Russian military intervention and aid to Syria #12

Karl, really quite irregular Russian casualties don't deserve or require that kind of drama. It seems to me that your mental adjustments went to a... weird direction.

Is the glass half-empty or half-full? You win some, you lose some. I don't think Russia has been massively humiliated... anywhere, really. Well the whole doping thing was certainly a successful operation for the West (you don't have to be a huge conspiracy theorist to see that), but they still won in ice hockey and most importantly: Winter Olympics don't actually matter. On the other hand: this doping nonsense can't go on much longer (oh well, who knows, Western Russophobia can't get any more ridiculous) AND the Russians were in Rio and they did really well AND Fifa World Cup, this summer, in Russia.

Don't you think that the Russiagate hysteria - during and especially after every "Western" election when the globalist establishment doesn't totally dominate, I have to add - make Russia look amazingly strong? What is that if not a bizarre "image victory" for Russia? Of course, many Russiagaters suffer from Russophrenia, in other words they think that Russia is somehow both incredibly weak ("look at their nominal GDP, lol") and about to take over the world, but still.

All things considered, Russia is doing fine, IMO. And I'm actually not one of those people who thinks Russia can do no wrong, that there are no problems, that everything is just Putin the Grand Chessmaster's long-term plan (just look at the Su-57 thread). You also can not "retaliate" for every single loss. Because The Empire is usually/often not behind them, certainly not directly. Those accusations that they have been killing Russian politicians or even soldiers (especially excluding the recent PMC debacle) are just conspiracy theories. Some of you people sound just like the Western MSM lol, don't you see it? Russiagate, Putin did it, he kills "dissidents" and journalists. The same shit. None of that is true. It's not how the real world usually works.

Now Russia needs one thing going forward, one single thing: high economic growth (that is 3%+, or atleast above 2.5%, annually), and that is actually what Putin was focusing on in his recent speech. We shall see what happens in the near future. If Russia can develop sustainably, despite all the sanctions, all that pressure, all that propaganda and ridicule about the Russian economy... There can be no larger victory.    

Oh, and I'd like to add that in many ways Russia is also arguably conventionally superior to the West in its near-abroad, east of the "Suwalki gap" atleast.

You can't ignore that Russians planes are crashing every couple of weeks, you can't ignore that Russians are being killed, kidnapped, their careers and lives are being destroyed. You can't ignore that Russian military men are being shot like rats in the desert, that they are being spit and humiliated in every possible way and that their president can't do nothing to defend them. If you can't defend your people move. Putin is weak, he was always weak. Let's remember who put him on the throne, let's remember that all those liberals all around him are his buddies, he put them there. He was a man for a certain period, not for this one. For a war period you need a different kind of man, a man who is Russian to the bone, not infected with any western thought.Putin is way past that, he's beyond help, Kudrinitis will always be an incurable disease from which he is suffering.

miketheterrible wrote:

TheArmenian wrote:As always, when a tragedy like this happens, the army of trolls, haters and drama queens will be out tonight in strength.

Just ignore them and concentrate on the mission.

People here thinking it was shot down. Very stupid. Plus, iets a 30 year old antanov....

You know what is really stupid? Russian armed forces flying Russian servicemen in a flying coffin like that.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Kimppis wrote:Btw, are there actually hundreds of thousands of Americans soldiers abroad? I'm curious what the numbers actually are... in 2018. I mean certainly over 100K I suppose, but the numbers could be surprisingly small. Of course, still a huge drag on the budget (no double standards here lol: American power projection capabilities are somewhat overrated, but they're still a huge "waste" of money. Both at the same time. Murica of course never wins in our russophile minds.)

It's an undeniable fact that Russian casualties have been low. They have been there since... the seconf half of 2015? Look at the results. The end.

it's easy

a) Putin is bad because Russian soldiers are dying
b) Putin is bad because  Russian soldier are not dying because dont protect Russia in Syria
c) Putin is bad because doesnet't attack US Army in Syria and provoke gl9bal war where Russian civilians woudl die in millions.

comman part of all points: Putin is bad

Quod erat demonstrandum

Yes. that is very clearly Vann's narrative.

AlfaT8 wrote:Seriously though, any real conformation that over a 100 Russian PMCs died.
I just find it unthinkable that they would actually make a move without air-cover, unless this was a plain U.S attack, that is being spun into some "defense against evil Russian PMCs".

No there isn't or wasn't. While we find videos of a massacre happen with SAA or even with Russians, nothing concrete came from that.

