Ukraine vs Russia III

Aged like milk, this one did

Gatez for AG, Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Hegseth and Sec Def.

I mean, what the fcuk? Fcuk this but what the fcuking fcuk?

 

Hmm…not sure I agree with you here. Struggling to understand why Putin wouldn’t accept this.

it’s the most he will ever be able to achieve by force…even without US support of Ukraine. By agreeing to a trump plan that he knows neither the Ukrainians nor the French and germans will ever agree to…he accelerates the eventual schism between the Us and Western Europe. And on the off chance they and the Ukrainians agree to it…see point one.

 

Yes, because nations can't join NATO while there is conflict within their borders. It's part of the reason Russia took bits of Georgia and Moldova. Also note how Russia escalated every time Ukraine seemed to be getting the upper hand in the "civil war" - they had no intention of getting kicked out of there.

 

Russia has a massive war film industry. Like in the United States, examples of obsolete weapon systems are in private hands and are used as movie props. Just on a larger scale.

But unlike the United States, the Russian government (in fact, Putin himself) asked Mosfilm for the equipment back because they need it. Twenty eight T-55 tanks and six PT-76 (hopelessly obsolete but some in-use vehicles are based on the same chassis) are moving from the movie lots to the front.

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/11/...ne-nachala-voevat-natehnike-smosfilma-a147597

This is a pretty desperate move. The war movie industry is a cornerstone of Russian propaganda to their own people. I guess everyone is just going to have to accept cheap computer effects.

 

The war in Ukraine is the only thing standing between Vladimir Putin and death. He has completely retooled the Russian economy to be about war production, sacrificing civilian-economy growth to churn out 40 shitty tanks and aircraft a month. Converting this wartime economy back to a civilian one is going to be impossible in the short term and difficult in the medium term, even if things in Russia were going well. Further, when the war ends, there will be a need for the two million people he's killed (between COVID and the war) to plug gaps in the workforce and produce the next generation of Russians.

There's no way he ends this war voluntarily. The Russian elite would rather lose 2,000 men a day, each day, for a decade, in meat grinder attacks to assault tiny villages, than end the war and have to do the actual work of rebuilding their collapsing society.

 

It is so dire. It is so depressing how empowering just a few terrible assholes can wreak so much havoc.

I will now excuse myself back to the gloom and despair thread.

 

Any society can stop this from happening. Americans can protest at the first major stupid thing Trump does and force him out of office. Current consensus in academia is you need approximately 3-5 percent of society actively protesting in the streets, continuously for several days/weeks, to force any government out of power.

Russians want to be treated this way. So who are we to stop them?

 

The Russian offensive on the Kursk salient is heavy and continuous, but results are poor. There have been 88 confirmed by video armor loses since it started on the 5th and in that time they've only recaptured two tiny farm towns. I'm sure Putin desperately wants this area back before it becomes a bargaining chip in the Trump era.

Because of the nature of the area and the disposition of the front, Ukrainian tanks (of every Western type) are being heavily used in exactly the kind of combat they were designed for and are responsible for a large share of Russian losses.

 

This is a picture of multiple North Korean M1989 'Koksan' 170 mm self-propelled guns on a train. The picture was taken in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.



North Korea must be getting something really good from Russia. They are moving all in.

 

Not true, despite those area being industrial, they took in more federal money than they produced. Coal was being heavily subsidized by Ukrainian government.

Ukrainian viability these days is agriculture that is mostly concentrated in Northern, central, and Western part of Ukraine.

 

Mmm, just scan each one from every angle and with AI you don't need them on the set anymore.

 

Link?

 

One Ukrainian Leopard tank vs a Russian column means many dead Russians and an unscathed Leopard.

Donetsk Oblast, a Ukrainian Leopard 2A6 MBT ambushed a Russian push on the town of Dalnje, sending over a dozen accurate 120mm rounds into a column of Russian tanks and IFVs. pic.twitter.com/7vuSUj2bKI

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) November 13, 2024

BTW, I deleted my Twitter account and moved to Bluesky, so going forward most of my posts going forward will likely use Bluesky unless I'm pulling the links off of other posts. Like the above is from Quaoar on DailyKos who, IMHO, is one of the better aggregators out there.

 

The EU Parliament passed a resolution demanding sanctions be applied to Russia's large shadow fleet of oil tankers. It is estimated that this shadow fleet transports about 62% of Russia's oil exports and allows them to get around the $60 cap the G7 applied to Russian oil sales at the start of the war.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/11...nds-crackdown-on-russias-shadow-tanker-fleet/

Most of this fleet is owned by Greek shipping companies, so if there were sanctions, it could have a serious impact on Greece's economy.

 

Russia has started adding drone cages to their quadcopter recon drones.

https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3laylbzd4pk2n

 

A Russian has found thousands of Russian MIAs.. In a massive grave in the Donetsk region. As a reminder, Russia's MOD has a firm "no body, no payout" for KIAs.

https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3layek63b6k24

Speaking of which.. The story of a wounded Russian soldier about what it is like when you are wounded during an attempted advance.

https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3laviyvwrks24

 

It used to be, but Russia bought them outright. One of the main reasons Russia's oil delivery is highly variable is the unreliability of these past-the-end-of-their-commercial-lives ships.

 

More civil unrest in Georgia, this time in the breakaway region of Abhkazia. The self-proclaimed President of the region pushed through an investment law that favored Russian investors. This angered the locals and they have apparently forced the “president” to flee to a Russian base.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/11/15/europe/protesters-abkhazia-georgia-russia-parliament-intl

Even if the protestors succeed in their demand the “president” resign, don’t expect them to turn away from Russia. The opposition is still very much pro-Russian and the protestors have made a point to separate themselves from anti-Russians

 

There's something serious going on with Russian rail right now. Two large container terminals serving Moscow are totally full and are refusing new shipments for 10 days. Rails shipments now often take a month, sometimes even two to get to their destinations. There is an ever increasing problem with lack of locomotives and especially crews. Another problem is that containers come in but nothing Russia sells to other nations (that is, food and raw materials) need them so they pile up.

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/11/...pneishii-terminal-moskovskogo-regiona-a147862

 

After two months of saving up their missiles, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine last night, sending 120 missiles and 90 drones of all kinds, mostly aimed at Ukraine's power infrastructure.