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On July 11 2023 05:59 captainwaffles wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
Do you think there will be consequences for Russia if they did this? Do you comprehend the level of death and destruction you are claiming that Russia is capable of? Ask yourself why they continue to wastes lives and money if this has been an option for more than 500 days. What are they waiting for?
Nice use of your 1k post though congrats.
What's the West going to do? Sanction Russia, again? for the 12th or 13th or w/e time? Idk if you noticed but most of the world doesn't care about Western sanctions because Russia actually has real tangible goods to trade, and unlike the US, Russia doesn't impose all kinds of BS on a country for trading or developing their economies.
The real question is, is NATO ready to go to nuclear war over their proxy in Ukraine, and I think the answer is no. Despite their malthusian, depopulation goals they have, I don't think they want to totally flip over the chess board just yet, that could change obviously, I'm just calling it as I see it right now.
Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders? Do you think Russia has nothing to lose from not being able to trade with western nations? Do you think china trades more with the west or Russia? Do you think Russia sells anything unique that can't be found anywhere else in the world?
What you are describing is a carpet bombing effort on a scale that even the US didn't achieve in Vietnam. NATO doesn't need to go nuclear they just need to let Poland and the baltics off the chain for a week.
> Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders?
I'm not talking about nuking anything. I'm talking about completely conventional warfare, which Russia has shown it exceeds the West at.
You think I need to listen to western sources, I think you need to listen to Pro Russian sources (many of whom are American or European).
The difference is, the West measurably, and demonstrably, has more control over the mental means of production than any other country on earth. They have incentive to lie about everything, to maintain their monopoly. Russia doesn't, they lie more by omission than anything else, but for the most part, they are served well by the truth, which is what their media outlets like RT and Sputnik are designed to do, platform Western dissidents to their own populations.
I'm sorry if I am misreading your posts, but may I ask why you think Russia hasn't done this yet? Why is Russia hesitating to end the war if they are able to? You are saying they can end the war whenever they want, without nukes, so why not just do that?
Putin, specifically Putin, doesn't want a wider war with NATO, overtly. Obviously there's several thousand NATO fighters in Ukrainian uniforms already on the ground, but it's done this way precisely to avoid an overt war.
Putin is still hoping government's change, at least in Europe, and that these new governments will be open to negotiations.
The Russian people, largely speaking, want him to pull the trigger and just end it already. Putin being the moderate though, is treading lightly. I can't blame him. He's obviously way smarter than any of us. If the West does get their ultimate goal of regime change in Russia (won't happen), whoever comes after Putin would be much more of a nationalist and would probably act on the will of the Russian people, to finally put an end to the conflict.
On July 11 2023 05:59 captainwaffles wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
Do you think there will be consequences for Russia if they did this? Do you comprehend the level of death and destruction you are claiming that Russia is capable of? Ask yourself why they continue to wastes lives and money if this has been an option for more than 500 days. What are they waiting for?
Nice use of your 1k post though congrats.
What's the West going to do? Sanction Russia, again? for the 12th or 13th or w/e time? Idk if you noticed but most of the world doesn't care about Western sanctions because Russia actually has real tangible goods to trade, and unlike the US, Russia doesn't impose all kinds of BS on a country for trading or developing their economies.
The real question is, is NATO ready to go to nuclear war over their proxy in Ukraine, and I think the answer is no. Despite their malthusian, depopulation goals they have, I don't think they want to totally flip over the chess board just yet, that could change obviously, I'm just calling it as I see it right now.
Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders? Do you think Russia has nothing to lose from not being able to trade with western nations? Do you think china trades more with the west or Russia? Do you think Russia sells anything unique that can't be found anywhere else in the world?
What you are describing is a carpet bombing effort on a scale that even the US didn't achieve in Vietnam. NATO doesn't need to go nuclear they just need to let Poland and the baltics off the chain for a week.
> Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders?
I'm not talking about nuking anything. I'm talking about completely conventional warfare, which Russia has shown it exceeds the West at.
You think I need to listen to western sources, I think you need to listen to Pro Russian sources (many of whom are American or European).
The difference is, the West measurably, and demonstrably, has more control over the mental means of production than any other country on earth. They have incentive to lie about everything, to maintain their monopoly. Russia doesn't, they lie more by omission than anything else, but for the most part, they are served well by the truth, which is what their media outlets like RT and Sputnik are designed to do, platform Western dissidents to their own populations.
how has russia showed it exceeds the west at conventional warfare? Did you see anything about the gulf wars? Ukraine still operates aircraft after 500 days. The US cleaned up Iraq in less than a month across the world. Moscow is less than 11 hours from kyiv. Kharkiv never fell and its literally at the border. What conventional way do you think russia could level the eastern part of ukraine that it isn't doing now? There was a mutiny in the Russian military that captured a major city and sent an armored collum towards Moscow. Do we need to talk about the Moskva and the holy relic that was sunk to the bottom of the sea?
