Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, shooting that T-34... I also wonder if that was done deliberately to mess with local honor memorials.

I lol'd surprisingly hard at the quip about how somewhere a turret is practicing extreme social distancing! -- and I notice there's a cannon barrel mid-right edge of the photo which is doing the same thing, all by itself over there.

[MengJiao]

^Good post Meng. Interesting what you say about Turkey. I know Erdogan would claim that Turkey is already a regional power in the area. Maybe this war will see them rise even higher?

  Things seem to be moving some in the Levant (a nice medieval French term for the near-middle east).  While Turkey, Ukraine and Russia were meeting in Istambul, Israel, the US, Morroco, Egypt and
some gulf states (Excluding Iran, Syria and Turkey) were meeting at Ben Gurion's old kubbutz.  They even made a pilgrimage to his grave.

  Anyway, Turkey really needs for this war to stop -- moreso than anyone outside of the immediate participants and Belarus.  On the upside, if they can broker the peace, they are in a great position: neutralize the Russians in Syria, cool things down with Iran, keep running its
non-NATO policies (they aren't sanctioning Russia or anything like that) while benefitting from being in NATO, and sell a lot of its drone technology.

[Sir Slash]

I heard on FOX this morning that Lavrov is heading to China. He had been headed there about a week ago but his plane was recalled to show Russian displeasure over China allowing video of Russian snipers killing Ukrainian citizens in a bread line to be broadcast. So...cracks in the alliance?  ^-^

[W8taminute]

Not to be a nit picker or anything but that doesn't look like a T-34 to me. 

The rear wheel sprocket looks wrong for it to be a T-34.  The double barrel muzzle brake on the gun looks more like either an IS-2, IS-3, or T10M. 

[MengJiao]

I heard on FOX this morning that Lavrov is heading to China. He had been headed there about a week ago but his plane was recalled to show Russian displeasure over China allowing video of Russian snipers killing Ukrainian citizens in a bread line to be broadcast. So...cracks in the alliance?  ^-^

  Cracks in several fantasy worlds?  Brett Stephens the op-ed man thinks Putin's "plan" is working (maybe).  The Chinese would like to know how Russia has such a crappy army and such crappy missiles
and so on.  The Russians would like some stuff that actually works (which the Chinese probably would like to keep for themselves
in case of a real war and not a Putin-esque fantasy war and not have shot at maternity hospitals and shopping centers).  Weirdly enough (and sort of a monkey-wrench in the notion that
Putin's plan is working), Putin may not even have a non-fantasy picture of his fantasy war because he has been systematically misinformed by his own military and intelligence agencies from
well before the war:

  US official: "We believe that Putin is being misinformed" about Russian military performance
From CNN's Jeremy Diamond

The US believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being "misinformed" by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions on Russia's economy, a US official tells CNN.

"We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth," a US official said.
The official said the assessment is based on declassified US intelligence findings.

The official added that the US has information indicating that Putin has become aware of the misinformation, leading to a rift between Putin and his top defense officials.

Okay so what does that suggest about how Putin's plan is working?  We have plan A:  Putin planned long ago (well...last year?) to be systematically misinformed by his intelligence team.
I guess in the Op-ed world that might seem like a good plan.  But is it really a plan?  What is it a plan for?  or For what would it be a plan?  It definitely seems to have worked.  No matter what
happens, Plan A works and Putin has no real idea what is going on.
What about Plan B?  Well, plan B would be that Putin has some kind of plan.  Let's call having some kind of a plan, Plan B.  In Plan B, Putin plans on being informed of real events.  So Plan B
has failed.  i guess from the Op-ed point of view the failure of Plan B could be considered trivial -- sure, we all fail occasionally to be correctly informed of real events.
So we have Plan C...the Op-ed idea of "Putin's Plan" (that might be working) despite or because of the failure or trivial failure of Plan B.
Okay so...Plan C:  Putin doesn't know about the status of Plans A and B at least when he starts plan C (we now know that he appears to have discovered something fishy about plans
A and B...in Op-ed terms I guess the failures of plans A B and C just shows how flexible Putin is...how focused he is on...something that is working -- which no one except maybe Brett
Stephens can comprehend in an Op-ed kind of way at least), but then he finds out he has been misinformed.
Okay so since we know for sure that Plans A, B and C have failed, Putin must be on plan D at least.  This plan we assume might be working, assuming anyone has bothered to inform him
of any real events.  So Putin has probably gotten that far and succeeded against the odds in finding out that maybe his army is falling apart, that his missiles don't work, his own intelligence
agencies have misled him for months at least and the Chinese want to know what's going on.  Time for Plan E: the Donbas and maybe some gassy areas....yep, that's the plan, maybe.

