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Russian invasion of Ukraine


Sonam

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7 minutes ago, highlandcowden said:

Any idea what we're actually watching here?is that a Ukrainian position desperately fighting to avoid being overrun?

Ukrainians defending a trench system. This guy takes out an armoured vehicle and at least 7 Russians. 

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Reading Kofman’s analysis of the current campaign is interesting, especially the note on Russian shell supplies. Combine the expenditures with the constant strikes on Russian supply depots and ammo dumps , using HIMARS, reported and verified by the Institute for the Study of War, the Russians will soon lack the ability to unleash a storm of shells to try to impede the expected Ukrainian armoured counter-attacks this spring. With Russian entrenchment and fortification efforts focused on static lines near or immediately behind the current front lines, a breakthrough could certainly lead to another round of Russian keystone cops defending. The questions will be can, or should, the Ukrainians wait for the Leopards/Challengers/Abrams to come online and will they be able to keep replacing worn artillery barrels?

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Just waiting, because as many hacks as show up in Kyiv these days, sooner of later a missile or something is going to get spectacularly close, if not lucky. The results of that would be interesting, but the popular candidates are unlikely to be the ones visiting at the time.

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45 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Just waiting, because as many hacks as show up in Kyiv these days, sooner of later a missile or something is going to get spectacularly close, if not lucky. The results of that would be interesting, but the popular candidates are unlikely to be the ones visiting at the time.

The US informed the Russian Federation that Biden was on his way to Kyiv, presumably with a message that if anything happened to him then Vladimir Putin could expect the same back ten fold.

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1 minute ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

The US informed the Russian Federation that Biden was on his way to Kyiv, presumably with a message that if anything happened to him then Vladimir Putin could expect the same back ten fold.

Correct, plus had an AWACS, Rivet Joint, and probably a few Raptors circling over Poland. Given Ukrainian troops are being trained on Patriot Air Defense Systems, it also wouldn’t surprise me if one of those had made its way to Kyiv early and been manned by U.S. personnel during the visit before being handed over to the Ukrainians. I have a sneaking suspicion the air raid sirens during the visit were at best speculative, if not planned.

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Things might be getting interesting in Moldova with the change in leadership there:

There's a lot of talk at the moment that the Ukrainians are running low on ammunition.

Transnistria has a huge depot filled with Soviet era weaponry just over a weakly defended border from Ukraine so the Detournement types are getting nervous:

 

Edited by LongTimeLurker
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I don't get Putin's relationship with Navalny at all. He started off as a more right wing nationalist and racist version of Putin, then cottoned on that he'd get better financing and profile by playing the liberal card. There was the feeble effort to poison his underpants and letting him fly off to a German hospital for treatment, then he voluntarily flew back to Moscow to be arrested and put in prison, where he's still allowed to communicate with the world media and hasn't just died from a nasty dose of Covid or something else that would have been incredibly easy. I'm not really suggesting that Putin's setting him up to be his successor, but there's something really weird going on. 

Edited by welshbairn
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56 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Things might be getting interesting in Moldova with the change in leadership there:

There's a lot of talk at the moment that the Ukrainians are running low on ammunition.

Transnistria has a huge depot filled with Soviet era weaponry just over a weakly defended border from Ukraine so the Detournement types are getting nervous:

 

Problem here is the Cobasna ammunition is likely unusable, due to age and instability. This smells, of a Russian realization that Transnistria is not worth the trouble with the Ukraine war ongoing, and perhaps a thought that some 1,500 Russian troops being blown up in a third county, and being blamed on Ukraine, is a nice news release.

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59 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Things might be getting interesting in Moldova with the change in leadership there:

There's a lot of talk at the moment that the Ukrainians are running low on ammunition.

Transnistria has a huge depot filled with Soviet era weaponry just over a weakly defended border from Ukraine so the Detournement types are getting nervous:

 

I’m not sure there is much threat from Transnistria to Ukraine. The Russian troops there are actually mostly locals who have signed up as Russian soldiers for the money. There are very few of them and they don’t have particularly good equipment - I would bet that any good equipment or competent officers/Russian regulars will have been spirited back to Russia before being deployed to the war, although logistically that could be a challenge I guess.

A Ukrainian operation to capture the depot would be very risky and I’m not sure what value they’d get out of it. What state is the ammo held there in? Has it been properly stored? The Moldovans started complaining about it after the Beirut explosion, fearing something similar. Ukraine would have to devote scarce resources to capture it and it would also pose real political problems as it would involve invading another country.

Ukraine is transitioning to use Western weapons and require the ammunition for those. Some sort of mad raid on Moldova isn’t going to be a solution.

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19 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I don't get Putin's relationship with Navalny at all...

Much the same happened with an oligarch called Mikhail Khodorkovsky about 20 years back. It's just Vlad's way of saying don't do what this guy did because you don't actually live in a liberal democracy even though there are presidential elections or a free market economy even though there are many of the trappings of western capitalism. If you fail to grasp that and act like you do the consequences of rocking the boat can be very unpleasant.

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2 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

...Ukraine is transitioning to use Western weapons and require the ammunition for those. Some sort of mad raid on Moldova isn’t going to be a solution.

I have no strong opinion about that ammunition depot and its significance, but one thing that I think is obvious is that the Ukrainians have been dropping heavy hints for a while that they want to be invited into Moldova:

Transnistria has been sitting there for decades waiting for a Russian leader to do what Vlad did. Getting rid of it makes Odessa and what remains of their Black Sea coastline significantly more secure for the Ukrainians.

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19 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Much the same happened with an oligarch called Mikhail Khodorkovsky about 20 years back. It's just Vlad's way of saying don't do what this guy did because you don't actually live in a liberal democracy even though there are presidential elections or a free market economy even though there are many of the trappings of western capitalism. If you fail to grasp that and act like you do the consequences of rocking the boat can be very unpleasant.

A closer comparison is Boris Nemtsov who represented a genuine liberal threat, far more dangerous than Navalny. He was shot in public just outside the Kremlin, nae messin.

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