In this case, an aircraft crashed. Now people say that Russia is the only nation that has this. Well, it isn't. You will hear in a small blip in news about US helicopters crashing in Japan, or US planes crashing in US, or helicopters crashing into each other.

I agree, the AN aircrafts need to go. But what will they replace them with ATM? I guess more Il-76's?

Kimppis wrote:Karl, really quite irregular Russian casualties don't deserve or require that kind of drama. It seems to me that your mental adjustments went to a... weird direction.

Well, this was the biggest disaster for Russian so far in Syria. 39 military personnel dead. And what a stupid way to die in a junk old Soviet flying coffin like that.

I don't think I would be as "dramatic" if this was just an isolated incident. But these things happen too often for Russia. When was it that the civilian plane crashed near Moscow killing almost 100 people? Was it last week? Wasn't it last Christmas when Russia gave its haters the best possible Christmas gift by killing the Red Army choir in one of these flying coffins?

Why do these Russian planes keep crashing with this kind of frequency? Aviation is a national embarrassment for Russia. Has the Russian government and armed forces publicly admitted this and thought ways to improve the situation? Why are these old junk planes still used to carry valuable assets like servicemen?

Even if you downplay the human side of this tragedy and look at the numbers, Russian age groups born in the 1990s are very small and Russia cannot afford to lose plane-loads of soldiers like this at once. It was a different time in the 1940s when one Russian woman bore 3-4 children per average.

Kimppis wrote:
Is the glass half-empty or half-full? You win some, you lose some. I don't think Russia has been massively humiliated... anywhere, really. Well the whole doping thing was certainly a successful operation for the West (you don't have to be a huge conspiracy theorist to see that), but they still won in ice hockey and most importantly: Winter Olympics don't actually matter. On the other hand: this doping nonsense can't go on much longer (oh well, who knows, Western Russophobia can't get any more ridiculous) AND the Russians were in Rio and they did really well AND Fifa World Cup, this summer, in Russia.

Russia was granted the FIFA world cup in a different time, when the USA did not have a total stranglehold over the whole Western community. USA is now more powerful than ever.

The Olympic ban was a successful operation for the West because Russia did not actively protest or boycott the games. Russia did not admit having a state-sponsored doping program, but yet accepted every punishment handed out to it and its athletes with little objections. I found this very confusing. If Russians think they were innocent of the crime, why did they not defend themselves more rigorously?

Victory in ice-hockey was indeed the only good outcome of this. Although it was not such a big thing since the NHL players were absent.

Kimppis wrote:
All things considered, Russia is doing fine, IMO. And I'm actually not one of those people who thinks Russia can do no wrong, that there are no problems, that everything is just Putin the Grand Chessmaster's long-term plan (just look at the Su-57 thread). You also can not "retaliate" for every single loss. Because The Empire is usually/often not behind them, certainly not directly. Those accusations that they have been killing Russian politicians or even soldiers (especially excluding the recent PMC debacle) are just conspiracy theories. Some of you people sound just like the Western MSM lol, don't you see it? Russiagate, Putin did it, he kills "dissidents" and journalists. The same shit. None of that is true. It's not how the real world usually works.

I kind of agree that many times the West is not (at least directly) to blame for Russian setbacks and I never blamed the USA for causing the plane crash. There is a possibility that foul play was used and the Russian government wants to hide it to save face, but since we don't have any proof of this so its better to stick with the official story.

But still, Russia is and has been in the receiving end of the stick since 1991, and probably earlier.

Remember those Soviet scientists that were mysteriously assassinated during the Perestroika in the 1980's? I guess it is widely accepted now that the West was behind these assassinations and their goal was similar to Israel's when it assassinated all these Iranian scientists: to slow down and reverse the scientific output of the Soviet Union. These murders were never avenged by the Soviet Union, and they were soon forgotten after the breakup of the country. (By the way, I have a slight fear that after Putin's reveal of new Russian superweapons the West might try something like this again - hopefully the best of Russian engineers and scientists are well protected).

We all know what happened in the 1990s. Russia was butt-raped by the West. Well, it was not all West's doing but the West was more than happy to help Russia to sink itself. Millions of Russians emigrated to the West. Billions of dollars escaped Russia to Western banks. Millions of Russians died untimely deaths. Russian fertility rate fell close to 1.0. All this because that fool Gorbachev's voluntarily gave up an empire.

