Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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Is anyone aware of any comparative analysis of the first 6 weeks of Russian invasion of Ukraine and the "Coalition of the willing's" invasion of Iraq?
According to the latest UN data, by April the 7th, there were 1,611 killed and 2,227 injured civilians. Source:
According to Iraq Body Count, in the first 10 days of the invasion the Coalition killed 4,000 civilians. In the month thereafter, another 3,400 civilians were killed by the Coalition forces, for a total of about 7400 killed civilians by Coalition forces alone in the invasion phase.
Iraq Body Count methodology is based on documentary evidence that is drawn from crosschecked media reports of violence leading to deaths, or of bodies being found.
During the occupation period, a lot of the violence went unreported. According to its founder, the Iraqi count is probably too low, because it only included incidents that were reported by at least two news organisations. In Iraq, thousands of violent incidents are never reported; the occupation authority’s press officer does not record attacks that kill civilians unless they involve loss of life among coalition forces as well.
Bushra Ibrahim Al-Rubeyi wrote in the Lancet:
I was in Baghdad for 5 weeks in May, 2003. In my first 2 weeks there were daily battles between US soldiers and Iraqi gunmen, particularly in the Adheymia district. When a shot was fired at US troops, it almost always led to random shooting by US troops at anyone at the site. In one of these incidents, 60 Iraqi civilians, mainly women and children, died in a shopping centre. The media did not mention this incident.
The Coalition intentionally targeted the Iraqi power grid, damaging and putting out of comission the power distribution networks for several months, shutting off in the process access to potable water to a large share of the country's population and putting immense pressure on hospitals which had to rely on backup generators.
The US and UK used cluster weapons extensively in the Iraq War, both in form of aerial bombs and artillery munitions. They fired them into population centers. According to General Richard B. Myers, the U.S. and British forces had dropped “nearly 1,500 cluster bombs of varying types” during the Iraq War. This is "an improvement" compared to the 61,000 cluster bombs the Allies dropped on Iraq in the Gulf War. These numbers include only the cluster weapons used by the Air Force.
In a piece by WSW:
In the worst atrocity so far, a day and night of furious American bombing on Monday and Tuesday left at least 61 Iraqi civilians dead and more than 450 seriously injured in the region of Hilla, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad. Most were children. ...
Robert Fisk of the British Independent newspaper described the Hilla mortuary as “a butcher’s shop of chopped-up corpses.” After visiting the hospital, he wrote: “The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hilla teaching hospital are proof that something illegal—something quite outside the Geneva Conventions—occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.”
Reports indicate that the cluster bombs used in Hilla were a type known as BLU97 A/B. Each canister contains 202 small bomblets—BLU97—the size of a soft drink can. These cluster bomblets scatter over a large area approximately the size of two football fields. On average, at least 5 percent do not explode upon impact, turning them into de facto anti-personnel mines.
According to the Guardian:
British forces used 70 aerial cluster bombs and 2,100 ground-launched cluster shells containing a total of 113,190 bomblets, in the Iraq war. It is the army's use of its new Israeli-made artillery shells that comes under particular scrutiny in the today's report.
This is how the ICTY justified the usage of cluster weapons a few years before the Iraq War in the bombing of Yugoslavia:
Cluster bombs were used by NATO forces during the bombing campaign. There is no specific treaty provision which prohibits or restricts the use of cluster bombs although, of course, cluster bombs must be used in compliance with the general principles applicable to the use of all weapons. Human Rights Watch has condemned the use of cluster bombs alleging that the high "dud" or failure rate of the submunitions (bomblets) contained inside cluster bombs converts these submunitions into antipersonnel landmines which, it asserts, are now prohibited under customary international law. Whether antipersonnel landmines are prohibited under current customary law is debatable, although there is a strong trend in that direction.
According to the latest UN data, by April the 7th, there were 1,611 killed and 2,227 injured civilians. Source:
According to Iraq Body Count, in the first 10 days of the invasion the Coalition killed 4,000 civilians. In the month thereafter, another 3,400 civilians were killed by the Coalition forces, for a total of about 7400 killed civilians by Coalition forces alone in the invasion phase.
Iraq Body Count methodology is based on documentary evidence that is drawn from crosschecked media reports of violence leading to deaths, or of bodies being found.
During the occupation period, a lot of the violence went unreported. According to its founder, the Iraqi count is probably too low, because it only included incidents that were reported by at least two news organisations. In Iraq, thousands of violent incidents are never reported; the occupation authority’s press officer does not record attacks that kill civilians unless they involve loss of life among coalition forces as well.
Bushra Ibrahim Al-Rubeyi wrote in the Lancet:
I was in Baghdad for 5 weeks in May, 2003. In my first 2 weeks there were daily battles between US soldiers and Iraqi gunmen, particularly in the Adheymia district. When a shot was fired at US troops, it almost always led to random shooting by US troops at anyone at the site. In one of these incidents, 60 Iraqi civilians, mainly women and children, died in a shopping centre. The media did not mention this incident.
