Ukraine

Somewhat true, but the UK is just a tool in the Russian war chest, a pawn in a bigger game, if you will.

perhaps more sorties to achieve the same aims

All that will happen is more will get shot down for no real gain. The Su34 is really expensive and hard to replace, using them for this this sort of shitty nonsense is desperate stuff. This soon into a proper war, and the Russian Air Force is reduced to this? Already?

@squirrelking

TL:DR whilst his opinions on certain matters are disgusting he should be viewed against his contemporaries rather than our own standards.

Yeah I get that…I was just making the point that we should be careful what we wish for…the next guy may end up as bad, or worse, then the current incumbent

next guy may end up as bad

Almost certainly will be. There’s been no opposition parties and no real democracy at all in Russia since…well, forever really. Where exactly is any form of representative democracy going to come from?

Some very crazy talk in this thread.

Stop thinking you are so important.

You’re going to have to put this into context because I have no idea who you are addressing.

The reason for the two way jet swap is that the Ukrainians already know how to fly & maintain MiG 29s, and don’t need the conversion training they’d need for e.g. F-16s.

Wikipedia reckons the Bulgarians and Slovaks might have some too.

You’re going to have to put this into context because I have no idea who you are addressing.

The UK government thinking anyone gives a shit about what the UK government has to offer. It’s nothing.

We made ourselves a very small fish in a big pond with brexit.

All the sanctions I hear about are from Europe and the US, are the rest of the world doing similar? If not I’d assume Russia will just increase trading elsewhere and this will carry on for a very Long time.
Probably mssively over simplified everything.

US and EU (especially EU to Russia) are massive, rich markets (I think the EU is the richest market in the owrld IIRC). Someone calculated that for Brexit, all the trade deals we’ll get with other counties won’t even add up to what we’ve lost with the EU. Russia won’t even get a sniff of half of those. Basically they’re going to have to do trade with China and maybe India etc. and would likely get completely screwed over in terms of a deal.

So TL;DR – if they can find new markets, will still be a huge hit to their economy for many many years.

All that will happen is more will get shot down for no real gain. The Su34 is really expensive and hard to replace, using them for this this sort of shitty nonsense is desperate stuff. This soon into a proper war, and the Russian Air Force is reduced to this? Already?

I can’t decide is Russia are just really inept at logistics and just can’t get the smart bombs to the aircraft or whether the reality is they are skint and there’s actually only half a dozen advanced munitions in Russia and they don’t want to use them. I can understand the ground forces being limited if they can’t get stuff to the frontline, but obviously the aircraft are flying out of Russia airstrips. The other worrying possibility is they just don’t GAF and why waste the fancy stuff when they can just chuck the old unaccurate stuff on buildings/civilians etc. but you’re right on that one – doesn’t take too may downed Sukois to make that look like a bad decision.

Biden has laid the groundwork well convincing Germany to sanction Nordstream 2 and helping the Ukrainian military with Intel, Putin must realise this, but what can he do to counter it?

NEW: US is sharing intelligence with Ukraine about Russian force movements and locations, as well as intercepted communications about their military plans. Several intel-sharing channels open, including a portal Ukrainians can access in near real time — https://t.co/sMMtdDXNE5

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) March 4, 2022

Not saying this means Ukrainins will win, their effectiveness will be wearing too, but still

Russian battalion level artillery formation destroyed, looks like D-30s. Could have been counter battery fire, the Ukrainians do have a few artillery locating radar systems like the TPQ-48 pic.twitter.com/fNKovQEN8C

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 6, 2022

UK gov is a **** joke.

When’s the revolution?

… including a portal Ukranians can access in near real time..

Is it TikTok?

May 2024. Our chance of a revolution comes around every 4 years. Unlike some poor people.

Not saying this means Ukrainins will win, their effectiveness will be wearing too, but still

Oh god more of that please. Especially if it’s those little shits shelling the Ukrainian families trying to escape

UK gov is a **** joke.

When’s the revolution?

NATO will end up going in.. Its not a matter of if.. Its a matter of when..

The fact that civilians are now targets in this war means that it amounts to nothing more than ethnic cleansing. Europe will end up being the driving force behind some sort of response. Meanwhile the UK and USA will drag their heels and maybe apply some more sanctions.

