Russia invades Ukraine. Volume 2

[BikeBikeBIke]

twister said:

Yes, that comedy-sized conference room amused me when it popped up on the morning news. Aside from looking like an entry for this week's "spot the Pootin" competition (even on a 65" TV, he was just a tiny speck off to ona side of the screen) it also had me thinking that he *really* must be overcompensating for something....

Of course all the time we're talking about his comedy tables we're not talking about his military and political catastrophies. And it might fuel rumours that he's ill which is further distraction.

[isaldiri]

BikeBikeBIke said:

isaldiri said:

Patently winnable? how? what defines a win and in particular who defines that win?

Ukraine seeks to retake all of the donbas and Crimea - is that a win or is it merely regaining Feb22 territory?

So you can't offer another example.

Not until you can offer a definition of what winning might be given it's your claim it's 'a patently winnable war'. what comparables there may or may not be hinges on that definition.

[rxe]

Looks like Snake Island was battered with Artillery.

https://t.me/gruz_200_rus/2823

Can’t have been much fun sitting there.

[Digga]

It's all shades of grey. There are and will be, no definitive, flag-waving, champagne cork popping victories. Rather key, but significant changes, hard fought and hard won. It's like a boxing match - a boxer will take the cost of bruised ribs, against the win of landing a punch on their opponents eye that is sufficient to cut it and cause them subsequent difficulty.

It is interesting that, for the very first time, Russia are making conciliatory noises, WRT their withdrawal from Snake Island being ostensibly to enable grain shipments from Odessa. Almost like the old PR team were sacked/disappeared and a new team, with a new message have taken over.

[NRS]

isaldiri said:

NRS said:

I could imagine isaldiri coming with a peace of paper around 80 years ago - "peace in our time".

We should have just left Poland, as no one thought that defense agreement was actually a real one. There was loads of other wars around the world which if we helped out Poland then we'd be hypocrites if we didn't fix them all at once. It would also be unfair to supply Poland with any military supplies, as we weren't fighting and it would just involve them dying, and a few years later the public would get bored too. We'd also antagonized Germany, so it was also fair enough for them to do a little expansion and kill the Polish Nazis - sorry, Jews to protect the rest of the Polish people.

And if Nazi Germany had made an utter hash of taking over the sudetenland/czech with an economy that's going to struggle to keep up continued military expenditure in 1938 and represented little to no meaningful threat to us, yes you could very well imagine quite a lot of the above and yes we might well have left Poland in 39 if that was the case... a lot of things are possible if one is imaginative.

You've said it all the way through, from well before we had any clue that Ukraine was going to defend themselves far better than almost anyone predicted. Everyone expected a quick Russian victory early on, it's only hindsight that shows this worked out differently.

[prand]

Cobnapint said:

Dog Star said:

wiggy001 said:

“Interesting” interview with Bernie Ecclestone just now on Good Morning Britain where Bernie said:

“I would take a bullet for Putin”
“We all make mistakes”
“The Ukrainian President could have stopped this war easily”

Quite incredible.

What the hell ! Has he gone senile? Mind you god knows what sort of backhanders are involved with F1 and Russia.

This.
There's no way BE is going to bad mouth VP. He'd be a gonna.

Well, apart from being scarcely believable that Ecclestone has gone and said this live on TV, at least he does follow up with the fact that he feels Putin has overstepped the mark a tad:

"What he's doing is something that he believed was the right thing he was doing for Russia.... Unfortunately he is like a lot of business people, we make mistakes from time to time."

Silly old goat (ee)

[Murph7355]

prand said:

Cobnapint said:

Dog Star said:

wiggy001 said:

“Interesting” interview with Bernie Ecclestone just now on Good Morning Britain where Bernie said:

“I would take a bullet for Putin”
“We all make mistakes”
“The Ukrainian President could have stopped this war easily”

Quite incredible.

What the hell ! Has he gone senile? Mind you god knows what sort of backhanders are involved with F1 and Russia.

This.
There's no way BE is going to bad mouth VP. He'd be a gonna.

Well, apart from being scarcely believable that Ecclestone has gone and said this live on TV, at least he does follow up with the fact that he feels Putin has overstepped the mark a tad:

"What he's doing is something that he believed was the right thing he was doing for Russia.... Unfortunately he is like a lot of business people, we make mistakes from time to time."

