Russian special military operation in Ukraine #52

JohninMK wrote:Pepe Escobar
@RealPepeEscobar
IT’S GONNA GET UGLY. VERY UGLY.

If the usual suspects sideline popular Zaluzhny and install Budanov as the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, run for cover.

The AFU will be under total control of the CIA - and not NATO generals, as it’s still the case.

This will prevent a military coup against the sweaty sweatshirt.

But then comes hell:  404 will go Total Guerrilla, with only two objectives: to kill Russian civilians en masse and to destroy civilian infrastructure in Russia.

Moscow of course knows it.

Thus the need to go for the jugular. Fast.

Now enjoy Budanov giving a hard-on to a FT hack:

https://ft.com/content/98c005

As I asid before, Russia assuming it has the luxury of time is a wrong assumption. They maybe be slow rolling it due to the US election and concern any US canadidate is looking to appear "strong". Or for any number of reasons. But it can also increase risks.

Backman wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
Russians served that airplane to Ukrainians on a silver platter when they announced it's route, Ukrainians would be retarded not to take the shot

Handful of POWs are far less useful than scratching off enemy Il-76

Buy a new plane and don't be stupid in the future

Lots of these prisoner exchange flights have happened already. They didn't even do it to take out the plane. The US's invisible hand is in all of these kinds of attacks.They did it just to sow more despair and anymous between both sides. And to stop these cooperative exchanges between both sides. 

Does anyone believe that Patriot or Iris-T batteries in Ukropistan are manned and operated by Ukro apes? No, they are operated by sheep-dipped NATO personnel, and act under the orders of NATO intel and their neocon controllers.

JohninMK wrote:More on that pipe attack

We could have done without the BS from the Ukropi faggot Ponomarenko...

-Tornado we dont hear much about being used but that the production is being done on 3 work shifts.

-Sniper riflemen are being treated with love, got different sniper rifle companies making new rifles for them to use in the operation, sosna-n used in operation to blind optics trying to spot them and clothing that is invisible to heat detection. Simo Hayha is treated as the best sniper rifleman, but no one talks about the next top 10 being Russian snipers with 300+ to 400+ kills in WW2. Assuming they are all skilled in their craft the only current fear they have to worry about is enemy FPV drones during daylight hours.

-Koalition howitzers being put in the special operation, so definitely good chance of production for new ammunition that has max ranges similar to HIMARs.

-quad pantsir missiles close to being done for testing to fight off drone swarms. Assuming photonic modules start getting produced some time this year, millimeter wave radars with extreme precision might be made lowering the cost of electronics for homing heads for each pantsir missile ammunition.

-Hermes is regarded as stilling being worked on.

This thing is a kind of desperate, as RGB-60 carries a relatively small, 25 kg warhead. What's more, it operates in packs, with two fuzes. One is contact, the other is acoustic. The role of an acoustic fuse is to trigger the explosion of a salvo, if any of the bombs hit a target and detonate. I wonder if it won't explode in the air when the first will hit the ground.

Is the acoustic fuse essentially an active sonar proximity fuse to explode near nearby under water objects like swimmers or subs etc?

If it is then it will be listening for a ping rather than a boom...

Anyway, Russia lost a plane and a crew. Not good even if most of the killed were Ukrainians.

Hardly a great accomplishment to shoot down an aircraft you are told about weeks in advance of its flightpath and intent.

The fact that they murdered their own POWs is interesting... these are people wanting to go home to a country desperate for soldiers... they would be back in uniform and back to the front line as soon as you can say nazi... so why would they want them dead?

They are so desperate for a win they will sacrifice 65 men?

A very dishonourable thing to do... I would say that the Russians acted in good faith so the Russian soldiers promised to be returned should still be returned for those Ukrainians still left, but these evil bastards can't be trusted... it is like they are being led by Saachi and Saachi...  ( a greedy marketing firm)

Ukrainian Media changing their headlines regarding the IL-76 attack.

