>

Stay strong Ukraine!
18 days to the 'anniversary'. >

A single day operation that became a single week operation that became a single year operation... >

I want a divorce! >

The UN is the therapist but is unsuprisingly useless. >

Listen therapy requires that neither of the parties start unjustifiable wars of agression against their neighbors. The UN just happens to be a therapist that has the goal of doing just that. >

Also Russia has veto power on the security council.... >

Russia should never have inherited USSR's seat. >

They inherited USSR's nuclear arsenal so that's part of it. >

Preventing Global Thermonuclear War is what the U.N. and the Security Council actually does. Anything else you see them do is just a side quest. >

Funny how a member of the security council is frequently threatening nuclear war. >

And men's lives wasted again. >

Many are just boys >

Yeah Feb 24 is days away. The knucleheads in the kremlin wanna try it again >

We should have given Ukraine A-10s last year to give them time to train, just in case Russia tries the 40km convoy strategy again... >

A-10s can eat a lot of shit and keep flying.  Surface to air missiles, however, exceed those limits.  A-10s are only useful against asymmetric opponents who cannot shoot you down.
Which is why Ukraine isn't asking for them.  They're interested in faster aircraft, drones, tanks, IFVs, SAM batteries, and artillery.
If Ukraine can't use it, there's no reason to waste their time by sending it. >


A-10s can eat a lot of shit and keep flying.  Surface to air missiles, however, exceed those limits.  A-10s are only useful against asymmetric opponents who cannot shoot you down.

A-10's are also the deadliest active duty airframe in the US military. More A-10 pilots have died in crashes than any other airframe since the Vietnam war ended(and F-4 phantom pilot deaths during the Vietnam war doesn't far exceed the A-10 pilot death count.).
Also expensive as fuck. The wing and cockpit upgrade package they're going through right now costs more than a new F-35 delivered.  
It's not something you'd want flying against a wall of Strela-2 manpads. >

The military has been trying to get rid of it as well. 
The problem is it is a morale/constituent issue. A-10 is easily identifiable. The engineering story sounds badass. Service members can pick the engine out in a loud environment and the enemy can as well. Nothing that has been investigated since has been deemed ready to replace the A-10 >

NGL, I think they should just modernize the AC130.  As cool as the A10 is, the AC130 has always been cooler in my mind.
Give it some kind of active defense system (like a Trophy APS but for aircraft), higher altitude, some kind of low grade stealth characteristics.
Somewhere out there was a team of engineers who said "okay, but what if we just put a bunch of really big guns sideways on a plane and fly around in circles?".  That blows my mind lol.
Mostly talking out of my ass.  But it would be cool as shit. >

That's what they do. They send these recruits/bodies in for a frontal assault and then try to flank with trained soldiers. What a barbaric waste of human life. >

Soviets had a doctrine of fixed battle, lock an opponent down, pin them with arty and encircle and destroy. Someone described as Bypass Breach Win BBW. Many post soviet states use this strategy, Ukraine is attempting to try and do manuver warfare w newer western tech since that is what the West's main doctrine is. >

Ukraine also has a strategy of putting more “expendable” troops at the front, in places like Bakhmut. Basically, they’re outnumbered 9:1 in number of artillery guns by the Russians. When an area is saturated by artillery fire, some casualties are inevitable, regardless of how well trained your troops are. Ukraine’s armed forces doesn’t want to (and can’t afford to) waste their NATO-trained and professional forces manning the trenches under constant fire, so instead they have lesser trained troops like the Territorial Defense guards and their conscripts do it and take the brunt of enemy assaults, and keep the professionals in the rear as a mobile reserve for counter attacks or to stop breakthroughs. 
The realities of war unfortunately force some harsh choices sometimes. >

Not sure where else to ask this, but you seem to be fairly knowledgeable about Ukraine’s strategy. 
Early in the war, we heard news stories that Ukrainian Civvies were either drafted or signed up in droves to defend their homeland. Since then, I haven’t heard much else about their recruiting efforts. 
Is Ukraine’s military recruiting pipeline still reliant heavily on civilian volunteers, or have they also conscripted/drafted personnel in similar ways to Russia? These policies are hugely unpopular in Russia and portrayed as such in the media, but I haven’t heard any similar stories regarding Ukraine. 
Any idea how Ukraine is doing in staffing their military overall? They’re a smaller country than Russia with a smaller population, so I figured as this becomes a war of attrition Ukraine would have to resort to similar tactics to Russia to find soldiers. 
But also given that they’re the ones being invaded, I’d bet a good portion of able bodied men would have fled the country, leaving them at a disadvantage as this war drags on and losses mount. >

