EPTGotta spend the entire Soviet stockpile, so they can spend maintenance money on buying T-14s and SU-57s
Gotta spend the manpower, there's too many prisoners/men in Russia - spend less money on prisons
Gotta spend the piggy bank, it's a rainy day
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 494
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Lmui
Canada6213 Posts
Gotta spend the entire Soviet stockpile, so they can spend maintenance money on buying T-14s and SU-57s Gotta spend the manpower, there's too many prisoners/men in Russia - spend less money on prisons Gotta spend the piggy bank, it's a rainy day | ||
KwarK
United States42777 Posts
On July 11 2023 22:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Well Russia just confirmed that Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov was killed by a Ukrainian strike, more than likely by a Storm Shadow, making him the highest ranked casualty of the war so far. FAFO Putin deliberately used weapons that could only be traced back to the Russian state to attack Britain. He wanted the world to know it was him and that he would kill his enemies wherever they were and with whatever collateral damage caused. The message was the point. Fascists never learn. Just because democracies don’t like war doesn’t mean their missiles work any less well. | ||
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Yurie
11851 Posts
On July 12 2023 01:09 Magic Powers wrote: I thought people were mostly joking, but I'm starting to think the Russian narrative is indeed that the enemy is both weak and strong at the same time. Russia is superior in every way, but defeating the enemy comes with downsides, so it's better to delay victory indefinitely because that's preferable and totally up to Russia and only to Russia. Basically Putin isn't struggling to win, he's just optimizing his victory. Very smart and capable man. It has for a long time pushed multiple conflicting messages. This is done on purpose and on different channels. You want people that care about the war and wonder why it is going badly to think you are fighting Nato soldiers at the front. You want other people to think the war is over next week so they don't start caring. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
On July 11 2023 11:23 CosmicSpiral wrote: The core of the Iraqi Air Force was the export version of the Mig-21, which first saw service in 1959. The mainstay of the modern VVS is the SU-34/35 and they debuted in the late 2000s. True, there are a considerable number of Su-24s still in service, but they are largely used in a supporting capacity. Similarly, the Iraqi Army were dependent on tanks from the same time period: Type 59s and 69s from China, T-62s, and a few T-72s. Notably, these did not include upgraded versions. They were easily outclassed by the M1 Abrams and Challengers - couldn't even break the ceramic plating. The most numerous tank these days was the T-72B3, but it is being phased out for the T-90. We can go on and on covering the minutiae. The fact is the Iraqi Army was a pitiful relic of 50-60's military history that Hussein actively resisted investing into or reforming due to fears it would be used to overthrow him. He deliberately fomented division within the ranks, cultivated a poor officer corps, and deprived them of modern communication tech to coordinate their actions. U.S. forces had a field day destroying their AA capacity, hitting command posts at operational depth, and running over their poorly organized and disciplined divisions. You and Kwark are describing 2 different realities. You are describing a situation where Russia is well equipped. Kwark is describing one where Russia is poorly equipped. How can both be true? Are you guys getting info from different places or something? This is a strange thing to watch as someone who is not particularly knowledgeable about the details you and Kwark seem to be well-familiar with. | ||
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Hildegard
Germany306 Posts
On July 12 2023 03:28 Mohdoo wrote: You and Kwark are describing 2 different realities. You are describing a situation where Russia is well equipped. Kwark is describing one where Russia is poorly equipped. How can both be true? Are you guys getting info from different places or something? This is a strange thing to watch as someone who is not particularly knowledgeable about the details you and Kwark seem to be well-familiar with. Correct information and especially correct predictions are surprisingly rare. Remember reading predictions on how Russia would win the war really quickly, or how the western spy agencies were all dead wrong about Afghanistan? Even if we had had the opportunity to listen in on the talks of the highest-ranking officers in Russia and Ukraine one day before the war started, we would have had bad intel. It's funny how some analysis reads as absolutely solid and well researched, and it's just wrong. In my opinion, most predictions and analyses are more entertainment than reliable information. | ||
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Ardias
Russian Federation610 Posts
