Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

Tyranny and cuddles. And attention. And schizophrenia.

Cats are awesome.  They would usually make REALLY iffy humans, admittedly. But as cats they're dramatically and comedically amusing.

[FarAway Sooner]

Democracy always looks better in the other dictator's litter box.

[Windigo]

Well No Shit!

God this is so obvious... like seriously it gets published as news?

[GDS_Starfury]

not saying this is happening but it could happen. 

[FarAway Sooner]

Interesting commentary about two months ago from Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk, where Mr. Bronk suggests that:

• The most important factor on the tanks won't be the need for training or even the timing of when the tanks are restored.  The most important factor will be the ability to provide logistical support, not just in the form of spare parts but in the form of transport equipment, bridging equipment, etc.  The current Ukrainian armored support vehicles and even most bridges can handle the lighter Russian tanks but not the 70-ton modern NATO tanks.
• Because England has an embarrassingly small number of those support platforms (on top of a very limited number of Challengers), he doesn't see the Challengers being particularly effective, except as a "first shot" to get other folks to contribute their tanks.
• The M1A1 Abrams that the US is giving will be effective, and we'll have logistical equipment to send along with them, but it look like we're going to take a long time restoring them and they likely won't be integrated in time for Ukraine's Spring offensive.
• The key "Western tank" piece in the next six months of the war will therefore be the Leopards.  There's plenty of spare parts, they're manufactured in Western Europe, and there is A TON of spare Leopards and support equipment lying around in the armies of a dozen major European powers (think Italy, Spain, Holland and Germany with big quantities; think Greece, Turkey, Finland, Denmark, and even Sweden in smaller quantities).  I read recently that Germany, Denmark, Holland, and perhaps Sweden had all volunteered to donate 100+ Leopard 1s.
  

The podcast is about 2 months old, but it was interesting to see what predictions Bronk was making back in January when the news first broke about the tanks.  Most of them seemed borne out by the events of the last two months.

[GDS_Starfury]

the US is no longer sending new build M1s but ones taken out of storage for faster arrival time.
also the much hoped for offensive wont be kicking off until probably the beginning of May.  I was
looking at weather forecasts for the next 2 weeks and its still going to be mud, mud, mud.

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah.  I've heard so many different reports on when the Abrams will be arriving, I've come to the conclusion that even the Pentagon hasn't figured it all out yet.  Last I'd heard, the decision to supply them with M1A1s instead of M1A2s was what was necessitating the lengthy unmothballing time, but even there I've read different reports.

Once I hear the same story consistently for a month, or once I see photos of them being loaded onto trains in France or Holland, I'll take it for the truth!  Various vintages of the Leopards, meanwhile, are widely available in abundant numbers across Europe. 

Bronk was pretty definite in predicting that Russian readiness would be at its nadir during the Spring and Summer but, if the Ukrainians aren't able to chew up a lot of the Russian army in the Spring and Summer, the Russians will have better prepared reinforcements flowing in by mid-Fall.  Bronk had more confidence in the predictability of the Russian Army than I do, but he stated his arguments pretty persuasively.

[GDS_Starfury]

this is the actual russian army in its more or less modern sense.

[Pete Dero]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-caught-red-handed-making-fake-video-of-ukrainian-attack-on-woman-and-child

Russia's Foreign Ministry has been forced to delete its latest dubious evidence of "Nazis" in Ukraine after the video was revealed as a poorly staged fake—by one of the propaganda outlets that first began circulating it.

The two-minute video served as the outrage of the day for the Kremlin's numerous mouthpieces Monday, where it was touted as irrefutable evidence of Ukrainian troops abusing civilians who dared to speak Russian.
In the clip, filmed on a woman's dash-cam, a vehicle with a Ukrainian flag on the back pulls up before two men in camouflage jump out with rifles and one of them begins cursing out the woman before appearing to fire at her car while a child sits inside it.

"Once a Nazi always a Nazi," Russia's Foreign Ministry captioned the video on its official Twitter account. "This is the kind of terror Ukrainians are living in: witness Ukrainian military berate and shoot at a mother with a child in the backseat, calling her 'pig' & 'scum' simply for... speaking Russian. No Nazis, they say..."

Unfortunately for Russia's diplomats, if the overacting in the clip wasn't enough of a red flag, the video was almost immediately geolocated to an area deep in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Moreover, dash-cams have been banned on Ukrainian territory during the war.

Even pro-Kremlin Telegram channels admitted the video was a clumsy fake.
"The video is fake. Our [guys] are clumsily practicing. In carrying out such information operations, our [guys] still have to learn and learn," wrote the pro-war channel Notes of a Veteran, one of the first to begin circulating the clip.

https://twitter.com/Shtirlitz53/status/1640356356002545664

[bobarossa]

"The video is fake. Our [guys] are clumsily practicing. In carrying out such information operations, our [guys] still have to learn and learn," wrote the pro-war channel Notes of a Veteran, one of the first to begin circulating the clip.

This sounds more like they are complaining about how poorly done it was, not that it shouldn't be done. 

[Sir Slash]

Damn! So does that mean the video I saw of Putin raising the dead was fake too? 

[Gusington]

Meanwhile Xi Jinping is taking notes on mobilization and what not to do. #1 on the list is 'don't be Russia.'

From Foreign Affairs:

https://fam.ag/3lQTU9b

[JasonPratt]

"The video is fake. Our [guys] are clumsily practicing. In carrying out such information operations, our [guys] still have to learn and learn," wrote the pro-war channel Notes of a Veteran, one of the first to begin circulating the clip.

This sounds more like they are complaining about how poorly done it was, not that it shouldn't be done. 

I was about to say! -- that's practically like Goebbels' speech where he brags that the other nations will lose because Nazi propaganda is so much more effective!

Ironically. 

[JasonPratt]

not saying this is happening but it could happen. 

That's a hell of a big gun for target practice!

[Sir Slash]

Bring back the T-28!