Russian special military operation in Ukraine #60

Mir wrote:

lyle6 wrote:
The Swedes thought they are untouchable.

Small price to pay for giving up their "neutrality" (officially)

an old picture

Karl Haushofer wrote:

nomadski wrote:
Yes Russia can do more , much more . As Putin said " ....Russia hasn't done ANYTHING yet !

But why wait this long? Why all the restraint and turning the other cheek?

At the time , given the available information , framing the action as something less than full scale war , was understandable . After all Russia had to dislodge a mere rabble , consisting of neo- Nazi gangs aided by English / American special forces , that were fanning the flames of ethnic conflict in LDPR . The great Russian army , a descendent of the great Soviet army that defeated the Nazis in WW2 , aided by the unhappy and enslaved Ukrainian population , should have little difficulty in removing them from Ukraine . Such wash the calculus and understanding ( according to my best guesstimate ) at the time . Russia feared no further outside intervention , feeling rather protected or omnipotent , with such history and in possession of nuclear weapons .

After a while , the new information became available . The Ukrainian population , having sufficient linguistic , cultural and religious differences with Russia and rather sympathetic to the Nazi cause , did not feel the Slavic bond of brotherhood , or socialist internationalism . They , at first driven by nationalist fever , threw themselves unto the Russian artillery shells , committing mass suicide . The outsiders , pushed the Russian red lines , and the response , party right and party over-cautious , further emboldened escalation by the West . The SMO , envisaged at first , consisting of a war against the Nazis and a military security operation in Ukraine , was escalated into a war against Russia proper and a war by Russia against Ukraine .

In retrospect , and in my view , given the dominance of nationalistic feelings in Ukraine , especially during wartime and the reckless escalation by the West , implied that the initial planning , was wrong . But hindsight is a wonderful thing . I am sure we can look back a few years from now and find out our plans were lacking . " All plans of mice and men , " as the saying goes . But not too late , on the positive note , the caution and slow grind by Russia , has had a positive effect too . The Ukrainian manpower , the weakest link in the chain , is breaking now . Sure Russia could have brandished the nuclear stick a bit more . One or two atmospheric tests on TV . Sure it could have done it's own version of NS2 against the Yanks too , plausible deniability . But most of all , there should have been not such a great effort , extreme in my view , in avoiding ALL escalation against NATO ( some smaller deterrent covert actions , could have been carried out ) . Or having agreements with them , that they will not keep . Russia may suffer more damages , but Ukraine will suffer devastating damages . Russia can repair , Ukraine not .

With asshats like these Russia should win

Night time ?? Crash of Helicopoter kills one and injured two ? Looks like English were present in Hotel poltava ? Or was it Hotel sumy ? It sure was not Hotel Hilton ! Or was it ?

You can see the descending trajectory and flare release at the final approach.

NO! Air defence worked just fine. This are not flares but tracer bullets from AA guns!

A giant column of smoke probably after striking a military train in Slavyansk.

Just a gathering of strong smokers.

ucmvulcan wrote:Vicksburg and New Orleans as well as the battles in Tennessee and Kentucky were eye openers that the large part of the confederate population hadn't been dragged into the war against their will, they were fully in support of it.  So in 1863 and especially in 1864 Lincoln took the gloves off.

The Ukrainian population is not supportive of the Maidan regime, at least compare to the 2014. If they were, there would have been a "people's war" against Russia. In reality, we can see the common stance of Ukrainian population is "I don't care, I just want to live, Russia or Maidan or whatever." Many Ukrainian informed Russia about the positions of the Maidan soldiers when the people realized that their own houses were taken by the Maidan to be the living shield. And we do see the increase of conscript avoidance, even by desperate means like swimming across a deadly river. The fact that the Maidan regime resorts to brutal kidnapping to conscript their own population shows that Ukranians see the Maidan regime with full contempt now.

What happened in the 2014 was mostly because the frustration of the population about the social issues, wealth gap, and government corruption (Kiev government from Yakunovich to Yuschenko had always been a hellhole of corruption since 1991, regardless of what factions they were from) and the Western foreign agents twisted the narration to direct the hostility to Russia. But at the moment the population probably already realize what is the truth behind Maidan.

From my memory, before the SVO the Jacobin media outlet interviewed an Ukrainian sociology professor and that professor disclosed that majority of Ukrainian population no longer care about what is different between Ukrainians and Russians, they only care about what matters most: food, clothes, job, money. Discussions about Russians vs Ukrainians are mostly within small circles of intelligentsia who are detached from reality due to their privileges, or their delusion of their privileges.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

nomadski wrote:
Yes Russia can do more , much more . As Putin said " ....Russia hasn't done ANYTHING yet !

But why wait this long? Why all the restraint and turning the other cheek?