I do pay attention to Russian mil bloggers as they're more accurate and earlier to publish than anyone else on the Russian failures in this war.
On July 11 2023 05:59 captainwaffles wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end.
Why haven't they ended it then? Do you think Russia are prolonging the war for funsies? If it was so easy, they would have ended it on day one
There's delusion, and then there is whatever insane logic leap this is. "After over a year of intense fighting, and several hundred thousand lives lost, Russia could actually just have won whenever they wanted to, they just don't" is actual insanity.
And lastly, why in the heck are you supporting a country that would rather sacrifice several hundred thousand lives for funsies rather than just end the war? That sounds outright evil to me
On July 11 2023 03:56 CosmicSpiral wrote: The Russian side is not suffering higher casualties in terms of visually confirmed vehicle losses, sanitary losses, or even territorial losses (they have been advancing from Kremennaya towards Kupyiansk and Lyman at the same time the southern counteroffensive has taken place). It's true that the UAF has largely abstained from utilizing armored columns as the tip of the spear, but they've been consistently losing the likes of MRAPs and M-777s in small bunches scattered along the entire front. That's simply the result of lacking the necessary air and artillery superiority to utilize breakthrough forces and negate the reconnaissance fire complex that is halting their advances in the grey zone.
Last time I checked Oryx, the Russians were losing more equipment.
Oryx is highly unreliable as relying on open-source intelligence means it will frequently double or triple count losses that are taken from multiple instances of photographic evidence, mistake Ukrainian losses portrayed as Russian losses, and so on. All putative "open source intelligence" websites suffer from this verification problem.
It may not be perfect but it's still one of the most reliable sources out there. Can you show any significant number of double or triple counts or are you just making assumptions? The data provided by Oryx is, broadly speaking, in line with the assessment offered by Western intelligence. Also, could you explain why Oryx would mistake Ukrainian losses as Russian and not the other way around?
Western intelligence relies on Oryx and other open source aggregators (they've admitted as much) because they lack boots on the ground to send reliable reports back to analysts in Washington. So obviously their conclusions will be similar. You're overestimating the reliability of Western intelligence and think tanks, which have been reliably wrong in many predictions from the very beginning. This is also in part due to their anti-Russian bias, leading them to make erroneous assumptions in basic principles.
Because people posted Ukrainian losses and passed them off as Russian losses. This was easy to do at the beginning of the conflict since both countries share the same Soviet-based arsenal of tank/IFV/artillery models and AA defense systems. That's part of the information war.
On July 11 2023 06:11 maybenexttime wrote: So you disagreed with me while repeating what I said, perhaps, using more technically correct terms... As I pointed out, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is not slowed down by the defences described in great detail in the video because the Ukrainian forces, for the most part, are not engaging with the described defences.
I agree that Kimmitt is not describing the situation properly, and I don't know why he's referring to hypothetical engagements to explain something that hasn't reached that point. But the trenches, etc. are not a "layered defence".
On July 11 2023 06:21 Sermokala wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
Do you think there will be consequences for Russia if they did this? Do you comprehend the level of death and destruction you are claiming that Russia is capable of? Ask yourself why they continue to wastes lives and money if this has been an option for more than 500 days. What are they waiting for?[/QUOTE]
The organization, logistics, coordination, and deployment behind the largest peer-to-peer war since Korea (yes, Ukraine had a significant army and was trained to be interoperable with NATO standards) is easier to do in practice than in theory. A proper war-time economy takes years to implement and affects every level of society. For a military that had gutted its own officer corps and districts under Serdyukov barely a decade ago, the Russian army is still in the midst of modernizing its troops and its doctrines.
Then there are legal issues related to military endeavors. For instance, the Russian army technically can only be employed in defense of the motherland; unlike the U.S. or other European countries, it cannot send troops to other countries without express invitation. This is why Wagner was created as a paramilitary light infantry force under the auspice of the GRU, and why Russia primarily relied on territorial defense forces + special forces until the four oblasts were annexed.
Russia is a dictatorship. If Putin wants to send the army no technicality in the law that doesn't allow the army to be deployed for an invasion is going to stop him.
He can simply tell parliament to change the law, or ignore the law without any consequence.