Did Russia even get any compensations for giving up an empire? No. It had to pay the Soviet debt in full. It did not get Crimea. It did not get a land-bridge to Kaliningrad. It did not get Russian-speaking Donbass and northern Kazakhstan. It did not get written guarantees that the NATO would not expand eastwards. The late 1980s Soviet regime might have been one of the stupidest in human history. Yes, Russia was betrayed by the West. Stupid people and stupid countries do get betrayed.

And what did Putin did the first since he came to power in 2000? Remember was was just after the NATO bombed Serbia. He granted the USA a permission to invade Afghanistan, a country very close to Russia's soft underbelly. What did Russia get from this? A constant flow of cheap heroin from Afghanistan to Russia which kills about 50,000 young Russian citizens a year. The USA saw an opportunity to destabilize Russia even further with drugs and used the opportunity.

And then later came several "color revolutions" in the FSU countries which Russia was unable to stop, NATO-sponsored war against Georgia and the most catastrophic one, the Maidan revolution, where Ukraine was eternally split away from Russia.

It has been a complete one-way street, where the West causes a setback after another setback for Russia, and Russia never retaliates. Never. It might be that Russia simply lacks the ability to retaliate. But then again, Russia could have caused the West a lot of problems if it wanted in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but choose not to.

Kimppis wrote:
Now Russia needs one thing going forward, one single thing: high economic growth (that is 3%+, or atleast above 2.5%, annually), and that is actually what Putin was focusing on in his recent speech. We shall see what happens in the near future. If Russia can develop sustainably, despite all the sanctions, all that pressure, all that propaganda and ridicule about the Russian economy... There can be no larger victory.

Where is that economic growth going to come from? Russian oil production will decline after 2022 and the working age population is already declining at a fast rate.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Nikander wrote: Putin is weak, he was always weak. Let's remember who put him on the throne,.

OK hotshot  what would you do in place of Putin?

Russia has two problems, it has enemies from within and from outside. Both are working for the same side. Russian liberals, almost all of them are traitors, that means and all those who are now in the government. If there is coup, Putin goes to hell and Navalny or some other traitor is put on the throne by the west Siliuanov, Oreshkin, Nabiullina will celebrate and will work with great joy for the globalist project just like they are doing now. Putin way of dealing with both of these problems was basically to placate them. He constantly is trying to appease he's own elite (mostly traitors also) and the west. At home a purge needs to happen, that's the only way. He has support of the people, army, secret services, he could do it if he want it to but he's scared even if I do think that he understands that it's the only way. From the breakup of the USSR a system is in place in Russia that is corrupt, unfair to the bone. System put in place by the west itself purposely so that Russia can't grow, expand and be strong like it should be, like it's her destiny. It's not China that the west is afraid off, that talk is all smoke but they are terrified of Russia. Not this Russia though but what it could become. There are many reasons for it but that is talk for another subject. Bottom line an economic system now in place in Russia needs to be changed for a system that benefits Russian people, tha state and not oligarchs and the globalist project. Obviously doing something like that will couse a massive reaction from the fifth column, but then it will be in the open who is who so they will be dealt with.

With outside enemies you need to respond to every provocation or else it will just continue. I don't blame west for wanting to absorb Ukraine in Nato, I blame Putin for not doing anything to stop it. Remember that before this last coup there was the first one, it was all clear then but still Putin allowed the second one to happen. Western actions are very predictable, they're acting always the same, with no morals and utter cynicism but unfortunately so are the Russians, often so naive and believing that their "partners" can't possibly fall so low. So naive.. When they killed Russian soldiers like dogs in Syria Putin should have immediately ordered a plane to be shot or an attack on Al Tanf. Not go into hiding. Now in his speech he's saying that he'll defend he's allies from any attack with a nuclear weapon but who actually believes that. He's all bluff and soon people will see it.

Sooner the word ''Antonov'' is erased from Russian hardware inventory, both military and civilian, the better (no disrespect to Mr. Oleg Antonov intended)

This is colossally shitty but it could have happened on any location. Disaster due to hardware.

When you lose more men in one crash that you did in 3 years of war you know something must be disposed of.

miketheterrible wrote:.........
I agree, the AN aircrafts need to go. But what will they replace them with ATM? I guess more Il-76's?

Literally anything else. And fast.

AlfaT8 wrote:Seriously though, any real conformation that over a 100 Russian PMCs died........

Nope, not even close. Dozen got killed when they got caught in crossfire. They weren't even taking part in combat. Whole fairytale got rolling once Strelkov started shitposting online about ''hundreds dead Russians. Retard.