Ukraine is still using conscripts.
In recent news, they’re currently proposing a Law 8271, Ukraine’s version of the “No Step Back” order, which allows “harsh” punishments for unauthorized retreats, desertions, or disobedience, indicating there’s some worry about conscript morale on the battlefield. The news articles somewhat euphemize the language, but it’s implied that unauthorized battlefield retreat or desertion might be punished Soviet-style, whereas it’s currently a fineable or jailable offense.
There’s also some recent indications that Ukrainian embassies are reaching out to their refugee population to ask men to return back home to join the armed forces.
I haven’t heard of any anti-conscription discontent in Ukraine, but I’ve seen Ukrainian vloggers on YouTube express dissatisfaction with aspects of how it was implemented. Basically how the one-size-fits-all bureaucracy ends up sending trained pilots, artillerymen, and tankers into infantry units without regard that their skill sets might actually be more useful in other areas. >


I’ve seen Ukrainian vloggers on YouTube express dissatisfaction with aspects of how it was implemented. Basically how the one-size-fits-all bureaucracy ends up sending trained pilots, artillerymen, and tankers into infantry units without regard that their skill sets might actually be more useful in other areas.

Link, please? >

Operation meat shield begins. >

What a fucked up perspective to have of a country defending themselves from a dictatorship. >

Much of that is itself exaggerated; the Soviets took such heavy losses in the early war more because they were unable to manoeuvre the army to avoid German encirclements rather than because they were throwing men at the problem.
Instances where they did do this would be things like the Kotluban offensives which were carried out to delay the German advance on Stalingrad - but a lot of offensives characterised the same way were planned out, but simply unsuccessful (e.g. Operation Mars). >

Tks ! I Just want to make sure that people don't equate Soviet soldier sacrificed their lives to protect their nation ( which both include Ukrainian and Russian soldiers ) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I saw a lot of hate speech against Russian people as a whole, and some of them going as far as disregard the bravery of Soviet people during WW2 >

The same Soviet soldiers who in turn raped and pillaged their way West occupying most of eastern Europe under a yet another totalitarian state. Some heroes, eh? >

Honestly, it would be naive to expect the soviets to not do anything on their advance. The germans (and their allies) had as an objective the extermination of their "race", you can't expect much mercy from that situation. Not saying it is correct, but expected. Even today we are discovering that the war crimes of the western allies were bigger than what we knew, and that was in the "honourable" side of the war, what could we expect from the savage one? >

It would be naive to expect an imperialistic, genocidal, war mongering nation who occupied the Baltic states, attacked Finland and Poland play nice, absolutely. You're correct there. It does beg the question how were the said people who got attacked before operation Barbarossa planning to 'exterminate their race' and how were the mostly caught-in-the-middle nations such as aforementioned baltics or Poland responsible for that either.
Questions I guess we can never get answers to! >

There were Polish pogroms of Jews after the war ended. In Poland. By Poles. You are arguing by intentional omission, general ignorance, or blind hatred. >

Russian military thinking is unlike anything we see in the West. For them there seems to be no price too high to pay for even the tiniest piece of land. For them, sacrificing 1,000 men to gain 100 meters of ground is seen only as gaining 100m of ground. >

Soviet losses in the Eastern Front were over double the Germans.   6 millionish for the Wehrmacht vs 12-13 million for the Red Army. >

Small detail, the Soviets didn't try to erase Germany from the fave of the earth. >

Both sides were quite brutal.  The Soviet Union did exact revenge on the German population,  lots of rape murder and torture.    Just like the Nazis did to them. >

The Nazis planned to exterminate every slav and communist. The Soviets did not. There was no soviet Auschwitz. >

Nah they just preferred to organize the starvation of Ukraine instead. >

Moving goalposts just to shit on the Soviets. The original discussion was why the USSR had so many more casualties than the Nazis. >

You moved the goalposts first.  Don't complain when you set the precedent. >

Of course a nazi apologist can't have reading comprehension >

If you think I'm a Nazi apologist then maybe you're the one lacking reading comprehension >

Clearing out the prisons to fill them up with the antiwar protesters ready for the next push. Not sure what the plan is after that, maybe use that 300,000 strong regular Russian army I've heard about but never seen. But maybe they've become green again with all this time off. >