On July 11 2023 06:52 Gorsameth wrote: Russia is a dictatorship. If Putin wants to send the army no technicality in the law that doesn't allow the army to be deployed for an invasion is going to stop him.
He can simply tell parliament to change the law, or ignore the law without any consequence.
Yes and no,
He is walking a very thin line. There are groups in Russian Society were you simply don't send the kids to war. Basically, nothing from St Petersburg and Moscow unless there is military experience.
So yes he can do what you say and yes he is not at his first contradiction. The first mobilisation was never supposed to happen.
The Russian rhetoric is genius, it works on low iq people who suddenly feel smart because they are part of the small minority that understand that their own government and media lies. In the Russian playbook, those are called useful idiots, they appears magically and don't even need to be paid. The main difference with troll farms is that those will do the work for free while Russians working for troll farms know exactly what they are doing and why as long as they get paid.
I find it wonderful that we can observe those people sometimes even here. I have to admit I live in the fantasy that those are really dumb and not trying to troll :D, please let it be true.
On July 11 2023 06:27 Sermokala wrote: The drone assults are made by propeller drones slowly gliding alone in a straight path. The Cruise missiles are the same thing NATO has known exists from the fall of the soviet union. The PATRIOT system is that revolution for the hypersonics. a missle going in a straight line isn't the wunderwaffe promised. PATRIOTS were designed to take down ICBM, and while I don't think they're realistically capable of that they are capable most likely of dealing with Kinzals seeing how they can track the planes they are launched from with AWACS across the border and then track them the whole way they come to the capitol.
The Patriot systems never shot down any hypersonic missiles. I know this because:
A. I studied the development processes and inner workings behind Avangard, Kinzhal and Zircon for fun. The Kinzhal doesn't travel in a straight line: it is built expressly to outmaneuver A2A and SAMs and take down air defenses systems, both static and mobile. B. The Patriot system couldn't even shoot down Scuds and low-flying drones used by the Houthis against Saudi Arabian oil fields. Its field record is horrendous. C. The Ukrainians claim to have shot down more Kinzhals (13, according to their sketchy methodology) than were ever shot in the general vicinity of Kiev. In reality, what the Patriot missiles shot down were the dummy missiles the Kinzhal ejects around itself as it approaches detected AA systems. D. The most important objection: AA defense has always lagged behind offensive usage of missiles to the point that they were never a reliable means of interception. At best, the estimated interception rate of individual systems (not layered air defense) topped out at 35-40% for the last generation. Even vaunted new ones like the S-400, which has a proved field record, tops at maybe 50%. This makes it especially difficult to deal with attacks designed to saturate AD and occupy the close systems.
On July 11 2023 06:21 Sermokala wrote: Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders? Do you think Russia has nothing to lose from not being able to trade with western nations? Do you think china trades more with the west or Russia? Do you think Russia sells anything unique that can't be found anywhere else in the world?
What you are describing is a carpet bombing effort on a scale that even the US didn't achieve in Vietnam. NATO doesn't need to go nuclear they just need to let Poland and the baltics off the chain for a week.
Poland and the Baltics would be miserable failures for the same reason Russia hasn't ended the war yet. NATO countries are in an even worse position to commit to a ground war as they no longer possess the infrastructure to maintain one. All of that was dismantled over the last 40 years as the battlegrounds shifted to areas where COIN doctrine was applicable.
On July 11 2023 06:41 Sermokala wrote: how has russia showed it exceeds the west at conventional warfare? Did you see anything about the gulf wars? Ukraine still operates aircraft after 500 days. The US cleaned up Iraq in less than a month across the world. Moscow is less than 11 hours from kyiv. Kharkiv never fell and its literally at the border. What conventional way do you think russia could level the eastern part of ukraine that it isn't doing now? There was a mutiny in the Russian military that captured a major city and sent an armored collum towards Moscow. Do we need to talk about the Moskva and the holy relic that was sunk to the bottom of the sea?
I do pay attention to Russian mil bloggers as they're more accurate and earlier to publish than anyone else on the Russian failures in this war.
How are the Gulf Wars comparable to this modern conflict? Are people still trotting out that dead horse to supposedly prove the invincibility of Western military forces? A coalition force destroyed an outdated, demoralized Iraqi army with shoddy NCO/officer corps and virtually no effective air force.
On July 11 2023 06:52 Gorsameth wrote: Russia is a dictatorship. If Putin wants to send the army no technicality in the law that doesn't allow the army to be deployed for an invasion is going to stop him.
He can simply tell parliament to change the law, or ignore the law without any consequence.
