I'm still wondering what Russia is hoping to gain from the pretenses of any negotiation process with the West. As we can safely establish that a Minsk-3 or some sort of end to the war on terms acceptable to Russia is not under consideration.
There is nothing to lose... Zelensky has already made it clear he wants all the land back including the Crimea, so talking about that there is no chance of an agreement... let them talk and then you talk and continue to slaughter their forces...
Any peacemaker goodwill it's hoping to generate in the rest of the world will be cancelled out by the bad optics its retreat from Kherson has caused.
What bad optics? They said they couldn't protect and support those troops where they were so they withdrew them... any offensive they might launch over the next month or two or three will result in all that territory and more being recaptured or at least encircled...
Time is not an issue for Russia like it is for the west who need results now for all the money and weapons and rhetoric they are expending day after day after day...
In which case the West has found Russia predictable and is taking advantage to make it look weak.
The west has been giving an inaccurate impression of Russia for hundreds of years... the west pretty much already believes Russia is weak and about to collapse and freeze and beg for forgiveness... the rest of the world knows better and wont be impressed by any cheap tricks from the west... the west lies at the best of times and is currently at war.
Russia needs to take better care of its image, both to its domestic audience and to the outside. To some extent its Hollwood, but past a certain point it has a real effect on both morale and international relations.
If that requires overriding military considerations with political ones sometimes then so be it. I'm still on the fence about the Kherson withdrawal but I'm perfectly aware that there are factors I'm simply not aware of.
The Russian military essentially said they were withdrawing for military reasons... political reasons only would have led them to stay and probably resulted in dams being destroyed and enormous areas flooded and Russian soldiers killed or captured... and for what... because withdrawing looks bad... **** OFF.
What I do find funny is that you don't understand them offering to talk... despite it being of no cost whatsoever... agreeing to talk does not mean ready to agree to any offer from the enemy side... yet a withdrawal to protect soldiers lives and prevent wide scale uncontrolled flooding from a dam being destroyed you think is the end of the world.
If the West knows that they can get Russia to negotiate every time they say they want to - then for them Russia has become predictable. Being predictable in war is a very bad thing, it will be taken advantage of.
Being ready to talk at any time is a good thing.
Being unpredictable is being unreliable... the reason Russia will not actually agree to any peace deal any time soon is that the west is unpredictable and can't be trusted anyway... but no harm in agreeing to talk.
I don't know if the Kherson retreat was related to the talks, but the West is sparing no effort to make it appear that it is, and that some sort of 'deal' is on the table
Bullshit. Official statements from the US were that the use of nuclear weapons and prisoner exchanges were the subject of their talks and no other negotiations were made with the US. Any talks with Kiev DIDN'T happen.
Propaganda on Twitter and telegram might suggest otherwise but that is just propaganda being propaganda.
So if these talks end up as a nothing-burger, I really do hope that Russia will publish the contents of the negotiations and offers in full, explain to their own people and others why they aren't acceptable, and why the West is simply trying to at most buy some 'ceasefire time' until Spring for the Ukraine to re-arm it, if not outright attempting to sow doubt in Russia's population through an insencere desire to discuss peace on the background of a proposed capitulation.
There is no ceasefire... that is all in your head... the only sources suggesting Putin might fold and give up are coming from western trolls... Ukraine is trying to rearm and will do so no matter what. Russia is also rearming and assembling forces that Kiev cannot hope to assemble because they don't have tanks and artillery and aircraft and drones in the numbers Russia has them.
Brimstone is a dual-mode missile, can be used by laser-guidance or fire and forget. It has a tandem warhead, like javelin.
No, it is a MMW radar guided missile with a reduced sized warhead and extra slower burning fuel which reduces flight speed but extends range.
The latest version of the missile is being tested to be used in a swarm.
It is an expensive missile... having to launch it in very large numbers to allow it to defeat enemy air defences is very bad news for any operators.
The Russian equivalent would be also a HIMARS equivalent... the HERMES... 6 missiles to a launch vehicle, but it has a 100km range and a 30kg warhead and IIR and MMW radar guidance to hit point moving and stationary targets.
They already use LMUR with IIR terminal homing and two way datalink allowing the operator to select targets in real time during attacks.
A video released on this forum showed a video of a LMUR flying towards a pontoon bridge but as it approached it was clear there was a vehicle crossing the bridge at the time so the operator selected the vehicle as the target and hit it... a follow up missile is immediately launched and it targets the bridge in front of the new burning vehicle so both targets are hit when with any other weapon the bridge would be hit... the vehicle looked like a BMP and was only crossing on the pontoon bridge because it was available.
Was supposed to be a "modified" Hellfire but by the time it entered service it had evolved into a new missile altogether.
It is still just a hellfire... slightly longer range and just the same as a MMW radar homing Hellfire model but with a few extra capabilities like loitering looking for targets... the TOR and Pantsir and new SOSNA missiles should all be able to defeat it rather easily... hense they talk about swarms.
Don't think I would liken Poland to a savage pit-bull. More like a common garden-variety mutt.
A very small dog that was all noise would be more accurate...
The sort that run away yelping after getting a couple of good hard kicks in its ribs or a good hard pounch on the end of its snout.
More like runs away yelping at the threat of violence...
Still, it didn't stop them from performing moronic acts with painted red refugees on the streets of Europe for months.
It is show for moronic audience. Nothing else
It also shows the potential power of a real free press... the truth came out despite the best efforts of western controlled media.
As for a major offensive by Russia, if the Russians are planning it at all (because they might be comfortable with this kind of systematic killing of Ukroshitstans), it does not necessarily mean that they will start even at the end of November or December. It could be January or February. We from the forum do not decide anything, we are just observers of the event.
An offensive is a huge thing and if you start it the first day you get a frost, the next week might be mild enough for the ground to soften again and for mud to be a real problem... give it a week of frosts or more and use that time to prepare the enemy positions...
Just another reminder for those that didn't notice... when you reply trim your posts. People posting conversations, especially quoting videos and picture over and over again will receive time outs.
If you have a problem trimming then instead of quoting just use the @ symbol and the username of the person you are replying to... @John and then type out your reply...
Advice on quoting properly: https://www.russiadefence.net/t7196-tutorial-on-quoting-very-important-you-read-this
And Rule 13] Do not misuse the quote feature. Do not quote an entire post just to reply to one or two specific comments.
This means do not quote more than two people in your quote box and also do not requote an entire article unless it is brief.
From Rules