148 POWs is nothing, they lose more than that per weekend
Taking out enemy cargo plane and crew however, is definitely something
All the reason you need
Have to agree, but such callus calculations are made to win a war, not when you have already lost... when you win you can make up all sorts of stories about it later... how it was full of FSB spies that were programmed and hoping to be sent to the front on Kievs side to spread mutiny and Russian propaganda about how nice they are with their prisoners.
Equally factions might want to take this win from Zelensky at any cost so they can overthrow him... even blame him for this to replace him.
Edit the French claimed it was a Patriot, which suggests they are keen to cover something up... maybe a Frog SAM controller decided to get revenge for loosing some of his gay sexual partners the other day and lashed out...
The kill feed just after included kills of Patriot, and SAMP-T and also IRIS-T missile systems so I guess it could have been any of them... and when they lit up they got smacked in return... which adds to their pain.
What did Russia lose exactly?
Do be clear I and not happy about the tens of thousands of good men and also women that Russia has lost in this conflict, but the people claiming the cost is too high ignore the fact that if Putin had done nothing or done the same thing earlier then the cost to the Russian military and the Russian people might have been rather more... including proper isolation because BRICS was not viable yet and most of the south would choose the west over Russia because of the threats of violence and economic piracy that the west threatens in every case.
Russia has become independent and it is really thanks to the actions of the west that gave a pro west Putin no choice.
It is very much like the tiny Hobbit defeating the Giant Spider Shelob... Putin could never have gotten the Russian people to turn away from the west on his own, it was the attacks by the west, the direct clear and present danger they represented and the open venom... Wada and sports, cancelling Russian culture and language across the west, that made it clear the West wanted Russia destroyed and carved up, so all of Russia worked together and found that there are other options and other alternatives and a lot of the stuff they were paying huge money for in the west they could make for themselves... and make it better.
This war is a tragedy for the Ukrainian nazis and the west, but I would not call it a tragedy for Russia and the rest of the world because the monster is bleeding and will run away to die. If it wants to stay and fight it will lose faster.
NATO's expected strategy to defeat Russia
Ha, the home of Rugby... perhaps they are worried about Russian Flankers...
I hope I have not tired you out . This is not my aim . I think , somehow you think I am critical of the SMO or the " stalemate ! "
Not at all, that comment was regarding western calls that this is all a stalemate and that some sort of Minsk 3 agreement is needed for all the same reasons Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 were put in place... which is why Russia will reject it completely... they have done all the preparation and are ready to play and a freeze to allow the enemy to recover and resupply is the last thing they will be interested in.
But what I am saying is that , this attrition rate averages out over time . This is especially true , when wars last a longer time and when the opposing sides are at least for a time , performing in a predictable manner
This conflict is not like other conflicts... this is the equivalent of British officers in charge of commonwealth soldiers... they are not overly worried about casualties and more interested in reaching objectives, so the comedy Blackadder goes Fourth is relevant... we are going to stand up and march slowly towards the enemy.... how did you know the plan? ... because it is the same plan we have used 14 times before... exactly, and it is the last thing they will be expecting... because everyone gets killed in the first few minutes...
When you attack a position you need to heavily shell that position so the defenders have their heads down so they are not taken off. Having 5 shells to fire each day means it wont be a heavy bombardment and those attacking are going to get killed...
And yet they continue to repeat over and over...
In these cases then when the Battle turns into a predictable pattern and constant rate of attrition , then it is the total force expended over time by both sides that decided the outcome .
When one side just sends in soldiers trying to make the enemy run out of men or run out of stomach for the bloodbath they are inflicting then the only possible way for them to win is if that enemy is short of ammo and you have an endless supply of bodies.
Kiev has neither.
Hense it will not settle down because when they stop feeding bodies into the grinder the Russians are going to take the opportunity to strike back and push forward in places where there are obvious gaps... and pushing them back means they move to less suitable defensive positions.
Even if the battles consist of major advances or retreats or a constant back and forth , or skirmishes lasting many years .
No they wont. Kievs forces have been savaged and they are running out of men and are now sending women to the front. They have no ammo and weapons, which further complicates their ability to continue for a long period.
Even if there were no elections in the west this year they would be in trouble, but a few elections get politicians who arrive and have all these economic problems in front of them and Zelensky with his hand out for money for nothing and I rather suspect the money will stop... when Ukrainians stop getting paid and government services stop and factories shut down things are collapsing as we speak... even if Biden wins and stumps up 200 billion this year... there is no ammo to buy and no weapons except the old stock the west didn't already send because it would be more problems than it is worth.... it will be old generation tanks and vehicles that are not compatible with the slightly newer shit they already sent and cause even more problems keeping it all running.