According to how they were used in bakhmut and soledar. They use the greens by the hundreds as cannon fodder against fixed Ukrainian positions then locate where the defenses are weaker and send the better forces specifically against those points.
So, a total waste of human life for a little victory. >

Ukraine doesn’t need to do false flags for Russian war crimes, Russia already doing the job themselves! >

Russia knows they can’t keep their operations secret, so they have to rely on placing blame first to cover their tracks. >

Yup. Projecting so hard it's blinding. >

It’s 100% optics for back home, and that’s it. >

Many attacking Russian "soldiers" will be conscripted to be used as human shield for more professional troops.  Locating and hitting their supply depot is surest way to disrupt their time table. >

The sad part is they are conscripting Ukrainians from the occupied territories >

Man, if I was a conscripted Ukrainian, and Russia sent me to the front line where I am basically guaranteed certain death and gave me a rifle.... I guess I would be the first UA soldier to infiltrate that trench. The most damage comes from within. >

That's why they wouldn't give you a rifle. >

Sooo they conscript Ukrainians as meat shields but just send them to the front line to do nothing? >

Walk forwards, mobik, trigger the mines.
Put your head above the trench line mobik, bait out their marksmen.
Mobik, you and 9 of your friends stand here. See if their mortarmen would take the bait.
Plenty of shit to do with conscripted Ukrainians even if they don't have rifles. You just have empathy and humanity to not see it immediately. >

1000 bradleys and 500 more abrams >

We have faith in you, Ukraine. >

The West has to acknowledge that Ukraine's right of self defence includes attacks on military targets deep behind the front lines and deliver the weapon systems they need to do that. >

And what is your response to the very obvious reason why the West is hesitant to do that? >

My response is that the red line has been moved so often by now, that it's clear that simply sending better (longer range) systems will not push Putin to significantly more escalation.
On the contrary, I think that the long discussions about what we can send and when will give him the impression of an indecisive West and that might even encourage him.
If the West signals that it will continue to support Ukraine and increase their means of striking where it hurts, then the Russians will know they can't succeed.
Russia can't escalate much more with conventional means and I'm convinced that Putin won't risk a nuclear escalation or direct conventional confrontation with NATO.
And even if he wanted to, I guess he would get backstabbed quickly before he could launch anything and he knows it.
Long range strikes on russian military targets and logistics would be the most efficient way to slow down and discourage the invaders.
Let them destroy airports, railway stations and junctions, ammo depots, anti-air positions, barracks and the Kerch Strait Bridge. >


My response is that the red line has been moved so often by now, that it's clear that simply sending better (longer range) systems will not push Putin to significantly more escalation.

I don't think it has. Putin's public pronouncements about various "red lines" change with the times but I don't think it's that far out to assume that NATO explicitly helping in attacks on Russian territory would constitute a real point of escalation. Putin certainly would be stupid to not treat them as such.

On the contrary, I think that the long discussions about what we can send and when will give him the impression of an indecisive West and that might even encourage him. If the West signals that it will continue to support Ukraine and increase their means of striking where it hurts, then the Russians will know they can't succeed.

The west has constantly and continuously ramped up its support for Ukraine and the level of systems we're willing to share. I don't think there's any confusion about the direction things have gone. Putin doesn't give a shit what the media says about a tank deal, he cares about whether the tanks arrive or not, and well now that will. 

Russia can't escalate much more with conventional means and I'm convinced that Putin won't risk a nuclear escalation or direct conventional confrontation with NATO.

Of course they can escalate more with conventional means. They have plenty of missile systems that are land, sea and air-based which could target eastern European NATO members.

Long range strikes on russian military targets and logistics would be the most efficient way to slow down and discourage the invaders. Let them destroy airports, railway stations and junctions, ammo depots, anti-air positions, barracks and the Kerch Strait Bridge.

