Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 293
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Amui
Canada10567 Posts
On October 20 2022 02:46 Mohdoo wrote: If people were supplying the whole chain of command with wrong info, it makes sense the US and their allies would also have this same info. Its funny to imagine the stress of the people who were committing large scale fraud contributing to Russia's current mess. They're like "bro we will never go to war. This is all for show. I can just pocket $10m and nothing bad will happen because we don't actually need these missiles". Whoops. I am a bit confused by the perspective that bombing Ukraine infrastructure so that Ukrainians freeze during the winter will harm Ukraine. In my eyes, freezing a bunch of civilians by turning off their power is a great way to rally international support for Ukraine. All of these humanitarian atrocities are only going to enhance Western support for Ukraine. Through what mechanism would Russia be harming Western enthusiasm for helping Ukraine? First of all, we're already in very deep and sunk cost fallacy is very strong in politics and international posturing. Second, since the US is informally just flat out fighting Russia, the US pulling out would be an enormous international win for Russia, showing that Russian weapons defeated Western weapons. I can't imagine the US and the West as a whole can let that happen. The funny thing is, the west has less of an "off-ramp" than Russia at this point. Both parties are in so deep that pulling out would be a train wreck. There's no realistic mechanism for this to just fade away. When corruption is that deep, it's basically impossible to fake. You'd have to audit down to they physical items to find out what is missing, because I'm sure on paper, they've somehow made the numbers work. Sergei took 1000L of diesel out of storage, sold 100L and put 90L into each tank instead of 100L. Ivan was supposed to do 3 laps of the training ground, but did 2 laps and then siphoned 10L for his Lada. | ||
schaf
Germany1326 Posts
On October 20 2022 02:46 Mohdoo wrote: If people were supplying the whole chain of command with wrong info, it makes sense the US and their allies would also have this same info. Its funny to imagine the stress of the people who were committing large scale fraud contributing to Russia's current mess. They're like "bro we will never go to war. This is all for show. I can just pocket $10m and nothing bad will happen because we don't actually need these missiles". Whoops. I am a bit confused by the perspective that bombing Ukraine infrastructure so that Ukrainians freeze during the winter will harm Ukraine. In my eyes, freezing a bunch of civilians by turning off their power is a great way to rally international support for Ukraine. All of these humanitarian atrocities are only going to enhance Western support for Ukraine. Through what mechanism would Russia be harming Western enthusiasm for helping Ukraine? First of all, we're already in very deep and sunk cost fallacy is very strong in politics and international posturing. Second, since the US is informally just flat out fighting Russia, the US pulling out would be an enormous international win for Russia, showing that Russian weapons defeated Western weapons. I can't imagine the US and the West as a whole can let that happen. The funny thing is, the west has less of an "off-ramp" than Russia at this point. Both parties are in so deep that pulling out would be a train wreck. There's no realistic mechanism for this to just fade away. Might be something more in the medium term region. From the Russian perspective this conflict will stall and freeze and you get something like 2014 with both sides unable to advance. In this case Ukraine is in trouble again because they can't join either EU or NATO with an ongoing conflict, the military aid from the west will not help them rebuild the country and they can't expect too much economic aid from the west because all those countries are in financial trouble themselves. Additionally Ukraine will need to keep their army intact and ready to fight at a few weeks notice, if that. Russia doesn't walk away as the winner but essentially they will be the one saying "yeah I'm hurt but you should see what I did to the other guy". | ||
Magic Powers
Austria4132 Posts
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
On October 20 2022 00:06 WombaT wrote: That the cult of personality and the cronyism that stems from that will, given time ultimately bleed through to sloppiness and corruption across the board? If you have an hour, here's a long but interesting video that does a nice job of explaining how the corruption is layer upon layer upon layer, all the way down. And how there's multipliers. Stealing 1000$ worth of diesel from a 2 million dollar tank is way more damage than that 1000$ alone because you are also limiting the effectiveness of that tank. And without that tank maybe your other vehicles get fucked in battle. So indirectly stealing the diesel might've led to the loss of 3 vehicles. | ||
r00ty
Germany1056 Posts
