Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Sergeant Wilson]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The Magic Bus company I believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail

You wouldn't want to nod off and miss your stop on that bus.

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

Maybe a bit young to decide which car to plant the bomb under though.

IDK, the last time I was playing Call of Duty regularly, it mainly consisted of getting wiped out by trash-talking 10-12 year-olds who it certainly seems should have been in school. They certainly didn’t have much difficultly deciding which hummock to aim the air strikes at…

You haven’t lived until some foul-mouthed 12 year-old reverses your ambush back on you, and then tea-bags you while explaining what he was doing with your mother last night in language that would make a sailor blush.

29 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Tbf, you'd be surprised with what one can narrow things down to with little details like this (water in the background also, suggesting that he's standing on a sand spit or edge of a  lagoon, which has a line of trees in a specific place relative to it).

Plus the geo-tags can be pretty useful too

[jagfox]

 

 

[Nkomo-A-Gogo]

38 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Tbf, you'd be surprised with what one can narrow things down to with little details like this (water in the background also, suggesting that he's standing on a sand spit or edge of a  lagoon, which has a line of trees in a specific place relative to it).

Would there not be a location where the photograph was taken when uploaded to whatever social media platform it was?

[Hedgecutter]

3 minutes ago, Nkomo-A-Gogo said:

Would there not be a location where the photograph was taken when uploaded to whatever social media platform it was?

True, but not always.  For example, my phone has the option to turn it on/off.

[Newbornbairn]

[moses1924]

55 minutes ago, jagfox said:

 

 

so what does the map of the plane turning round over the sea mean then?

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1 minute ago, moses1924 said:

so what does the map of the plane turning round over the sea mean then?

Going back to refuel.

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, moses1924 said:

so what does the map of the plane turning round over the sea mean then?

Switching off its transponder while taking pics and soaking up radio intelligence from Crimea before turning home is my guess. It's a 57 year old plane so it's no gamechanger in the conflict, they probably get better info from satellites. 

[vikingTON]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/22/six-months-war-putin-ukraine-russia-nato-energy-prices

A reasoned, non-unhinged analysis here. 

[Newbornbairn]

58 minutes ago, virginton said:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/22/six-months-war-putin-ukraine-russia-nato-energy-prices

A reasoned, non-unhinged analysis here. 

Ah, Putin the master strategist outwitting all the stupid sods in the west. Like when his elite paratroopers were wiped out trying to seize an airfield after Western intelligence tipped off the Ukrainians. After his invasion force was stopped outside Kyiv by Ukrainian special forces trained by Nato. After he destroyed hundreds of Nato missiles with his tanks. After his flagship was sunk by Ukrainian missiles using Nato targeting data. Nato significantly weakened by er, two more countries joining the alliance. After Ukraine being deterred from closer ties with the EU by being given fast track candidate status to join the EU. He's demonstrating the might of the Russian army by destroying it and Nato haven't even had a single casualty. The man's clearly a genius.

[vikingTON]

10 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

Ah, Putin the master strategist outwitting all the stupid sods in the west. Like when his elite paratroopers were wiped out trying to seize an airfield after Western intelligence tipped off the Ukrainians. After his invasion force was stopped outside Kyiv by Ukrainian special forces trained by Nato. After he destroyed hundreds of Nato missiles with his tanks. After his flagship was sunk by Ukrainian missiles using Nato targeting data. Nato significantly weakened by er, two more countries joining the alliance. After Ukraine being deterred from closer ties with the EU by being given fast track candidate status to join the EU. He's demonstrating the might of the Russian army by destroying it and Nato haven't even had a single casualty. The man's clearly a genius.

You either didn't actually bother reading that piece or can't read for the sake of comprehension. 

[Newbornbairn]

40 minutes ago, virginton said:

You either didn't actually bother reading that piece or can't read for the sake of comprehension. 

Nato have been strengthened by Putin, far from being seen as ineffectual and weak, they've demonstrated that they will help nations resist Russian aggression. Georgia and the 'stans will have seen this and just how poorly Russian equipment fares against Western weapons. 

 

Every day Ukraine grows stronger and Russia grows weaker, thanks to Nato. 