New money will go to the west and Ukrainian officials will start to leak to the west with it... and then Ukraine will collapse.
No it is not, the special military operation Is tailored to reduce bloodshed in the conditions of high intensity conflict between fraternal states , where the dominant one (Russia) understands it will be responsible for the smaller one (Ukraine)
Exactly, and if there were Russian departments in western universities with men and women with any brains that would be obvious and passed on to the politicians.
Instead Russian experts are expats that are not happy with the current regime.... mostly because their corruption schemes failed and they live in the west on media funding to tell the west how bad it all is in Russia and boy are western people lucky they don't live there even though things are bad in the west they are worse in Russia... and obviously never with any evidence.
Putin does not expect to occupy or take responsibility for Finnish people, therefore neutron bombs are a better tool to preserve the lives of Russians , and to eliminate the need to occupy hostile populations
I agree with what you are saying except the neutron bombs... neutron bombs are used to preserve infrastructure to eliminate the local population so the land can be occupied later on. Just normal nukes will be fine and will do the job of destroying infrastructure and enemy forces and enemy populations.
But the West, particularly the US is already sacrificing thousands of Ukrainians.
You can blame the US and the west but at the end of the day those Ukrainians are making their own choices and ultimately it is up to them.
And regardless of how Putin intends to keep casualties low the West will keep on pouring millions of Ukrainians into the battlefield.
And I am sure the west is happy with that but at the end of the day it is up to Ukrainians to say enough.
There are plenty of Ukrainians that are changing their tune and pointing out that Ukrainians have more in common with Russia than with the US.
This is only going to grow as their choices become clearer.
It is pretty clear that the current government in Kiev is incapable of any agreements and any state they lead and control will always be Bandera/Nazi centred so eventually I am sure it will be eliminated... and then perhaps time given for Ukrainians to pick a replacement that better reflects the real views of the people.
Recall what the defense minister of Netherlands said last year that Ukraine is a “Very cheap way to make sure Russia is not a threat”
Which is hilarious because Russia was never a threat, but now you have murdered their men and women... they are more a threat now than ever before, and economically they will be hostile in future too... why trade with you when the rest of the world is keen to trade with Russia and China?
Russia wanted to trade and have good relations and you threw that in their faces and made them an enemy.
They wont attack you for fun, but they wont be nice to you either... no more cheap wood and cheap gas and cheap oil.
And Uranium prices might start going up too.
If you have money for Kiev you have money for electricity.
Russia understands the goal is to destroy Russia... that is going to change things moving forward.
Eastern Slavs are mentally weak. They have allowed Anglos to drive themselves into a situation where they are killing each other in hundreds of thousands while Anglos are cheering in the sidelines.
Weakness has nothing to do with it. Anyone can be tricked. Even Ukrainians are working out they are being used... wonder how that is going to pan out for the future... they already have a murder squad that kills enemies of the Ukraine... when the west starts to talk about peace talks with Russia to normalise things because their little experiment didn't work I wonder what those guys are going to do?
Russia on the other hand is expanding and actually has managed to re-establish a Slavic community with Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus, soon Ukraine, and possible Poland if things there change
If there is one thing Russians have proven over the last decade or so is that they know how to negotiate, and they don't do it from a position of strength and threaten violence to do it like the west thinks it is done.
Despite breaking many of the agreements Israel and Turkey and Iran managed to work together to a degree in Syria and none of those countries had any reason to be friends with Russia. Turkeys relationship with Russia is pretty outstanding considering they are an active part of HATO.
I hope you are right about in the end, I hope the Anglo world will be destroyed as much as anyone here. The only way the America can be destroyed is from within. No outsider can do it with nuclear war being the exception.
They are destroying themselves and Putin has been careful to neither encourage nor stop them.
It is all on them.
Finnish media has been gloating about Russian population decline recently. They claim that Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of citizens in the past two years.
If you were Ukrainian and you wanted to escape the war... would you run to the west where they are cutting off benefits and trying to send you back to Ukraine and a uniform, or would you go to Russia?
Most people don't want to fight. It is cold and wet and very very dangerous, and even when you survive you have to put your life back together and continue... that period of your life you wont get back, and those people you saw die and whom you might have killed will be with you...
