Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Windigo]

I saw several short videos of these supply trains... just more confirmation that they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

While I agree that uav's will spot most trench lines, it'll be a lot harder to determine exactly what's there exactly if you did't outline them with brightly coloured trash. Would it kill them just to bury it within the trench line?

Further I cannot fathom just sitting in a dugout shitting my pants, waiting for the inevitable grenade. Damn....

It all talks to me of no discipline, bad training and woefully shitty morale.

[GDS_Starfury]

It all talks to me of no discipline, bad training and woefully shitty morale.

yes 

fuck russia

[Windigo]

I pity those dumb buggers, but only a little... they got the government they deserved.

[Gusington]

I grew up with tons of Russian immigrants and 99 out of 100 of them are the most arrogant d-bags you will ever meet. Nothing like the kids you see in those trenches.

Also the trash does not surprise me - Russians are slobs in Brooklyn too.

[GDS_Starfury]

the same for those this live in Hallendale. 

[Gusington]

My parents still live in NYC (Queens not Brooklyn anymore) and they have seen plenty of interesting pro and anti Putin parades/cars/floats/what-have-you.

[JasonPratt]

Not gonna lie, I'd pay money to watch a film about Russians and Ukrainians fighting with farm equipment. It could be a dark satire, that'd be fine.

[Sir Slash]

Or Putin vs Zelensky Pay-Per-View. I see Putin as the wrestler who pulls a crowbar out his shorts when the ref is looking elsewhere, smacks Zelensky, then tosses it to Ping standing at ringside before the ref sees what's going down. 

[FarAway Sooner]

Putin would have guys in the audience launching deadly poison blow darts at Zelensky.

Before the match even started.  Zelensky would collapse from the nerve toxins, Putin would rip his robes off and go parading around the ring bare-chested, strutting for all to see and admire as he waved his belt over his head.

You know that anticipation for the rematch would then be off the charts.

[JasonPratt]

And then he would ride a bear! -- in the interfight promotional material.

(...possibly sponsored by Baldur's Gate III......  )


What counts of course is who gets first billing on the fight ticket.

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile in non-breaking news, Romanian ship scuffed by Russian drone attack still ignored...? -- maybe for the best...?

[JasonPratt]

In less good news: Russia remembers their special concept of schwerpunkt, with 100K troops(apparently??) pushing a spearhead -- or shovelhead -- into Ukrainian defenses yesterday.

The concept apparently is to get some kind of forward gain at any cost, so that politically Russia can announce a new level of (partial) mobilization as part of a victory momentum rather than desperation.

At a more operational level, they're trying to sever Ukrainian logistics in the region forcing a withdrawal -- and maybe also trying to force Ukraine to deploy their massed mobile reserves at last, except over here on defense rather than for exploiting the Uks' own push to sever supplies to Russian troops in Crimea.

Denis also has an interesting look (among other things) at the economic-logistic loopiness of the Russians from an angle I hadn't seen before: the Russians can't refine their oil into diesel at any useable rate (maybe at all?) so they depend on selling oil to Turkey and Hungary to buy back refined diesel. But those nations sell fuel to Ukraine, refined from the same Russian oil!

[Con]

Pretty amazing video of an assault
The C&C portions show how you end up winning these knife fights - its long and cant take the veracity of it.

[ArizonaTank]

In less good news: Russia remembers their special concept of schwerpunkt, with 100K troops(apparently??) pushing a spearhead -- or shovelhead -- into Ukrainian defenses yesterday.

For the last month or so, I've been seeing various rumor-like stories coming from the pro-Ukrainian sources that the Russians were building up a huge force of over 100,000 for a re-invigorated offensive push towards one of the major cities. But I had not seen any of the analysts picking this up, so I didn't pay much attention.

Most analysts have been talking about how Russia has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for troops...so would definitely be a surprise if they have managed to put together such a force.

But still not seeing much about this build up that Denys refers to. Latest update from ISW still doesn't really talk about this either. 

Hopefully just a blip...but I guess the next 24-72 hours will tell.

[SirAndrewD]

For the last month or so, I've been seeing various rumor-like stories coming from the pro-Ukrainian sources that the Russians were building up a huge force of over 100,000 for a re-invigorated offensive push towards one of the major cities. But I had not seen any of the analysts picking this up, so I didn't pay much attention.

Still not seeing much about this. Latest update from ISW still doesn't really talk about this either. 

Hopefully just a blip...but I guess the next 24-48 hours will tell.

It's not a blip.  The Russians have shifted a lot of their more capable units to the north and have, indeed, amassed about 100k troops and on the order of 1k front line tanks into a coherently operated and fairly decently supplied force. 

They've managed some significant gains in the last couple of days attacking from the major supply axis at Svatove and have achieved at least one breakthrough. 

There were apparently some determined counterattacks today that regained some ground but we'll see how it develops. 

This was largely dismissed as either an exaggeration of feint by the Russians to draw forces away from the counteroffensive, but it seems to me that this is a more determined push that is drawing significant resources, including reportedly heavy supplies from China. 

So far the Russians have been unable to sustain these kinds of drives logistically, but they've been preparing the areas in the north for this at the expense of other areas of the front for a while.