On July 12 2023 03:28 Mohdoo wrote: You and Kwark are describing 2 different realities. You are describing a situation where Russia is well equipped. Kwark is describing one where Russia is poorly equipped. How can both be true? Are you guys getting info from different places or something? This is a strange thing to watch as someone who is not particularly knowledgeable about the details you and Kwark seem to be well-familiar with. In short - yes. Kwark considers anything remotely good about Russia a pure propaganda and discards most of the Russian or Russian-oriented sources that do not support his viewpoint about Russia being trash (as a lot of people in this thread do, to be fair). This attitude is actually very resembling of the one that Russian pro-Kremlin crowd possess, just with polar opposite viewpoint (Russia is fine in every aspect, anything bad is UA/Western propaganda, etc.), which makes any kind of thoughtful discussion with any of this group pointless, if you are not entirely on their side of the fence. Spiral has a much more balanced view on things, and while I do not agree with him on some aspects, I find his posts as some of the most reasonable I've seen so far here. | ||
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Excludos
Norway8087 Posts
On July 11 2023 22:53 JimmiC wrote: And this guy who was (or was not) a notorious sub commander was executed by either Russians who were mad he wouldn’t follow orders to bomb more civilians, anti Russian war activists, or Ukrainian spy’s. What is known is he was shot four times because he put his running route and times on a running app. https://ca.yahoo.com/news/notorious-russian-sub-commander-assassinated-113211049.html Is this the first assassination in Russia by Russians that wasn't someone "falling out of a window"? Have they finally given up the pretense? | ||
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Excludos
Norway8087 Posts
On July 12 2023 03:51 Ardias wrote: In short - yes. Kwark considers anything remotely good about Russia a pure propaganda and discards most of the Russian or Russian-oriented sources that do not support his viewpoint about Russia being trash (as a lot of people in this thread do, to be fair). This attitude is actually very resembling of the one that Russian pro-Kremlin crowd possess, just with polar opposite viewpoint (Russia is fine in every aspect, anything bad is UA/Western propaganda, etc.), which makes any kind of thoughtful discussion with any of this group pointless, if you are not entirely on their side of the fence. Spiral has a much more balanced view on things, and while I do not agree with him on some aspects, I find his posts as some of the most reasonable I've seen so far here. The fact that this is spouted with full sincerity is hilariously ironic "Kwark only listens to propaganda. The guy who only listens to easily debunkable claims spouted by outlets that have repeatedly been caught lying, he's the one with nuance in this conversation!". Give me a break. I understand both sides will have preferences in which sources they want to believe. But my god why do you close your eyes to any evidence to any claims made by your sources, sources which are notoriously unreliable and have been repeatedly proven as such? Western sources aren't correct either, and definitively full of propaganda as well. But they are EASILY fact checked to be a lot closer to the truth than anything coming out of Russia. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4730 Posts
On July 12 2023 03:56 Excludos wrote: Is this the first assassination in Russia by Russians that wasn't someone "falling out of a window"? Have they finally given up the pretense? People are speculating more along the line of execution by Ukrainian intelligence asset or pro Ukrainian fighter. The guy was previously responsible for firing Kalibr missiles at Ukraine. | ||
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Ardias
Russian Federation610 Posts
On July 12 2023 03:59 Excludos wrote: The fact that this is spouted with full sincerity is hilariously ironic "Kwark only listens to propaganda. The guy who only listens to easily debunkable claims spouted by outlets that have repeatedly been caught lying, he's the one with nuance in this conversation!". Give me a break. I understand both sides will have preferences in which sources they want to believe. But my god why do you close your eyes to any evidence to any claims made by your sources, sources which are notoriously unreliable and have been repeatedly proven as such? Western sources aren't correct either, and definitively full of propaganda as well. But they are EASILY fact checked to be a lot closer to the truth than anything coming out of Russia. Do you have an example of me "closing eyes" on something in particular as well as "bringing sources that were repeatedly debunked"? Considering the fact that in a span of my presense here I was mostly bringing Western/Ukrainian sources as discussion arguments, knowing attitude over here. Russian sources I was generally posting only to show a perspective or some news that generally do not reach Western audience at all. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13956 Posts