You got article about what happened here:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t7040p900-russian-military-involvement-and-aid-to-syria-12#217844

The irony that air accident fatalities well outstrips those from combat is pretty bitter. The timing and circumstances also always seems so unfortunate too, this time following Putin's last major address, which was awesome.

32 dead, not 39. As well, yeah, it sucks. Old plane. All those AN's need to be replaced as Papa said. Also, there is now two versions: pilot error or mechanical.

miketheterrible wrote:32 dead, not 39. As well, yeah, it sucks. Old plane. All those AN's need to be replaced as Papa said. Also, there is now two versions: pilot error or mechanical.

The official death toll is now 39: https://lenta.ru/news/2018/03/06/utocnili/

Karl Haushofer wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:32 dead, not 39. As well, yeah, it sucks. Old plane. All those AN's need to be replaced as Papa said. Also, there is now two versions: pilot error or mechanical.

The official death toll is now 39: https://lenta.ru/news/2018/03/06/utocnili/

There are conflicting info. We will wait till tomorrow.

Planes crashes.Given the sheer number of landings at Khmeimim Air Base this accident goes to statistical error nothing more.
R.I.P. to Russian heroes.

Karl Haushofer wrote:Well, this was the biggest disaster for Russian so far in Syria. 39 military personnel dead. And what a stupid way to die in a junk old Soviet flying coffin like that.

I don't think I would be as "dramatic" if this was just an isolated incident. But these things happen too often for Russia. When was it that the civilian plane crashed near Moscow killing almost 100 people? Was it last week? Wasn't it last Christmas when Russia gave its haters the best possible Christmas gift by killing the Red Army choir in one of these flying coffins?

Why do these Russian planes keep crashing with this kind of frequency? Aviation is a national embarrassment for Russia. Has the Russian government and armed forces publicly admitted this and thought ways to improve the situation? Why are these old junk planes still used to carry valuable assets like servicemen?

Even if you downplay the human side of this tragedy and look at the numbers, Russian age groups born in the 1990s are very small and Russia cannot afford to lose plane-loads of soldiers like this at once. It was a different time in the 1940s when one Russian woman bore 3-4 children per average.

Well, it's certainly true that they have some issues with those planes.

So how bad is the situation really? How does that factually and statistically compare to other countries, %, per capita? What is the trend? The number of crashes per year must have decreased considerably. Because it's not like Russia is a particularly poor country and it also has a large-scale aviation industry on its own. So the airframes and their condition can't be that bad, despite the 90s. Do they really have many more crashes than say... Brazil? If so, do they have many more operational planes then? (Certainly in the military, but I mean overall, in the whole country.)

Russia was granted the FIFA world cup in a different time, when the USA did not have a total stranglehold over the whole Western community. USA is now more powerful than ever.

My point was that the World Cup will be held in Russia in a few months time, period. I'm not so sure that the US has more influence over Western countries than before, with Trump and all that nonsense, the difference is that the US-Russian relations are much worse than they were only 4 years ago.

And most certainly the US is not more powerful than ever, it's pretty much the exact opposite. Although I can sort of understand your pessimism if you really believe that. Because oh boy... then we're fucked.

But luckily, I don't think that's the case at all. The US is in relative decline. Geopolitically and militarily they have not been this weak since the end of the cold war. Economically the American share of the global economy (in PPP, obviously) has declined to less than 15%, China is already 20% larger! When was the last time that was the case? In the mid 1800s? That is absolutely huge. Even if you focus on American strengths, financial markets, etc., the overall economic influence has in many ways not been this (relatively) weak since... the interwar era (ww1-ww2)? And those trends are going to continue.

Where is that economic growth going to come from? Russian oil production will decline after 2022 and the working age population is already declining at a fast rate.

Really? Even if that's true, do you seriously think that Russia's earlier economic growth was largely or even only due to high oil prices? Come on, the share of oil & gas is probably already below 10% of Russia's GDP. The federal budget (which in itself is becoming much less oil dependent) and exports are not the same thing as the overall Russian economy.

So where's the economic growth of many other Eastern European countries, Turkey, etc. coming from? Many of those countries have a considerably worse demographic situation that Russia. Btw, China is still growing by almost 7% a year, while its working age population is already declining too.

I don't see how Russia can't achieve growth rates that are around the global average. One thing to keep in mind also is that the interest rates are still very high.

Now if Russia doesn't achieve that kind of growth, then everything else is pretty much irrelevant and it has already lost anyway.

