Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

Sounds like Putin has underestimated the resolve of both Western Ukranians and the West in general. Fuck Putin. Fuck the Russian government. I feel bad for the russian population who vehemently disagree with this aggression though.

[Tom W]

The scary thing is that If Putin is, in fact, playing chess, he certainly realizes that the game isn’t won on the first move.

If only Risk was his game and biden was more competent than Kramer and Newman.

[Mike]

It’s looking like a Pyrrhic victory is the best Putin can hope for at this point. I’m pleasantly surprised at the unified response from the West and others. And man…. if Ukraine actually fends off the Russians AND Putin has to take it up the ass financially. Oof. Zelenskiy will go down as an all-time badass.

These Ukrainians are getting me fired up. Now let’s open up the spigots and drive down the price of oil.

[Mike]

Enjoy this Russian helicopter being shot down.

[Jeff Buchanan]

It’s looking like a Pyrrhic victory is the best Putin can hope for at this point. I’m pleasantly surprised at the unified response from the West and others. And man…. if Ukraine actually fends off the Russians AND Putin has to take it up the ass financially. Oof. Zelenskiy will go down as an all-time badass.

These Ukrainians are getting me fired up. Now let’s open up the spigots and drive down the price of oil.

That would be great. A bit of military history regarding Russia's wars: Chechnya - the second time around - is the one that holds the most lessons learned. When Russia decided to subdue "terrorists" in Chechnya the first time, they did the same thing they appear to be doing in Ukraine. The plan then was to quickly overwhelm an undermanned Chechen military and remove the leadership. The Chechens feigned to let the Russian army into their capital. Once garrisoned there, the Russians got brutally attacked losing 105 of 120 tanks that had rolled into the city unopposed and suffered 1000s of casualties.

The second time around, instead of a lightning strike, Russians garrisoned outside the city, blocked all access to it and ruthlessly shelled and bombed the city into a pile of dust over a month's time. The city was completely destroyed and 10,000 civilians died. Urban warfare is brutally lethal. That Russian Battle Groups (BTGs) tend to be heavy on armor and artillery and light on infantry could compel commanders to avoid a frontal assault. BTGS are not well suited for close contact urban warfare especially in a city like Kiev that has multiple entry points by river, rail and road that would be hard to completely block and is ideally set up to defend.

That bodes for a more likely Russian siege lasting interminably and waged with heavy artillery and air attacks with the end result being the destruction of this once beautiful city and very high civilian casualties for any Ukrainians that elected to stay put. In fact, some military analysts think that the Russians are planning on siege warfare in the three key cities they appear to be targeting. In the end game, Russian infantry will have to go into these cities and seize control of key ground. That will be costly in Russian lives and equipment as the Ukranians have already demonstrated some serious pluck.

The shred of hope that this can be avoided and Putin has to engineer a face saving withdrawal are squeezing Russia economically and maintaining diplomatic pressure to keep Russia isolated. Do what is necessary inside Russia to stir protests and keep Putin busy trying to deal with hostile citizens. Both of these tactics could remove the leverage he is hoping to gain as quickly as possible. Putin could be talked down by his closest advisors or, if he can't be, he could face entering negotiations in a much less favorable position than he is in right now. The longer the Ukrainians can hold out, the more likely it is that Putin will take what he can get in some face saving gesture for Mother Russia. To that end, if things start to look bad for Zelenski and the city of Kiev, I'd advocate for a NATO air campaign that first achieves air superiority over the battle space - probably including Belarus - and then target artillery that right now at least is terribly exposed.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Tanks in urban streets are sitting ducks unless you've got lots of boots on the ground to act as their eyes.

Germany has now vowed to increase it's military spending above the 2% NATO asks for. Putin achieving the strengthening of NATO forces.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The aforementioned Ramzan Kadyrov, brutal dictator of Chechnya, posted a statement complaining that the war is going badly and current strategy isn't working. Urges Putin to stop waiting for Ukrainians to "come to their senses" and be more ruthless. Not good.

[Obi-Jon]

The British Daily Mail reports a column of Chechnya armor destroyed. No third party confirmation beyond original Ukrainian source. Hopefully true and not part of the information war.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-glow-sky.html


Putin is acknowledging the effect of Ukrainian resistance and western weapons supplies by putting his nuclear forces on "special alert". This is to create fear over how far he is willing to go and to create vagueness over what kind of Ukrainian support he would consider to be too much. Having served in SAC around nuclear weapon delivery systems, "special alert" means 12 hour shifts and being positioned right at the systems themselves, reducing the 'scramble' time to launch to less than 2 minutes. In actuality, pilots and launch control officers are always on 'special alert', what we're seeing here applies to support personnel.

Time to put a bounty on Putin's removal. Make him look over his shoulder at all times and instill doubt that a launch order from him would actually be obeyed.

Perhaps an announcement that use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be considered an attack on the US by both Russia and China. Force the Chinese to start applying pressure on the Tsar wannabe.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Making nuclear threats already, Vlad? I thought the war was going splendidly and Russia was immune to sanctions?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Russa's AG also announces any Russian caught helping Ukraine in any way will be prosecuted for treason and given a 20 year sentence.

These are the sort of things you do when the war is going extremely well.

[Tom W]

Perhaps an announcement that use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be considered an attack on the US by both Russia and China. Force the Chinese to start applying pressure on the Tsar wannabe.

.

Fast track Ukrainian statehood?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quite a video below. This is reportedly from a town on the northwest outskirts of Kiev near that airbase that's been fought over repeatedly since Day 1. A lot of wrecked Russian armor. Presumably a lot of dead/captured Russians.

[Obi-Jon]

Tom - treat them like a NATO member. Stop China's tacit support of Russia.


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[Dr. Strangelove]

Turkey has put out a statement that they now recognize this as a war and as such will close the Straits to warships entering the Black Sea.

My understanding is they are bound by the Montreaux Treaty to allow Russian ships through that are registered as part of its Black Sea fleet. But a ship based in Kalingrad for example would be denied entry.

[Obi-Jon]

From that video, DSL, I notice the letter "V" used as livery. All other videos of Russian armor I have seen have used a "Z". Does that mean anything? In the middle east, we used only one marking to designate coalition forces.