Actually, Putin is and has always been a stickler for legality dating back to his term as Prime Minister.
On July 11 2023 03:56 CosmicSpiral wrote: The Russian side is not suffering higher casualties in terms of visually confirmed vehicle losses, sanitary losses, or even territorial losses (they have been advancing from Kremennaya towards Kupyiansk and Lyman at the same time the southern counteroffensive has taken place). It's true that the UAF has largely abstained from utilizing armored columns as the tip of the spear, but they've been consistently losing the likes of MRAPs and M-777s in small bunches scattered along the entire front. That's simply the result of lacking the necessary air and artillery superiority to utilize breakthrough forces and negate the reconnaissance fire complex that is halting their advances in the grey zone.
Last time I checked Oryx, the Russians were losing more equipment.
Oryx is highly unreliable as relying on open-source intelligence means it will frequently double or triple count losses that are taken from multiple instances of photographic evidence, mistake Ukrainian losses portrayed as Russian losses, and so on. All putative "open source intelligence" websites suffer from this verification problem.
It may not be perfect but it's still one of the most reliable sources out there. Can you show any significant number of double or triple counts or are you just making assumptions? The data provided by Oryx is, broadly speaking, in line with the assessment offered by Western intelligence. Also, could you explain why Oryx would mistake Ukrainian losses as Russian and not the other way around?
Western intelligence relies on Oryx and other open source aggregators (they've admitted as much) because they lack boots on the ground to send reliable reports back to analysts in Washington. So obviously their conclusions will be similar. You're overestimating the reliability of Western intelligence and think tanks, which have been reliably wrong in many predictions from the very beginning. This is also in part due to their anti-Russian bias, leading them to make erroneous assumptions in basic principles.
Because people posted Ukrainian losses and passed them off as Russian losses. This was easy to do at the beginning of the conflict since both countries share the same Soviet-based arsenal of tank/IFV/artillery models and AA defense systems. That's part of the information war.
On July 11 2023 06:11 maybenexttime wrote: So you disagreed with me while repeating what I said, perhaps, using more technically correct terms... As I pointed out, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is not slowed down by the defences described in great detail in the video because the Ukrainian forces, for the most part, are not engaging with the described defences.
I agree that Kimmitt is not describing the situation properly, and I don't know why he's referring to hypothetical engagements to explain something that hasn't reached that point. But the trenches, etc. are not a "layered defence".
On July 11 2023 06:21 Sermokala wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
Do you think there will be consequences for Russia if they did this? Do you comprehend the level of death and destruction you are claiming that Russia is capable of? Ask yourself why they continue to wastes lives and money if this has been an option for more than 500 days. What are they waiting for?
The organization, logistics, coordination, and deployment behind the largest peer-to-peer war since Korea (yes, Ukraine had a significant army and was trained to be interoperable with NATO standards) is easier to do in practice than in theory. A proper war-time economy takes years to implement and affects every level of society. For a military that had gutted its own officer corps and districts under Serdyukov barely a decade ago, the Russian army is still in the midst of modernizing its troops and its doctrines.
Then there are legal issues related to military endeavors. For instance, the Russian army technically can only be employed in defense of the motherland; unlike the U.S. or other European countries, it cannot send troops to other countries without express invitation. This is why Wagner was created as a paramilitary light infantry force under the auspice of the GRU, and why Russia primarily relied on territorial defense forces + special forces until the four oblasts were annexed.[/QUOTE] I agree these are the reasons why Russia is struggling so hard to win the war, not having palletized logistics in 2022 is going to make fighting a war pretty hard. Russia has failed to modernize its military's technology in almost every sector. How many T-14's SU-57's Bumerang's Terminator's have been made that were supposed to be done for this war? They're attempting to "modernize" T-62's and couldn't show more than a single T-34 for its victory parade. There are issues that are preventing russia from ending this war and its because of them that they're not capable of it.
Do you really think that the Russian army wasn't used in Ukraine before the sham elections?
Call me crazy but right now I kinda get the impression a few people in a pro-Russian discord group got wind of this thread and are trying to hijack it.
On July 11 2023 06:27 Sermokala wrote: The drone assults are made by propeller drones slowly gliding alone in a straight path. The Cruise missiles are the same thing NATO has known exists from the fall of the soviet union. The PATRIOT system is that revolution for the hypersonics. a missle going in a straight line isn't the wunderwaffe promised. PATRIOTS were designed to take down ICBM, and while I don't think they're realistically capable of that they are capable most likely of dealing with Kinzals seeing how they can track the planes they are launched from with AWACS across the border and then track them the whole way they come to the capitol.
