Are the Ukrainians dumb? Even if that suicide mission works, how many people are they going to save with a single Mi 8?
The Russians aren't smart either. They should have let it through and hit it on the return leg.
Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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The Russians aren't smart either. They should have let it through and hit it on the return leg.
Donbass conscripts not enjoying their holiday:
Russia's tank and AFV reserves not what they seem. Mostly heavily cannibalised rust buckets - without trained crews:
Russia's tank and AFV reserves not what they seem. Mostly heavily cannibalised rust buckets - without trained crews:
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At least they didn't behead these guys.
Another video from downtown Mariupol today by Russian journalists. All seems relatively quiet here too. I'm posting these videos not because I love to see images of bombed theaters, but rather because the relative silence indicates that there's no serious fighting happening for central Mariupol. It seems to be firmly in Russian hands, even parts that are claimed to be under Ukrainian control in most of the recent maps of the siege. Strong likelihood that all the Ukrainians are really holding now is some parts of AzovStal and random buildings in the northern districts. Russian control of the city is now probably somewhere in the 80%-90% range.
Norway will be more then fine whatever happens, first they are a NATO country so Russia is not going to invade.
They produce 100% of their electricity from hydro and still have lots of spare capacity to export, they produce as much oil per capita as Saudiarabia, four times as much gas per capita as Russia and have invested those earning into the worlds largest wealth fund currently worth 1.4 trillion dollars split on a country with only 5 million people.
Norwegians are the most lucky bastards in the world.
/ Their envious neighbor from Sweden.
Are there any new estimates on the how much of the city was destroyed and what the civilian casualties are?
According to Zelensky the devastation is worse than in Aleppo.
That is a tactic suggested by some Chinese observers. But the same observers determined that the Ukrainians knew they have no chance in open space fighting the Russians, so they stay in the bunkers hoping to weaken the Russians to abandon. It is a matter of how much pain each other is able to take.
Yes the Russians can pull this off, it is their favoured options because only in the open they have the upper hand in armours, aircraft and MRLS etc.
The tactic is well known to everyone, the real challenge is to make the enemy think that they have a chance by going out to the open, or the risk of fighting in the open worth the gain, or the defeat in the open is better than starve in the bunker.
A great example is battle of Changping between Zhao and Qin in 260BC. Lots of people calling the Zhao general Zhao Kuo a moron because he went out his fortresses to fight the Qin in the open leading the defeat. But a research paper by PLA actually think that Zhao Kingdom had no chance of avoiding the defeat on strategic level because of the lack of supply and economy size. It is just matter of time, the outcome would be the same. So Zhao Kuo was forced to gamble. Lian Po who was replaced by Zhao Kuo took the opposite tactic by staying in the fortresses. He was not defeated, but he was depleting the country, so he wouldn't make it any better for the country.
Ukrainians are just doing what Lian Po did. The difference is that Zhao hand no allies then, Ukrainians "think" that west is their ally and able to pressure Russia to back down.
White Helmets Syria.
Same old same old.
The outgoing city council and mayor, which no longer have any real power beyond fabricating propaganda about the Russian occupation from a distance, have said that about 5,000 civilians died in the siege. It's impossible to know right now, and we may never have a good idea. It could be 5,000, it could also be 15,000 or 20,000. It's probably a lot given the brutality of the siege.
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