You know they are lying when they claim they were carrying S-300 missiles because it is S-300 missiles that are killing all the civilians lost in the Ukraine in this conflict... and of course the Russians don't use S-300 missiles to hit ground targets, they are surface to air missiles. This is Kiev pretending that Russia uses S-300s to kill Ukrainian citizens in their missile attacks when in  fact it is Ukrainian S-300s launched to shoot down the missiles and weapons and aircraft and drones the Russians do use that kills Ukrainian citizens... own goals... but they blame Russia for that too.

Russians served that airplane to Ukrainians on a silver platter when they announced it's route, Ukrainians would be retarded not to take the shot

It is part of the negotiations and the trade, there will be Ukrainian transport planes delivering Russian prisoners for the trade that they will have given information about too but Russia just isn't so crazy as to shoot them down.

The Ukrainians are retarded and losing one plane is not going to win them the war but at a time when they are desperate for more warm bodies to send to the front they just killed 65 and wont get the other 80 odd from the other plane.

Terrible that Russia lost 6 crew and 3 guards, and losing a plane is not wonderful either, but there were several Azov battallion soldiers on that plane so fk them.

Clearly some Ukrainian special forces saw some names they didn't want back and decided to take advantage of the situation.

Handful of POWs are far less useful than scratching off enemy Il-76

The names were published so someone with an ax to grind against one or more of the names on that manifest...

In future those planes should be modified with an auto pilot feature that will take it away from a built up area and then crash and the guards and air crew should have a parachute each and all the prisoners chained to their seats... if they get hit, put on the autopilot to fly towards enemy held positions and land nose first vertically and the crew and guards jump out while still over friendly territory.

Moreover, the Ukrainian AD is doing well, contrary to what some people have written here. It even destroys planes over Russian territory 40 km from the border.

An Il-76 is an easy target and it was either a long range shot with something western or a short range shot with stingers.

When you have flight path information weeks in advance it is not really that amazing.

i am surprised the Russians did not detect the missile deployments. Or maybe they did.

They would be kept hidden and turned off till they were ready to fire. Whether they were manpads or something bigger is the question.

They clearly lack ELINT planes. It's a shame for them to not be able to locate a soviet S-300 close to their border.

There was no information about what it was.

What we have for now, is that the most probable case is taken down by a "wandering" Buk system.

But a BUK is not acceptable... western media want you to think it is a western system like Patriot or Iris-T or some such thing.

Kiev shot down a Russian IL-76 military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs as it was flying over the border region of Belgorod on Wednesday. Patriot missiles were reportedly used during the attack, which was carried out with the aid of American instructors. The regime was informed of the flight ahead of time and was aware that it was carrying its captive troops. The planned swap has now been called off and questions are swirling about why Kiev would kill its own POWs.

I rather think Kiev is probably afraid of what these men might have to say about their captivity in Russia... 80 plus 65 is 145 men that will be quickly sent back to the front line who will know they wont get tortured... in fact imagine if they talk to the other guys at the front line and start organising mass surrenders... that could be catastrophic for Kiev...

They are afraid of saving their own troops...

You and mnztr don't even know what happened apparently

Are you trying to tell us you do?

Do you believe the US directs Ukraine to shoot at its own civilian apartment buildings during Russian air raids? Yes or no.

Missiles that Kiev launches to try to shoot down incoming Russian missiles and drones that miss will hit what they hit, and apartment buildings represent a better target for the missile than open ground.

This IL76 was 100% shot down on purpose by Ukraine on a directive from the US.

I am not so sure, this weakens Kievs position in terms of funding and support. Most western countries treat negotiations for prisoner swaps as being rather important and those that do not follow such rules cannot be trusted by anyone.

I think they did this because they realise that when these 150 odd men get back into the trenches that they are going to spread information that goes against what Kiev has been trying to tell its meat puppets, that surrender means death.... well the fact that these guys are back in the trenches suggests that is obviously not true.

People who fought for Kyiv are returning home to their families. Yes, they are our opponents, but we are honest in observing the laws and customs of war: we treated them and fed them. They lived with us in human conditions. And so they were lucky to get on the exchange list. The relatives were notified - their wives and children were waiting for them at home.

The families of all 145 men will now know their men are not coming home today because of Kiev... and 65 families will know their husbands or fathers or sons are now dead because of bad faith actions by Kiev.

This thing was either a patriot or a s-300.