The Patriot systems never shot down any hypersonic missiles. I know this because:
A. I studied the development processes and inner workings behind Avangard, Kinzhal and Zircon for fun. The Kinzhal doesn't travel in a straight line: it is built expressly to outmaneuver A2A and SAMs and take down air defenses systems, both static and mobile. B. The Patriot system couldn't even shoot down Scuds and low-flying drones used by the Houthis against Saudi Arabian oil fields. Its field record is horrendous. C. The Ukrainians claim to have shot down more Kinzhals (13, according to their sketchy methodology) than were ever shot in the general vicinity of Kiev. In reality, what the Patriot missiles shot down were the dummy missiles the Kinzhal ejects around itself as it approaches detected AA systems. D. The most important objection: AA defense has always lagged behind offensive usage of missiles to the point that they were never a reliable means of interception. At best, the estimated interception rate of individual systems (not layered air defense) topped out at 35-40% for the last generation. Even vaunted new ones like the S-400, which has a proved field record, tops at maybe 50%. This makes it especially difficult to deal with attacks designed to saturate AD and occupy the close systems.
On July 11 2023 06:21 Sermokala wrote: Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders? Do you think Russia has nothing to lose from not being able to trade with western nations? Do you think china trades more with the west or Russia? Do you think Russia sells anything unique that can't be found anywhere else in the world?
What you are describing is a carpet bombing effort on a scale that even the US didn't achieve in Vietnam. NATO doesn't need to go nuclear they just need to let Poland and the baltics off the chain for a week.
Poland and the Baltics would be miserable failures for the same reason Russia hasn't ended the war yet. NATO countries are in an even worse position to commit to a ground war as they no longer possess the infrastructure to maintain one. All of that was dismantled over the last 40 years as the battlegrounds shifted to areas where COIN doctrine was applicable.
On July 11 2023 06:41 Sermokala wrote: how has russia showed it exceeds the west at conventional warfare? Did you see anything about the gulf wars? Ukraine still operates aircraft after 500 days. The US cleaned up Iraq in less than a month across the world. Moscow is less than 11 hours from kyiv. Kharkiv never fell and its literally at the border. What conventional way do you think russia could level the eastern part of ukraine that it isn't doing now? There was a mutiny in the Russian military that captured a major city and sent an armored collum towards Moscow. Do we need to talk about the Moskva and the holy relic that was sunk to the bottom of the sea?
I do pay attention to Russian mil bloggers as they're more accurate and earlier to publish than anyone else on the Russian failures in this war.
How are the Gulf Wars comparable to this modern conflict? Are people still trotting out that dead horse to supposedly prove the invincibility of Western military forces? A coalition force destroyed an outdated, demoralized Iraqi army with shoddy NCO/officer corps and virtually no effective air force.
On July 11 2023 06:52 Gorsameth wrote: Russia is a dictatorship. If Putin wants to send the army no technicality in the law that doesn't allow the army to be deployed for an invasion is going to stop him.
He can simply tell parliament to change the law, or ignore the law without any consequence.
Actually, Putin is and has always been a stickler for legality dating back to his term as Prime Minister.
You know for a fact that the missiles couldn't be shot down and Ukraine was able to cover up any evidence of them hitting their targets because you followed propaganda about Russian missiles. They were tracked every moment from when they were launched to their target by the best radar system the west has. The designs of a weapon doesn't guarantee that they work that way. The Kinzal isn't a wunderwaffe that is immune to modern air defence. The PATRIOT system isn't going after the Shahed drones there are a lot of other systems like random ak firing into the sky that can deal with them.
As for Saudi Arabian intercepts of scuds if they worked on the same principle of ditching their tube to act as a decoy do you think the Saudis are sharing that information so they can fix the system for next time? The Offensive side of missiles has always outpaced defensive efforts but Russia hasn't had the same scale of technological potential the Western world has had over the year. being able to have live fire tests of its system for all these years would explain why they would be getting better not why they're ineffective forever. If the missiles weren't being shot down than russia would be sharing the missile strikes and what apartment buildings and hospitals they've been hitting like with the Kalibr missiles.
The MIC may be corrupt as hell but there is a lot of money in the business of missle defence and they've been going after that money.
Man, the last few pages have been like a Rolling Stones reunion tour where they play all the big hits, only the Rolling Stones are Russian trolls and the big hits are all the bullshit propaganda talking points that have been debunked already over the last 500 days.
