that when Gaddafi had earlier retaken other rebel cities there were no massacres of non-combatants.

"oooops, sorry, we bombed you back to stone age, that sucks. We wont return those billions we owe you for oil or those frozen assets, though"

Already answered (yes I do answer, you should try, I may give your claims some sense).


I am not happy with anyone committing crimes. You cannot say the same, can you? Are you ok with Putin killing civilians yes or no? Or maybe... your are just trying to rationalise supporting an assassin?

It cannot be more clear, I have a rationale for my stance on the conflict and is not based on mere coercion or pure force, but on the type of regimes that I would rather live in. If a despot attacks a country that wishes to rule his own destinies, I know where I am.

I do get that your view of the world is different. You are all right with the Tzar invading Ukraine, I am not and, as you can see Ukrainians are not either and the more Putin's army vandalises their country the more they will be against. You cannot grasp this concept because your conception of life is about force and fear.

I do not think that any foreign intervention has made any serious effort to implement democracy in any country in particular because one of the requisites of democracy is education and knowledge of history and that is not something you can force. Again, you cannot understand any of these concepts, from your perspective, the world is no more than a jungle and people are beasts.

I urge you to open a thread on Madeleine, Libia, Syria... You will find plenty of people in the forum to agree with.

Tash got a history of not checking his hyperlinked "facts", though.

He vanished just like Tiffany Dover, disappeared from face of the earth.

I love your style, throwing out some "questions" instead of making a direct claim, which you would have to substantiate.

Just like you were asking "questions" as to why Ukrainians are not letting people evacuate even though it was obvious that Russian forces are controlling the checkpoints and throttling the evacuation and then there's this: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-04-04/red-cross-says-its-team-travelling-to-mariupol-was-stopped-now-being-held

As for people from Mariupol "going" to Russia... when you have no food for a month and that's your only option... sure, you'll go to the totalitarian shithole and give up your phone and documents "voluntarily".

Todays democracy = "Hypocrisy "

Coworker sister currently live and work in China and has interesting comparison between Croatian and Chinese
point of view (translated by Google):

"I don't think the main problem is that Chinese propaganda quotes Russian. Our people do the same. The problem is that in addition to transmitting news, the Chinese media do not write the correct reaction of readers to what is read, such as e.g. ours who clearly tell us what is true and what is a lie.
So, one of the differences between our democracy and the Chinese communist autocracy is that the autocratic media broadcasts the news, and the democratic media, in addition to transmitting the news, suggest which news should be accepted as true and which should not. Shouldn't it be the other way around?"