The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Stuart M]

Zel's pinpricks might just as well be harmless peas from a peashooter against the Russian Bear..

Zel's pinpricks might just as well be harmless peas from a peashooter against the Russian Bear..

Well then, we shan't hear any more complaints about Ukraine poking the 'bear' then?

 

[Stuart M]

The Donbas region invited Putin in with open arms (as did Crimea years ago) so perhaps Zel should stop sulking and pouting and accept that fact..

What fact? Russian intervention in Donbas is more akin to a party gate crasher inviting his mates over.
These posts of yours really are nothing more than the most simplistic of Russian propaganda, surely you can do better?

 

[vikingatespam]

I am able to see the 100.000 sq km.
Thrown out?, I cannot really remember anything about mines in those areas RU decided to abandon. (Under pressure, it's a war).
Second nuclear army?
No UKR losses?
RU has decided not to abandoned this area, but you have made a very good point: Great news for business, as UK MoD said.

Im being a bit snarky. UKR has taken back about half of RU's high point terms of lands stolen from 2022.

 

[vikingatespam]

Zel's pinpricks might just as well be harmless peas from a peashooter against the Russian Bear..

...except for the fact they tie up RU AD assets that would be better used at the front.

 

[vikingatespam]

Crimea voted to accept Russia some years ago and peace reigns there. Likewise Luhansk/ Donetsk voted to accept Russia, so perhaps Zel should accept it too..

Im sure those were free and fair elections. /s

Just like Putin already winning his next election.

 

[Feanor]

This is an interesting subject. Russia regularly claims downing all drones that target Moscow. Some are reportedly shot down by kinetic means by air defense, and others by electronic means. Both sides use these measures to defend against missiles and drones. Presumably, when you disrupt the trajectory of the incoming device, you are also taking responsibility for the new trajectory, and the debris. If I remember correctly the business complex in Moscow was hit twice. I had initially thought the target was the MOD building, and the that air defense caused it to impact somewhere else. In that part of Moscow what else would they aim at but the MOD. After reading about the second hit on the building, it seemed more like that building was the target. If this ever gets to court both sides will have their story. Of course all drones were again claimed to have been taken care of by air defense. Another question that I have is when attacking a target in a city, what precision is required to avoid the strike being considered terroristic. Is inertial guidance on a missile launched from a thousand kilometers sufficient. From what I have seen, my opinion is that Russia will lob whatever they have from out of range of AD, and whatever actually hits the intended target is a bonus. They can always claim that the damage was caused by air defense. I can only hope that Ukraine is doing better than that.

In my opinion the guidance is not relevant, the intent is. So my question probably won't get an honest answer until memoirs are being written and documents declassified. But I'm still curious.

 

[Feanor]

Donbas had an armed uprising largely led by a Russian, a former Russian army & FSB officer who was obviously still reporting to Moscow & had Russian money, weapons, & men to help him. He'd previously assisted in the Crimean uprising. The victory of the insurgents was eventually secured by a Russian invasion.

In his own words . . . "After all, I pressed the launching trigger of war. If our squad did not cross the border, at the end all would have been finished as in Kharkiv or Odesa. "

Well.... I don't know that we can give Girkin personally all that of the credit. He certainly bought the DNR rebels quite a bit of time. But I'm not sold it is all that simple. His "squad" (more like a company) showed up in Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, allegedly because they were in contact with local activists from that area. Girkin's own military experience (FSB counter-terrorism unit) probably made a huge difference. However the main centers of rebel activity were Donetsk and Lugansk proper, where the protesters stormed the SBU buildings and found large arsenals (stockpiled when, by whom and for what purpose remains a mystery). They then looted the giant gun store in Donetsk (allegedly one of the largest if not the largest in Europe) and co-opted local Ministry of Interior forces. In Slavyansk-Kramatorsk for example the local Berkut fought side by side with the rebels. How much of that metropolitan area's resistance came from Girkin and how much came from effectively having a small but active military unit on their side is debatable. They also raided the arms storage facilities at Artemovsk early-on, and there was that platoon of Ukrainian airborne that defected to Kramatorsk. And let's not forget Bezler essentially taking over Gorlovka single-handedly on a wave of hysteria. Which kind of leaves me to wonder just how connected to Moscow was Girkin specifically.