On October 20 2022 05:09 Magic Powers wrote: Footage of kamikaze drones hitting Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_sIpwUCik Seems like the Gepard tanks are useless. Shooting those things down is basically their job. They were even deployed in secret on standby to protect some major events against drone attacks, even smaller ones. I haven't heard of a single successful Gepard in Ukraine so far. The IRIS rocket system we supplied came with like 46 rockets so far, that's protection for a city for maybe half a day. Pretty depressing, we should do a lot more. | ||
Artesimo
Germany546 Posts
On October 20 2022 07:08 r00ty wrote: Seems like the Gepard tanks are useless. Shooting those things down is basically their job. They were even deployed in secret on standby to protect some major events against drone attacks, even smaller ones. I haven't heard of a single successful Gepard in Ukraine so far. The IRIS rocket system we supplied came with like 46 rockets so far, that's protection for a city for maybe half a day. Pretty depressing, we should do a lot more. It is just the volume of attacks, they are simply overwhelming ukrainian air defences with these relatively cheap drones. You don't hear much about failing gepard either, which indicates they do their job. But shooting down some of the huge number of drones that get launched at ukraine does not give you much of a spotlight. The IRIS rocket system is absolutely not what you want to use to engage these drones. You use layered air defence and engage them with cheaper methods. The IRIS system is for more high value threats, like russian airforce and cruise missiles. And ukraine won't achieve 100% coverage either way, too much ground to cover. Keep in mind they not only have to try to protect their cities, but also their frontline troops. | ||
Nezgar
Germany534 Posts
On October 20 2022 07:08 r00ty wrote: Seems like the Gepard tanks are useless. Shooting those things down is basically their job. They were even deployed in secret on standby to protect some major events against drone attacks, even smaller ones. I haven't heard of a single successful Gepard in Ukraine so far. The IRIS rocket system we supplied came with like 46 rockets so far, that's protection for a city for maybe half a day. Pretty depressing, we should do a lot more. You will see Gepards pop up every now on then on certain reddit communities like r/CombatFootage. Sometimes in action, sometimes just the distinct sound of their burst while the camera is aimed at a drone or something similar. Most recent one was from around 10 hours ago at a thermal plant near Kyiv. There's just very few of them and a single one cannot keep a large city like Kyiv safe on their own, plus a lot of them are also in the field. They are somewhat short range, which is to be expected of a gun. But they do work pretty well from what we can tell, especially against slow moving targets like these. Keep in mind that the majority of the cruise missiles and drones are intercepted before they can hit their intended or unintended targets. | ||
Harris1st
Germany6931 Posts
On October 20 2022 03:35 schaf wrote: Might be something more in the medium term region. From the Russian perspective this conflict will stall and freeze and you get something like 2014 with both sides unable to advance. In this case Ukraine is in trouble again because they can't join either EU or NATO with an ongoing conflict, the military aid from the west will not help them rebuild the country and they can't expect too much economic aid from the west because all those countries are in financial trouble themselves. Additionally Ukraine will need to keep their army intact and ready to fight at a few weeks notice, if that. Russia doesn't walk away as the winner but essentially they will be the one saying "yeah I'm hurt but you should see what I did to the other guy". Good point. Basically as long as there is a stalemate, Russia wins since they have a somewhat working country and Ukraine does not. Western support in a stalemate will probably be reduced to humanitarian like food, water, medicine and other basic needs stuff. This kinda means Ukraine can't stop fighting and pushing Russia back which will probably result in higher losses since Russia is pretty entrenched by now and the colder weather is not helping either | ||
Magic Powers
Austria4132 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany546 Posts
On October 20 2022 17:02 Harris1st wrote: Good point. Basically as long as there is a stalemate, Russia wins since they have a somewhat working country and Ukraine does not. Western support in a stalemate will probably be reduced to humanitarian like food, water, medicine and other basic needs stuff. This kinda means Ukraine can't stop fighting and pushing Russia back which will probably result in higher losses since Russia is pretty entrenched by now and the colder weather is not helping either On the topic of freezing the conflict, this is an interesting read about the occupied territories of ukraine and their importance for ukraines future. You can get a rough idea of what 'winning' could mean for ukraine from these conclusions, as well as gauging some NATO interests. www.understandingwar.org | ||
Sermokala
United States13953 Posts
