Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[BaldAndMorallyBankrupt]

To get this cleared beforehand, I will post my biases. I generally hope that Russia will choke on Ukraine. The relationship between Russia and the US is far too poisoned now for any sort of anti-Chinese alliance to happen within a generation. All that said, Ukraine *is* losing, be how much and how hard is very difficult to determine, and in my own personal opinion, the situation looks extremely grim for the Ukrainian state.

I'm going to post much of what we can really can and have learned about the war and technical capabilities. Which is to say, not very much.

We have an extremely hard time judging Russian performance because of several factors:
1. Russian OPSEC being extremely tight for front/war footage. A person can tell a great difference between main Russian forces and the breakaway republic forces by the gulf of informational difference being put out by the two groups.
2. We don't know original and current Russian war aims. Any claim of "the Russians are performing well below their own expectations" is (at best) unverifiable.
3. It's a fucking ongoing war. The only people who are going to have a decent idea of what is going on is the respective force commanders, and even they are going to be getting a seriously flawed picture of both their own, and enemy forces.

So what can we glean?

1. The Javelin seems to penetrate every piece of armor it has successfully hit. Infantry carried weapons have utility against even the heaviest armor.

2. Drone warfare capabilities seem to outstrip capabilities of shooting them down. This is not a problem unique to Russia by any means. The Saudi's being equipped quite well with US AA systems have had quite a bit of trouble with drones relatively primitive drones. The Israelis have some issues as well despite having the densest, most advances air-defense in the middle east, against 70s era tech Iranian drones.

3. Helicopter gunships of the Mi-* series seem to be increasingly outmoded and irrelevant deathtraps for the combat roll. It seems like they have been effectively grounded on both sides because of the strong SHORAD capabilities of both sides.

4.Russian heavy forces still made up of upgraded mid-late cold war equipment. This really doesn't surprise, as much the overwhelming amount of the Russian defense budget for the better part of the last decade went to updating and upgrading Russian nuclear capabilities. The remaining budget couldn't cover the cost of both large scale production of new equipment and maintaining force readiness. It reminds me a lot of the 1970s US "Hollow Force" problems.

5. Given the near complete lack of propaganda footage of Ukrainian armored forces, it appears safe to assume that their armored forces have been largely irrelevant or performing very poorly. Also rather expected, Tanks don't do well if you don't have the capability to heavily contest the air-war.

6.Despite heavy Russian air advantage, Ukrainian drone capabilities seem able to continue operations at some level.

7. Russian doctrine and military still rely heavily upon artillery capability and support.

_
Beyond the above, what do we know? not much, and even the above is quite subject to change.

I wouldn't trust any stat or claim in regards to combat efficiency of any given piece of equipment until there's been a thorough after action investigation of it. In every conflict since the 20th century there have been claims of "this is an uberweapon" or "that is an unterweapon".

When the conflict in Armenia started there was a lot of talk of the BK2 being so shit that even Armenia's old soviet AA systems were swatting them down by the dozens. Then after an investigation it turned out that they were actually quite effective, which doesn't surprise me considering they were going against Armenia's under equipped, under staffed, under maintained and likely under trained Air Defense Force.

Now people are doing the same thing but in reverse saying that the BK2 is annihilating ground units without contest. Even though modern Russian AA easily reaches the altitudes the BK2 operates in and the Russians have been welding ZU-23Ms to everything. So i reckon their combat effectiveness rating is gonna take a dip.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Javelins and NLAWs turn out to be over rated too. While theres plenty of footage of them destroying Russian tanks there's also a tonne of footage of clearly hit Russian tanks operating just fine. That's with tanks that don't seem to have any countermeasures either mind you, except maybe the cage armor.

The Ukranian armored forces are probably eating a lot of shit though, i agree with that especially considering they were mid modernization and a lot of their tank commanders hadn't even had their balls drop yet before being put in the commander seat.

Regardless something always gets through, a drone, a jet, an artillery shell, a helicopter. Failure is inevitable in war, no matter how big or small.

 

[tehpope]

View attachment 3065355

lmao the white house isnt even paying tik tok propagandists

 

[Mr Bunny]

A popular consensus in my IRL social circle is that Putin is planning to take everything along his border and maybe beyond. Also that Russian planes have been in the air space of places like Poland and Finland. That doesn't seem like his MO. Thoughts?

Don't know about Poland, last I know Finland and Russia can fly their planes in their respective nations but I think Finland put an end to it years ago.