Perhaps the rebel regions might have voted for separation in a free vote, but there hasn't been one.

They would not have. There is almost no chance that this would have been true at that time. Regionalism and separatism are related but distinctly separate phenomena. It's like the LDNR areas and indeed parts of the Donbas that lived under Ukrainian military occupation (the behaviors of units like Aydar, Azov, Tornado, made no friends) would vote for separation today, after nearly a decade of Ukraine being the enemy, of shelling, and bombing. But in 2014 only a small minority wanted to secede from Ukraine.

 

[Mainframe]

Hi Mainframe. We have a general rule against one-liners on this forum, and we have an expectation of quality posting. We need you to improve your post quality and add substantive input beyond a one-off question. For example, if you believe the referendum held in the LDNR consistutes a valid expression of popular opinion there, you could make an argument to that extend, including something to address the myriad of obvious criticisms one could leverage at it. In this case the word "free" in swerve's post would be your dead giveaway as to his stance on the referendum.

Gentlemen you disappoint me..
When I recently joined DC I was expecting it to be a neutral well-balanced discussion/ debating forum that presented both sides of an argument, and in that respect I've criticised both Putin AND Zelensky and have said neither side can win unless they change their strategy, but most of you seem to be firmly on Zel's side and won't hear a word said against him.
I can only assume most of you have been swallowing the anti-Putin propaganda being churned out by the Western media.
If you only want pro-Zelensky yes-men here, you're gonna have ter get yerself another boy..
Incidentally I'm a moderator at the Mission4Today forum under my screen name 'Poor Old Spike' and my divinely-inspired posts there have had 11 million views so far without a shred of criticism from anybody, largely because my posts are usually short and to the point without any long-winded waffle.
I'm also a military multiple strategy / tactical wargame competition winner, for example here's a shot of a 6 inch silver trophy I won, it sits on its own small table in my living room carefully positioned so that it's the first thing guests see when they arrive and I can keep steering the conversation towards it during the course of the evening..-

 

[Dead Money]

Gentlemen you disappoint me..
When I recently joined DC I was expecting it to be a neutral well-balanced discussion/ debating forum that presented both sides of an argument, and in that respect I've criticised both Putin AND Zelensky and have said neither side can win unless they change their strategy, but most of you seem to be firmly on Zel's side and won't hear a word said against him.
I can only assume most of you have been swallowing the anti-Putin propaganda being churned out by the Western media.
If you only want pro-Zelensky yes-men here, you're gonna have ter get yerself another boy..
Incidentally I'm a moderator at the Mission4Today forum under my screen name 'Poor Old Spike' and my divinely-inspired posts there have had 11 million views so far without a shred of criticism from anybody, largely because my posts are usually short and to the point without any long-winded waffle.
I'm also a military multiple strategy / tactical wargame competition winner, for example here's a shot of a 6 inch silver trophy I won, it sits on its own small table in my living room carefully positioned so that it's the first thing guests see when they arrive and I can keep steering the conversation towards it during the course of the evening..-

View attachment 50747

Showing a 20 year old trophy from a computer game, whose forum you got banned from, to explain how well liked you are on forums.
Okay I'll admit, a little bit funny. But you're in the wrong type of forum.

 

[rsemmes]

Hi @Mainframe , I think Ukraine has more positive trends going for it than Russia does, including in terms of both absolute and relative combat results. That is, it, IMO, inflicts more damage than it receives.
If we take a snapshot of the conflict, we see Ukraine has a larger standing army, a significantly larger industrial base behind it, its armed forces are only progressing technologically, and it is connected to a larger economical pool.
Russia is regressing in many aspects of combat capability, and industrially it is overwhelmed by war needs.
But those trends are unlikely to proceed. Eventually Ukraine will have to bring forward results that are more tangible for the general public that doesn't understand security matters. Both its own and foreign publics, needing to convince the former to return to or not leave Ukraine, and convince the latter to support military and financial aid to Ukraine.
It's only a matter of time before those negative trends overtake the positive ones.
For Ukraine it will be a challenge trying to find the exact spot where it has to accept a status quo and negotiate peace.

Whether or not Russia survives militarily until then, relies on too many factors, primarily China as a wild card.