On July 12 2023 02:29 Yurie wrote: It has for a long time pushed multiple conflicting messages. This is done on purpose and on different channels. You want people that care about the war and wonder why it is going badly to think you are fighting Nato soldiers at the front. You want other people to think the war is over next week so they don't start caring. Also by having people have conflicting viewpoints they can gain credibility in both crowds when they happen to be right while still trotting out the same claims in other areas. Anyone that tells you the T-14 exists is not someone to take seriously. the SU-57 gets picked up on the other side of Ukraine by NATO radar and never makes it into even ocupied Ukranian airspace. | ||
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Ardias
Russian Federation610 Posts
On July 10 2023 13:47 KwarK wrote: BRICS isn’t an alliance and of the BRICS nations none come close to the west. Brazil is Brazil, Russia is currently embroiled in a losing war with Ukraine, nobody can stop the Indians from drinking cow urine and worrying about the periodic table, China is actually not doing terribly, and South Africa no longer has electricity. Nominal GDP (I'm not even starting on GDP PPP, population growth etc.) 1993 EU/NA/Japan/SK/TW/ANZAC - 21 408 266 million USD 1993 BRICS - 1 674 284 million USD 1993 BRICS 2022-2023 applicants - 1 104 752 million USD https://countryeconomy.com/gdp?year=1993 2022 EU/NA/Japan/SK/TW/ANZAC - 60 179 242 million USD 2022 BRICS - 26 056 708 million USD 2022 BRICS 2022-2023 applicants - 5 217 944 million USD https://countryeconomy.com/gdp?year=2022 Also do I need to remind you when European Union first appeared and how many years have passed since it became anything resembling political alliance? | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2625 Posts
Ukraine has rather minimal gains from their offensive, are being pressed in the north, and had to switched from attempted manoeuvre warfare to attrition warfare after just days of trying. Lately everyone from Zelensky to the troops seem frustrated. This probably from the difficulty of going from a very successful defence to attacking fortified positions without having enough of the right tools to deal with it "easily". Meanwhile Russia has their top command doing musical chairs, the Wagner uprising, are heavily recruiting prisoners, are starting to use VBIEDs and strapping whatever they can find to old BMPs and also have units publicly expressing their discontent. Even if the above were isolated incidents these are signs of an army under stress throwing whatever they can scrape together into the fight. Which is to be expected from attrition warfare which by it's nature sucks for everyone. And it will continue sucking, maybe for weeks or months, possibly years, until either side is exhausted and breaks. Meanwhile for us on the internet is basically impossible to say how things are going because you can bingewatch combat footage and be subscribed to every telegram and reddit account on the web without it really telling you anything, compared to seeing actual gains on a map which are very easy to understand. | ||
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Ardias
Russian Federation610 Posts
On July 11 2023 10:42 CosmicSpiral wrote: Oh...I see. I thought Sermokala was talking about the fighting after the Revolution of Dignity (which also resulted in sham elections). Yes, the initial invasion had elements of the army: the 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, 4th Guards Tank Division, 138th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, etc. And notice they were only elements. The 4th Guards Tank Division would have been deployed as part of the 1st Guards Tank Army if there was an actual war. Similarly, the 64th would've been operating as part of the 35th Army. So if this was a straightforward invasion intended to conquer Ukraine, why didn't Russia just send the entire 1st Tank Army? Only utilizing the 4th Guards means they lack the support of the dedicated reconnaissance, engineering, and logistics brigades that also compose the 1st. They are meant to work together as a unified group. This same glaring oversight applies to the other districts that were used as launching pads. The problem, again, is Putin's hands are constrained. The initial justification for their deployment was as peacekeeping forces to protect the LPR and DPR and this was only due to recognizing them as independent republics a few days beforehand. He refused to do this during 2014-2017, insisting they remain autonomous republics at best, so "little green men" had to be used for plausible deniability (which is what I was referring to before). But since Russia wasn't technically at war with Ukraine for the first seven months, he cannot mobilize the entire army. He would face significant legal hurdles from the Duma and Federation Council over things like reallocating the state budget, commissioning orders of tanks, and so on. Hence the reliance on LPR and DPR militias, National Guard, the VDV, Wagner, and Chechen paramilitary organizations for regenerating personnel. Putin