On July 11 2023 05:59 captainwaffles wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
Do you think there will be consequences for Russia if they did this? Do you comprehend the level of death and destruction you are claiming that Russia is capable of? Ask yourself why they continue to wastes lives and money if this has been an option for more than 500 days. What are they waiting for?
Nice use of your 1k post though congrats.
What's the West going to do? Sanction Russia, again? for the 12th or 13th or w/e time? Idk if you noticed but most of the world doesn't care about Western sanctions because Russia actually has real tangible goods to trade, and unlike the US, Russia doesn't impose all kinds of BS on a country for trading or developing their economies.
The real question is, is NATO ready to go to nuclear war over their proxy in Ukraine, and I think the answer is no. Despite their malthusian, depopulation goals they have, I don't think they want to totally flip over the chess board just yet, that could change obviously, I'm just calling it as I see it right now.
Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders? Do you think Russia has nothing to lose from not being able to trade with western nations? Do you think china trades more with the west or Russia? Do you think Russia sells anything unique that can't be found anywhere else in the world?
What you are describing is a carpet bombing effort on a scale that even the US didn't achieve in Vietnam. NATO doesn't need to go nuclear they just need to let Poland and the baltics off the chain for a week.
> Do you think the radioactive fallout from nukeing Ukraine would stay in its borders?
I'm not talking about nuking anything. I'm talking about completely conventional warfare, which Russia has shown it exceeds the West at.
You think I need to listen to western sources, I think you need to listen to Pro Russian sources (many of whom are American or European).
The difference is, the West measurably, and demonstrably, has more control over the mental means of production than any other country on earth. They have incentive to lie about everything, to maintain their monopoly. Russia doesn't, they lie more by omission than anything else, but for the most part, they are served well by the truth, which is what their media outlets like RT and Sputnik are designed to do, platform Western dissidents to their own populations.
I'm sorry if I am misreading your posts, but may I ask why you think Russia hasn't done this yet? Why is Russia hesitating to end the war if they are able to? You are saying they can end the war whenever they want, without nukes, so why not just do that?
Putin, specifically Putin, doesn't want a wider war with NATO, overtly. Obviously there's several thousand NATO fighters in Ukrainian uniforms already on the ground, but it's done this way precisely to avoid an overt war.
Putin is still hoping government's change, at least in Europe, and that these new governments will be open to negotiations.
The Russian people, largely speaking, want him to pull the trigger and just end it already. Putin being the moderate though, is treading lightly. I can't blame him. He's obviously way smarter than any of us. If the West does get their ultimate goal of regime change in Russia (won't happen), whoever comes after Putin would be much more of a nationalist and would probably act on the will of the Russian people, to finally put an end to the conflict.
So you're saying he wants to avoid war with NATO, and he thinks he will be able to get what he wants from political shifts in the west? If you are saying there are already thousands of NATO fighters on the ground already, that would mean the west is already doing what they can, and if that is true, ending this sooner would be strictly better. Since defenders advantage is very significant due to Ukraine's geography, pushing back lines would be strictly better while waiting for political shifts in the west.
Please correct me if I am misunderstanding, but it sounds like you are saying if Putin can just keep stuff stable until political shifts in the west, he would be highly incentivized to gain as much land as he can before that happens. Maybe I am not fully understanding what the changes would entail. Can you please describe what specific changes in NATO policy Putin would be waiting for?
On July 11 2023 07:30 Sermokala wrote: You know for a fact that the missiles couldn't be shot down and Ukraine was able to cover up any evidence of them hitting their targets because you followed propaganda about Russian missiles. They were tracked every moment from when they were launched to their target by the best radar system the west has.
I know for a fact that the success rates the GUR reports are nonsensical and have never been replicated in any other modern war to date. Mind you, they were claiming the same "shot down all Russian missiles and drones" back when they were reliant on Buk-M1 and S-300 systems. Oftentimes, the video footage that purportedly shows these shot down missiles are just malfunctioned SAMs (you can tell by the angle of descent alone). And yet we're debating the consistency of an AA system that utterly failed to perform its function during the Gulf War.
It's quite tiring to have people who don't know the basics of combined-arms operations or the development cycle behind military technology the tell me I'm a Russian propagandist. Especially when, bluntly, I don't care who wins this war. I mostly care about what signifies in terms of long-term changes in strategic doctrine.
On July 11 2023 07:30 Sermokala wrote: The designs of a weapon doesn't guarantee that they work that way. The Kinzal isn't a wunderwaffe that is immune to modern air defence. The PATRIOT system isn't going after the Shahed drones there are a lot of other systems like random ak firing into the sky that can deal with them.
