The Invasion of Ukraine, Russia Threatens Finland/Sweden

[Luxenermy]

Belarusian hackers disrupt trains carrying troops to Ukraine

Wait, I’m very confused. Which side is Belarus on?

Seems to be an independent group, I.e. not part of the Belarusian government.

[Adamede]

He is definitely sick. Very, very sick. The more interesting question is, is his inner echelon seeing it (I mean, they must see it) and have they decided to just go along with it or is there some "Valkyrie" style plot already in the making?

I don't mean a vague "sick in the head" kind of deal, I mean something along the lines of "Putin has found out he's got a condition that will kill him, ergo he puts the hammer down on trying to establish his reputation as the hero who brought Russia back to its glory." We'll never know unless Putin were to actually come out and announce it, but it's something I wonder about.

It's something I've also wondered about. Would certainly explain the rush that seemed to go into planning and launching this invasion.

Russia has refused to give any actual number afaik and all of their statements regarding losses have been very provably dishonest. The most recent estimates have been from Ukraine on Saturday, with over 4000 Russian soldiers and hundreds of both Ukrainian combatants and civilians dead, over a thousand civilians injured. Military deaths are likely altered to some degree and civilian casualty counts may be much larger than has been counted.

Weren't there mobile crematoriums moving with the Russians or was that debunked

As of right now it's unproven.

[El Lazaro]

Belarusian hackers disrupt trains carrying troops to Ukraine

Wait, I’m very confused. Which side is Belarus on?

The leader of Belarus, Lukashenko, is a repressive dictator that’s more or less a Putin crony. He’s been allowing Russia to stage troops from Belarus since Putin began setting up this invasion.

[Tarsonis]

Belarusian hackers disrupt trains carrying troops to Ukraine

Wait, I’m very confused. Which side is Belarus on?

Lukashenko is on Putins side. The people of Belarus not so much. Their legitimate leader in exile has pretty much denounced their involvement as treason

[Luminesa]

Wait, I’m very confused. Which side is Belarus on?

Lukashenko is on Putins side. The people of Belarus not so much. Their legitimate leader in exile has pretty much denounced their involvement as treason

Well ain’t that a jumbled piece of turtle pie.

[Gallia-]

There are pictures of the crematoriums.

Immolation probably eases the transport burden aside from the political purposes of fighting a secret invasion. A truck can now carry 10-100x as many corpses with urns versus coffins.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

-snip- logistics

Russia is reliant on rail lines for it's supply in military operation, due to no track compatibility in most Ukrainian regions (they have all now been destroyed as well) they have had to switch to much less efficient truck transport that holds much less space. Logistics aren't optimal for this reason as well.

[Kowani]

EU to provide fighter jets fo Ukraine

Senior Advisor to the EU parliament says the keys will be in Ukrainian skies "within the hour"

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

There are pictures of the crematoriums.

Immolation probably eases the transport burden aside from the political purposes of fighting a secret invasion. A truck can now carry 10-100x as many corpses with urns versus coffins.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... ps-battle/
talking about these?

[Gallia-]

Yeah but there are others.

Dudes on VK talk about them.

[El Lazaro]

There are pictures of the crematoriums.

Immolation probably eases the transport burden aside from the political purposes of fighting a secret invasion. A truck can now carry 10-100x as many corpses with urns versus coffins.

The video that’s been going around is from 2013 and the information about Russia using them is US/UK intel from 2015. There’s been nothing on whether Russia is currently using them.

[Kowani]

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President says Russia has completely halted an advance towards Kyiv in some directions, and some of its units are withdrawing


This seems worrying

[Hispida]

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President says Russia has completely halted an advance towards Kyiv in some directions, and some of its units are withdrawing


This seems worrying

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

[Utquiagvik]

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President says Russia has completely halted an advance towards Kyiv in some directions, and some of its units are withdrawing


This seems worrying

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

What do you think it means?

[SD_Film Artists]

On why Russia's performance is a shitshow;

The expense of having a top of the line tank is basically nothing compared to the cost of actually using it.

Like... Okay, I know this is dumb. But have you ever played Hoi4?