[steve58]

Ukrainian 152-mm D-20 (sorry, don't know the best way to resize these) [I was bored so I thought I'd give it a shot.  Added width=500 to the img commands.  That seems to override the other width option from reddit].

[JasonPratt]

^ Yep! -- that is the way. {Mando theme intensifies}

Re T-34 vs IS-2... well, an IS-2 (or better) might explain how the tank was 'only' cracked in half!

[W8taminute]

Yeah, those IS series were tough! 

Anyway upon further inspection I realized that T-34's don't have either muzzle brakes or flash suppressors on them so again that image of that wrecked tank is not a T-34.

[GDS_Starfury]

Not to be a nit picker or anything but that doesn't look like a T-34 to me. 

The rear wheel sprocket looks wrong for it to be a T-34.  The double barrel muzzle brake on the gun looks more like either an IS-2, IS-3, or T10M.

I will repeat myself again:

Im laughing that the T-34 took the hit, and while cracking in half, held together way better then most current russian tanks Ive seen.
also of note is the wrecked track in front is one of two destroyed SPGs in the picture.

the tank on the pedestal is a T-34/85. 

[GDS_Starfury]

Not to be a nit picker or anything but that doesn't look like a T-34 to me. 
The rear wheel sprocket looks wrong for it to be a T-34.  The double barrel muzzle brake on the gun looks more like either an IS-2, IS-3, or T10M.

I will repeat myself again:

the tank on the pedestal is a T-34/85.  the other 2 wrecks are russian SPGs.

[ArizonaTank]

another photo of 80 years of russian armor.



odd that they wasted ammo on the T-34.

The tank on the pedestal is a T-34/85.

This pic was taken near the train station in the town of Trostyanets near Sumy. I was able to find the Google street view of the same location. The street view was taken in 2015, and many of the same buildings are visible. The tank is clearly a T-34/85. The monument commemorates the town's liberation from the Germans in 1943.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.4815304,34.9664687,3a,41.9y,119.17h,87.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVV_HfQVte18tUhgxcdpRjQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e4

The town of Trostyanets was taken by the Russian's on Feb 24th and after more than a month of Russian occupation, was just liberated by Ukrainian forces.

Here is a nice video from Radio Free Europe that interviews some of the town inhabitants. And shows some of the Russian equipment. The T-34/85 can be seen briefly in the background of the last interview (video location 5:52). You can also see the very burned out SPG in the foreground of the original shot, but the video is from the front of the vehicle (video location 5:13).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-tp97V2QG0

[W8taminute]

^^Well that just goes to show you that I need glasses!

[ArizonaTank]

The Ukrainians are saying that they beat an "elite" Russian tank division at Myrhorod. This battle was part of Ukrainian offensive operations that was one of their most important victories so far. 

The Ukrainians captured a handful of T-80s, that the Ukrainians say are only issued to elite Russian units. The Russian unit defeated here was reportedly the Russian 4th Guards Tank Division.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/29/2088757/-Ukraine-update-The-story-of-Russia-s-4th-Armored-division-and-Ukraine-s-biggest-victory-to-date

The article is a little confusing since it seems to be talking about something that happened recently, but the timestamps on some of the videos go back a while.

[ArizonaTank]

^^Well that just goes to show you that I need glasses!

Nah...you are good. It was hard to make out in the clutter of the original picture. It only became obvious to me once I saw the Google street view shot.

Seeing the Google street view was also sad...you can see how much devastation there has been in the before/after views.

I think those frozen Russian assets are going to come in handy.

[al_infierno]

Random aside, but I rewatched Red Dawn the other night and couldn't help noticing the Wolverines' school colors are blue and yellow.  Talk about prescience!  🤔