Russia is sending them a message with that double tap missile strike, look how restrained we have been with our escalation the last 3 years. Do you really want us to escalate in response to your escalations. Look how much damage we can do with f*ck all effort, at minimal financial and material cost compared to NATO.

Do you still want to poke the bear by crossing more red lines and have Russia escalate?

By the way did anyone notice that president Z fired all government ministers involved in planning the Kursk pocket this week?

Yes, the West wants escalation and is not afraid of Russia.

They are too incompetent to understand how badly they are losing. They don't understand the need to stop crossing the red lines.

Russia sees this and is taking full advantage of them crossing the line.

Each time Russia retaliates it does so in a manner that inflicts an incremental long term loss of geopolitical strategic power to nato. As opposed to a direct, immediate, vicious, bloody direct attack like the double tap we just saw. Russia uses those from time to time as a reminder that of what it can do. Russia gets alot more benifit from retaliating in ways that are not like the double tap because when nato crosses the red lines it inflicts mosquito bites on Russia, not broken bones.

NATO and USA are too incompetent to see what Russia is doing so they continue with failed stratergy of escalation which is only benefiting Russia.

Don't forget the Kurst pocket cost them basically entire ukranian government (fired this week) , 20,000 elite troops, billions of dollars of irreplaceable military equipment and vehicles.

The single double tap missile strike resulted in the loss of the foreign minister of Sweden, ukraine, Poland and 600 specialist troops.

VERY, VERY cost efficient responses if you ask me to crossed red lines and worth letting NATO cross them too.

Never interrupt your enemy whilst he is making a mistake

Arrow wrote:

They feel very safe. For over 2 years they have been making constant trips to Kiev etc.

Poland, Italy, Germany and is it Finland I think are looking for an exit. They have said they are limiting their assistance to ukraine because they have minimal military vehicles and ammunition left to supply them.

They have been demilitarised.

Their populations are also voting out politicians who support ukraine with money, so politicians are scared to support ukraine.

USA has told nato that Europe is responsible for  ukraine now, but Europe does not have industrial capacity to do so, it's demilitarised and it's politicians are scared of ukraine because their voters will throw them out.

Except UK maybe..

I don't think we will see alot of photos in Kiev in 2025 or rest of 2024. Keep your eyes open to find out of I am right or wrong and write back to let me know in 18 months

As long as Russia controls the escalation then to a point escalation isn't necesssarily a bad thing.  Government buildings, military bases, air fields, airports, railway stations, bridges, energy and communications infrastructure, are all legit targets.  No place in Ukraine should exist that can repair or overhaul NATO weaponry.  No western diplomat or head of state should feel safe anywhere in Ukraine for photo ops.  No NATO special op should feel safe conducting training in Ukraine.  

The irony is that it was a good idea to let this happen in the beginning, because the more people they trained the more denazification and demilitarisation you could do.

Maybe we are close to the point where russia calculate it is time to close down these facilities as there is no one of substance left to train and it's time to punish the nato trainers directly. They have served their purpose. To allow the trainers to continue to train children, mentally ill and physically incapable to be sent to their deaths would be morally wrong.

Arrow wrote:

They feel very safe. For over 2 years they have been making constant trips to Kiev etc.

A suggestion for the Russian army, in events where a NATO diplomat or politician visits Ukraine for a photo op, identify the location, then send a volley of Iskanders/ Kalibers the following day to Demolish the place

ALAMO wrote:
It is much worse than that.
Not only demilitarised but pushed into a spiral of enormous military spending that none of them can afford.

I read a post from an ex army type on a UK site saying that only 1/6 of the UK's 155mm gun capability is left with no money or capacity to rebuild it.

Besides the Labour Government look to be reducing defence spending. Sod the magic targets!

Meanwhile in Germany the Government is increasing it! By adding onto it the road repair budget. Due to the military damage done to roads

But the headlines of 8 more this year looked good and will stick in some minds  

Тоби айоделе -Tboy
@TobiAyodele
Bloomberg and Reuters did not quite correctly interpret the news about the delivery of IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine.

At the moment, four SLM batteries and two SLS batteries have been delivered to Ukraine.

🟢By the end of the year, it is promised: two SLM batteries and one SLS battery and one launcher;

🟢In 2025, it is promised: three SLM batteries and two SLS batteries;

🟢In 2026, it is promised: three SLM batteries and two and two SLS launchers.

One battery - 3 launchers.

SLM has more expensive missiles, up to 40 km.

SLS has cheaper missiles, up to 12 km.

Based on this, the "new" systems, according to Scholz, are batteries that have already been ordered and financed earlier.

The contract has already been pre-paid, they will be delivered in batches until 2026.

The average cost under the contract is 158 million euros per battery.