Russia probing airspace is their MO, the Bongs deal with it alot.

 

[karadion]

Do the Russians have any sort of AWACs equivalent?

Seems like they doing this old school and just sending out planes on individual missions and return.

In a recent video released by their MOD, the SU-35 fired a missile while flying about cloud cover iirc.

Either they don't want to cause collateral damage or really don't know what to bomb to really hurt the holhols, who I am sure are hiding a lot of stuff.

Yes, they have their own version of AWAC's but they do not want to fly into Ukrainian airspace. The problem with using AWAC's is that they make themselves visible on the spectrum so it could give time to the Ukrainians to deploy anti-air assets. NATO's E-3's no doubt tracking them and relaying through their partners to relay to Ukraine about possible strikes in a given location. Meanwhile they do have two of the A-50's situated at Baranavichy in Belarus. https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1502385845503934465 Amusingly the E-3's can see them and apparently Russia is trying to jam the E-3's but I guess haven't had much success? https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/politics/nato-surveillance-flight-russia-belarus/index.html

 

[MrJokerRager]

A popular consensus in my IRL social circle is that Putin is planning to take everything along his border and maybe beyond. Also that Russian planes have been in the air space of places like Poland and Finland. That doesn't seem like his MO. Thoughts?

Russia has been doing that stuff before and even flew planes close to the United Kingdom.

However the Russians are usually more into subversion rather than outright intervention until Syria forced their hand in intervening.

Putin doesn't have the manpower like the old Soviet Union did in being able to invade multiple nations but he will keep on using psyops to bully them.

 

[Aidan]

They're not using their most modern jets because they have six of the damned things in inventory.

Battalion of T-14s coming to a Ukraine near you! Soon

A popular consensus in my IRL social circle is that Putin is planning to take everything along his border and maybe beyond. Also that Russian planes have been in the air space of places like Poland and Finland. That doesn't seem like his MO. Thoughts?

There is no way Russian planes are flying in NATO air space, that would be the end of Putin. Your social circle is gobbling up fake news I think.

edit: Realized as soon as I posted that they're probably reading stuff that is beating the war drum over routine flights near the edge of air space. Russia has done this since Stalin and still does it. They buzzed a US Navy ship a few years ago.
It's pretty normal inter-military shitposting basically. The US does this a lot too.

 

[karadion]

A popular consensus in my IRL social circle is that Putin is planning to take everything along his border and maybe beyond. Also that Russian planes have been in the air space of places like Poland and Finland. That doesn't seem like his MO. Thoughts?

Given where Poland is situated from mainland Russia, are you perhaps referring to commercial flights flying out of Kaliningrad flying via the Baltic Sea to mainland Russia?

 

[Random Internet Person]

Russia stock market still closed, it's been closed since Feb 25th. Russia Communist redemption arc?
View attachment 3065352

Spoiler: Archive

https://web.archive.org/web/20220311054216/https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-09/card/russia-s-stock-market-to-remain-closed-friday-5cYz4qNGZxz81hW1C1iy

How is communism a redemption arc?

 

[Simpadoo]

Torba to his credit hates the US government and congress and corporations and Zionists more than Russia and China at this moment and for understandable reasons.

He’s got the Jew mass shooting to prove it too.

 

[Octavia]

6.Despite heavy Russian air advantage, Ukrainian drone capabilities seem able to continue operations at some level.

The reason for this is that most drones (I only know of the GlobalHawk and a Shenyang being jet powered) are small propeller craft with STOL or VTOL capabilities. Gets rid of a lot of pesky radar signature I imagine. Easy to slip in, drop a hellfire and slip out again.

 

[CashMoney!]

Given where Poland is situated from mainland Russia, are you perhaps referring to commercial flights flying out of Kaliningrad flying via the Baltic Sea to mainland Russia?

Not sure, just wanted to share common opinions I'm hearing in NZ. It's like an alternate reality divorced from rational thought when I engage people in conversation about this. Putin is literally Hitler at this point here. I'm going to shoot myself if I hear democracy one more time. A friend of mine I was talking with just now said America should have bombed Russia as soon as they sent a tank across the border. Wtf.

For the record, I understand Putin's reasoning and I don't blame him for being pissed, I really feel for all of the civilians displaced from this, but ultimately Ukraine had a duty to be neutral.

 

[Disheveled Human]

Also that Russian planes have been in the air space of places like Poland and Finland. That doesn't seem like his MO. Thoughts?