Obviously. Every platform, every modern system has teething issues as they try to refine via testing. The hypersonic missile program had problems such as figuring the optimal atmospheric height, the right fuel balance, etc. But in general, offensive missile systems are a generation ahead of the defensive ones. You can't design countermeasures to a weapon you haven't seen employed on the battlefield.
On July 11 2023 07:30 Sermokala wrote: As for Saudi Arabian intercepts of scuds if they worked on the same principle of ditching their tube to act as a decoy do you think the Saudis are sharing that information so they can fix the system for next time? The Offensive side of missiles has always outpaced defensive efforts but Russia hasn't had the same scale of technological potential the Western world has had over the year. being able to have live fire tests of its system for all these years would explain why they would be getting better not why they're ineffective forever. If the missiles weren't being shot down than russia would be sharing the missile strikes and what apartment buildings and hospitals they've been hitting like with the Kalibr missiles.
The MIC may be corrupt as hell but there is a lot of money in the business of missile defence and they've been going after that money.
Russia has been ahead of the West in terms of missile systems and AA systems since the 60's. It's a hard pill to swallow for Western triumphalism, but the simple fact is that the Soviet Union have prioritized advancement in those areas due to its geographical realities. The West was not hugely behind, mind you, but reliance on the tripwire principle and MAD mean most countries (including the U.S.) slagged off on preparing for contingencies that didn't involve nuclear-equipped ICBMs.
Considering the Saudi Arabia results were fabricated over years, there seems to have been no initiative to correct its flaws (also, I doubt the Saudis were actually operating the systems unless they were export versions). Largely because the MIC is not interested in efficiency - efficiency and simplicity require a pressing need - and largely because the MIC's business model naturally hamstrings natural growth. This is the reason most Western militaries are depreciated in terms of munitions and artillery. To be fair, it's very sensible to cut back on production of these from a business perspective, and defense conglomerates like Raytheon simply maximized revenue by selling small batches at a harsh premium (e.g. a full salvo of Patriot missiles costs approximately $1 billion).
On July 11 2023 07:35 Mikau wrote: Man, the last few pages have been like a Rolling Stones reunion tour where they play all the big hits, only the Rolling Stones are Russian trolls and the big hits are all the bullshit propaganda talking points that have been debunked already over the last 500 days.
You can see the red flags coming too. The types of people who've been doing it for so long they're reflexively deflecting on things no one brings up and arguing against things no one is talking about. The trick is to fish out just how far gone they are.
Anyway, word out of the last NATO conference is that Sweden is now joining to join after Turkyie and then Hungry will give their consent. Hundreds of years of neutrality and a massive shakeup to the security picture in the northern seas
On July 11 2023 05:59 captainwaffles wrote: At the end of the day, Ukraine is outnumbered. The Pro West camp can keep deluding themselves if they want to, but us living in the real world can do basic math, as Putin has said, Ukraine is outnumbered 10:1. This war will end however and whenever Russia wants it to end. contrary to what you've been told by the main stream media, Russia has been going soft, hoping to negotiate, but if/whenever they've decided they've had enough of this nonsense from the West, they can just level the Western part of Ukraine and do regime change in Kiev.
On July 11 2023 07:06 CosmicSpiral wrote: How are the Gulf Wars comparable to this modern conflict? Are people still trotting out that dead horse to supposedly prove the invincibility of Western military forces? A coalition force destroyed an outdated, demoralized Iraqi army with shoddy NCO/officer corps and virtually no effective air force.
Sounds like an excellent proxy for Russia. The only difference would be the lack of rampant alcoholism in the Iraqi army.
It is interesting to see that even when people are having in-depth discussions of substance, it is possible for each participant to be working with an entirely distinct set of supposed facts. We are seeing 1 perspective that Russia has superior missiles and another where the west has superior missiles.
It is very strange and a sad reflection of how bad things have gotten.
On July 11 2023 07:14 Sermokala wrote: I agree these are the reasons why Russia is struggling so hard to win the war, not having palletized logistics in 2022 is going to make fighting a war pretty hard.
Yes, but this is normal. Almost no modern army, with its enormous demands in every department, is ever prepared to fight because it takes years to arrange everything. The same thing happened to Germany in WWII. Despite its legendary successes, it had mechanized only a fraction of its armor divisions: its incursions into Poland and Belgium relied on horse-drawn transportation and artillery. At its height only one-fifth of the panzer and mechanized divisions consisted of IFVs + tanks.