The Coalition intentionally targeted the Iraqi power grid, damaging and putting out of comission the power distribution networks for several months, shutting off in the process access to potable water to a large share of the country's population and putting immense pressure on hospitals which had to rely on backup generators.
The US and UK used cluster weapons extensively in the Iraq War, both in form of aerial bombs and artillery munitions. They fired them into population centers. According to General Richard B. Myers, the U.S. and British forces had dropped “nearly 1,500 cluster bombs of varying types” during the Iraq War. This is "an improvement" compared to the 61,000 cluster bombs the Allies dropped on Iraq in the Gulf War. These numbers include only the cluster weapons used by the Air Force.
In a piece by WSW:
In the worst atrocity so far, a day and night of furious American bombing on Monday and Tuesday left at least 61 Iraqi civilians dead and more than 450 seriously injured in the region of Hilla, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad. Most were children. ...
Robert Fisk of the British Independent newspaper described the Hilla mortuary as “a butcher’s shop of chopped-up corpses.” After visiting the hospital, he wrote: “The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hilla teaching hospital are proof that something illegal—something quite outside the Geneva Conventions—occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.”
Reports indicate that the cluster bombs used in Hilla were a type known as BLU97 A/B. Each canister contains 202 small bomblets—BLU97—the size of a soft drink can. These cluster bomblets scatter over a large area approximately the size of two football fields. On average, at least 5 percent do not explode upon impact, turning them into de facto anti-personnel mines.
According to the Guardian:
British forces used 70 aerial cluster bombs and 2,100 ground-launched cluster shells containing a total of 113,190 bomblets, in the Iraq war. It is the army's use of its new Israeli-made artillery shells that comes under particular scrutiny in the today's report.
This is how the ICTY justified the usage of cluster weapons a few years before the Iraq War in the bombing of Yugoslavia:
Cluster bombs were used by NATO forces during the bombing campaign. There is no specific treaty provision which prohibits or restricts the use of cluster bombs although, of course, cluster bombs must be used in compliance with the general principles applicable to the use of all weapons. Human Rights Watch has condemned the use of cluster bombs alleging that the high "dud" or failure rate of the submunitions (bomblets) contained inside cluster bombs converts these submunitions into antipersonnel landmines which, it asserts, are now prohibited under customary international law. Whether antipersonnel landmines are prohibited under current customary law is debatable, although there is a strong trend in that direction.
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Well, because the argument being used are "they manage to hold up Russian forces there" Then yes. But other side can easily use the argument "they were cut off and no possible reinforcements to be sent" or "These elite groups are bottled up there and cannot be used elsewhere in the war where they can do more damage." to claim victory.
This. I mentioned very early on in this thread the Russian should target civilian comm network in Ukraine, it is illogical to allow their enemy usage of civilian comm network for C&C or in this case sharing of intelligence. As it stands the Russians still haven't realized this mistake...
On a different note, regarding the Slovakia S-300 situation I'm wondering what is Russia's option here. Does VKS has the ability to monitor Slovakia border for S-300 transit? Does Ukraine still has enough air defense to cover for that region and protect the transit? Can S-300 be camouflaged into civilian cargo and make the pass? Those questions can also be generalized to other large scale military hardware aid that may happen in the future, what do you guys think?
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I don't know but it seems the Ukrainians keep on taking down their own propaganda effort by uploading videos that disprove a lot of the western propaganda. There are a lot Russian side videos on telegram but i usually take them with a grain of salt because could be actors and shit. But if Ukrainian soldiers are stupid enough to upload or live stream their war crimes why stop them taking down western propaganda. Because western propaganda is working over time.
The social media and tiktok generations can't fucking leave their phones off
Or pro Russia Ukrainians can keep on uploading war crime videos that is also an option, you fight propaganda information by generation more counter propaganda information.
I don't know but it seems the Ukrainians keep on taking down their own propaganda effort by uploading videos that disprove a lot of the western propaganda. There are a lot Russian side videos on telegram but i usually take them with a grain of salt because could be actors and shit. But if Ukrainian soldiers are stupid enough to upload or live stream their war crimes why stop them taking down western propaganda. Because western propaganda is working over time.
The social media and tiktok generations can't fucking leave their phones off
Or pro Russia Ukrainians can keep on uploading war crime videos that is also an option, you fight propaganda information by generation more counter propaganda information.
True, but propaganda doesn't win war, battlefield calculation should always trump propaganda calculation. At the very least Russian should be able to put Ukr forces near Donbass into complete information black out
Edit: Come to think of it, it may have more to do with Russia's lack of PGMs.... a lot of VKS deficiency in this war seems to come down to the same answer....
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Sorry, probably the same timeframe they promised for the completion of the T-50's development from maiden flight to service entry.
Ukraine had 300 launching vehicles before the start of conflict. 4-6 more do not change anything.
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