Russia stronk and their stupid pride/hubris is what's going to cause their demise in the battlefield. Last comment on this.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
I have a hard time believing that Russia cannot wage total war against Ukraine which is just next door. If that though were the case, it cannot survive a day against NATO.
This is the frame before the screen goes all white and shows the explosion effect.
The explosion I believe actually came from under the bridge, since if the explosion had come from the truck that was on the bridge, we would have seen the explosion on the surface of the truck bridge first, and then the camera would catch this splash of white screen because of the explosive effect, but as we didn't see it, the explosion took place under the bridge, the camera was without the frame because at the moment of the explosion, the bridge covered the images and besides, if the explosion really had been the truck, I have sure that the railway bridge would be much more damaged than it is.
it could be a 2 part attack: a small RF triggered mine placed underneath the bridge first, which detonates when the corresponding truck filled with fertilizer, barrels of petroleum waste, ammo, etc. passes over with a broadcasting beacon. The driver might not even be aware, they might just be told "drive this to Crimea and drop off the cargo", not knowing they'll never make it. This could also explain why the suspension span wasn't targeted: it would've been a much more heavily inspected target than a random stretch of road.
What do you think about this version?
Russian sources:
Russian sources:
Why are Russians being outraged by this? Is it anything new? Ukrainians have been targeting civilians since the start of this war (let alone for the past 8 years).
We finally have Putin's response to this attack. Is he going to carpet bomb Kiev, Lvov and every other west Ukrainian settlement as a punishment? Maybe use FSB agents to covertly target NATO facilities in Poland?
Nope, this is the response:
Putin signs decree on tightening security measures for Crimea bridge
Pathetic....
Fertilizers often contain ammonium nitrate but in order to produce such a strong explosion, the hull would have to be filled with ammonium nitrate-based bombs. Are there any proofs to that theory?
Everybody calls everybody dehumanizing names. "Khokols" "Orcs" "Ukrop" etc. It is par for the course, and hardly relevant in my opinion.
It is a primary GLOC, and a meaningful vector to generate and employ VKS and RuGF combat power. There is active large scale kinetic action ongoing in a sector that directly coordinates, sustains, regenerates, and employs the currently involved + surge forces and fires from Crimea. Thus, the ability for Russian forces to enter Crimea via that bridge is of direct, significant, and material military importance.
I am not the individual you are replying to, but yes. It is a very clear military target. This is akin to asking "People? A bunch of living, breathing people? A military target?" when discussing the military necessity of shooting at dismounted infantry in defense of a position.
This is correct. Patchwork is urging me to respond to some of the Russian Armed Forces apologia present in the thread, so I feel it relevant to respond to this with some of his paraphrased inputs as well.
Russia, while a notable military power, and absolutely no slouch if its forces are employed competently (prior to the losses it has sustained, at least), is simply not capable of inflicting a conventional military defeat upon even NATO's European member states. Prior to the war, the most significant threat profiles were:
1 - A conventional, high intensity maneuver campaign against the Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; during which, Russia would nominally have been capable of closing the Suwalki Gap, forcing capitulation of one or more Baltic states in a matter of 1-2 weeks (depending on various factors), and denying immediate intervention by NATO's relatively slim NRF (NATO's Rapid Response Force, ~30-40k coalition personnel).
2 - A highly geopolitical-military fused campaign of gray zone warfare, localized kinetic offensives, and nuclear blackmail against Ukraine, east of the Dnieper/Dnipro River. Within this threat profile, Russian use of false flag provocations, geopolitical maneuver, energy-diplomacy, and the fomenting of local unrest across Europe and Russian-aligned minor nations could have been used to generate a viable justification for a large military campaign against Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, moderate European (and potentially American) backlash, and grant time to generate the 300-450k strong land component necessary to decisively and rapidly defeat AFU combat power in the Donbas (over the course of 2-4 months). Employing massed indirect fires against UKR strongpoints, extensive maneuver from the Crimea-Zaporozhia-Pavlohrad/Mariupol direction, and Kharkiv-Lozova direction to deny AFU reinforcement and replenishment, and coordinated use of their limited precision strike regime (via Tu-22, Tu-95, Tu-160) to strike the most critical C2 and enabling infrastructure, with the aim of degrading Ukranian C3 in the Donbas. If NATO/US support beings to materialize in spite of the shaping aforementioned geopolitical/gray-zone shaping activities, an agile and pre-planned use of nuclear blackmail and escalation-ladder-climbing could well have neutered any Western attempts to affect the outcome.