[renton]

6 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Switching off its transponder while taking pics and soaking up radio intelligence from Crimea before turning home is my guess. It's a 57 year old plane so it's no gamechanger in the conflict, they probably get better info from satellites. 

It's a signal intelligence aircraft. It'll have been sitting out there gathering radar signals, radio etc. Won't be doing photo gathering. That used to be high altitude or very fast aircraft but largely obsolete in the age of satellite imagery.

The airframe is old, the equipment on board is fairly cutting edge.

[The DA]

11 minutes ago, renton said:

It's a signal intelligence aircraft. It'll have been sitting out there gathering radar signals, radio etc. Won't be doing photo gathering. That used to be high altitude or very fast aircraft but largely obsolete in the age of satellite imagery.

The airframe is old, the equipment on board is fairly cutting edge.

They've been flying the hogs out there almost since the start of the conflict.  Those and the Sentries.

[The Other Foot]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

You either didn't actually bother reading that piece or can't read for the sake of comprehension. 

This seems to be a favourite retort of yours, when several pages back you yourself were caught out not reading your own link. It’s disappointing that whenever someone disagrees with you, you feel the need to launch a personal attack. 
 

Why are you so angry? 

Edited August 23, 2022 by The Other Foot

[renton]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/22/six-months-war-putin-ukraine-russia-nato-energy-prices

A reasoned, non-unhinged analysis here. 

If the rationale was to neutralise the Kyiv regime and show that NATO was powerless to stop him then he's already failed, no?

Thanks in part to NATO backing, attempts to topple or neutralise the Kyiv regime were stopped, nor has he achieved an advance to Odessa (or likely to in the short to medium term) or even the whole of the Donbass.

Meanwhile, NATO has enlarged its borders, including disrupting the carefully crafted Finnish neutrality with little to no push back from Russia. European nations are increasing their defence budgets (at the likely expense of their citizen's quality of life, it must be said) at the same time as Russia's conventional forces have been badly chewed up and a lot of their modernisation efforts shown to be skin deep at best.

From a russian point of view, their standing - particularly with China - has been based on the concept of them as strategic competitors in Europe, able to draw and keep US attention in that sphere. If it looks like they have shot their bolt and alienated the West it only reduces Russia to more of a client state to China than any kind of partner.

I take the point that spiralling energy costs could break European resilience, then again I suspect the US is partially at least less prone to that effect, and really - its their arsenal that matters. They do also have more room for manouvere than is maybe apparent in so much as they have been drip feeding capabilities to the Ukranians in handfuls. Its worth noting they could easily donate the 200 tube artillery pieces and 30 extra MLRS launchers the Ukranians say they want, without really noticing the impact on their own force structure into the medium term and more rapidly than is currently being achieved.

So the US does have an escalatory route to helping Ukraine push back. I suppose while Putin has a clear end game: declare what you got to be enough, and agree to stand down and up gas production for an end to sanctions - its less clear how to get him to a negotiating table if his military position in Ukraine collapses. 

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

So tomorrow we'll be 6 months into a war I think most of us thought would have finished (with a Russian victory) in a few weeks.

It's interesting to look back over the first pages of this thread to see how some of the most forthright posters on here have been stridently and consistently wrong about almost everything.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Carl Cort's Hamstring

[Lurkst]

11 hours ago, jagfox said:

 

 

At last! A lilo I can use...

 

[The Other Foot]

36 minutes ago, Carl Cort's Hamstring said:

So tomorrow we'll be 6 months into a war I think most of us thought would have finished (with a Russian victory) in a few weeks.

It's interesting to look back over the first pages of this thread to see how some of the most forthright posters on here have been stridently and consistently wrong about almost everything.

 

On 12/02/2022 at 07:33, LongTimeLurker said:

Famous last words possibly but think the full scale invasion scenario is being way overhyped by the western media. The buildup is probably more about Russia warning the Ukrainian government that attempting to use newly acquired Turkish drone technology to retake the Donbas militarily would have dire consequences for them. 

 

On 12/02/2022 at 18:31, tamthebam said:

There won't be a war, Putin is just sabre rattling.

 

 

On 12/02/2022 at 13:18, SweeperDee said:

If it does, nothing will happen, and it'll be Crimea MK2. There's not going to be a war regardless of what happens.