Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[avfc1982am]

Fires have started again. It's not even summer yet. 

[villa89]

54 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'm not hoping for that. 

Civil war in a nation that has nuclear weapons is not a good thing. They will go missing. 

I don't think it will be a civil war in the true sense, it will be a political war to try to seize power. I can't see private armies fighting each other on the streets in Russia. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by villa89

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Yes.  It was called Brexit.  

Not our problem.  

I genuinely think Brexit voters would think that. They’re not the deepest of thinkers. 

[sidcow]

20 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

They might do missing. But its unlikely they could be used in a devastating way.  

Nukes are difficult to maintain.  At least a quarter of the UK's nukes are unoperational at any time.  They are also very difficult to prime and make ready for detonation. 

If nukes were easy to detonate it wouldn't have taken the world's greatest minds so long to work out how to do it.  

The main risk is that the material inside would be spread around by a dirty bomb.  But you could do exactly the same thing with material from your local hospital.  

Hollywood has created a perception that nukes are housed in steel boxes, have a visible countdown clock and are activated by a switch. 

 

 

Dirty bombs is exactly what I was thinking. 

But one or more sides may well still have the scientists / military operators on side anyway. 

Hopefully it's more like Ukraine who gave up their nukes as they knew they couldn't operate / maintain them. 

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, villa89 said:

I don't think it will be a civil war in the true sense, it will be a political war to try to seize power. I can't see private armies fighting each other on the streets in Russia. 

You need to ask yourself why so many people are forming private armies right now. It's not just Wagner, theres Kadyrov and a fair few others even Shiogu has one. Let that sink in, the Russian Defence Minister has formed and is recruiting his own private army (Patriot) and is fighting in the Donbas area too

[bickster]

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

43 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Dirty bombs is exactly what I was thinking. 

But one or more sides may well still have the scientists / military operators on side anyway. 

Hopefully it's more like Ukraine who gave up their nukes as they knew they couldn't operate / maintain them. 

They would need to retain the weapon, the expertise, the knowledge, the equipment, the spare parts, lots of cash,  people AND somewhere to keep them where the US couldn't intervene.  

It's possible but the more people involved the less likely it will succeed. 

 

 

[bickster]

Contract signed for the delivery of a large number of these to Ukraine (paid for by Germany built in UK / Germany by Pearson and FFG

Seeing that coming is enough to scare the shit out of any mobik

Spoiler

It's a NATO proven full width mine plough, designed to make clear pathways through minefields

 

[sidcow]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Contract signed for the delivery of a large number of these to Ukraine (paid for by Germany built in UK / Germany by Pearson and FFG

Seeing that coming is enough to scare the shit out of any mobik

  Hide contents

It's a NATO proven full width mine plough, designed to make clear pathways through minefields

 

Bullshit. 

That's just a close up of a bedbug. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by sidcow

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, bickster said:

Contract signed for the delivery of a large number of these to Ukraine (paid for by Germany built in UK / Germany by Pearson and FFG

Seeing that coming is enough to scare the shit out of any mobik

  Hide contents

It's a NATO proven full width mine plough, designed to make clear pathways through minefields

 

Wrong thread dude.

 

[magnkarl]

9 hours ago, bickster said:

Contract signed for the delivery of a large number of these to Ukraine (paid for by Germany built in UK / Germany by Pearson and FFG

Seeing that coming is enough to scare the shit out of any mobik

  Reveal hidden contents

It's a NATO proven full width mine plough, designed to make clear pathways through minefields

 

What's that coming over the hill is it a monster, monster?!

[magnkarl]

10 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Do you think we have a contingency plan for how many refugees we take when a quarter of a million starving disillusioned Russians start walking westward?

The thing is Russia as a country, even without all its Eastern territories and the Caucasus, is still the main producer of food in the world. They might be disillusioned, but they shouldn't be hungry. Russia is a country where aid should be easy enough compared to desert countries like Afghanistan or Iraq where there's very little chance of them generating their own food.

If\when Russia reforms, the first thing (after removing nukes) one should look at is to repatriate large farms from oligarchs and enable farmers to sell their own crops. They have the means and the know-how to produce food.

[magnkarl]

13 hours ago, bickster said:

Nah there's months and months of this to go yet. There'll be advances and wins for Ukraine but even with the new tanks the only way it will be over relatively quickly is Russian capitulation

I hope that does happen but I can't see it.

I along with others here really do think they'll begin to punch a hole southwards to the sea through Melitopol and Mariupol whilst just holding the Donbas front. That will have a number of effects

It will split the Russians into two separate fractured groups

It will cut the supply lines to those west of the hole and Crimea.Once they've done that or even whilst they are doing that, attempt to properly take out the Kerch Bridge. That cuts off any land supply to Crimea and makes it very hard to supply those troops to the west of the hole

That will have a huge negative effect on Russian moral on top of the huge logistics problem of resupplying Crimea

It would eventually force the Black Sea fleet back to mainland Russia too

Going back to the Kerch Bridge I'm failry dure if they do reach the sea, the bridge is then in HIMARS range and vitually the only way to supply Crimea would be by sea acorss the Kerch Straight because shipping in the Sea of Azov and the near Black Sea would absolutely be in Ukrainian range, the same would also be true of most Crimean airfields

Russia may have no option but to abandon Crimea. It may be impossible for them to be there. Many thousands of troops could be isolated. This would be no retreat from Kherson situation

I think the core central Donabas area will be the last to be liberated

 

That is just my inner armchair general speaking and it isn't based on any knowledge or information I've read

 

I'll throw my armchair general theory into this too.

