Not a matter of being anti-Russia, but giving the West a few bones there where it doesn't matter so as to keep to neutrality effectively or refuse to vote against Russia at the UN
I am sure a few bones is all it wanted... NOT.
The problem is that you are talking about the west like it is rational... the US has been stirring specifically to get cheap Russian gas banned in the EU so it can sell its gas at much higher prices which wont sell at all if cheap Russian gas continues to be available and the EU are helping them push the price of Russian gas up to achieve that.
You think they will be happy selling their gas to Europe and blocking Russian gas sales?
It seems not.
There is no need to cover the whole country with drones. At the very least, all columns of Russian vehicles should be preceded by 2 or 3 drones...
What are you expecting that to achieve?
The time it would take for the soldiers watching the video feed from the drone to alert the rest of the column that actual enemy forces are nearby... do you think drones see everything?
What happens when groups of civilians near the route the Russians are taking start getting killed because they are grouped provocotively near where the military convoy is heading to?
How does it help seeing them if they don't get rocket launchers out till the last minute and fire point blank at your vehicles?
They expected an Afghan kinda trip. They got an Afghan kinda trip, just on the receiver end.
If we listen to Airbornewolfs stories about his time working with these guys it sounds like these guys are very confident of their own abilities and have a very low opinion of Russian forces, which appears to be biting them in the ass.
The masters running the show with Ukranian forces have a clear understanding as to what a gas turbine production facility means for being a maritime power, even though not many Russian planners, nor the well wishers, understands the importance of the very core of maritime industry that have defined naval power or need for surface combatants/ships, in required numbers.
The masters running the nazi forces will burn anything of value to prevent the Russians or their allies getting control of it.... scorched earth policy.
Russia is demilitarising the Ukraine as well as denazifying it.
Hope they use armed drones liberally on any groups acting from inside the industrial zones to minimise damage to that entire industrial area, not just production facilities.
Armed Russian drones should be protecting Russian forces and support units and not waste time protecting things they will likely demolish anyway.
This is the kind of drones Russia need in Ukraine , in the hundreds , up to 20 of them flying 24 hours turns at a time over ukraine airspace , in zones close to Russian and donbass military positions and convoys movements..
Yes, because there was not a single VIED or IED attack on western forces in Iraq or Afghanistan because of all their drones operating all the time... NOT.
and for russia protection needs thousands of them.
To protect all of Russian territory they will need billions.
This time for a change, they can learn with the best and taste the full weapons catalogue up to thermonuclear, if they want to keep playing war with Russia. Fucking morons.
Good to hear they got some ATMs and MANPADS too... but getting the potential users also helps too.
The President of Ukraine ordered the transfer of 128 separate mountain infantry and 10 separate mountain assault brigades from the western borders to the east of Kyiv in order to slow down the advance of Russian troops, thereby exposing the border with Poland.
No point holding them back because they might get hit anyway... send them into the fire and see what sort of metal they are made of.
Why on earth would Nato attack Russia. As long Russia dont attack a Nato country that will never happen.
Yes, because HATO is just an innocent bystander in this situation that is all about defence and is not actively poking the bear at all.
If Ukraine accepts the Russian conditions of neutrality, do u think Russia with completely withdraw from Ukraine?
Eventually, yes, why wouldn't they?
I understand the Russian reason for the operation and I mostly agree with it, but I don't see how they can do anything but keep a division or two in country to support neutrality because I know the NATO people and USAID and the State Dept and what not will try to install a new puppet as soon as the fighting stops.
Because you expect them to be the same as the US would be in such a situation... ignoring that the US would have carpet bombed the country and blamed the civilians for being terrorists for any deaths.
Russia must, if it is run by sane leaders, install military bases and occupy central and eastern "Ukraine" for at least 20 years. Just
like the US did and still does in Iraq
Yes, Russia must be the local colonial power just like the US... that will solve issues and make things better.
Any withdrawal will amount to a pointless waste of troops and civilian lives.
The elimination of the direct nazi invasion threat, elimination of bio weapons labs and the elimination of the threat to nuclear weapons acquisition by Kiev are still all achieved if Russian troops leave like they did from Georgian territory once they had secured South Ossetia.
I read somewhere Russia trying to create Kherson' s republic. Anyone heard something about it?
Russia is eliminating a nazi threat to itself... once that has been achieved and a few other objectives achieved then they locals are free to create any new regions they want... they just have to be neutral.
I'd wait for proof first. I don't see the point in such a republic, it wouldn't have any popular support.
That is the critical thing... the locals have to be happy with the situation....
I was talking to my Prorussian friend and he thinks Russia's main failure is very bad opsec, the FSB being incompetent and most importantly there being traitors in the Russian armed forces who disclose Russian troop movements to western intelligence who then relay them to Ukraine, allowing them to stage ambushes.