If Russia flies into anywhere that has a no-fly zone its a free kill. It would be 100% justified and could be used as aggression to all out attack them if need be, It is possible the west would let it fly and not press it but it would be stupid to even take that chance from the Russians perspective, Russias plate is pretty full with Ukraine.

 

[Aidan]

A friend of mine I was talking with just now said America should have bombed Russia as soon as they sent a tank across the border. Wtf.

NOT YOUR PERSONAL ARMY FAGGOT!

 

[Octavia]

Not sure, just wanted to share common opinions I'm hearing in NZ. It's like an alternate reality divorced from rational thought when I engage people in conversation about this. Putin is literally Hitler at this point here. I'm going to shoot myself if I hear democracy one more time. A friend of mine I was talking with just now said America should have bombed Russia as soon as they sent a tank across the border. Wtf.

For the record, I understand Putin's reasoning and I don't blame him for being pissed, I really feel for all of the civilians displaced from this, but ultimately Ukraine had a duty to be neutral.

Shit's fucking crazy. I'm in Bongland and my mother tells me that Ukraine shelling innocent civilians for the last 8 years is just a putin misinfo psyop. I swear boomers willingly buy into the propaganda just out of sheer nostalgia for the cold war right now, there's no way the propaganda is THAT convincing.

 

[CashMoney!]

NOT YOUR PERSONAL ARMY FAGGOT!

No, but it's worth noting the variety of opinion from "normal" people that watch the news 24/7 about this.

 

[Sammich]

You might find it interesting that RaidForums, one of the biggest clearnet hacking forums got seized right after this popped off. It's alleged that the FBI is running a honeypot to harvest logins. I wonder if the US is trying to somehow impede Russian hackers from accessing information.

https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/177441/rf-hacked-or-seized-after-banned-russian-telegram-disappeared

oh shit, i got so much good stuff from there.

 

[Getting tard comed]

Shit's fucking crazy. I'm in Bongland and my mother tells me that Ukraine shelling innocent civilians for the last 8 years is just a putin misinfo psyop. I swear boomers willingly buy into the propaganda just out of sheer nostalgia for the cold war right now, there's no way the propaganda is THAT convincing.

You won't do this, but I recommend reading Aristotle's Rhetoric. In it he states(quite accurately imo) that for some people(most imo) no amount of actual information will change their mind. They are governed by their emotions and will only change their minds based on a severe emotional stimuli. Dealing with people gets a lot easier once you accept this.

 

[Disheveled Human]

Not sure, just wanted to share common opinions I'm hearing in NZ. It's like an alternate reality divorced from rational thought when I engage people in conversation about this. Putin is literally Hitler at this point here. I'm going to shoot myself if I hear democracy one more time. A friend of mine I was talking with just now said America should have bombed Russia as soon as they sent a tank across the border. Wtf.

For the record, I understand Putin's reasoning and I don't blame him for being pissed, I really feel for all of the civilians displaced from this, but ultimately Ukraine had a duty to be neutral.

Personally I think the day that the USSR lost Ukraine was the day they were planning at some point to take it back. Imagine if Texas successfully claimed independence and the US 30 years later was like nah its cool bro you do your own thing, its doubtful. They would be doing what they have to, to retake it whether it be through force or through diplomacy. So imo Ukrainian invasion from Russia was not a will but when. No wonder they wanted to join NATO.

 

[mario if smoke weed]

Sounds to me like Russia should look into terraforming or something, considering they have ALL THE LAND. That's like saying the USA needs more land. It's funny as hell.

Exactly. Russia dude what are you doing just use your land better, you don't need to take anything else and nobody will hate you and want to cut you off since you aren't invading.

And yet they won't blink an eye if Xi the pooh did the same thing if it was China.

You watch, the libs are going to pull some major mental gymnastics when China does the thing with Taiwan. We can do without Russia for a bit but one day without China for America is like one day without being trashy for Ethan Ralph. Not gonna happen.

 

[AGPinochet]

Would be curious to see what Russian EOD

Russian EOD is decently competent, they gained a lot of experience in Syria and even issue real deal no shit Exoskeletons (that actually work because they are not powered)

To sperg about Russian Exoskeletons a bit, for whatever reason they are faring much better at developing them than us Americans are, they are also fucking cheap ($3500-4500 IIRC per unit).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/08/19/why-russian-military-exoskeletons-are-not-science-fiction/?sh=14d1e339648d

https://soldiersystems.net/2017/08/02/operational-use-of-russian-k2-exoskeleton/

Now lets hope the images do not fuck up