The west created this situation, they pushed for it, but the people of Ukraine also let this happen too.
Finland is about to ban Russians from buying real-estate in Finland and might also confiscate Russian-owned estates from Russians (I understand this includes ethnic Russians with Finnish citizenship as well).
That is OK, you have joined HATO so Russia should realise you are hostile so this just makes sense. Keeping property in an enemy country... well don't be surprised if they steal it.
I am sure there will be plenty of property and businesses in Russia that Russia could seize and hand over to those in need of compensation... eventually.
Russians have continued to buy real-estate in Finland in 2023. Such naive, stupid people buying property from a western country. They deserve to lose their property for being so naive.
Yeah, they were probably getting it cheap and thought they were getting a great deal... but all they need is a Fin friend they could put in their name and if it all blows over in a couple of years they could buy it back, and if it doesn't their friend can pay what the Russian paid for it if it still has that value.
They are likely greedy investors speculating on land prices and land values... they might have bought those properties off other Russians wanting to leave a hostile market.
Many western politicians and medias have at least covertly said that the West is entitled to strike Russia directly, including civilian targets.
Panic at losing. If the west strikes Russia then Russia will start striking back... what you don't understand is that Russia has been being nice.
This is my problem with Putin government. They are just so soft. The West knows this too. They are now testing the waters how far they can go without Russia retaliating.
So far the Russian red line has not been crossed. When the West blows up the first Russian NPP will Putin finally react or mumble in silence and do nothing?
If Putin was a total like western countries then BRICS would fail because Russia and China would be no better than the US or Paris or London.
The fact of the matter is that Russia and China are better than the west and the west is getting desperate and is totally panicking.
What do you do to a hysterical person screaming and possibly going to hurt themselves or others?
You want to blow their brains out. Putin will give them a slap.
The problem is that Eurasians (which includes Asians, Africans and Russians) do not fight back properly. The Eurasians constitute the majority of world's population but they have let Oceania (North America, Europe, Australia and Japan) dominate the world and destroy Eurasian countries.
Start fighting back for the goodness's sake!
Openly fighting back would simply descend into WWIII, which is what many in the US probably want... they want a rapture or end of days or some such religious nonsense.
What Russia is doing is continuing to create and build the alternative to the west, and let the west destroy itself, which it is doing quite a job of.
Russia blowing up some gas terminal in the west would be used as a reason for that western country to demand a nuclear strike and economic naval and air blockade on Russia and other such BS.
How does Russia benefit from that?
The west doesn't make anything any more. Russia has shifted its trade east and south. The west hasn't shifted its trade anywhere and its industry is failing without cheap energy and all the loans that keep western countries afloat because their interest rates were so low why not borrow all you need. Well inflation has broken that yet they keep doing it and those rising interest rates are going to destroy them.
Didn't your country India let the Britain rule over your country for centuries despite India having ten times the population of Britain?
India didn't let Britain do anything, those who opposed were generally brutally murdered, either by the British or by other locals.
The difference is that they gained independence and Finland just signed up to join... who is the idiot here?
Do you actually think making Russia your enemy makes you safer?
Do you think HATO will protect you?
It didn't happen to take down the plane. They could have just shot the fucking plane down after the POWs left the plane as it went back to Russia. What they did makes no sense as far as the plane goes.
Very good point.
Why not attack French territory directly instead? The French attacked Russian territory.
You sound so keen to start WWIII.
Putin is not weak for not wanting WWIII... because he knows even if you "win" you still lose.
This is this century's version of the Spanish Civil War. Russia has already figured out they need more glide bombs, loitering munitions, FPV drones, and weapons with AI target lock. They put those systems into production and are fine tuning them for effectiveness. At the same time they finally started taking artillery production seriously again.
Russia pre-war had already massively increased the amount of cruise missiles and modern air to air missiles they produced. So at least they got that right.
I would say not just the Spanish civil war that created the Yak-1 and LaGG and MiG-3 because they realised the I-16 and I-15 weren't good enough, but also the T-34 and KV-1 because they realised the T-26 wouldn't cut it either... but I would also add that this is the Winter War as well because with drones it is like SMGs so they are learning that firepower is important so automatic rifles and SMG for in close were important too.
They should learn from this and not waste effort on superfluous humanitarian bullshit in the future
Can't agree with that... they were sending Orcs back with stories that don't include torture and abuse in captivity and would be getting Russian soldiers back in return.
A good deal if they can be trusted.