Conversely, the Soviets amassed millions of men on the Polish border in 1941 but they got steamrolled during the opening of Barbarossa because their supply lines were not established (and in theory, couldn't be established until '42). And what ultimately halted the German advance? Outstripping their logistics line.
On July 11 2023 07:14 Sermokala wrote: Russia has failed to modernize its military's technology in almost every sector. How many T-14's SU-57's Bumerang's Terminator's have been made that were supposed to be done for this war? They're attempting to "modernize" T-62's and couldn't show more than a single T-34 for its victory parade. There are issues that are preventing russia from ending this war and its because of them that they're not capable of it.
Depends on what you mean. The Russians are at the forefront of electronic warfare, MLRS systems, AA systems, general missile systems, and naval projection. Their air force is so-so. Their top-of-the-line tanks (e.g. the T-90M) are above average IMO.
The end of the Soviet Union heavily degraded their infantry prowess and that continued to diminish until the end of the 2000s. During the Russo-Georgian war, they mostly relied on overwhelming artillery to cow their opponents - internally, the generals and NCOs acknowledged their infantry tactics and coordination were horrendous compared to the Georgians. It was partially a lack of experience, partially the withering away of the infantry divisions as they got short shrift in the military's priorities. One byproduct of this dismantling of the core infantry divisions was the rise of the Battalion Tactical Group, which skimped on infantry to focus on artillery. Considering we haven't seen the main Russian army do any large-scale operational moves in Ukraine, I don't know how to rate them.
The main issues for Russia are:
- There was no pressing need to modernize the entire military, especially not when Russia was just emerging from the soul-crushing 90's. The state budget couldn't accommodate spending on that level when the disastrous state of the economy demanded addressing basics like capital flight, inequality, rampant corruption. Therefore, you have an odd dichotomy of defence industries focused on a core set of advanced tech - the stuff I listed - alongside stagnant and halting reforms for the main army. So the Su-57 gets delayed by decades and has existed as a concept since the 70's; the T-14 Armada only started serial production last year and was going through test runs as the war began. There are regiments using D-20 guns from WWII while others have access to T-14s and TOS-1s. The scale of this conflict forced them to dip into older stock. In line with that, the T-62 is being refurbished to function as a IFV and support fire for artillery. - No experience with combined-arms operations among the NCOs and officer class on the scale required to effectively conduct large-scale maneuvers. Everyone remembers how undefended columns of armor were getting flanked left and right in the early months. Of course, the media uses this is hype up the UAF as being masters of maneuver warfare. Spoiler: they aren't and they're actually pretty damn bad at it IMO. Certainly not comparable to the Mongols or WWII Germany (and like I said earlier, the Nazis were hardly perfect in that realm). - An emphasis on maximizing casualty rates via artillery and fragmented pushes across the entire line, in accordance with Russian military theory developed during the last thirty years. The short of it is that the more prominent theorists believed the combination of comprehensive ISR + long-range strike capacity made conventional mass attacks suicidal. You had to disperse battalions to reduce collateral damage and depend on artillery to make incremental gains, especially versus strongholds like cities. - As a corollary to the above, Putin doesn't want to risk the high rate of casualties that would come with a straightforward offense. Just as the Russians can punish the UAF if it overextends, the UAF can do the same with access to Western ISR. Since he believes Western governments want to weaken Russia by dragging it into a long-term conflict that will bleed it dry, he wants to preserve the army at whatever cost.
On July 11 2023 07:14 Sermokala wrote: Do you really think that the Russian army wasn't used in Ukraine before the sham elections?
The VDV, Spetsnaz, Wagner, the National Guard? Absolutely. The main army? No. Do you know how bureaucratic bullshit he would have to wade through to deal with all the pragmatic issues, let alone the international ones?
On July 11 2023 09:08 Mohdoo wrote: It is interesting to see that even when people are having in-depth discussions of substance, it is possible for each participant to be working with an entirely distinct set of supposed facts. We are seeing 1 perspective that Russia has superior missiles and another where the west has superior missiles.
It is very strange and a sad reflection of how bad things have gotten.
I'm not sure "have gotten" is correct here. I'm sure people had the exact same thoughts in all wars throughout history. Whoever was fighting on the losing side never believed they were inferior after all, otherwise there's no reason to keep the fight going.
A brain is incredibly capable of completely fooling itself if it helps align with its already established beliefs. Russia being beaten by a country 1/3 its population size because of rampant corruptions and incompetence is a difficult pill to comprehend if you already support them. Any evidence to the contrary is easily handwaved as propaganda, and any propaganda is swallowed whole as evidence. No further digging is necessary when your established believes have already been soothed.
EPT