Of course because there is no way the west would have access to satellite images and recon from all their constantly flying AWACS aircraft telling them where the Russian forces are moving, which combined with maps of the region would allow someone to work out that Russian forces might take this or that road to advance upon... let alone having a few people on the ground with cell phones and other equipment to tell others what is happening there... no, instead it must be the FSB leaking the Russian Army plans because the US Army always runs its plans by the CIA before implimenting them too.
He believes that FSB is terrible because it hasn't rooted out these traitors before the operation, but in the end this Opera tion is a positive development because it's exposing the activities of those antirussian traitors allowing them to be located and dealt with.
The first part is silly and the second part is made up, but there are likely a few Russians with illusions of a future for Russia together with the west fighting ISIS or terrorists side by side having their world view smashed to pieces as the US sends equipment to kill more Russian soldiers.... you know... the way the Russians haven't in all the wests wars these last 20 odd years.
What do you think? Has the FSB dropped the ball? What can Russia do to prevent Ukrainians from knowing where Russian troops are?
Short of shooting down western satellites and AWACS and other aircraft and drones... they can't. What they can do is expect to be ambushed and have weapons locked and loaded to turn idiots with AT weapons into a fine red mist if they want to step up and play...
Keeping Russian forces in the Ukraine is just another attempt to create a forever war the west is hoping to create for Russia.
Of course nation building of United States was understood and studied by Russia
I hope not, the US is fucking awful at nation building... it builds weak slave states unable to operate on their own without regular massive injections of US taxpayer money into the US MIC.
Russia isn't about to go to war to dismantle the filthy Banderite regime and then just hand 404 nation back to them after the fighting stops. Banderites and their hateful ideology are a lethal virus and it will take a long term treatment plan to heal the patient fully and prevent any chance of a relapse.
They are there to eliminate a threat... not move in and start shifting around the furnature and putting drop cushions everywhere...
Once the nazis are dealt with and functional democracy is set up there is no reason to stay...
Agreements will be signed and trade links will be established so they don't starve and can trade their way out of their current financial situation, but this is not an expansion of the Russian empire.
Unless HATO really does drag this out for too long and Putins demands start including parts of Poland...
Western Ukraine will prove more of a challenge than the South and the East, but if Russia can save Chechnya, why not Banderastan? Granted it might take Chechnya-style levels of explosively-facilitated urban deconstruction followed by large scale renewal projects for those who get with the new program, but that's a project I could happily support
Screw western Ukraine... wouldn't bother trying to save those losers.
If it can prevent Banderite infiltration and provide cheap
energy and open up trade, then the local economy will develop.
Yes, free trade and good terms for energy and let them dig themselves out of the hole the west dug for them.
They will realise where friendship with the west takes them and how much the west cares about them... wanting to use them to kill Russians.
Some good trials for war crimes should establish what happened and why.... and who funded and encouraged it...
Buggar... Looks like dragon_first_1 at LiveJournal won't be updating his maps any more....
Seems like the Russians don't want accurate updates on their progress... and who can blame them...
Perhaps similar OPSEC should be observed here for the same reasons?
Investment it will require to just fix the damage, and then - to bring it up the proper level, will be enourmous.
Nationalising a lot of foreign owned stuff would mean they can own what they get up and going again... if peace and stability can be established then people who fled might come back and make some things viable again, but I suspect these regions will remain largely demilitarised, relying on Russian guarantees of security.
All the best laid plans for Ukraine will be completed because it is a must
Not so sure those Russian enterprises would benefit from the burden of revitalising these dead entities, and I would expect Russia will want these regions to remain demilitarised and neutral... adding Antonov to UAC is hardly neutral.
As Big Gazza points out... gas transit fees will mean Russia might not want to send cheap gas via NSII and just want Ukrainian pipes to carry gas to the west...
Ukronazis cannot ambush without knowing exatly where russian columns are driving, especially if they lack vehicles to move quickly around the battlefield.
Oh please... any idiot with a cell phone can see army vehicles driving around and the follow up support convoy has to follow the troops they are supporting which gives pretty obvious indications as to which roads they would need to take to follow the units they are supporting.
They can drive around in civilian cars if they want to be mobile.
Russia can't afford to start blowing up just every van and car driving around the place.
Same with aircraft. Without treason, theres no way in hell ukrainian buks can know exactly where to be in order to be in range to successfully destroy SU-34s and Su-25s.