And built an enormous tank army? Five full battlegroups of 24/24/24/24/24 tanks and you go "I'll be goddamn unstoppable!"

And then they just... immediately run out of fuel because you mobilize them all at once, and then they're just big dumb coffins?

Yeah... the reason we're seeing a bunch of stalled Russian convoys and so on is their army is on paper enormous and modern. The problem is they don't have the economy to actually use any of it.

It's one reason why Putin is furious the war isn't over yet. It's making that extremely apparent to the whole world. If he had broken Ukraine in 48 hours we wouldn't be seeing all this embarrassing shit about their logistics nightmare and realizing;

"Russia has 12000 tanks. Oh. No. Russia has 100 Tanks and 19900 fancy iron coffins because they're too poor to actually afford any more than that in actual usage".

On top of this the Russian military appears to have gone for top of the line tanks and aircraft and all that shit and been extremely dismissive of modernizing their fuel trucks and actual logistics network. They're using decades old shit and western experts have told the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians;

"Oh yeah. You can take that thing down with small arms fire. We used to build them like that too lol. If you don't have a Javelin, take a handgun and go hunting for a fuel truck. You'll be killing twenty tanks that way.".

So it has become a total shitshow. As to why Russia hasn't bothered modernizing its logistics system despite the flaws in such a system being well understood, documented, and countermeasures devised, two theories leap to mind.

Because they're massively insecure fucknuggets and so the entire point of modernizing their tanks and so on is because those are "The Cool Things" and they look down on logistics as an annoyance. Or two.

They're actively trying to psyche out the west by having a "Modern military" but genuinely can't afford a modern logistics network to upkeep it as well (that is actually the overwhelmingly more substantial expense). So someone told Putin "We can have 400 modern tanks and a logistics system" and Putin stares ahead and says "And if we didn't expect the tanks to actually be used in a prolonged conflict?"

"Well. We can scrap the logistics system and afford 12000..."

"Do that then.".

Because the alternative was for Russia to have a military about the size of Italies... maybe twice as big if they're committed to doing so. Except the Italian military is actually functional, and Russia's is not.

Look at some comparisons.

Italy spends 30 billion dollars a year and has an army of 90,000.

Russia spends 60 billion dollars a year, and has an army of 1,000,000.

Where do you think they got the savings from? How can they afford to field more than ten times the men and and almost a hundred times more tanks and with full infantry mechanization on only twice the budget?

From that army being basically non-functional. It's just there to look good on paper and be scary. If you expect it to do anything for longer than 48 hours, it evaporates, as we've seen.

Which is why Italy only has 200 tanks and not 12000. It's why they don't have full mechanization. And so on. Because they want a functional military, not a piece of propaganda on how large and modern their military is. Nobody thinks logistics systems are sexy for that kind of propaganda.

They have an army they can actually afford on their budget, modernized where possible within their means, and then infantry for the rest. Russia doesn't. When you look at comparatives like this, it becomes extremely obvious why Russia is struggling.

They're a mid-rate power trying to field the army of a global superpower.

That's a good point. In Normandy there's a Tiger tank at the side of the road near Vimoutiers; now on a plinth but when it was originally discovered it wasn't destroyed in battle or surrendered, but it had simply ran out of fuel. Today Russian T-90s and T-72s are finding the same fate ontop of being apparently confused in their directions and objectives. The Russians have rather shot themselves in the foot with the 'we're saving Ukranians from a minority of Nazis' line as young Russian soldiers move into Ukranian cities expecting help and cheers, only to find a Kalashnikov at each window. There's even an unconfirmed report of two Russians going into a police station asking for fuel; needless to say they were arrested.

[El Lazaro]

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President says Russia has completely halted an advance towards Kyiv in some directions, and some of its units are withdrawing


This seems worrying

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

They’re deploying the thermobaric weapon?

[Adamede]

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the Ukrainian President says Russia has completely halted an advance towards Kyiv in some directions, and some of its units are withdrawing


This seems worrying

Kyiv may see more bombardment tonight.

[Latorik]

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

What do you think it means?

big bomb drop, potentially

probably not the nuclear kind tho

[Hispida]

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

What do you think it means?

kyiv's about to be leveled.