On October 20 2022 03:29 Amui wrote: When corruption is that deep, it's basically impossible to fake. You'd have to audit down to they physical items to find out what is missing, because I'm sure on paper, they've somehow made the numbers work. Sergei took 1000L of diesel out of storage, sold 100L and put 90L into each tank instead of 100L. Ivan was supposed to do 3 laps of the training ground, but did 2 laps and then siphoned 10L for his Lada. At that level of institutional corruption its also impossible to track down where the corruption is happening unless you accept that its happening everywhere. Is the general skimming all of that or is the man just below him starting the skimming, or the man below him? If everyone treats it like normal business everyone is going to submit paperwork that is real all the way down. You can test the trucks themselves that get to the front but at that point how many hands have been involved? Did the supply quartermaster stay clean actually and just sent what he had and was threatened to say that it was everything? | ||
Magic Powers
Austria4132 Posts
This is also the kind of news that continues to embolden Putin. He loves hearing when weapons deliveries to Ukraine - defensive or offensive - are being withheld. It's a problem. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/israel-wont-supply-ukraine-missile-defense-systems | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany546 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany546 Posts
On October 21 2022 03:19 JimmiC wrote: This is impacting everyone, pretty sure they care. They have one of the most complicated geopolitical situations and that is even an understatement. They are always on the edge of war and many EU contries are concerned about how sending their best weapons amd air defense weapons will effect their ability to defend themselves. You managed to say the exact same thing, just more covert: they don't care enough to expend that kind of resources. I never said they don't care at all, I said they don't care that much. In a long line of nations that do not care enough to get deeply involved because they are far enough away / don't have any strong diplomatic or economic ties, they are just another one. There is no need for elaborate theories on fearing iran getting a hold of their equipment (their air defence is much more than the iron dome, they have the required multi-layered approach, with the iron dome not even being their most impressive system, and they got other stuff they could hand off without fearing espionage). Suggesting that russia hold their jewish population hostage / israel being afraid of russia punishing their jewish population for this also seems like a wild fantasy to me without anything to base it on. They are not the shield of the jewish world outside of israel. They do speak out against antisemitism for obvious reasons, but you don't see them using their military as the jewish world police. Probably for the better, I am sure all the antisemitic nutjobs who believe in a jewish secret government would have a field day with that. And despite what some people might like to believe, russia will not go ahead and bully their jewish population while saying 'see israel, that is because of you'. And without that it would not really put any pressure on israel. I also don't think they are at any risk of get dropped by the west because of this. They already made contributions to ukraine and are still sending humanitarian aid, so they already got that side covered. The west largely tolerates their actions regarding palestine, and especially the US is known to support them absolutely, so I am sure they could have not send anything to ukraine and still would have been fine. But said line was crossed when they didn't say anything about the massacres and mass graves at Bucha were discovered. Then they got angry at Russia when made comparison to Hitler. So they do have standards. If watching civilians get murdered and doing nothing, but reacting once something mean is being said is supposed to be standards then I don't know anymore.... To me, this only highlights that the pressure from domestic approval is the only thing that might force the israeli government to act in this matter. This is just the reverse of most of the west not really caring when shit goes down in africa, the middle east, south america etc.. Parts of why we care about ukraine this much to me are political and economic interests, diplomatic ties and the simple fact that it is happening very close to some of us and therefore it is much easier to relate to it. And these matter more than what is actually happening, otherwise there would have been much stronger calls for action in syria for example. So yeah, that is my theory. Its boring, its not exciting and maybe a little bit depressing, but it is in line with the behaviour of a lot of other countries. | ||
raynpelikoneet
Finland43268 Posts
On October 21 2022 04:06 Artesimo wrote: This is just the reverse of most of the west not really caring when shit goes down in africa, the middle east, south america etc.. Parts of why we care about ukraine this much to me are political and economic interests, diplomatic ties and the simple fact that it is happening very close to some of us and therefore it is much easier to relate to it. And these matter more than what is actually happening, otherwise there would have been much stronger calls for action in syria for example. So yeah, that is my theory. Its boring, its not exciting and maybe a little bit depressing, but it is in line with the behaviour of a lot of other countries. Boring and bit depressing, but also quite correct. | ||
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