Ukrainian War Developments

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Lethe

Lethe

Captain
I have been reading and listening to the 'War Nerd' aka Gary Brecher aka John Dolan for nearly two decades now. Both hosts of the Radio War Nerd podcast have spent time in Russia, with one having spent time in Ukraine also. They have done many episodes on Russia in the past (an A-Z guide can be found
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), with three episodes released since the invasion of Ukraine, though they have yet to offer a comprehensive military analysis.

E318 26.2.22 - Emergency episode, Ukraine-Russia War
E319 4.3.22 - Escape from Kiev, interview with an American-Ukrainian refugee
E320 9.3.22 - Ukraine-Russia War: Sanctions and economic warfare with Ben Aris

So yeah, I think these guys are
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. They are both knowledgeable and entertaining, and in many cases their insights are bolstered by a wealth of personal experiences. And where their background is lacking, they are willing to admit that and bring outside figures in and ask intelligent questions of them. If I were to summarise their approach, I would say it is to explore the what, who, how and why of various conflicts in a way that is, for the most part, free of the arrogance and empty moralism, demonisation of the other and routine hypocrisy that we associate with mainstream western commentary.

P.S. Many of their episodes on China have featured Carl Zha as a guest, a name that I expect is familiar to many here.
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
Vasily Bykov, the Russian patrol vessel that bombarded Snake Island with her deck guns after the Ukrainian garrison told the Russians to go fuck themselves, has been sunk by Ukrainian Grad MRLS fire. If reports are accurate, this is a huge morale boost for the Ukrainian forces and a poetic humiliation of the Russian military.

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SNAKE ISLAND, Ukraine -- A Russian warship that attacked Snake Island in a video that went viral for its portrayal of Ukrainian defiance has been destroyed, according to new reports.

Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russian warship Vasily Bykov ordered Ukrainian soldiers manning a Black Sea outpost on Snake Island to surrender.

What happened next made headlines around the world.

"I suggest you surrender your weapons and capitulate," the Russian warship captain said.

The Ukrainians manning the island had no plans to surrender.

"Russian warship, go f*** yourself," the Ukrainian soldier said.

The portrayal of defiance went viral, airing on cable news stations and social media sites soon after.

Initial reports indicated the soldiers had died in battle, but later updates indicated they had been taken captive.

The Times of London reports that the warship Vasily Bykov was hit during a firefight after the Ukrainians used a smaller vessel to lure the Russian ship closer to shore where a hidden missile battery could open fire.

New video shows the Ukrainian missile battery unloading on the Russian warship. After the missiles stopped firing, you can see a small light in the video. That's the Vasily Bykov on fire, and the gunner is quick to celebrate his hit.

"We f***ing hit them," one man says. A second man rejoices by using a familiar phrase: "Russian warship, go f*** yourself."

This is video of the Ukrainians firing on the ship in the dead of night as well as the smoking vessel at dawn, shared by Ukraine's navy, which says the Vasily Bykov was destroyed.
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Helius

Helius

Senior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
Hmm US claimed 400k Chinese PVA killed in Korea. China claims 198k going by who got paid out military pensions. China was the one advancing in Korea so there was no capability for US to do accurate battlefield damage assessment.

According to your logic though US count is right because muh spy planes, muh UAVs, muh satellites.

How about Galwan? India claimed 30+ PLA killed, US agreed. PLA was advancing, Indians got a colonel captured, no capability to do battlefield damage assessment. muh satellites tho?
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Let's not forget their assessment of the Afghan National Army's strength vs the Taliban.
 
O

ohan_qwe

Junior Member
gadgetcool5 said:
If I may talk about the broad geopolitics of this war for a moment...

First of all the war isn't really between Russia and Ukraine, it's between NATO and Russia. That's a big part of the reason why Ukraine has held up so well. It's not just because their "oh so plucky fighters" are so great. It's because the West has provided massive moral, intelligence, material and manpower support to Ukraine, not just since February 24, but for the last eight years. If you look at NATO with its massive population of 950 million and huge economy of US + EU, and compare it to Russia, it's clear that Russia with its 145 million people is actually the underdog in this fight. Sure NATO troops aren't directly involved, but the support they are providing is making a decisive difference in keeping Ukraine alive.

In my view, for NATO, they don't really care about Ukraine, they see it as an opportunity to bleed Russia and ultimately destroy Russia as an independent great power. It's all about Russia.

Which leads us to... IMO if you're China, Russia cannot fall no matter what. If Russia returned to the complete abjection of the 1990's and Yeltsin-style politics, it could be forced to host Western bases on its territory. In other words, China could potentially face Western bases not only in places like Japan, Guam, and South Korea, but in Vladivostok and Irkutsk, and even in places like Kazakhstan. That's the dream of the Western strategists. In such a case, China would be completely encircles in all directions with a hostile India.

Supporting Russia will be painful for China, unfortunately it has no choice if it doesn't want to be entirely encircled. Therefore China's going to have to take significant pain and risk further Western sanctions in order to provide aid for Russia. IMO even if that means transferring lethal weapons to Russia.
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Don't look so painful yet, not sure if west want to sacrifice their own economy further for the war.
 
O

ohan_qwe

Junior Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
doesn't matter. Russia has far less to lose so it's not worth it for NATO to do a nuclear exchange. Same as French doctrine in Cold War.

Here's Russia testing salvo firing SLBMs at maximum range every year just as a reminder:

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from SSBN Yury Dolgoruky
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from SSBN Prince Vladimir
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from SSBN Vladimir Monomakh
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from SSBN Knyaz Oleg

Color revolutions only work when there's a liberal figurehead to rally around, but there's none in Russia. 2nd biggest party is the Russian Communist Party and 3rd biggest party are nationalist socialists AKA Nazis. Russians simply aren't liberal even when given democracy.
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Red/Brown are colors too.
 
N

Nobaru

Junior Member
Registered Member
Helius said:
Let's not forget their assessment of the Afghan National Army's strength vs the Taliban.
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Lets not talk about their "assessment" at all .
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The U.S. intelligence community assesses that up to 4,000 Russian troops have been killed in the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The figure, which shared during an unclassified hearing with lawmakers, was presented by Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier.

“With low confidence, somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000. That number comes from some intelligence sources but also open sources,” Berrier said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee’s hearing on “Worldwide Threats.”
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Open source defense intelligence director, you get that ?How hard it is to find the numbers scrolling cnn,bbc?
:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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