Silly old goat (ee)

I thought it very odd... And then wondered why anyone gives a st what he thinks anyway.

[BikeBikeBIke]

isaldiri said:

BikeBikeBIke said:

isaldiri said:

Patently winnable? how? what defines a win and in particular who defines that win?

Ukraine seeks to retake all of the donbas and Crimea - is that a win or is it merely regaining Feb22 territory?

So you can't offer another example.

Not until you can offer a definition of what winning might be given it's your claim it's 'a patently winnable war'. what comparables there may or may not be hinges on that definition.

Ok, winning for Ukraine requires two things: 1) Some portion of Ukraine remaining free under its own government. 2) Russia denied a chance of credibly claiming they were supporting a coup. (Ie denying Russia a win within 72 hours of Feb 24th with the existing government deposed/killed.)

...but I really don't need to define winnable in one war for you to give your example of another winnable war. The reason you're being evasive is you can't think of one.

[rxe]

Digga said:

It's all shades of grey. There are and will be, no definitive, flag-waving, champagne cork popping victories. Rather key, but significant changes, hard fought and hard won. It's like a boxing match - a boxer will take the cost of bruised ribs, against the win of landing a punch on their opponents eye that is sufficient to cut it and cause them subsequent difficulty.

It is interesting that, for the very first time, Russia are making conciliatory noises, WRT their withdrawal from Snake Island being ostensibly to enable grain shipments from Odessa. Almost like the old PR team were sacked/disappeared and a new team, with a new message have taken over.

The alternative is admitting that the mighty Russian army and navy can’t even hold a poxy island. They don’t have the means to fortify it, they don’t have effective anti-air to protect it, and they are unable to stop the Ukrainians landing artillery shells on them.

So use the defeat to make up some cock and bull about an intentional withdrawl.

As to winning - well it is clear that the only tactic they have is to flatten an area with artillery, then move into it. As a result, their defeat is inevitable - now that the Ukranians are starting to have better, longer range artillery, then the war will only go in one direction. As long as the supply of ammunition and kit keeps going, they will win. My definition of “win” is pre 2014 borders. They will be able to take Crimea easily once they have recovered most of the coast just sit out of range and annihilate any troop or equipment concentrations. Destroy the Kerch bridge and sink anything bringing reinforcements to Crimea. They now have the kit to do this - we need to make sure they have enough of it.

[rxe]

Murph7355 said:

I thought it very odd... And then wondered why anyone gives a st what he thinks anyway.

Sanctioning him would be amusing, let him prove there is no dodgy Russian money in his F1 holdings.

[8bit]

NRS said:

CrutyRammers said:

Actual lol:

The Russian Defense Ministry says that "today, as a step of goodwill, the Russian military has completed tasks on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island and has withdrew the garrison stationed there."

https://twitter.com/Flash43191300/status/154243141...

Is this like the goodwill when they retreated from Kyiv?

Goodwill... towards "Nazis"?

[BikeBikeBIke]

8bit said:

NRS said:

CrutyRammers said:

Actual lol:

The Russian Defense Ministry says that "today, as a step of goodwill, the Russian military has completed tasks on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island and has withdrew the garrison stationed there."

https://twitter.com/Flash43191300/status/154243141...

Is this like the goodwill when they retreated from Kyiv?

Goodwill... towards "Nazis"?

And they prisoner exchanged the Azov Nazis. So the very worst of the Nazis and they prisoner exchanged them during a war aimed at denazification.

It's just total bks.

[8bit]

off_again said:

twister said:

off_again said:

In fact, the Western assumption was that a modern Russian tank could withstand most of the lower powered anti-tank systems. Reality is that pretty much all of the Russian main battle tanks are vulnerable to pretty much everything (which is also concerning for Western tanks!).

Perhaps not as concerning, when you consider that a) we ought to have a pretty good idea how the armour used on our tanks would stand up against modern AT weaponry, given that we can easily test one against the other, and b) it's a reasonable presumption that our tank crews won't be selling off bits of their tanks protective systems to buy vodka... For sure, modern AT weaponry is fearsome, even against a top-spec Western design, but IMO at least some of the poor performance of the Russian tanks is down to our failing to appreciate just how poorly disciplined and unprofessional the Russian Army actually is.