required annexation of the four oblasts in order to legally justify mobilizing reservists: attacks on those regions are now attacks on Russia proper, therefore he can bypass the parameters of a "limited military operation". Point being, regardless of whether you hold his actions as illegal he still had to go through the legislative motions to give them legitimacy. If he was a dictator, he wouldn't have had to bother with any of that gibberish. He could've just invented new laws like Hitler or forced his decrees via fiat like Saddam. I do not particularly agree with this post from current day perspective (though I had similar thoughts back in autumn before the referendums). First of all, Russia did deploy most of its combat units during initial stage of the war. However I want to clarify some points about Russian military on foreign lands. 1) Russian legislation indeed prohibit participation in military activities abroad... for conscripts. Proffessional troops are perfectly allowed, and even obliged to... 2) ... in case of war. Which wasn't declared. State of "special military operation" wasn't described in any Russian law. Hence all soldiers and officers participating in the invasion had to sign their voluntary agreement to do so. They could easily refuse and stay at their bases or discharge from the army (it was called "refusnik", if translated from Russian). There was informal pressure of course drom peers and superiors, but legally - you perfeclt could and many did. So Russia deployed most of its combat units, but since they lacked 1) conscripts 2) refusniks most of brigades and even divisions fielded only 1-2 BTGs, and even these were undermanned. 4th Tank Division (infamous "Kantemirovskaya") entered the war with it's Tank regiments having only Motor Rifle company, instead of a battalion. Even VDV were undermanned, when Ukraine captured documents from one of VDV battalions HQ, it was revealed that battalion had only around 3/4th of it's personnel upon entering Ukraine, and that was supposed to be full-contract and higly motivated force. Equipment was fielded in full numbers though, hence so many cases of abandoned vehicles or vehilces lacking proper infantry support in first months of the war. Then for the first month Kremlin was trying to appear in control to internal public, not even accepting volunteers in military comissariats. A lot seem to change after Istanbul peace talks failed completely in late March-early April, and Kremlin understood that they are in for the long war. Hence the establishment of civilian authorities on occupied territories and openiing of the volunteer recruitment campaign. Though problem was, that it was done together with a great effort not to stir up the general public, so the propaganda was telling that everything was doing okay and operation is going according to plan (which wasn't true). Hence the low infux of volunteers (3rd Army Corps, made up of volunteer units, was around 30k men, BARS battalions - around 10k, Wagner pre-convict recruitment - around 6-7k, plus some number of Russian volunteers who went through regular contracts with Army, LDPR or Akhmat units). That's why in the first half-year of the war LDPR units beared the heaviest toll of the fighting - as you said, they were considered separate entities, so they were allowed to be mobilized according to their own laws. Hence they were able to mobilize 80 thousand men. But this wasn't even close to the million men Ukraine mobilized by July, though I think that's a bit of overclaim and most likely he meant that 1 million is in armed and paramilitary forces, which correlates with this statement. It's still 700 000+ men mobilized compared to pre-war strength. Hence the Kharkov and Kherson retreats and necessity for mobilization. AFAIK they were also trying to secretly fix some of the issues beforehand, but still mobilization system came unprepared. But the big issue was not only the mobilization itself, but a new legislation. Previously anyone could easily terminate their contract, and this was dwindling Russian army down faster than casualities. You could also still refuse to go into SMO zone with no reprecussions. New changes to Russian Criminal Code and mobilization laws made in late September actually fixed that, as well as widened the legal ability of army to be used abroad while not legally declaring war, adding terms like "armed conflict". So Putin had to rewrite (or to be more correct, expand) laws for the war effort. But yes, he was always trying to be as legal as possible, and AFAIK, no refusnik or discharged person suffered any kind of retroactive legal consequences. Also inclusion of new terrtories into Russia didn't actually triggered participation of conscripts in the war - they are not sent into frontline in Ukraine, so only combat that Russian conscripts see is in skirmishes on the old Russian-Ukrainian border. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5574 Posts
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Elroi
Sweden5595 Posts