Is it TikTok?

Snapchat. Shhh..the Russians still think it’s been discontinued

Is it just me that looks at that video of the artillery destruction and thinks that is really good agricultural soil and some poor bugger will struggle to plough that ground for years to come. One thing is for sure, they won’t be planting it this season!

Is it just me that looks at that video of the artillery destruction and thinks that is really good agricultural soil and some poor bugger will struggle to plough that ground for years to come. One thing is for sure, they won’t be planting it this season!

Probably just you.. I tend to notice the dead children’s bodies in the street. :-(

NATO will end up going in.. Its not a matter of if.. Its a matter of when..

I think it’s still too early to say for sure, but there does seem to be a kind of inevitability about the whole thing, hey? The fact is that we are already involved, with sanctions and supplying arms. At some point we may even try to set up some kind of humaitarian corridor, or there’s a border skirmish when the Russian forces reach further into western Ukraine, or Vlad’s just plain crazy enough to launch a full blown attack on the rest of Europe using Ukraine as a staging ground (apparently it does have excellent stratgic value for this) and then we’re sucked in. Oh man.

Is it just me that looks at that video of the artillery destruction and thinks that is really good agricultural soil and some poor bugger will struggle to plough that ground for years to come. One thing is for sure, they won’t be planting it this season!

And therein is another huge issue, the wheat harvest won’t be planted this year and that will have a huge impact with Ukraine out of the picture.

I keep being reminded of a SF novel I read years ago called The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury, which looked into the Russian psyche and how to change the mindset of their leaders. It also included a Muslim MIT grad who designed UAVs which smashed Russian forces – Selçuk Bayraktar.

But the UK and the US are a vital part of NATO. As far as I’m aware the EU don”t have a united military force yet? I stand to be corrected on this. I agree that a tipping point will be reached soon, and I’m confident that our country will be at the forefront.

NATO will end up going in.. Its not a matter of if.. Its a matter of when.

What would change that makes them go in? If not after everything that has happened so far then what?

I sadly think that even if Putin uses chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO will remain on the sidelines. Putin appears so unhinged that the chance of him using Nuclear Weapons against NATO are not zero and NATO will not risk a Nuclear war.

I hope that if he does decide to use nuclear weapons they are as poor as the rest of his military (and don’t leave the silo), or his orders are ignored.

Is it just me that looks at that video of the artillery destruction and thinks that is really good agricultural soil and some poor bugger will struggle to plough that ground for years to come. One thing is for sure, they won’t be planting it this season!

French farmers are still ploughing up about 900 tons of unexploded ordinance every year- from WW1, well over a 100 years ago now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest

NATO will end up going in.. Its not a matter of if.. Its a matter of when..

If Putin thinks he’ll lose he can use any number of his 6,700 nukes. No one wins then.

UK gov is a **** joke.

When’s the revolution?

Putin out and his stooge Boris at the same time. Needs an uprising in both countries.

I wish I hadn’t watch the BBC news at ten.

I don’t feel able to comment on the sight of families fleeing and dying.

But I will say one thing… they are saying 1.5 million refugees have left Ukraine already… and we’ve accepted just 50?

50 ?!?

We actually filmed a bit about this when I used to work in TV- it was in Belgium, not France, but as we drove past the farms every field had a colection of shells at the roadside, waiting to be collected at the end of each week. This was in the mid 2000s, unbelievable.

Interview with 3 captured Russian Police Senior Officers.

Very interesting – with subtitles .

wish I hadn’t watch the BBC news at ten.

I don’t feel able to comment on the sight of families fleeing and dying.

But I will say one thing… they are saying 1.5 million refugees have left Ukraine already… and we’ve accepted just 50?

Yep news at 10 had me crying, some shocking sights that really got to me. And then I lost it angrily when I saw Johnson’s 6 point plan. More lies, all they can do is lie. The refugee response is just appalling

“using Ukraine as a staging ground (apparently it does have excellent stratgic value for this) and then we’re sucked in. Oh man”

South West? In the general direction of Serbia?