In both of these scenarios, which (according to Patch) were the only two that the US IC regarded as meaningfully concerning, Russia was considered unlikely to prosecute their objectives without extensive loss of life, armored fighting vehicles, fixed and rotary wing airframes. The RuGF's offensive potential was believed to culminate either shortly after, or just as their aims were realized, and would find themselves in the following dispositions post-offensive:
1 - Effectively impotent against NATO airpower application and counter-offensive actions once NATO's joint force fully mobilizes and commits to liberating the Baltics kinetically (i.e. Russian suicide)
2 - Extremely vulnerable to massed Ukrainian raids and logistics interdiction, poorly positioned to conduct high-intensity, large scale combat operations, and without the ability to meaningfully project power beyond their forward phase line's FLOC.
Once more, Russian military force (when employed competently) could still have achieved meaningful results on the battlefield, even with their litany of flaws. However, they were never even close to challenging NATO, and when their flaws are compounded by utter failures in planning, coordination, personnel training, joint integration, and overall strategic/operational "direction," they're not even an existential threat to Ukraine.
Great comparison.
Let's build on the poor performance of the Russians in Ukraine with extremely limited numbers and come to the same result when comparing total mobilization and the worst - with Russia advancing to the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.
They made a mistake in the previous analysis (overestimating) and are already making a mistake again (underestimating). Then they make mistakes again and don't know why.
You forgot another strong Russian answer. Russia will investigate the bridge attack.
I have long had the feeling that Putin is obviously waiting for something, everything seems to me like a strategic expectation, otherwise I can't explain all this passivity during a "special military operation".
And now I come across this article published today on CNN:
Putin wants to negotiate a new "grand bargain" between Russia and the West, Turkish official says
From CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Jaya Sharma
It looks inevitable that Russia's war in Ukraine will continue for some time -- and the question is how much damage will have occurred before negotiations resume, according to a spokesperson for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Earlier on Friday, Erdogan spoke with Putin about the "latest developments" in the war in Ukraine, according to a readout from the Turkish government.
His spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, told CNN that negotiations will likely resume at some point.
Negotiation ground to a halt after Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky going so far as signing a decree declaring negotiations impossible.
The decree, published on the Ukrainian Presidency’s website, declared "the impossibility of holding negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin." It was dated Sept. 30, the day on which Putin announced that he would illegally annex four partially-occupied regions of Ukraine.
Kalin said the halt in talks was to be expected, adding he had recently discussed the issue with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The Turkish official said there was also a larger point at play when it comes to Russian involvement in negotiations.
Moscow feels that the agreements made at the end of the Cold War, under Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, no longer reflect the Russia of today, he said. "There is a new Russia, there is a new world, there is a new reality, and they want to have a new bargain,” Kalin said.
As a result, the entire global liberal order is facing a big test, he said.
And now I come across this article published today on CNN:
Putin wants to negotiate a new "grand bargain" between Russia and the West, Turkish official says
From CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Jaya Sharma
It looks inevitable that Russia's war in Ukraine will continue for some time -- and the question is how much damage will have occurred before negotiations resume, according to a spokesperson for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Earlier on Friday, Erdogan spoke with Putin about the "latest developments" in the war in Ukraine, according to a readout from the Turkish government.
His spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, told CNN that negotiations will likely resume at some point.
Negotiation ground to a halt after Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky going so far as signing a decree declaring negotiations impossible.
The decree, published on the Ukrainian Presidency’s website, declared "the impossibility of holding negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin." It was dated Sept. 30, the day on which Putin announced that he would illegally annex four partially-occupied regions of Ukraine.
Kalin said the halt in talks was to be expected, adding he had recently discussed the issue with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The Turkish official said there was also a larger point at play when it comes to Russian involvement in negotiations.
Moscow feels that the agreements made at the end of the Cold War, under Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, no longer reflect the Russia of today, he said. "There is a new Russia, there is a new world, there is a new reality, and they want to have a new bargain,” Kalin said.
As a result, the entire global liberal order is facing a big test, he said.