Having them operating in an area known to be used by the ukro for their dirty revenge missions without any intel about it is a major failure for Russia.

What ever air defence system was used it was used for this specific job. You can find air defence systems very quickly because when they are used you can work out where they are and hunt them down... but if they are not used then they can be disguised in all sorts of clever ways and will be almost impossible to spot till they launch missiles and reveal their position.

Flying a il76 so close in an area they lost fighter jets near the front is also a major failure that adds to Moskva sinking, the 2 or 3 damaged/destroyed landing ships, the Kilo class destruction, il-22 hit, a-50 destruction...

The flights were not sight seers trips for fun, these were prisoner swaps that have been negotiated for weeks and months with all the details sorted out and agreed upon so an accidental shoot down does not occur. If the enemy chooses to use this information to shoot down one of your planes then there is not much you could do about it apart from no longer swapping prisoners... which probably hurts Russia more than it hurts the Ukraine who clearly couldn't give a shit about their own people.

A kilo class sub in dry dock getting damaged by a lucky missile strike is not something to brag about and the A-50 shootdown didn't happen. The Il-20 hit was friendly fire so hardly something Kiev should get excited about any time soon and for all we know the Moskva hit a mine or had a missile malfunction.

The Moskva was a good lesson that not upgrading and improving old assets makes them become liabilities as technology moves on.

As I asid before, Russia assuming it has the luxury of time is a wrong assumption.

There is no reason to rush anything from the Russian perspective, they are in as much control as they could possibly have, their economy is in better shape than the western economies supporting their enemy. It is western governments that will be changed in the coming elections, Russias position looks far stronger than it should for a country fighting several conflicts in Ukraine, Syria and several places in Africa.

The answer to this escalation is another escalation. Kill Budanov, his family, and the entire Rada with 50 Kinzhals. As a bonus, shoot down 10 NATO civilian planes. This response is enough to cool some hotheads in NATO

Wait and see would be the best course of action. Thousands of orcs are attacking Russian positions every day and a large fraction of them stop breathing during the process.

If they want to play terrorist then there are things Russia can do... they have dealt with terrorists before.

The AFU will be under total control of the CIA - and not NATO generals, as it’s still the case.

Yeah, because the CIA are much smarter than HATO generals when it comes to planning military operations... they were amazing at the Bay of Pigs, so being in charge of Nazi Pigs might be a job where they shine.

Simo Hayha is treated as the best sniper rifleman, but no one talks about the next top 10 being Russian snipers with 300+ to 400+ kills in WW2.

Which is ironic since most of his kills were via a SMG...

Instead Russia allowing millions to pour across the border as refugees and mounting purely defensive tactics . The end result would be the same . But the movements and timescales would be different .

If Russia had not acted first and essentially taken out Kievs air force and navy as functioning structures then they would have left themselves open to sea and air attacks when Kiev finally got around to trying to get the Crimea back.

Their position would be orders of magnitude worse.

The Russian leadership still has delusions about "cooperation" with the West after the war is over. It is difficult to understand there people's mindsets.

I don't think you have been paying attention, Lavrov and Putin and Medvedev have all made various statements that show that the west can no longer be trusted and the only solution for this conflict will be the complete defeat of Kiev on the battlefield. They have of course repeatedly said they are open to negotiations which you appear to mistake for a weakness, but they have said they are interested in negotiations that reflect the current situation on the ground... in other words they are not retreating from former Ukrainian territory and Putin will not submit himself to trial by Europe and Russia is not going to pay reparations to anyone.

Russia has completely turned away from the west, but they say they will interact with the west but for that to happen the west in going to have to make concessions because Russia will not go begging. The west will have to start the process because Russia is not interested.

And it has to be said: Russia is weak. What the West is doing to Russia would never be tolerated by the West if the roles were reversed. Russia should be killing western military personnel, civilians and destroying western infrastructure. All those western military bases in the middle east should be juicy and legitimate targets for russian missiles.