And you actually think Putin will sit back and do the "this is fine" meme when that happens? Insanity. >

Let's just assume the West gives Ukraine lots of ATACMS and they start striking ammo depots, train stations, military airports fuel depots and barracks behind the front lines, including within Russia with surgical precision.
The range is about 300 km, so it's not like they could attack Moscow.
What kind of Russian escalation do you expect? >

Proportional attacks against similar targets in NATO countries bordering Russia, or perhaps just one or two token attacks like that against a NATO country. This is assuming the attacks are conducted with NATO-provided systems.
NATO then has two choices, either to escalate and have forces from those respective countries conduct their own reprisal attacks, or back down because they know that doing so will make the next step of escalation potentially nuclear.
Russia will of course defend itself with nuclear weapons if invaded or significantly attacked by NATO proper and anyone thinking otherwise may as well become a professional russian roulette player for the level of risk they're willing to tolerate.
If NATO made such a miscalculation they would however likely just choose to disengage and encourage Ukraine to stop attacking those targets, which of course would severely damage the treaty and the integrity of article 5, which Putin would love.
Because these two scenarios are the most likely outcome, NATO is not being reckless in letting Ukraine engage in attacks that are extremely likely to escalate the conflict. >

Looks like Finland all over again. No matter how much you outstrategize the Russians, it seems they will always drown you in their blood and bury you in in their bodies. >

They don't have those kind of numbers anymore. 
Russias last generation of young people is being sacrificed for a suicidal imperialist war. 
Russia is one of the fastest aging countries in the world. They have far more retirees than children. And their working age people are being radicalized and sent to war.
How to destroy a nation in 3 easy steps. Russia won't be around in 10 years. It will collapse and balkanize >

Sounds good to me >

Who gets to keep the nukes? >

It's wishful thinking but I'd like the USA or EU to have thrm >

I hope Ukraine has enough weapons to strike so hard the second Russians step on Ukrainian ground. >

Peace deal is very simple. Get the fuck out of all of Ukraine! >

Haha good luck with that. How will you all cope when Ukraine front inevitably collapses >

Oh, were about a year into your "3-days until Kiev"-offensive. Like 2 more weeks would do you any favours. >

Yeah .. like others... just cant get my head around The Russians at all. Not even the crazy obsessive logic of invading Ukraine in the first place!
If Russia was a person! You'd say they have zero self awareness and conpletely lack insight into their own behaviour.
But just like in WW2? They simply do not care at all, how many die. They just keep throwing more men into it. Kill 1000? Throw in 1000 more.... Thats the Russian way!
Totally bizzare. >

Yeah, shocking so many people believed we had a civil war in Ukraine, the breakaway regions who sought independence and safety for Russians speaking. Turns out Ukrainians were right all the way, along with Poland and Baltics. >

Oh Lord Have Mercy on your dumb ass!!!! >

Oh no. Better give blood drunk warmongering Russian nazis everything they want !  Or they might boom us all ! >

Fucking hell. The song SABATON - The Price Of A Mile  fits this whole image to god damn well. Fuck WW II scenario this is a  WW I texbook slaughter (on the Russian side). >

They kinda did the same thing in WWII too. That appears to be the Russian way of war. Artillery and waves of men. >

If it takes 10 prisoners from Wagner to kill 1 Ukraine defender Putin is going to do it . he doesn't care it serves 2 purpose he keeps constant pressure on Ukraine to defend and cleans out his prisons . >

Throwing troops, like with a trebuchet? >

Wagner and Putin continue to show that they have literally no regard for troop life or morale. Even if they are successful in their offensive and push Ukraine away from Bakhmut, or even entirely out of the Donbas, there is literally no way in hell Ruzzia could survive a counteroffensive with the losses they are taking.
Are they just hoping the West is going to throw up their hands and stop supporting Ukraine if they get pushed away from Crimea? >

I disagree but I gave you an upvote for the visibility.
One thing you're missing is that Donbas is high ground. Lets say Russia spends its military supremacy on pushing Ukraine out of Donbas and afterwards Ukraine is stronger.
The magnitude of Ukrainian supremacy will be much smaller, small enough that the high ground in Donbas will lead to Russian defensive victories.
Ukraine is close to max'd out on its military strength. What it loses, is gone forever. Russia can replace men.
The real loss for Russia is if the war tempo is extremely high and they are not able to replenish their losses before Ukraine pushes its advantages. That's why they run a steady war with substantial losses to drain both Russian and Ukrainian forces. But the Russian ones get replenished. >

This seems like the exact opposite of what's happening.
Neither sides will ever run out of manpower.
What matters is material. Anything the Ukranians lose, it gets gifted or lend-leased something equivalent or better. While anything Russia loses is replaced by something older, less accurate, and overall less effective. >

Artillery is what really matters the most in this war and russia has more of it than all of nato combined. The west's over reliance on air power is coming back to bite them >