For Putin, it's best to end the war, or work to get China's material support. Plenty of ways to get off the tree even in the current state. For Ukraine it's probably best to keep fighting to gain as much as possible as long as it has those positive trends.
Therefore, since Putin and Zelensky have no common interest in settling on a status quo right now, they simply have to endure. That is, no big political moves besides gathering support.

You are using the present tense, I think the the trend is against UKR; except for tubes.
UKR is using a larger standing army.
What MIC?, you mean (the temporary use of) NATO MIC?
Technology and complexity.
Again, temporarily connected, like Afghanistan was; a very precarious position.

 

[rsemmes]

Im being a bit snarky. UKR has taken back about half of RU's high point terms of lands stolen from 2022.

Again, I have to disagree. To "occupy" a hill is no to "take" a hill.

 

[vikingatespam]

Gentlemen you disappoint me..
When I recently joined DC I was expecting it to be a neutral well-balanced discussion/ debating forum that presented both sides of an argument, and in that respect I've criticised both Putin AND Zelensky and have said neither side can win unless they change their strategy, but most of you seem to be firmly on Zel's side and won't hear a word said against him.

Last I checked, UKR didnt invade RU, so I would hazard a guess that most people here consider that Zel. is doing his job well - raising political, economic and military support from the free world, while defending his country from a completely unwarranted and unnecessary invasion.

Putin on the other hand, has been at the helm from day 1 from this unmitigated $hit-show circus of a invasion, and we have had to watch 500+ days of the mighty "second army of the world" struggle to make headway against a much smaller, poorer local power, at the same time managing to put his country further into an economic dead end, and managing to be the best salesman for NATO in the last 20 years.

Both leaders are doing what is predicted. Zel. is staying the course hoping for battlefield successes to force RU to call it a day, while Putin is just hoping to hold what he has in the hopes the west will get tired of supporting UKR. I am not the first to point this out.

I can only assume most of you have been swallowing the anti-Putin propaganda being churned out by the Western media.

You might get a better reception if you didnt use talking points right from St.Petersburg:

"Zelensky is poking the Russian bear by hitting back"
"Zelensky needs to negotiate now"
"You must be swallowing the anti-Putin propaganda of the west"

Time and time again, we see the same tropes on various other websites. If you want Q-anon conspiracies of Victoria Nuland, Nazis, or Biolabs, I suggest you go to freerepublic or MoonofAlabama.

 

[Ananda]

can only assume most of you have been swallowing the anti-Putin propaganda being churned out by the Western media.

I'm for one definitely not pro Ukrainian let alone Zelensky supporters. If you see the discussion on this forum including this thread, and the other Russian-West thread, you can see I'm part of those Non Western voice in this forum that mostly like many Non Westerners are staying in fence on this war.

Still you do have need shown better arguments base on you POV. So far your points mostly look like Kremlin side bias only. For one thing I do see Russian has taking a lot off losses and attrition. However I'm definitely not buying arguments from mostly Western think tanks that saying Ukrainian doing better in attrition wise then Russian. I believe the balance of attrition mostly on similar levels, thus why this war so far shown more resemblance of 21st century WW1 positioning sludges.

Shown your arguments base, that my suggestions. Not just one lines or few lines comments that seems not based on enough arguments. This forum expect base arguments.

 

[vikingatespam]

However I'm definitely not buying arguments from mostly Western think tanks that saying Ukrainian doing better in attrition wise then Russian. I believe the balance of attrition mostly on similar levels, thus why this war so far shown more resemblance of 21st century WW1 positioning sludges.

PAX losses are going to be really murky until long after the shouting is done. While I _think/hope_ UKR losses are less than the RU losses *, the middle of the road approach is to assume PAX losses are both sides are comparable - which at this point (from various professional estimates) are in the 250,000 range (K+W).

* Numbers, Predictions and War / Attrition [DuPuy] suggest PAX losses scale somewhat with tank losses, although this is probably getting murkier as time goes on.

 

[Rob c]

Gentlemen you disappoint me..
When I recently joined DC I was expecting it to be a neutral well-balanced discussion/ debating forum that presented both sides of an argument, and in that respect I've criticised both Putin AND Zelensky and have said neither side can win unless they change their strategy, but most of you seem to be firmly on Zel's side and won't hear a word said against him.