On July 12 2023 05:16 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: On the topic of different viewpoints I cannot understand how anyone interested in this war can see their side as "clearly winning" right now. Ukraine has rather minimal gains from their offensive, are being pressed in the north, and had to switched from attempted manoeuvre warfare to attrition warfare after just days of trying. Lately everyone from Zelensky to the troops seem frustrated. This probably from the difficulty of going from a very successful defence to attacking fortified positions without having enough of the right tools to deal with it "easily". Meanwhile Russia has their top command doing musical chairs, the Wagner uprising, are heavily recruiting prisoners, are starting to use VBIEDs and strapping whatever they can find to old BMPs and also have units publicly expressing their discontent. Even if the above were isolated incidents these are signs of an army under stress throwing whatever they can scrape together into the fight. Which is to be expected from attrition warfare which by it's nature sucks for everyone. And it will continue sucking, maybe for weeks or months, possibly years, until either side is exhausted and breaks. Meanwhile for us on the internet is basically impossible to say how things are going because you can bingewatch combat footage and be subscribed to every telegram and reddit account on the web without it really telling you anything, compared to seeing actual gains on a map which are very easy to understand. Yes, this sums up my impression of the situation as well. I have been following this guy who I at least think seems balanced and knowledgeable (Kitten's post can serve as a TLDR - it summarizes the main points of the video): | ||
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KwarK
United States42777 Posts
On July 12 2023 04:34 Sermokala wrote: Also by having people have conflicting viewpoints they can gain credibility in both crowds when they happen to be right while still trotting out the same claims in other areas. Anyone that tells you the T-14 exists is not someone to take seriously. the SU-57 gets picked up on the other side of Ukraine by NATO radar and never makes it into even ocupied Ukranian airspace. In fairness it’s possible that their T-14 just hasn’t made it to the war yet given that its engine doesn’t work. As far as we can tell though the Russians do appear to be using predominantly 40+ year old Soviet designs. That’s older than the Iraqi tanks were in the first gulf war for anyone that’s keeping track. | ||
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KwarK
United States42777 Posts
On July 12 2023 05:16 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: On the topic of different viewpoints I cannot understand how anyone interested in this war can see their side as "clearly winning" right now. Whether or not Ukraine eventually achieves its maximal war gains Russia has still thoroughly lost this war. Previously Russia had a strong budget, strong military export industry, considerable soft power in Europe from trade interdependence and was facing a declining NATO. In Ukraine itself it had leveraged soft power to annex Crimea without meaningful opposition and the new Ukrainian president, a native Russian speaker, was openly committed to reconciliation. It was respected, if not liked, internationally and it’s military was seen as a credible foe. Even if Ukraine surrenders tomorrow Russia cannot undo NATO expansion, they cannot undo European LNG imports, they cannot undo the reputational damage, they cannot undo no longer being seen as a trustworthy partner, they cannot undo NATO spending. The formerly friendly Ukrainian population will not forget the Russian gloating over the bombing of the Kherson Christmas markets, a city that was Russian under Russian law and people who were Russian citizens. They will not forget the videos of cuffed POWs executed, videos of POWs being tortured and castrated, of torture chambers, of that one Russian soldier who filmed himself raping a toddler to death. They will not forget the children who were stolen from them. They will not forget the campaign to weaponize the cold by taking heat from the people in winter. Russia’s position has been made irrevocably weaker by this war, no matter the outcome. They have lost. Ukraine may have lost too but Russia definitely has. Just as Russia lost WW1 before Germany did too. They will never again recover the position they had 18 months ago. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4160 Posts
The Russian military is like the Titan submarine that sunk recently. There are already cracks, and eventually one of those cracks will be fatal. Meanwhile the Ukrainian military has demonstrated that, after the fall of Bakhmut, they're not going to lose much more territory. Certainly now that Wagner is out of the picture, the Russian military has no more meaningful offensive potential. This means that the ball is entirely in Ukraine's corner, and that further adds to the pressure against the Russian miiltary. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
edit: Seems that the US is adjusting its' message regarding Ukraine and NATO after the fallout of what Biden said. | ||
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