Ukraine

[highangle]

Do you then ski Japow?

Only a couple times. A lot of proposals go out that time of year. And the last time I squeezed out 3 days in Hakuba, everyone in the world took it as a cue to have a crisis or 'problem only I could solve for them'. I built a lot of fucking resentment over it...

Have you ever skied Kamchakta?

No. This is oilpatch work. You don't go explore the souks in your downtime...
Everyone in Kamchatka is drunk all winter anyway.

[highangle]

[dunfree]

They haven't mobilized reserves and they haven't fully committed their air forces. Doing those these would be unpopular and costly.

Occupations are resource intensive and they are now dealing with the Ukrainian reserves starting to come online from their late mobilization.

and the forces they need for an occupation - rosgvardia, etc - are suffering heavy casualties as well being needed to pacify the motherland.

[Viva]

Regardless it's a tactical if not strategic defeat given Russia said they were fighting Nazis.

The “Nazis” here now seem to be the Detachment Azov, fighting in and around Mariupol. Putin's new victory condition seems to be the destruction of Mariupol and parading Detachment Azov's scalps on Rossiya-1 TV. If he can get some of their bodies, if not prisoners, for the Russian cameras, he may yet find a political way out of this goat rodeo he’s created.

[MultiVerse]

Western Putin apologists have already embraced the Kremlin backed narrative:

[Casey E]

Chalk up another one for the west

“How Ukraine Unplugged from Russia and Joined Europe’s Power Grid with Unprecedented Speed
Engineers achieved “a year’s work in two weeks” to safely do so”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...edented-speed/

[leroy jenkins]

https://europa.today.it/attualita/uc...uolamenti.html

Ukraine has more soldiers and volunteers than it can train and equip due to limited small arms. A problem that seems partially mitigated so far by US high tech weaponry allowing a smaller number of soldiers to be pretty effective, but still.

[MultiVerse]

FWIW, the weapons referenced in Leroy's article needed to increase the size of the Ukrainian military are tanks, aircraft, missile firing systems, anti-ship weapons and air defenses. Although small arms might be an issue too even though not specifically mentioned in the article. The article says nearly 500,000 volunteers are used to supplement the 190,000 active military in areas outside of combat zones as a kind of quasi-civilian territorial police/defense force for local protection and control. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry quoted in the article explains, "What we will not do is, as the Russians do, send people untrained as cannon fodder to war," he assures.

[highangle]

FWIW, the weapons referenced in Leroy's article needed to increase the size of the Ukrainian military are tanks, aircraft, missile firing systems, anti-ship weapons and air defenses. Although small arms might be an issue too even though not specifically mentioned in the article. The article says nearly 500,000 volunteers are used to supplement the 190,000 active military in areas outside of combat zones as a kind of quasi-civilian territorial police/defense force for local protection and control. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry quoted in the article explains, "What we will not do is, as the Russians do, send people untrained as cannon fodder to war," he assures.

Maybe that last bit should read, "What we will not do is, as the Russians do, send untrained people to war as cannon fodder,"...

[Benny Profane]

Attachment 411322

Crazy that with that large of a commitment they’ve struggled against a much smaller country.

OBrien has some good threads on his Twitter feed this morning about the current situation (pulling back from Kiev), and where things may be headed.

They could flatten half of Kiev in a week, and nobody can do shit about it, or, if they try, WWIII. And the Ukrainians and NATO know that. They are in the driver's seat. Please with this gloating.

[J. Barron DeJong]

They could flatten half of Kiev in a week, and nobody can do shit about it, or, if they try, WWIII. And the Ukrainians and NATO know that. They are in the driver's seat. Please with this gloating.

First off, apologies if I came across as gloating, certainly not my intention. I don’t take any personal joy in anything that’s going on, but am certainly less upset when things are going better for Ukraine.

