Russia's War Against Ukraine

[SirAndrewD]

The US is Apollo Creed.  Ukraine is Rocky.  Russia is a mixed-up cross between Drago and Mr. T.

Don't you dare insult Mr. T like that!

[GDS_Starfury]

a refresher on what the UAF is working through.
click pic for direct link.

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1695463241235734632

[JasonPratt]

Give Putin Stalin's 1941 army in modern terms, with allllllllll the practical advantages Stalin had set up for them, and competent commanders loyal to Putin (or at least willing to prove their loyalty), and I really don't think Ukraine would have stood a snowball's chance in hell.

its literally the same institutionally inept and corrupt command structure today as it was back then.

points to the Kiev drive

Stalin put together a military command structure he could rely on (within the acknowledged limitations of supervillainy), which even his chief enemies (the Nazis) grudgingly admired. He even put competent commanders whom he didn't think he could personally rely on into a carefully institutionalized system where they felt like they had to prove their loyalty by being competent or else, and got good service out of them! -- even factoring many of them back into his official command structure again.

Points to Rokossovsky.

Putin, for various self-serving reasons, didn't. He can't even make proper use of a purge.

[DetCord]

Give Putin Stalin's 1941 army in modern terms, with allllllllll the practical advantages Stalin had set up for them, and competent commanders loyal to Putin (or at least willing to prove their loyalty), and I really don't think Ukraine would have stood a snowball's chance in hell.

its literally the same institutionally inept and corrupt command structure today as it was back then.

points to the Kiev drive

Yep. The Russians that surrendered to us complained that they had no idea where they were, what they were doing, why they were there, and or what their mission was. Some of them wore Ukrainian flags because they were told that Germany supported by NATO had invaded Ukraine and that they were there to stop them pushing into Russia proper. Most hadn't seen an officer or senior NCO in weeks or months. 

They had plate carriers but no plates because they had been sold on the black market by their officers and staff-officers well before the war began. Slews of Russian tankers complained that the Kontakt-5 ERA was missing from the blocks and RRT's and sold on the black market, lots of the small-arms ammo was all low-loaded with shitty primers that then, after almost eight months, turned into shitty ChiCom ammo that was basically worthless.

We encountered guys wearing hastily cut aluminum and steel cuirass pieces like it was the late 1800's. Many of them were carrying Mosin's, PPS SMG's, and AK variants that were older than my dad that fought in Viet-nam with the NZDF. All of them were corroded to such an extent that it didn't matter how much time you put into weapons maintenance. The Russian Armed Forces were a joke to begin with, conventionally speaking. They were at best third-rate. They're even worse now and that is truly scary. It's scary because of Russia's NSC and threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which is drastically lowered for kinetic operations.   

[GDS_Starfury]

Ukraine will win.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1695541410802368992

[GDS_Starfury]

another day another minefield to clear

https://twitter.com/i/status/1695714356476912046

[GDS_Starfury]

Happy Monday and fuck russia.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1696145868750045599

[SirAndrewD]

In some significant news.  The Russians have decided to redeploy its main strategic reserve division, the 76's Guards Air Assault Division from the Kharkiv front to Zaporizhzhia.

This is significant for a couple of reasons.  First, the 76th has been resupplying and refreshing since its withdrawal from Kherson last year.  It is Russia's most overall capable and well equipped formation, and inflicted serious casualties on UAF forces fighting the very successful rearguard action that prevented the loss of most of the Russian forces north of the Dniper. 

Second, this unit is technically a reserve force, held to exploit breakthroughs.  It is generally considered a waste to place it in a defensive role.

This will be a serious blow to the Russian attempts to mount an offensive in Kharkiv from the Kremmina axis.  The 76th already had battalions engaged there and this decision takes them out of one fight, sends them hundreds of miles south and asks them to immediately engage in the other. 

They are also trying to reinforce it with ad hoc VDV units that have largely been forced to operate as smaller sub-regimental organizations due to overall losses. 

Committing the 76th Guards to a battle it is not well suited for puts more emphasis on the serious shortage of reserves and equipment in Zaporizhzhia.  While this will inject a very powerful formation into the line to attempt to halt the counterattack, this can't be a decision that Russian generals really wanted to make if they didn't have to.  The 76th had only just recovered from its losses in Kherson and was considered vital for the ongoing but stalled offensive in the Kharkiv oblast. 

[GDS_Starfury]

a little friendly fire.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1695910768561054051

[GDS_Starfury]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1696192303516266939

[Uberhaus]

a little friendly fire.

Might have been operating in autonomous mode.  Will it posthumously earn a hat?

[GDS_Starfury]

no hats for own goals.

[GDS_Starfury]

excellent russian moral and discipline.  Im sure theyre having fun but thats a great way to get dead.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1696214513089962020

[GDS_Starfury]

moving on from Robotyne



https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1695879651158052910.html

[GDS_Starfury]

so maybe russia doesnt really have a population of a 140 million.... 

https://t.me/Pravda_Gerashchenko/78260

the translation:

After lessons at school, immediately to the factory: in Russia, the restriction on the work of minors was lifted
The dictator wants children to work from the age of 14.
We tell readers @Pravda_Gerashchenko why Putin needed children at the machines.
"Strong ideas for a new time"
Officially, the dictator instructed to implement "employment and incentives for employment (including for temporary work) of citizens aged 14 to 24 years."
Now, in order to use the labor of minors, only the consent of one of the parents and a health certificate are sufficient. It's funny that Putin gave such an order following a meeting of the forum, which was called "Strong Ideas for the New Times."
And what happened?
The purpose of using child labor is to cope with the shortage of workers in the economy, which the authorities estimate in the hundreds of thousands of people.
According to the Gaidar Institute, the shortage of personnel at Russian enterprises has reached record levels since 1996, when statistics began to be kept.
A survey of owners and top managers in July showed that almost half of the enterprises faced labor shortages. Only manufacturing enterprises, which are designed to replace imports from Western countries, lack about 660,000 specialists. And all because:
▪️ partial mobilization took about 300 thousand people to the front;
▪️ due to forced emigration of the Russian Federation, almost a million Russians left;
▪️mass recruitment of volunteers and contractors exceeded 200 thousand people.
According to the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Osmakov, the personnel resource has been exhausted both at the local and at the strategic level.
At such a pace, in the workplace in the Russian Federation, labor and preschoolers will soon be used in order to prepare for a hard life.
#curb