Ukrainian War Developments

[FairAndUnbiased]

When a ship is about to wreck, the old sailors say "the rats leave the sinking ship"...

"Andrei Panov, the deputy head of Aeroflot, resigned from the company and left Russia"

Rats is correct. Rats - a small scavenging rodent that carries diseases and parasites. The captain and the sailors go down with the ship if necessary and do the utmost to right it.

 

[ArmchairAnalyst]

Finland has pretty good relations with Russia since WW2. I have no idea on whether Finns have any historical animosity towards Russia, but their government has done an excellent job of maintaining neutrality and not letting its country being used as an international battleground.

The handful of Finns I know don't hate Russians but definitely have no love for Russia (or the old Soviet Union).
The relationship between the two countries is one of practicality, not friendship.
Those are found in the West, especially Sweden and the other Nordic Countries.
To me the Finns' neutrality entirely depends on Russia being seen as rational and non-threatening.
Quid pro quo as it is.

Countries do eventually forgive and forget. Most Europeans seem to have forgiven Germany for the actions of the Nazis. Except the English of course.

LOL. Did you hear about the Soviet occupation of Berlin? Germany lost a portion of their territory, was split in half for 40 years and had ethnic Germans repatriated. I do agree that Japan largely got the carrot, compared to Germany they got off virtually unpunished.

BRD got the carrot in form of the Marshall Plan and later wealth and influence through the Wirtschaftswunder and European integration.
Even DDR got a tiny bit of carrot after decades of stick (The USSR dismantling its industries as war reparation and having it build the Wall to keep the population from fleeing to the West).
(please note which part eventually absorbed the other)
If there had been only stick, we would see a very different antagonistic Germany and a completely altered European dynamics today. European reconciliation worked, not people magically forgetting the past.
Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here for Russia. Use stick to win the war, use carrot to win the peace.
But I very much that's part of Putin's toolkit or even vocabulary.

 

[Aegis21]

I think Some Sino brothers have been shaken from this war..... I am seeing people who were not pacifists turning pacifists? people like @Bellum_Romanum @siegecrossbow These were my favourite cowboys and gunslingers.

Seems like this little adventure had some sort of mental impact? Chillax brothers come down and ''as they say every war is a different war''

Besides I am not surprised as this is going along the probability of conventional engagements in Urban areas. Russia will reclaim all of Ukraine in sort time..

Seems like this war scared the hell out of the wrong people

Everyone had different expectations considering the imbalanced Middle Eastern conflicts. A near peer conflict with Ukraine has been eye opening because it questions previously dominant technologies and tactics (weakness of tanks & low flying helicopters to MANPADS and ATGM, high effectiveness of drones).

 

[siegecrossbow]

I think Some Sino brothers have been shaken from this war..... I am seeing people who were not pacifists turning pacifists? people like @Bellum_Romanum @siegecrossbow These were my favourite cowboys and gunslingers.

Seems like this little adventure had some sort of mental impact? Chillax brothers come down and ''as they say every war is a different war''

Besides I am not surprised as this is going along the probability of conventional engagements in Urban areas. Russia will reclaim all of Ukraine in sort time in few months time..

Seems like this war scared the hell out of the wrong people..........

There will be many wars post this war

I'm not a pacifist. I'm just against sacrificing long term strategic goals and potentially jeopardizing the future of one's nation and civilization in what is essentially a geopolitical game of chicken.

 

[Zichan]

Maj Gen Paul Eaton forgot he's talking about countries that wouldn't dare hand jets from Poland to Ukraine even though they share a western border. He's dreaming about a fat kid who eats Cheetos in a bowl of soda doing real life Street Fighter combos.

I am surprised he didn't mention Japan. SU/Russia and Japan have not signed a peace treaty since the end of their hostilities in 1945 and are technically still at war. The US could give a phone call to their buddies in Tokyo to draw Russian attention to the fact that Japan still claims sovereignty over part of the Kuril islands/Northern territories and disputes Russia's sovereignty over the entire archipelago as a strategic diversion.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Schrodinger's Russian:

Pro UKR#1, March 12, 2022: Heroic Ukrainian forces retake Volnovakha! A great victory for the Ukrainian people!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1502719026522431492

Pro UKR#2, March 12, 2022 : Evil Russian fascists wipe Volnovakha off the map! A great war crime of the Russian invaders!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1502773110533148678

 

[Laviduce]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1502002825034932236

This is being tolerated on twitter. A lot of "westerners" are seriously mentally ill.

 

[Aegis21]

Wow. Take off time for woman's day, help family and get caught up on work, and look what the thread has become. yeesh.

Quick little post then. I need to work on a car. She's a 40 year old spider and gorgeous. However, like a gorgeous woman, she is, likewise, high maintenance.

On topic, let's talk the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Sorta.

The whole US military/biological labs thing is farcical. The US government funds work around the world in biology. The US funds work in China! The US funds work in Russia! Sometimes it is funded by the NIH. Sometimes it is funded by the Pentagon. Sometimes by other departments of the US gov. Sometimes the labs study specific genetic questions. Sometimes they are doing agricultural studies. Sometimes they are doing virology and bacteriology. This is NOT a new phenomenon.

How dare those countries have competent biologists!

What god in the heavens would ever let a first rate biological lab ever arise outside the land of the free and home of the brave!

Curse those DC insiders claiming good science is not restricted to the American shores! And the sheer audacity of funding them!