However, are you claiming Russia is in the drivers seat? Because it really does appear that they are giving up on taking Kiev (and in turn Ukraine as a whole) at this point, and may only try to get Donbas and Crimea. (Obviously it’s to early to say for sure; will have to see how it plays out.) That’s would be a big downgrade from their original intent, so not sure how they can be considered to be ‘in the drivers seat’.

Yes, they could flatten Kiev in a week, yet they aren’t. Seems like they might be worried that there actually may be shit to pay for that, or at least that the risk isn’t worth the potential reward of winning a flattened city.

[highangle]

Putin can't flatten Kyiv in a week, ipso facto he cant do it in a fucking month.
Oh sure, he could nuke it. But that means instant death for Russia, and him.


Hey Benny, tell us how Bernie can still win!

[rideit]

Or Boris is just a two-bit contrarian anymore.

[bennymac]

"Americans could give a fuck about Ukraine" - Boris Profane

[TBS]

Speaking of missile attacks, is Ukraine firing back into Russia to take out the missile batteries that are causing most of the damage?

If not, is it due to a lack of equipment (which I’m sure the US would be happy to supply), or some political barrier? Because it would seem totally justified to me.

[PNWbrit]

"Americans could give a fuck about Ukraine" - Boris Profane

The Russian translators are probably fucking up what they actually mean is "couldn't give a fuck..."

[Svengali]

Bunny thinks that if Robert Kraft blows up the stadium during the Super Bowl, The Patriots Win

[neufox47]

They could flatten half of Kiev in a week, and nobody can do shit about it, or, if they try, WWIII. And the Ukrainians and NATO know that. They are in the driver's seat. Please with this gloating.

Based on what? Boris’s local knowledge of the war?

There are a number of reports saying that most of their artillery has been pushed far enough back that they can’t hit Kiev, only their missiles can and maybe some 203s. Also a number of military experts are questioning whether they could take Kiev without using WMDs at this point. Maybe if they directed all their forces on Kiev and stopped trying to take eastern Ukraine but I haven’t read any non Kremlin sources that have said Russia is even making progress in most cities.

[ötzi]

They are in the driver's seat.

Bullshit.

Yeah they could flatten Kyiv. And they could trigger WW3 if they wanted. So what? They won't and everyone knows it. The consequences would be too big.

Driver's seat my ass.

[ötzi]

Tweaking the "driver" https://twitter.com/SergiyKyslytsya/...ba0cbdea27%2F0

[ötzi]

Speaking of missile attacks, is Ukraine firing back into Russia to take out the missile batteries that are causing most of the damage?

This may be an example of Ukraine firing into Russia, but now Russia says "nope, it was just an accident", which is probably BS because they don't want to admit Russia got hit. I love the "Russia accused..." business, they're like "How dare you??" haha

https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1508888502347386882

[TBS]

I saw that - wondered which is worse - they are a bunch of fuckups that blew themselves up, or Ukraine is reaching out and touching them.

I’ve read where Ukrainian SAMs are pretty effective against missile attacks - well over half intercepted. Just seems like a nanosecond after Russian batteries launch, US satellites have pinpointed their location and could help Ukrainians target a rain of fire on a relatively stationary target.

[ötzi]

I saw that - wondered which is worse - they are a bunch of fuckups that blew themselves up, or Ukraine is reaching out and touching them.

They decided fuckup was better, they'll just say the guy who did it was drunk and everyone will probably buy it.

And yeah, no doubt our targeting technology is ridiculous.

[summit]

Speaking of missile attacks, is Ukraine firing back into Russia to take out the missile batteries that are causing most of the damage?

If not, is it due to a lack of equipment (which I’m sure the US would be happy to supply), or some political barrier? Because it would seem totally justified to me.

Ukraine only has short range missiles and not very many. Russia is firing missile with 100+ mile ranges.

The US will not supply Ukraine with the weapons they would need to counter battery Russian missile units. The administration considers these to be "offensive weapons" even if the use would be defensive.

For short range missiles, Ukraine has been targeting these as they can locate them.

[abraham]

"Americans could give a fuck about Ukraine" - Boris Profane

.