I can’t decide is Russia are just really inept at logistics and just can’t get the smart bombs to the aircraft or whether the reality is they are skint and there’s actually only half a dozen advanced munitions in Russia and they don’t want to use them. I can understand the ground forces being limited if they can’t get stuff to the frontline, but obviously the aircraft are flying out of Russia airstrips. The other worrying possibility is they just don’t GAF and why waste the fancy stuff when they can just chuck the old unaccurate stuff on buildings/civilians etc. but you’re right on that one – doesn’t take too may downed Sukois to make that look like a bad decision.

My best guess is they are saving the decent weapons/bombs for when we(NATO) get involved

The Su34 is really expensive and hard to replace, using them for this this sort of shitty nonsense is desperate stuff. This soon into a proper war, and the Russian Air Force is reduced to this? Already?

Yes, going beyond just this specific thing, Russian strategy and tactics just don’t add up. They have a large air force that is formidable on paper, but they just don’t seem to be using it. As someone on Twitter pointed out yesterday, they are only flying a few dozen sorties per day, but lost 5 aircraft yesterday. That points to a loss rate of 5% to 10%, which is unsustainable.

Same goes for the “convoy”, which hasn’t moved in days. One (serious) theory was that it was intended as a trap to tempt NATO into bombing it so that Putin has a foreign attack on Russia to rally the Russian people around. Crazy theory, but it’s pretty clear that things are not going the way Russia planned and they seem to have a lot of equipment just sitting around not being used effectively.

Interview with 3 captured Russian Police Senior Officers.

Some balls on those three.

russian streaming TV services were apparently hacked by Annymous to display images of the non-war in ukraine

JUST IN: The hacking collective #Anonymous today hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (like Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from #Ukraine. #TangoDown #OpRussia pic.twitter.com/2V8opv7Dg9

— Anonymous TV ?? (@YourAnonTV) March 6, 2022

putin not taking it well

Putin's executive order gives businesses 5 days to comply on moving all domains to .ru, moving all hosting in-house (including DNS infrastructure), and drop all non-Russian CDNs for content delivery and hosting of client-side code. Yikes.

— Graham Sutherland (Polynomial^DSS) (@gsuberland) March 6, 2022

but putin been preparing for this eventuality

https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-disconnected-global-internet-tests-rbc-daily-2021-07-22/

And the Chinese are going to drive a hard bargain if Putin wants them to help him out.

A mix: Saddam's personal worldview, his leadership style, bureaucratic snafus, palace politics … all came together and facilitated a set of grave miscalculations. I predict we will one day have a new case study on "Vladimir's Delusions" as we assess whether the decision 2/

— Editor of FPRI's Orbis (@FPRI_Orbis) February 27, 2022

The three underestimations–of Ukraine, the West and China–add up to a very costly set of mistakes for Moscow. END

— Editor of FPRI's Orbis (@FPRI_Orbis) March 5, 2022

images like the one of the destroyed artillery unit

and this

A completely intact ?? Anti-aircraft missile gun system “Pantsyr S” captured by ?? territorial defense (armed civilians). Catalogue price – $11mil.
(c) ?? journalist Yuriy Butusov#StandWithUkraine #RussiaGoHome pic.twitter.com/t9isinl0I9

— olexander scherba?? (@olex_scherba) March 6, 2022

are just copium that we all need, because eventually we will see the horror of the bombing of ukrainian cities, that we know is happening and will probably only get worse

The story of those three policemen would seem to back up the idea that some Russian soldiers are sabotaging their own gear so they can stop fighting. The video of a destroyed Russian gun battery with no bodies in it might also back that up.

Interview with 3 captured Russian Police Senior Officers.

Very interesting – with subtitles

If (IF!) this is real, it is huge. I’ll need to be convinced though- if nothing else how did they manage to set up a slick looking press conference when their dep. prime minister has to make do with sitting in front of a bunch of sand bags?! 🤔 I massively support Ukraine and really want this to be true but there is so much bull flying around (on both sides!) I’m very suspicious of everything until it’s confirmed by a reliable source (pretty much the BBC right now..)

And the Chinese are going to drive a hard bargain if Putin wants them to help him out.

I thought Saddam denied having WMDs throughout? Or am I remembering that wrong?