You mistake strength with psychotic.. Russia is not trying to destroy the west, it just wants to be left alone. If anything the west is destroying itself by trying to punish Russia because they believed Russia needs the west to exist and to grow and develop and move forward, but as Putin has pointed out it was the west that needed Russia, it was cheap Russian energy and resources and raw materials, but also Russia as a market for overpriced western goods... the west needs Russia more than Russia ever needed the west. And Putin and Lavrov and Medvedev knows this now... let Sweden and Finland join HATO, it does not matter. It is good to trade with countries that don't want to murder you the first chance they get... the rest of the world is exciting and interesting now... the west seemed safe and comfortable but is toxic and hostile... stay out of the garden of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The reason the West is killing Russians in this war is exactly this. The West knows that it can act with inpunity.

Except they are not getting away with anything. They are destroying their grip on the world and are destroying the pillars that hold up so called western civilisation... their colonial controls are failing... the US probably has more debt than the rest of the planet put together and still it grows...

They know they can hurt Russia and Russia will not respond. It is like a schoolyard bully beating up a nerd because he knows how easy it is and the nerd willnot fight back.

Yeah, and in 20 years time that bully is unemployed and unemployable and is probably beating up his third wife, while that nerd is running a successful company and has a rather good life. Or maybe that bully is a millionaire and that nerd is the loser and blames that millionaire for all his problems and he goes and buys a gun...

Now I know for sure that Westerners are only pretending to be Christians.

They pretend when it is useful. If the catholic church says non whites have no souls so killing and stealing from them is not a sin then they will be very good christians...

And after what happened to Nord Stream and Novatek LNG plant Russia should be targeting energy infrastructure inside NATO countries and undersea pipelines.

We can say the Americans are most likely behind that to stop Germany from flip flopping when they run low on gas and things get hard, but why should Russia care?

Russia is in the process of looking for other directions they can sell gas, to countries that are not actively trying to murder their citizens.

The US destroying gas pipes means Russia can revise their obligations in various contracts they have with western countries.

It creates flexibility for them without making them the bad guys.

But Russia will have start fighting back if it wants to survive.

Russia is stronger now than it has been for quite some time, the question of survival could be directed at the EU and HATO and even the US before even looking in Russias direction.

There are plenty of conservative westerners thinking Putin is not so bad when compared with the crazies they have in the west, and those that take the time to actually listen to what he says will realise he actually makes a lot of sense, which again is more than you can say for politicians in the west. He means what he says and says what he means... do I need to repeat?

Russia will have to hurt and strike the West directly.

Escalating with children only works with children who don't have firearms in their hands. Raise you hand to hit a child with a gun pointed at you and you might get shot... because children don't think and act mostly on emotion... which is why normally they don't get to run countries. Remember the US is the exceptional country...

Russia has the capabilities but the extremely cautious Putin regime is not willing to take the risk, while thousands of Russians have been killed directly by the West in this war.

Tens of thousands have unfortunately, but the alternative by being an aggressive dick head, could be millions or hundreds of millions...

When neither side backs down you end up with WWI and WWII.... do you think things would be better with WWIII?

Do you think the west could rely on western media to tell us the truth and keep us all safe, or would they keep lying and get us all killed...

And the reason why the Putin regime is not willing to take the risk is what I said before. They still hold these delusions about "everything getting back to normal" after the war is over.

No, they don't. They are focussing their attention on trade and good relations with the rest of the world... normal is over. Russia will never sell energy cheap to Europe again.

They hope they can continue buying property in the West and sending their children to live in the West. They think Russia will be accepted back to "international" (western-dominated) organizations.

Those morons got burned good... there will be no queue to follow their example moving forward.

The west will soften its stance and claim it was never anti Russian, just anti Putin, but I doubt most Russians will believe them now.

The pain is only just beginning for the west and it will only get worse as more and more countries stop using the US dollar and start trading in their own currencies, and the world looses faith in western controlled organisations like Wada and the ICC and even the Olympic committee.

Even the EU might take a few more hits.

The real telling blow is that recently a German politician tried to stir up feelings by saying that when Russia is finished in the Ukraine they will start on HATO and that early in 2025 Russia might attack Germany.

Well the idiots and hotheads all started talking about Russia fighting HATO.... ignoring the fact that this German politician just openly said he thinks Kiev is going to collapse this year and that by next year the Russian military will be in a position to attack Germany.

It is nonsense of course because Russia has no reason to attack Germany, but the important point is that Germany knows Kievs time is up and there is nothing the entire might of HATO and the US can do about it.

Talk of HATO troops in the Ukraine is just BS, just as talk of Russian troops taking on HATO is BS as well.

The current Russian elites are the same people who spent the last 30 years (since 1991) trying to integrate Russia (and themselves) to the West. Trying to be accepted by the West.

And failing, and being lectured about human rights and other undemocratic actions and stances... I would think they will be relieved at not having to talk to those .

They went shopping to London and Paris. They wanted their children to become western citizens. The West was admired and adored. And trusted too. Nabiullina deposited $300 billion of Russian money in western banks (only to be confiscated and given to Ukraine).

Yup, and it was those dumb cocksuckers that had their stuff seized and will likely be sold off to help Zelensky buy apartments in London and New York... not the shitty Ukrainian New York... the expensive one in the US.

That Russian money was necessary for payments and trade... everyone has funds in other countries like that... talk of stealing it is very much unusual and likely to blow up in the wests faces...

Russia spent a gazillion of money to grandiose sporting events such as Sochi Olympics 2014 and 2018 Football World Championships only to make itself look good to the West.

Most of the money spent went into infrastructure in regions that desperately needed investment anyway... Sochi has become a more popular holiday destination because of that.

And the west threw it all in their faces... the west does that to every non western country that hold major international events, whether it is in the middle east or central or south america or in asia... the problem is with the west and not with Russia.

I see nothing lasting benefits. The money should have been spent elsewhere.

Most of the western visitors had a great time, and the money spend on infrastructure continues to be used and benefits local communities.

The signs should have been clear for Russia even in the early 2000s when the West started to "criticize" Russia for not following Yeltsin's path for a total destruction. But necessary steps were not taken. For example Russia should have stopped buying Western currency and stopped putting money to Western banks as early as in 2004 (after the Yukos thing) or at least in 2014 when Crimea was taken. It was horribly irresponsible for Russia to keep their money in Western banks knowing the situation.

Most of Russias growth and development has happened in the last decade and a half... if they had isolated themselves it would be Russia that was struggling now... even in 2014 Russia got most of its food from the EU... they turned it around of course but there are countless other areas they have been fixing and developing these last 15 to 20 years which could not have been done if it all needed fixing at once.

Putin was clever and grew Russias economy and skills and technology base to the point now that they don't need to care what the west says or does. Now they are strong enough to openly oppose them and the west had a shit fit throwing over 16,000 sanctions on Russia... Russia is the most sanctioned country in the world and being cut off from the west it should be drowning... its economy should be screaming... instead it is dancing in the street... and having a party.

And the whole Ukraine fiasco was also a total Russian failure.

What happened in the Ukraine is first and foremost at the feet of the US and EU, but second of all at the feet of the weaklings and criminals in the Ukraine.

At any point Ukrainians could have stepped up and defended the Russian speakers amongst them and said no to the nazis... instead they watched nazis burn their neighbours for the crime of not being anti Russian.

**** them both.

Between 1991 and 2013 Russia was basically feeding Ukraine with half-free gas while the West was ripping Ukraine away from Russia with its NGO's. Russia trusted that everything will be ok as long as Russia keeps subsidizing Ukraine.

So Russias crime was helping a neighbour... so being christian is now a crime in the west... that is funny... because for a long time the opposite was true.

Putin even himself admitted this failure recently. He admitted that Russia did basically nothing to counter Western efforts to rip Ukraine away from Russia.

He admitted that the west was evil and the Ukrainians were stupid to believe them. Putin is president of Russia... you can't blame him for what Kiev or Washington or London or Berlin or Paris are doing to each other.

Or are you going to say Hitler wasn't the problem... it was those jews that didn't stop him sooner... it was Britain and France that appeased him but they were paper tigers at that time anyway.

This kind of thinking is preventing Russia from defending itself properly and is enabling the West to continue hurting Russia with impunity.

Russia is getting stronger and stronger every day and conversely the west is showing its true colours to not just Russians but the people of the world, while at the same time showing how weak it is.

The US spends the better part of a trillion dollars a year... when it talks about its military budget it never mentions its CIA budget which is eye watering... and add to that the countries that call themselves the west which probably almost doubles that "defence" spend each year and how effective have they been in the Ukraine.

The first year of the conflict the HATO advice was that there would be no negotiations and that it would all be decided on the battlefield... now German politicians are talking about Kiev not lasting this year... because they expect Russia to attack Germany early next year.

The West can kill tens of thousands of Russians (as you admitted yourself) but Russia retaliating will start the WWIII and destroy the world. You see no problem in this kind of logic?

The Russians have killed plenty of western advisors and volunteers and are destroying the Ukrainians using their superior HATO tactics and weapons. This conflict has shown that dreams of HATO superiority are just dreams. From the 1990s when the Warsaw Pact ended and all the WP countries left Russia and even some Soviet republics left Russia so it was Russia against HATO plus some former Soviet republics and the entire WP group of eastern european countries... vs Russia and Belarus... even the stans are out of the equation, by most metrics you would have to say Russia was in trouble with its tiny economy and its tiny defence budget that never really went much above 60 billion a year, yet approaching the third year of the war the Ukrainans have burned through all their soviet equipment and all the soviet equipment from the warsaw pact countries that are now part of HATO and of course the CIA will have been buying all the soviet era equipment and ammo and weapons it can find for a good profit for the owners and of course a good profit for the CIA when they sell it to Kiev or get paid for it by the US or EU... and then they started using western weapons which have been rather worse than the ex soviet gear... and now they are running out of that and of people... well this doesn't look good for the west.... what a hollow empty paper tiger they are... their tactic is to use human wave attacks against forces they massively outnumber so they can find the Russian positions and shell them and then send more men in to die to find their new firing positions to shell those... all the while the Russians are zeroing in on their artillery positions and attacking them.

If this is what HATO is capable of then Russia is perfectly safe.

Exactly why their positions would have had to change to address the problem , by increasing the ferocity of attacks , instead of taking it at slower pace . After a while we would be back to present positions .

I don't agree. If Russian forces didn't go into Ukrainian disputed territories and Ukraine proper then when Kiev launched its attacks on its separatist regions HATO might have sent in troops to help Kiev thinking Russia was not going to risk a war with HATO... the damage Kiev could have done to those regions would mean sending in Russian troops when their enemy was attacking... Russian forces would have had to have gone to those front lines and stopped that attack instead of pushing into areas around Kiev which seemed to stop Kiev from sending all its troops to the front lines in the east and really stopped Kievs forces from overwhelming a much smaller force of Russians and ex Ukrainians.

When Russia entered the war the few Ukrainian boats they had could have launched attacks on Crimea for instance and air attacks could have been launched too.

Instead the Ukrainians were on the back foot... nothing was supposed to happen for a couple of weeks when the big offensive was supposed to start and the Ukrainian air force and navy were mostly taken out, but then of course they started fixing the enormous part of their aircraft fleet that was not flying... which essentially saved it from being shot down at the start... and of course then all the Warsaw Pact stuff started to arrive... but in dribs and drabs so small incidents happened and then the threat was dealt with... three Su-24s might get repaired and carry a dozen missiles between them and launch an attack and get shot down.

Whether they ended up in the same positions is not the point... the difference is that rather less Ukrainian soldiers would be dead and rather more Russians would be dead, and of course western propaganda will still be claiming it is all Putins aggression that created the war and all the same sanctions would be in place... the Russians would simply be in a rather worse position now but still be going to win in a few years time...

The Germans clearly think this will be over this year and who am I to correct them?

The real irony is that if Kiev had done everything smarter and better Russia probably would have already nuked them and it would likely be over now.

Equally if they had not been stupid and listened to the Americans and Europeans there would be no problem to start with... no laws banning Russian language or culture, Crimea would still be Ukrainian and Russian ships and helicopters and aircraft using engines built in the Ukraine.

It is painful and no number of Russian soldiers lost is OK, but I have been saying all along that the west is no friend of Russia and the sooner Russia understands that the better for Russia. They are now understanding this I believe. The west is not getting it yet but they will I suspect...