The Invasion of Ukraine, Russia Threatens Finland/Sweden

[Ethel mermania]

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Are they flying them out of NATO airbases? Or just sending them to Ukraine, who will then pilot them? I figured the former though I may be wrong.

They have to take off from somewhere

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

christ, how morbid is this? here we are, in our bedroom or living room or wherever we are, watching the first european war in 30 years play out in real time. it sounds like something out of a dystopia.

I get what you mean but I wouldn't call it the first in 30 years. Russo-Ukrainian war has been going on for sometime, we could also count Georgia in 2008 or the recent one with Azerbjzan, only difference now is that they committed to a all out assault on several fronts.

[El Lazaro]

Guess its going to be another night of me watching Kyiv live feeds instead of doing homework for me.

You just reminded me I have an English essay to write, fuck. I’m lucky this has been an unusually slow week for me because I’ve done almost nothing since this started.

[Hispida]

belarus ditches non-nuclear status

[Adamede]

Excellent news.

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

[The Huskar Social Union]

Well cya all tomorrow for the next day of this mess

[A z a n i a]

In a shocking twist, the Belarusian “referendum” ending the country’s non-nuclear status has passed

This probably allows Russia to station nuclear weapons in Belarus if they weren't already allowed to, right?

Also, you can't fault Lukashenko for trying to project some semblance of democracy.

[Hispida]

i guess this is what lenin meant when he said "there are decades when weeks happen and weeks when decades happen."

[The Nihilistic view]

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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTvRc8fQNBs

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.

Okay, you've made some valid points, but I do have a problem with your analysis. The Russian military command isn't made up of idiots playing dress-up, and I cannot stress this point enough. They definitely understand the importance of logistics, and since we know that this invasion was planned, they definitely knew how they were going to supply the forces committed to the invasion. We're only four (five?) days into the invasion, and, as several others have pointed out on this thread, the coalition encountered similar logistics issues during the Iraq War.

Now I'm not saying that Ukraine is doomed. In fact, I think as more pressure is applied to Russia, there is a chance that they'll walk away from the negotiation table (when negotiations do eventually happen) in relatively good shape.

Well that's not exactly true, it's made up of sycophants and people with no ambition because that's who ends up at the top of the military in a dictatorship. You don't get people of ability at the top because the dictator feels threatened it gets filled with yes men. Second even if they know that what has been planned is a total shitshow they aren't going to say so, they will nod their heads whilst said dictator tells them how great the plan is and how we'll be in Kyiv three hours into the offensive.

[Adamede]

Guess its going to be another night of me watching Kyiv live feeds instead of doing homework for me.

You just reminded me I have an English essay to write, fuck. I’m lucky this has been an unusually slow week for me because I’ve done almost nothing since this started.

I've got to come up with two English language sources on the Spanish civil war by tomorrow afternoon, write a short essay by march 1st, order another book and write a 4 page paper on it by Thursday, and copy down notes for my Spanish and world religions classes.

[Utquiagvik]

belarus ditches non-nuclear status

Alright, shit is gonna be bad.

[El Lazaro]

Excellent news.

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

It would be a direct act of aggression against NATO and probably warrant a counterattack. Russia doesn’t want to start a war with all of NATO when they’ve already got Ukraine to worry about.

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

Stop pushing the “we’re one step way from a nuclear war” narrative, nuclear war won’t happen unless someone has literally nothing to lose and the threat levied against them is just one step below nuclear war. Killing a few soldiers doesn’t put anyone in a position where they want to start a nuclear war.

[Ethel mermania]

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

I am not thinking stepping up the game to get closer to nuclear war is a good idea.

[Adamede]

i guess this is what lenin meant when he said "there are decades when weeks happen and weeks when decades happen."

These last few years have had way to much history going on for my taste. Then again I guess I've bee shielded by the decaying Pax Americana for too long.

[Adamede]

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

I am not thinking stepping up the game to get closer to nuclear war is a good idea.

That was done that NATO and the EU kept on giving military aid to Ukraine.

[South Pacific Manufacturing]

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

I dont think Nato will Nuke russia Due to Danger of the People and The Land. if russia bombs nato airbases i think they would just Join the war and Attack russia.

[Des-Bal]

So how does the nato airbases these planes are flying out of not become a legitimate target of the war?

Because Russia is faring poorly in a fight with Ukraine and saying "Hey NATO come get some too" would be shockingly ill advised. Putin wasn't looking for that smoke in the beginning, now that he's shown the world the Bear isn't all its cracked up to be he's in serious danger and escalating it isn't a mistake he's coming back from.

[Senkaku]

i guess this is what lenin meant when he said "there are decades when weeks happen and weeks when decades happen."

sooo ready to live through a decade where only weeks happen after all these decade-weeks lol

[Kowani]

In a shocking twist, the Belarusian “referendum” ending the country’s non-nuclear status has passed

This probably allows Russia to station nuclear weapons in Belarus if they weren't already allowed to, right?

Correct

[Adamede]

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

Stop pushing the “we’re one step way from a nuclear war” narrative, nuclear war won’t happen unless someone has literally nothing to lose and the threat levied against them is just one step below nuclear war. Killing a few soldiers doesn’t put anyone in a position where they want to start a nuclear war.

Where did I say that nuclear war was going to happen? I'm just saying why Russia isn't going to nuke the west for supplying Ukraine with weapons and supplies.

[The Commonwealth of Tennessee]

Okay, what major stuff did I miss since 12:00pm CST today? I'd appreciate a quick update if y'all don't mind!

[El Lazaro]

In a shocking twist, the Belarusian “referendum” ending the country’s non-nuclear status has passed

This probably allows Russia to station nuclear weapons in Belarus if they weren't already allowed to, right?

Also, you can't fault Lukashenko for trying to project some semblance of democracy.

Belarus pretending to be anything close to democracy is even dumber than North Korea pretending to, the people still know it’s a load of crap.

[Adamede]

Probably because NATO will nuke Russia if they start attacking NATO airbases. Two can play at that game. Anyway is that how they're being delivered?

I dont think Nato will Nuke russia Due to Danger of the People and The Land. if russia bombs nato airbases i think they would just Join the war and Attack russia.

War between NATO and Russia would quickly escalate to nuclear attacks.

[Adamede]

i guess this is what lenin meant when he said "there are decades when weeks happen and weeks when decades happen."

sooo ready to live through a decade where only weeks happen after all these decade-weeks lol

Does this mean I can qualify for senior discounts then?

[A z a n i a]

This probably allows Russia to station nuclear weapons in Belarus if they weren't already allowed to, right?

Also, you can't fault Lukashenko for trying to project some semblance of democracy.

Belarus pretending to be anything close to democracy is even dumber than North Korea pretending to, the people still know it’s a load of crap.

Yeah, I doubt anyone's genuinely buying it. You have to admire the commitment though.