Mm, thats fair....

And dont forget that much of the protective systems and reactive armor that have been fitted to newer Russian tanks just doesnt work. Additionally, the Russians keep fitting cope cages in the misguided attempt to give themselves additional protection, yeah, I dont hold much hope for them.

And on the selling off of protective systems - did you see that there seems to be a lot of evidence of some of the tanks with the reactive protective armor was swapped to containing sand? Many of the advance deployed modern tanks that were sent to attack Kiev had the later systems and reactive amor. The Ukrainians found a lot of the destroyed tanks had the reactive stuff replaced with sand!

Assuming the tanks were ever fitted with the explosive/reactive component in the armour in the first place. There have been plenty of links to articles at times through this thread with stories of weapons systems, aircraft, naval assets etc. manufactured by Russia/Soviet Union which never received the expensive stuff because too many people were on the take.

[8bit]

wiggy001 said:

“Interesting” interview with Bernie Ecclestone just now on Good Morning Britain where Bernie said:

“I would take a bullet for Putin”
“We all make mistakes”
“The Ukrainian President could have stopped this war easily”

Quite incredible.

There was an article linked in here I think pretty early on in the 'Special Military Operation' which listed a number of pro-Putin celebrities, think Ecclestone was in that article along with a number of other people I was surprised to find there.

[moustachebandit]

isaldiri said:

BikeBikeBIke said:

isaldiri said:

Patently winnable? how? what defines a win and in particular who defines that win?

Ukraine seeks to retake all of the donbas and Crimea - is that a win or is it merely regaining Feb22 territory?

So you can't offer another example.

Not until you can offer a definition of what winning might be given it's your claim it's 'a patently winnable war'. what comparables there may or may not be hinges on that definition.

Complete Russian military collapse in Ukraine. Thats what G7, NATO and Ukraine want, thats what they are aiming for and they have been very bullish in stating that the are fully committed to seeing this through. Even laggards like Macron & Sholz have dramatically changed their tone and level of support for opposing Russia.

[vonuber]

'Russian generals enjoy a new business - they're taking money from parents to transfer soldiers to safer locations, then dumping them.'

https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1542111150120...

[Digga]

vonuber said:

'Russian generals enjoy a new business - they're taking money from parents to transfer soldiers to safer locations, then dumping them.'

https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1542111150120...

There's nothing those crooked, mercenary s wouldn't sell or steal. Nothing.

[king arthur]

isaldiri said:

Not until you can offer a definition of what winning might be given it's your claim it's 'a patently winnable war'. what comparables there may or may not be hinges on that definition.

Hold on a minute. You were the one who said

isaldiri said:

It wouldn't be the first or the last time where the US has shrugged it's shoulders and let another country get dominated as a vassal state of a (more powerful) neighbour

so why don't you tell us what the last time was that that happened so we can figure out where you are coming from?

[Bluedot]

Biggy Stardust said:

Bluedot said:

All sound pretty sensible to me.
I can't even begin to imagine the horror and outrage should they ever try and implement something like that in this country

The notable thing about national service is that almost everyone suggesting it would be exempt themselves- they think it's a great idea for others to be forced into it.

Or maybe those old enough to be exempt are wise enough to think that maybe a few weeks discipline and 'team building' wouldn't have done a 20 year old 'us' any harm and probably done us a world of good.
I doubt if many kids given the choice would actually go to school but as adults we know it's the right thing to do and therefore we 'force' them to do it.

[J4CKO]

Apparently Putin has responded to Boris making a thinly veiled jibe at Putin about getting their pecs out like Putin is apt to do whilst cavorting in nature.

"If you did the same, it would be a disgusting sight. Western leaders should stop abusing alcohol and other bad habits, do physical exercise, and take part in sports."

PARKLIFE

its so absurd, fking send him a signed topless photo Boris, flicking the bid with little union jack things over his nips

"Bad habits"ffs , a few glasses of wine, in the garden...ok it caused some st but nobody got bombed, shot or raped