DarthVaderNoooo.gif

Snarkasm aside, Ukraine was just another place with competent people in biology. Ukraine inherited labs from the Soviet Union and with proper funding has been able to maintain them. From the sounds of things, some of those labs worked on nasty diseases. WHO requested Ukraine to destroy samples - including anthrax! - when the war started. I would speculate the reason Ukraine had them is because of those updated Soviet labs able to handle the vicious bugs.

In addition, pharma and biotech companies are largely global. Anything larger than a few hundred people has ties all over. It could be they have outsourced their sysadmin and devops to India. Or they are working on specific diseases or genetics common to one place only. I know a Russian woman - not at my company - who used to run human trials for a biotech company in Ukraine. Ever had a problem with falsified data? Nope. Was it the only place they were doing it? Nope. Reason? Cost and they had the competence to collaborate.

As an aside, the FBI program to hunt down collaborators with China was utterly ridiculous because the US gov was actively and openly funding research - even stuff that could be used in bioweapons (acquisition of function work, frex!) in China and elsewhere. Then again, you have remember there are factions in every government. US. Russia. China. France. India. Those nations are not monolithic blocks.

Science is very much an international exercise. Ukraine was a relatively minor hub for work, but it still participated. Russia was larger and China one of the largest. Biology is one of those.

The speech by the Russian ambassador to the UN was painful in light of anyone who has knowledge. I imagine it was the same for people listening to SecState Colin Powell back in the Oughts about Iraq. Those speeches were comparable.

Anyways, Russo-Ukrainian War!

1. Russia still winning. Mariupol is a week or less away from falling. Kharkov...erm...stands? Kinda getting flattened. Sumy still...well...stands. Kiev stands. Oh, look, Volovakha has been taken...again.

2. The Russians seem to have sorted out some (most?) logistical issues and started advancing again. The battle for Kiev is probably happening soon. It also feels like they have switched plans on a grander scale. Let's see if this one survives contact with the enemy (reality).

3. VKS is tepidly there? Better than before? The Ukrainains still have around 56 fighters...and they are on the ground most of the time. The Russians are at least getting some drones up now. Artillery barrages are starting to be stronger, but still far, far lower than the stuff from 2014. Strange that.

4. Based on visual evidence, at the time of writing, the Russians have lost 8 BTGs and 4 tank battalions. That is around 8 to 10% of what they had before the start of fighting. It's a long, long way to calling their forces combat mauled, really, even if the rates of equipment loss are 2x what we can see. The Ukrainians have to keep this up for another...8 to 12 weeks...yikes.

5. The use of technicals is interesting. Two jerks in a jeep are really useful for messing with armored columns or quick reaction ATGM support, but ... in an urban environment, that's going to get messy.

6. By the original 72 hour estimate, the Russians have totally blown the timetable. By the 15 day estimate from the leaked documents is blown as well. Should we give the Russians another 25 days to match the US in Iraq?

7. There are reports the Russians are attempting to set up a vote for the KNR: Kherson People's Republic. If real, I think we see their plan for after the war. Lots of little balkanized republics in Ukraine as successor states.

8. Ukraine. You haven't folded. You keep punching. I hope you have a shbt ton of artillery traps set for that massive force coming for you in Kiev. I hope you have stockpiled thousands of ATGMs in the capital. I hope the weather warms and the spring rains are quite strong. The Russians have General Winter, but you have General Raputitsa. If she is strong, you have 3 months to knife the h*ll out of the Russian army and artillery with infantry. If she stands you up or is tepid, then you're fscked.

I give Ukraine a 15% chance of 'winning.' However, even if Ukraine wins, Ukraine loses. The devastation is immense and only going to get worse over the next 3 months. This war will be over by July. Either Russia will have crushed Ukraine by then or Russia will be exhausted.

BTW, can someone make a meme of a hot potato with a mig-29 tail and nose being tossed between the US and Poland?

Seems like Russia is pushing for an end of hostility by May because Victory Day celebrations and an Ongoing war wouldn’t mix well.

 

[Arnies]

Everyone had different expectations considering the imbalanced Middle Eastern conflicts. A near peer conflict with Ukraine has been eye opening because it questions previously dominant technologies and tactics (weakness of tanks & low flying helicopters to MANPADS and ATGM, high effectiveness of drones).

If they were paying close attention Syria would have been a good example it continued for 10 years and didn't even reach conclusion meaning no intial winner. Urban combat is extremely difficult and I was never deluded to this fact especially against a motivated foe.

Alot of people used the wrong countries as example Iraq or Georgia hence Georgia is to small whereas Iraqis hated Saddam's guts and saw the Americans as god-send liberation.. A better example would be Afghanistan and Syria as far as late combats go. Example in Afghanistan according to their sources 700K+ Americans died in Afghanistan including upto 1m+ ANA and if you check all the skirmish, ambushes and clashes that has happened thru out the country for 20 years then their estimation is correct but it was just kept out of the social medias whereas social media was alive in Syria.. The Russians couldn't pull doze Ghouta with 4km convoy coming for them and in the end do to rising casualities amongst SAA they had to settle for making deal with them as in bussing them out to other areas.

Urban warfare is not easy against motivated foe this was expected atleast from my side but I still see Russia gaining their objectives and pushing the Ukrainians into the western part of the country solely

 

[anzha]

Example in Afghanistan according to their sources 700K+ Americans died in Afghanistan including upto 1m+ ANA and if you check all the skirmish,

If I am reading that right, you are saying 700k Americans died in Afghanistan?