A bit off topic- but something I think about- in the USA we lost over 1 million to covid in a year- one in 365 people.  I knew of zero deaths personally.  And today people don’t wear masks even though more Americans die from covid every day than Russians on the front line (on average)- 
Large countries can absorb large losses without the majority of the country suffering personally.   This is a war Russia is willing to throw loves at until they win.  The average Russian reads a tweet or an article and goes to Work- the average Ukrainian hears an explosion and goes to work.  
Russians aren’t going to ever care about 250,000 or even a million deaths because the Russian people don’t suffer the cost of this war directly.  Until bombs explode in Moscow, this is something the working class in Russia just does not really care or understand >

Old people dying out of nursing homes versus young people on the battlefield (plus all of the maimed and wounded) result in very different impacts on a society. 
Most people I personally know of that died of Covid died before the vaccines were wildly available.  It makes sense that most people are less worried now.  If you get it and are vaccinated, symptoms tend to be mild.  (I’m aware of Long Covid and the unexplained ongoing increased death rates across the country) Despite most people being less concerned now, there are still a small number of people who are very worried due to pre-existing conditions and their self isolating behavior on a macro level does still have an impact on the economy in some ways. 
In Russia, with the war losses, sanctions, and high numbers of working age men mobilized and out of the work force, the effects are going to be much more severe.  
Autocratic nations seem able to put off popular dissent for longer when their people are suffering due to poor choices made by leadership, but we’ll have to see what happens after Russia’s upcoming offensives.  If they lose another 100K KIA plus another huge number of maimed and wounded, Putin may begin to face a larger and larger backlash at home.  
The Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan after losing only 15K to 25K KIA and approximately 50K wounded over a 10 year period.  US losses in Vietnam were slightly higher from 1962 to 1972 (when ground combat was largely ended for US personnel).  But public opposition to the war was strengthening well before 1972.  
Current losses to Russia greatly exceed those losses in a much more compact timeline.   One would expect that opposition to the war will grow more quickly due to the very high numbers of dead. 
Striking civilian targets in Russia, as I’ve also seen advocated for in other comments to this article, is a mistake.  It takes pressure off the Russian military and strengthens support for the war within Russia.  (I do support some targeted strikes that hits military targets or vital infrastructure hubs that  don’t result in large numbers of civilian casualties. ) >

I’m just… even if Russia manages to win the war (which I am nowhere near educated enough on the military situation to have a reasonable opinion on, personal desires aside), the devastation to their male population has and is absolutely going to utterly cripple Russia as a nation for decades to come. I may not like the leader, but it’s a shitty situation for the people. >

You are correct. I am also not a historian, but read some. Russia has been in demographic crisis since WW1 + Stalin's  repressions. WW2 compounded situation with losses many folds more than on a German side. Back then, Russia also used this zombie tactic of sending wave after wave of unarmed soldiers. Russian population has not recovered, and before the Ukrainian war it was considered to be in demographic crisis. >

The Russian hordes will be mowed down by Ukrainian machine guns and artillery. >

In the field the bodies are burning, while the war machine keeps turning, generals gathered in their masses >

130k dead Russian soldiers in 1 year. That's almost 3x what the US lost in 10 years of Vietnam. 52x what we lost in Afghanistan in 20 years. Russias strategy of throwing bodies is only leading to high scores or low scores depending on which side you're looking at. 130,000 dead in a year. >

It’s not 130k dead, it’s 130k dead and wounded, still a shit ton but just wanted to clarify. Problem is Russia has always thrown millions to die at wars it deems necessary so we have a long way to go on this war unfortunately. >

It’s around 130,000 Russians dead and 70,000 wounded >

Only ones reporting this is of course Ukraine, all other estimates are much lower for dead from all other sources. >

If i remember correctly either Pentagon or British MOD stated a couple of days ago that Russia lost 200k troops, number includes KIA and WIA >

It 200k wounded and dead on all sides of the war so both Ukraine and Russia.  200K of KIA and MIA would mean that Russia has basically no army left because the conscripts have not even been deployed in mass yet they are still in training for the most part which is just silly. >

That number seems insanely unlikely to be true. >

I’m really curious if this is going to be a fake attack, the soviets used to misinform the germans a lot about their upcoming attacks >

Whole different world with satellite, aerial, and electronic intelligence. The worldwide intelligence community is already looking at Ukraine. It'd be basically impossible to hide large scale conventional troop/materiel movements. >

More troops that have been trained for 15 minutes. "Here's the safety. Turn it off. Good luck, son."