The problem you have is that your posts are far from neutral well-balanced discussions and a significant amount seem to often originate from the Moscow press releases.
Am I anti Putin, yes, I am anti any leader who invades his or hers neighbors territory on flimsy excuses, imprisons any rival or dissenter to disagree with him/her. All very reminiscent of a certain Adolf Hitler.
As to Zelensky, He is far from prefect, but then who of us are, How ever a significant part of the world loves the underdog
As for disappointment, you do seem to fit that category, as you ignore any facts that other posters have pointed out to you that disagree with your narrative.

 

[John Fedup]

The problem you have is that your posts are far from neutral well-balanced discussions and a significant amount seem to often originate from the Moscow press releases.
Am I anti Putin, yes, I am anti any leader who invades his or hers neighbors territory on flimsy excuses, imprisons any rival or dissenter to disagree with him/her. All very reminiscent of a certain Adolf Hitler.
As to Zelensky, He is far from prefect, but then who of us are, How ever a significant part of the world loves the underdog
As for disappointment, you do seem to fit that category, as you ignore any facts that other posters have pointed out to you that disagree with your narrative.

Let's not forget Putin's love for polonium 210 tea and open windows on tall buildings!

 

[KipPotapych]

The problem you have is that your posts are far from neutral well-balanced discussions and a significant amount seem to often originate from the Moscow press releases.

Even if that is the case, put some effort and put forth your argument supported by facts and provide substance. Especially when it seems a guy puts more effort talking about some questionable trophy he won 20 years ago and how it is placed in his house in order to draw attention to it 20 years later (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Also, there are ladies here as well, not only gentlemen.

Lastly, Mainframe, that coloured text was a friendly advice from one of the mods of what not to do. I don’t believe he was really interested in you trying to prove why your “divinely-inspired” one-liners are pretty great. Perhaps, the inhabitants of the other forum with 11M views like it there. Here, and why I am here, actual discussion is appreciated. I am actually surprised your ten-word posts got so much attention

Edit: I also wouldn’t test those coloured posts because the colour can change to red rather quickly and Feanor appears to be pretty nice and lenient.

 

[Rob c]

Even if that is the case, put some effort and put forth your argument supported by facts and provide substance. Especially when it seems a guy puts more effort talking about some questionable trophy he won 20 years ago and how it is placed in his house in order to draw attention to it 20 years later (not that there is anything wrong with that).

I am some what confused by this paragraph. I was stating an opinion based on what I had read in his posts, which I believe if studied make my comments, self explanatory. What the trophy has to do with it I am at a loss to understand. Then you go on, prior to addressing Mainframe about there are ladies here as well as gentleman, very confusing. Who in fact were you referring to?

 

[KipPotapych]

I am some what confused by this paragraph. I was stating an opinion based on what I had read in his posts, which I believe if studied make my comments, self explanatory. What the trophy has to do with it I am at a loss to understand. Then you go on, prior to addressing Mainframe about there are ladies here as well as gentleman, very confusing. Who in fact were you referring to?

Sorry for the confusion, Rob. There was none on my part. My post was simply an addition to what I quoted from your post. In other words, even if you push the Kremlin side of things, please do, but add context, (perhaps perceived) facts, and so on. My entire post was addressed to Mainframe, not you. Not sure where I wasn’t clear, but I apologize regardless.

For example, poking the bear with these drone attacks. Explain why and what the consequences you (in this case, Mainframe) think might be, etc. Otherwise, the post is completely meaningless and not worth discussion because the bear wasn’t asleep or minding its own business to begin with. Perhaps, it isn’t even the bear you though it was in the first place. And so on. I, personally, fail to understand the meaning of that post altogether.

Hope that clears it up.

 

[Rob c]

Sorry for the confusion, Rob. There was none on my part. My post was simply an addition to what I quoted from your post. In other words, even if you push the Kremlin side of things, please do, but add context, (perhaps perceived) facts, and so on. My entire post was addressed to Mainframe, not you. Not sure where I wasn’t clear, but I apologize regardless.

For example, poking the bear with these drone attacks. Explain why and what the consequences you (in this case, Mainframe) think might be, etc. Otherwise, the post is completely meaningless and not worth discussion because the bear wasn’t asleep or minding its own business to begin with. Perhaps, it isn’t even the bear you though it was in the first place. And so on. I, personally, fail to understand the meaning of that post altogether.

Hope that clears it up.

Thank you, But as you were quoting from my post the first paragraph appeared to be directed at me.