MikeTerrible wrote:People here thinking it was shot down. Very stupid. Plus, iets a 30 year old antanov....

Mann absolutely correct .
Everyone is thinking it was shot down. no mann very old airframe .. almost fully spent aircraft
still in active duty what do you expect . We need Russ gov to regularly check RDF for updates/policy guidance .Only then they will start spending on aviation platforms and get them on active duty in Russian army.

gaurav wrote:

MikeTerrible wrote:People here thinking it was shot down. Very stupid. Plus, iets a 30 year old antanov....

Mann absolutely correct .
Everyone is thinking it was shot down. no mann very old airframe .. almost fully spent aircraft
still in active duty what do you expect . We need Russ gov to regularly check RDF for updates/policy guidance .Only then they will start spending on aviation platforms and get them on active duty in Russian army.

It clearly stalled out, the question is why?

Vladimir79 wrote:

gaurav wrote:

MikeTerrible wrote:People here thinking it was shot down. Very stupid. Plus, iets a 30 year old antanov....

Mann absolutely correct .
Everyone is thinking it was shot down. no mann very old airframe .. almost fully spent aircraft
still in active duty what do you expect . We need Russ gov to regularly check RDF for updates/policy guidance .Only then they will start spending on aviation platforms and get them on active duty in Russian army.

It clearly stalled out, the question is why?  

Why are Russian roads more dangerous than Finnish roads even when there is a similar climate in these countries? It's the mentality of people.

Vladimir79 wrote:It clearly stalled out .. why ..??

That I am not sure .What I am sure is that Antonov fleet has to be disbanded. It was very old air frame , old aircraft and most of the problems
occur during landing. Many of the problems are removed if the aircraft is bought new . Any average person can tell that.
TU-154 I donno what precautions Russian airforce are taking to fly that aircraft. But clearly the fleet needs renewal .
Transport aviation is the weakest link of Russian army and they need to look into that.
They are sacrificing precious Russian army officers by continuing to fly this Antonov fleets.

They can keep AN-148 but ..other Antonov s need to be done away with. Every blame will be put into pilots when they are not responsible.
when Russia is already facing population (reverse pressure) and too much attention is being payed into Russian deaths ..
in that environment Russian army must quickly take decisive measure in securing transport fleet.

This same incident with China nobody asks .. because they have huge population. Chinese air force would be thinking maybe we can have couple more of such crashes.

It seems that CIA crashed that saratov airlines AN -148 but this an-26 was just a fatigue , spent air frame.


Russian rocket engg says that we can look into satellite crash from every theory ..but had it been a new launcher then there wouldnt be any problem

Karl hausofer wrote:Why are Russian roads more dangerous than Finnish roads even when there is a similar climate in these countries? It's the mentality of people.

Bang on target. Correct

A couple of months ago a Su-24 crashed near Khmeimim at both crew were martyred. What Russia should do is stop flying decades old planes. Give all Su-24 to SAA and fly only Su-34. Should have been done a long time ago.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

Vladimir79 wrote:

gaurav wrote:

MikeTerrible wrote:People here thinking it was shot down. Very stupid. Plus, iets a 30 year old antanov....

Mann absolutely correct .
Everyone is thinking it was shot down. no mann very old airframe .. almost fully spent aircraft
still in active duty what do you expect . We need Russ gov to regularly check RDF for updates/policy guidance .Only then they will start spending on aviation platforms and get them on active duty in Russian army.

It clearly stalled out, the question is why?  

Why are Russian roads more dangerous than Finnish roads even when there is a similar climate in these countries? It's the mentality of people.

Are they? How do you know? Which roads? From where?

I also figure you never figured out the difference between Finland and Russia. Hint: size and population.

Guarantee you there are more paved roads in Russia than Finland. Also guarantee you that those are also newely paved roads.

Ultimatewarrior wrote:A couple of months ago a Su-24 crashed near Khmeimim at both crew were martyred. What Russia should do is stop flying decades old planes. Give all Su-24 to SAA and fly only Su-34. Should have been done a long time ago

Bang on target
Exactly only 2 pilots were killed and Syrian war was in cold phase so nobody was paying attention.
But now everyone is paying attention.. the top echelon Russian officer core has been wiped out
now the heat is being felt by Russ gov. and of course Russ elections are near and Putin must be feeling the heat.

gaurav wrote:the top echelon Russian officer core has been wiped out

How do you know? Have the names of deceased been released?