I think the next main thrust will be two pronged, likely one quick armoured assault to Melitopol to pull resources away from the Donbas and panic the Russians, and then a good old Kharkiv offensive style encirclement of Svatove, a drive into Luhansk to cut off Rubizhne, Kreminna (if it hasn't fallen by then) and our two favourite cities where Kadyrov lost all his combat effectiveness in Sieverodonetsk and Lysychans'k. The build up around Svatove and Kreminna has gone on for a month or so now, something is in the offing there. For NATO this must be interesting as they'll be able to pick Russian formations apart in real time to look for that soft underbelly. Russian lines are hard at the front and extremely soft if you get a bit further in.

In the last two offensives you could essentially see where Ukraine was going to go based on where the KRAB and PzH2000's were stationed, and reports are fairly dead cert that Luhansk has a fair few 155mm artillery rounds coming their way these days. It'll also be an area which is better suited to armoured warfare earlier than the steppes down South due to it being more hilly.

Word from the front is that Russia lost over 3000 soldiers yesterday trying to storm positions around Orikhiv, Huliapole and Vuhledar, the Russians are panicking just from the news of tanks. Look below at yesterday's numbers, Russia is burning through their mobiks at an unsustainable rate.

Edited January 26, 2023 by magnkarl

[ender4]

Is Ukraine really getting enough tanks in the next few weeks to be able to do anything useful with them and break the stalemate?  
 

If they arrive a few at a time over the next 4 months is that enough to change anything?

[Genie]

This explains a bit why the sun is a bit of a bellend

Quote

Novak Djokovic's father Srdjan has been filmed posing for pictures with supporters of Russia president Vladimir Putin at the Australian Open.

Srdjan Djokovic was pictured with a man who was holding a Russian flag carrying Putin's face, and wearing a T-shirt printed with the pro-war Z symbol.

Link

Edited January 26, 2023 by Genie

[magnkarl]

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

Mathis explains a bit why the sun is a bit of a bellend

Link

I have no idea why Djokovic isn't shipped home. He's one of sports most unsavory characters. Anti-vaxx, pro-Russian, pro-Serbian wars, Putin-shill.

[delboy54]

19 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The thing is Russia as a country, even without all its Eastern territories and the Caucasus, is still the main producer of food in the world. They might be disillusioned, but they shouldn't be hungry. Russia is a country where aid should be easy enough compared to desert countries like Afghanistan or Iraq where there's very little chance of them generating their own food.

If\when Russia reforms, the first thing (after removing nukes) one should look at is to repatriate large farms from oligarchs and enable farmers to sell their own crops. They have the means and the know-how to produce food.

Yeah I agree with this, we only have to look at what happens if you punish a country for starting a war. The allies of WW1 severely punished Germany causing resentment and the seeding for WW2.

I think it's a difficult path though it seemed to work better at the end of WW2 when the allies took a more active role in helping Germany recover.

However it will be difficult for a western democracy to help Russia, since there is so much mistrust over generations, as Russians have been governed by dictators and Tsars for centuries - it will be a very difficult transition for "normal" Russian people. Correct if I am wrong but when Yeltsin was in charge and the new Russia tasted a form of democracy all the government owned stuff was sold at a knock down price to corrupt businessmen who then became fabulously wealthy oligarchs ....

As for importing western style democracy I am sure that won't work....look at Afganistan.....

[magnkarl]

27 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

Yeah I agree with this, we only have to look at what happens if you punish a country for starting a war. The allies of WW1 severely punished Germany causing resentment and the seeding for WW2.

I think it's a difficult path though it seemed to work better at the end of WW2 when the allies took a more active role in helping Germany recover.

However it will be difficult for a western democracy to help Russia, since there is so much mistrust over generations, as Russians have been governed by dictators and Tsars for centuries - it will be a very difficult transition for "normal" Russian people. Correct if I am wrong but when Yeltsin was in charge and the new Russia tasted a form of democracy all the government owned stuff was sold at a knock down price to corrupt businessmen who then became fabulously wealthy oligarchs ....

As for importing western style democracy I am sure that won't work....look at Afganistan.....

Germany had mistrusted the allies since forever in WW2. It's now one of the worlds leading democracies. That said, I'm sure China will want a say in what happens on their border. I only see this ending in a total fragmentation of Russia, where the Eastern territories become Mongolia-light countries and only the old heartland of Russia remains Russia. Caucasus will end up being many smaller nations like they originally were.

[villa89]

9 hours ago, magnkarl said:

That said, I'm sure China will want a say in what happens on their border. 

I don't think they will get one given their lack of intervention in this war and the fact the Chinese companies are supplying Russia. I'm sure they will try to throw their weight around but the west should tell them where to go. Maybe they can get some of there disputed terrorities they think they own back from Russia as a way to placate them. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by villa89

[magnkarl]

Yesterday Russia hit a Turkish ship in Mykolayiv, today Turkey does this. Coincidence?