[Garthram]

On why Russia's performance is a shitshow;

The expense of having a top of the line tank is basically nothing compared to the cost of actually using it.

Like... Okay, I know this is dumb. But have you ever played Hoi4?

And built an enormous tank army? Five full battlegroups of 24/24/24/24/24 tanks and you go "I'll be goddamn unstoppable!"

And then they just... immediately run out of fuel because you mobilize them all at once, and then they're just big dumb coffins?

Yeah... the reason we're seeing a bunch of stalled Russian convoys and so on is their army is on paper enormous and modern. The problem is they don't have the economy to actually use any of it.

It's one reason why Putin is furious the war isn't over yet. It's making that extremely apparent to the whole world. If he had broken Ukraine in 48 hours we wouldn't be seeing all this embarrassing shit about their logistics nightmare and realizing;

"Russia has 12000 tanks. Oh. No. Russia has 100 Tanks and 19900 fancy iron coffins because they're too poor to actually afford any more than that in actual usage".

On top of this the Russian military appears to have gone for top of the line tanks and aircraft and all that shit and been extremely dismissive of modernizing their fuel trucks and actual logistics network. They're using decades old shit and western experts have told the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians;

"Oh yeah. You can take that thing down with small arms fire. We used to build them like that too lol. If you don't have a Javelin, take a handgun and go hunting for a fuel truck. You'll be killing twenty tanks that way.".

So it has become a total shitshow. As to why Russia hasn't bothered modernizing its logistics system despite the flaws in such a system being well understood, documented, and countermeasures devised, two theories leap to mind.

Because they're massively insecure fucknuggets and so the entire point of modernizing their tanks and so on is because those are "The Cool Things" and they look down on logistics as an annoyance. Or two.

They're actively trying to psyche out the west by having a "Modern military" but genuinely can't afford a modern logistics network to upkeep it as well (that is actually the overwhelmingly more substantial expense). So someone told Putin "We can have 400 modern tanks and a logistics system" and Putin stares ahead and says "And if we didn't expect the tanks to actually be used in a prolonged conflict?"

"Well. We can scrap the logistics system and afford 12000..."

"Do that then.".

Because the alternative was for Russia to have a military about the size of Italies... maybe twice as big if they're committed to doing so. Except the Italian military is actually functional, and Russia's is not.

Look at some comparisons.

Italy spends 30 billion dollars a year and has an army of 90,000.

Russia spends 60 billion dollars a year, and has an army of 1,000,000.

Where do you think they got the savings from? How can they afford to field more than ten times the men and and almost a hundred times more tanks and with full infantry mechanization on only twice the budget?

From that army being basically non-functional. It's just there to look good on paper and be scary. If you expect it to do anything for longer than 48 hours, it evaporates, as we've seen.

Which is why Italy only has 200 tanks and not 12000. It's why they don't have full mechanization. And so on. Because they want a functional military, not a piece of propaganda on how large and modern their military is. Nobody thinks logistics systems are sexy for that kind of propaganda.

They have an army they can actually afford on their budget, modernized where possible within their means, and then infantry for the rest. Russia doesn't. When you look at comparatives like this, it becomes extremely obvious why Russia is struggling.

They're a mid-rate power trying to field the army of a global superpower.

As wise man said; Logistics and economics make or break an army

[Adamede]

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means.

They’re deploying the thermobaric weapon?

Maybe. Perhaps conventional artillery and bombing runs. Maybe both.

[The Huskar Social Union]

EU to provide fighter jets fo Ukraine

Senior Advisor to the EU parliament says the keys will be in Ukrainian skies "within the hour"

Has there been any word on how many are being sent? Also getting them up into the air that quickly damn

[The Huskar Social Union]

I think Kiev is gona be in a very rough shape come the morning.

[Arlenton]

EU to provide fighter jets fo Ukraine

Senior Advisor to the EU parliament says the keys will be in Ukrainian skies "within the hour"

Excellent news.

[Adamede]

I think Kiev is gona be in a very rough shape come the morning.

I think Putin is getting desperate for a victory. If Kyiv is level will that affect the talks, if it remains in Ukrainian hands?