Yeah because you can't tell an Su-34 or Su-25 from all the commercial jets flying around the place at the moment so you couldn't phone a number and tell them you can hear jet aircraft... enough people phone in siteings near a BUK vehicle hidden amongst buildings... so they start it up and turn on the optics to see if they can see an aircraft to launch a missile at... that could never happen... they need satellites and drones and spys in the Russian military.
Not even NATO radar intell can be able to update constantly the position of russian aircraft and armored columns like that. Like it or not, there must be traitors telling the ukrainian forces when and where to prepare.
During desert storm AWACS aircraft used their radar to find Iraqi ground positions by detecting the razor wire fences they had around their positions.
Spotting a column of vehicles and then checking satellite imagery to see if they are civilian or military is not rocket science and does not require moles or traitors.
In fact Russian personel communicating with cell phones would be easy to detect and track and deal with than western aircraft and satellites.
S-400s are next to useless dude , they have failed to protect the russian army positions just 40 km away from belarus border from those drones , constantly blowing up russian tanks. highly over rated junk. . russia need laser defenses and electromagnetic weapons and rail guns , things that can't be detected by radar when they hit and destroy a plane.
Ukraine does not have any AWACS or JSTARS platforms or any Su-34 equivalent, so shooting down Flankers is about all it would be needed to do.
Shooting down drones with S-400 is a stupid thing to say... why not prevent the next ambush on Russian vehicles with a TOPOL strike.
Russia doesn't have EM weapons and rail guns, this is real life not Star Wars.
If the orcs were massacring Russian forces like they claim you might have a point, but they clearly are not winning at all so you really don't.
Edit: The Koreets is a Ukrainian Navy tugboat.
So they captured the Ukrainian flag ship... awesome....
I S400 probably costs as much as 3 Turkish drone.
I would say 1 S-400 missile would cost less than those 15 million dollar Turkish drones... you would probably get 30 S-400s for the price of one of those drones, but other drones are much cheaper than it is.
"Unfair fight"... what were they even thinking to begin with, they're gonna shoot at an enemy with no Airforce or artillery like in Call of duty?
A western special forces operator claiming unfair fights because they don't have air support or artillery on command and the other side does.
If they were human they might have a better appreciation of the other people they have been killing for defending their own territory from a super power who has had enough of the shit from their government... if.
RIP to the Ukrainian dead..
The Ukrainian army doesn't deserve all this either. Sure there are nationalists and Nazis among them, but most I think are just ordinary people doing it as a career and fulfilling their oath to their country, whatever regime it is.
Shouldn't blind ourselves to the fact that many of these Orcs are conscripts following orders, but at the end of the day if they don't take the chance to lay down their arms and surrender then they are likely going to get killed, either by Russians defending themselves or Nazis trying to instil "courage" in the other green troops there that don't want to die for Zelensky.
Dunno if real. But fk all this..
Not the first time people went to war for an adventure... lots of kiwis volunteered for war in Europe in WWI and thought it would be fun... chance to see the world... shoot a few Germans... and then scones and cakes for tea. Reality is a bitch though... they had machine guns just like ours and artillery just like ours and it was no picnic at all. They actually tried to kill our boys. Imagine that.
Lots of people grew up real fast... those who survived... of course the Germans and the western allies both used gas weapons too...
There is no need to use that kind of intel, NATO jstar, and joint rift planes at the polish border will give 10 times the amount of intel any number of traitors, with almost no effort.
Just gathering the intel form traitors that way is to slow to be of use. And most soldiers below colonel rank will not know anything of value.
And there is a good chance of double agents feeding them false information so the ambushers can be ambushed first.
My previous assessment of about 10:1 seems very reasonable to me. I just wonder when reality is going to set in.
For 8 years and two different regimes Kiev has thought it could get away with anything without criticism with the full support of the entire west.
What other country on the planet could get away with banning a language in this day and age.... except colonial countries trying to ban the native language to get the damn natives to speak proper english.
It has only been a couple of weeks for Kiev to realise the west is basically useless and there is no way they can actually win and the best they can hope for is a long slow grind to wear the Russians down, but that is going to kill a lot of Ukrainians too in the process... an aspect the west ignores in its plans.
Wait, was there an announcement that they are suspending the foreign legion?
I suspect most wanting to join will be reading carefully the information coming from those already there and leaving themselves, which means it is probably suspending itself.
Thinking you can go to a war zone and shoot bad guys with impunity sounds like a video game and a nice thing to say to chicks at bars to get laid, but professional first class soldiers shooting back with aircraft delivered bombs and missiles as well as artillery and fairly decent enemy small arms fire and it starts to sound rather too dangerous, and you notice the spin doctors on the news don't seem to match what the guys already there are saying so you think it might not be that the Ukraine is kicking Russian arse and if you don't hurry you might miss out on getting your own Boa pistol souvenir....