Kiev Is Burning

[ex2cav]

6 hours ago, TrustMe said:

They should of kept some nuclear weapons instead of giving them back to Russia in the 1990's 😀

 

Funny, you should say that. De-nuclearization is dead for the foreseeable future. Iran, North Korea, no way they will ever give them up. I am assuming their leaders have half a brain. 

[alejandro_]

Quote

I was surprised by the video of of columns of Russian trucks moving north out or convoy from Crimea. It appeared the Ukrainians didn't have any defense to speak of

The comments I have read is that the terrain is hard to defend as it is open fields., and Ukrainian Army has preferred to concentrate in other locations.

What is the AT missile  those Russian soldiers are using? Kornet or Metis-M?

 

[Stargrunt6]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

Big no-no in the Eastern Orthodox churches. 

[ex2cav]

4 hours ago, On the way said:

That's ridiculous. Right now, every European NATO partner and the US is wishing they had allowed Ukraine to keep some of their nuclear weapons. Especially the tactical nukes. Putin would not dare invade if he knew the Ukrainians still have tactical nukes in their arsenal.

No they are not, Ukraine was/is unstable politically. They wouldn't want a bankrupt kleptocracy without the funding to maintain weapons having access keys to the storage shed. Ukraine's facing east or west was based on unreliable voters. Hence the concern of the of the political big wigs in the west and east. Hence the war now. 

[EchoFiveMike]

1 hour ago, Dark_Falcon said:

T'ain't funny, McGhee. 😠

Who's joking?  Propagandists are fair targets, if you're one of those simpletons who cares about "fair."  

The average "reporter" is a cunt who wants to lecture and lie to others without ever being held to account for anything.  Much like people blathering on the internet.  S/F....Ken M

 

[rmgill]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, it's an absolute whataboutism. By pretending Trudeau is Putin, you are really saying Putin isn't that bad.
 

You pretend that Putin and anyone else is Hitler. Putin isn't genocidal. 

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Stop running Democracies down Ryan, you are doing Putin's work for him.

The democracies stand on their own merits or fall based on their own failings, not on how they may or may not compare to a despot in Russia. 
 

 

[rmgill]

1 hour ago, EchoFiveMike said:

Pick me, I know, I know!!!!

Not enough?

S/F....Ken M

Alf Laugh. 
 

point of order for everyone clutching at pearls... the journalists who simped for Greta about energy policy, they bought and paid for this current state of affairs. The Journalists who flacked for Trump Russia nonsense, they bought and paid for this. Etc etc. 
 

We are weak in the west. Putin knows this. The current state of the energy market, the US importing energy from Russia, Europe doing the same thing to a larger degree, Biden cutting off our own energy independence, it puts the state of economic affairs squarely in helping Putin now. 

Edited February 25, 2022 by rmgill

[rmgill]

44 minutes ago, ex2cav said:

Connect Transnistria?

I am waiting for the media to conflate Transnistria with the call for Transgender rights. 

[Simon Tan]

Kornet. 

If that is Gostomel, it is VDV (Paratroopers) who seemed to have done an air assault on the airbase in a classic forced entry operation to seize an airhead.

The lack of pimp on their rifles suggests these are not SSO(SpecOps) but rather main line VDV. 

It is a cargo and testing airfield so it has no commercial flights and infrastructure to deal with. 

[rmgill]

 

Really hope that Air India flight lands ok. 

[CValdor]

I could not have predicted that by the end of day one, the Ukranian Air Force was still operational. Mauripol should be a crater by the morning, surprised it lasted through day one too.

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, bojan said:

It does not generate power since 2000 or so.

Noted. Thank you. 

[Skywalkre]

Multiple outlets are reporting that only a fraction of Russian forces have crossed the border.  Why?  Why invade with only a fraction of the troops you have available?

[CValdor]

5 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Multiple outlets are reporting that only a fraction of Russian forces have crossed the border.  Why?  Why invade with only a fraction of the troops you have available?

Deep operations, they have to break in before sending in the operational reserves.

[Josh]

 

 

[On the way]

4 hours ago, TrustMe said:

In a typical Russian brigade structure the unit is capable of generating three 'Battle Groups'. One battle group will be more or less fully professional and the other two will have conscripts in it. 

In Syria the professional battle group did most of the fighting (and dieing) with the other two battle groups not being used as much. In Ukraine, i'm sure that given the pace of operations, the conscript battle groups would have to be used also and therefore take casualties. 

So, roughly a third of Russian units are professionally equiped.

I would think that as there were something like 200,000 russian invaders, some fairly large proportion must be conscripts. I wonder how their performance would be in combat. I can't imagine they would be highly motivated to fight a slavic neighbour.

[Simon Tan]

Russia has conscription but many of their units are professional. 

[On the way]

1 hour ago, Simon Tan said:

Kornet. 

If that is Gostomel, it is VDV (Paratroopers) who seemed to have done an air assault on the airbase in a classic forced entry operation to seize an airhead.

The lack of pimp on their rifles suggests these are not SSO(SpecOps) but rather main line VDV. 

It is a cargo and testing airfield so it has no commercial flights and infrastructure to deal with. 

Seems they are running their Afghan invasion playbook without the palace coup

[On the way]

1 minute ago, Simon Tan said:

Russia has conscription but many of their units are professional. 

Its too bad, I am sure the ukrainians would have fare better against their conscripts

 

[Simon Tan]

If the bulk of the Ukranian military is arrayed in the east, they are essentially being pocketed to east of the Dnepr. The killing will really begin when they try to break out. 

Stay and starve. Move and run the gauntlet of fires. This is classic operational  manouevre. 

[On the way]

2 hours ago, ex2cav said:

I was surprised by the video of of columns of Russian trucks moving north out or convoy from Crimea. It appeared the Ukrainians didn't have any defense to speak of. Another video showed Russian tanks on a bridge on the Dnipro soon after. It appears the Ukrainians left the back door open.

I bet they didn't see the prong coming from the North out of Belarussia.

[Simon Tan]

They are idiots not to have. Then again they are following Lloyd Austin. 

[On the way]

The Ukrainians must have had access to NATO and US spy satellite images of their border areas for weeks now. They must have known the disposition and strength of the Russian forces for some time now. Yet they don't seem to be able to even put up token resistance at the entry points. Is it their strategy to let them come in and then bog them down somewhere? The Ukrainians don't seem to have a plan at all, unless its to let the Russians come into their major cities and do a Chechnya or Berlin on them in street to street and house to house fighting

Edited February 25, 2022 by On the way

[On the way]

5 hours ago, TrustMe said:

In a typical Russian brigade structure the unit is capable of generating three 'Battle Groups'. One battle group will be more or less fully professional and the other two will have conscripts in it. 

In Syria the professional battle group did most of the fighting (and dieing) with the other two battle groups not being used as much. In Ukraine, i'm sure that given the pace of operations, the conscript battle groups would have to be used also and therefore take casualties. 

So, roughly a third of Russian units are professionally equiped.

Ok, got it.

[bojan]

Burned out Ukrainian BTR-4 and Russian GAZ Tigr: