Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[Toothpaste]

You see, that would be an issue if Russians were invading fucking Ugandans or something. But we're talking about Russians and Ukrainians here. Yes, there would be some unrest in the first months, but from there, Ukrainians will just accept the occupation. On top of that, ~13% of Ukraine is just straight-up Russian.

Do you really think Russia and Ukraine are that different? They have the same alphabet, the same naming customs, the same architecture (I mean just look up photos of Moscow and "kYiv" and compare), the same religion (Orthodox Christianity), among many other things.

Both countries are corrupt, yes, but I'd rather be ruled by a country that has existed for longer since their gov't would have to be more stable.

The thing is, you might have been correct a hundred years ago. Hell, you might have been mostly correct ten years ago. However, a lot has changed after that.

Most Russians think as you do. Ukraine is a country full of people who are exactly the same as them. Things have changed quite a bit in the last few years, however. I already know Russian speaking Ukrainian expats who, even before the invasion, hated Russia and Russians more than anything. After the invasion, they will not be the same people any more than North and South Koreans are the same people.

There has already been a lot of bad blood festering between Ukraine and Russia after 2014. If you think about how the people in the Donbas have felt that they have suffered due to the Ukrainian bombing (leading Russia to call it genocide), the Ukrainians on the other side have also suffered similarly due to the Russian bombing and skirmishes from Donbas. Once the invasion started, the Russians lost the Ukrainians for generations. One does not forget your own brother stabbing you in the back. Especially not now when the Ukrainians all have guns.

Also note, that the Russians and other orthodox people are no longer part of the same communion after the orthodox schism of 2018, where the Holy Synod of Constantinople declared the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as its own church. This led the Russian orthodox church to cut its ties with the Patriarch of Constantinople and several other extant Orthodox churches. The Ukrainian question has essentially separated the Orthodox church in two. Currently about half of the churches and 1/4 of the clergy in Ukraine consider themselves part of the new autocephalous Ukrainian Church, not as an autonomous part of the Moscow Patriarchate. However, even the Metropolitan Onuphrus, the head of the Ukrainian Church that considers itself led from Moscow, has declared that the Russian attack on Ukraine is akin to the "sin of Cain, who killed his brother out of envy" and describes the Ukrainian soldiers as "(people) fulfilling their duty to defend the Motherland."

TLDR: The Russians would probably have an easier time occupying Uganda than Ukraine.

 

[Octavia]

Since both Russia and Ukraine have started to take foreign fighters which side do you all think will have better foreign volunteer troops? The Russians are apparently getting most of the people from the Middle East while I imagine Ukraine has more ex-soldiers from countries in the West.

Russia. All of the west's mercenaries will either be soyboys who fell for the meme and are there for updoots (and will swiftly be captured, put on trial, and spend the rest of their days in a siberian gulag), or they're fat and old ex soldiers.
Russia has battle-tested Syrians and chad Central African warlords.

 

[AnOminous]

Basically a mast with a bunch of microphones to figure out the direction enemy fire was coming from and counter ambushes. IIRC, they were never really deployed in significant numbers, though.

I believe these are more useful when they can be installed permanently in urban locations and used to deal with things like mass shooter situations. Gunfire coming from several different directions is going to be a lot harder to parse usefully.

 

[Aidan]

In the book Seeing Like a State, by James C. Scott, he coined the term Métis to describe insight gained from practical experience. The Russian military may have firepower, but it seems that they lack insight into what it actually takes to field a modern military. All of that equipment is completely useless without tactical knowledge and willpower.

After seeing that video of that Russian armored column ambushed at very close range by Ukrainians with rockets, I was surprised to see their response. They panicked, fleeing to the opposite side of the road. They should have counter-assaulted immediately, especially considering how close their attackers were. The Ukrainian anti-tank soldier units were positioned less than a hundred meters off the side of the road. Not on an elevation, or anything. They had no real cover, either. They would have been extremely vulnerable to suppressive fire. Sometimes, in the chaos of an ambush, it's difficult to tell where the rockets are coming from.

Real rockets are nothing like in video games. Your typical video game rocket launcher fires a glowing orb that travels about 30 meters per second. You can almost outrun it on foot. A real RPG-7 or RPG-29 round is extremely fast. They start off at about 100 meters per second and quickly accelerate to the same velocity as a 9mm handgun bullet.

At short range, fire and impact are simultaneous, as this Afghan dude demonstrates:

They have a bit of a ballistic arc, but they can be used to hit point targets a few hundred meters away, and area targets easily 800 meters away, but you have to elevate them a bit. I once made a personal mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. that made the RPG realistic. Tweaked a few projectile speed/drop variables and replaced the sound effects with real RPG sounds I got off YouTube vids. It made RPG-wielding enemies absolutely terrifying.

Anyway, the most important thing in an ambush is quickly identifying the direction that enemy fire is coming from and suppressing with all your might. There were some fancy pieces of gear that first started showing up a couple decades ago. Acoustic gunfire locators.

View attachment 3065448

Basically a mast with a bunch of microphones to figure out the direction enemy fire was coming from and counter ambushes. IIRC, they were never really deployed in significant numbers, though.

T-72s are pretty antiquated and outmatched by modern anti-armor weapons. You know, the T-72 is only like 41 to 44 tons, depending on the variant. It does not have anything like the armor on the Abrams. Even with ERA, the roof is still vulnerable to top-attack missiles like Javelin or Bill 2.

During the first Desert Storm, Iraqi T-72s had their shit absolutely pushed in by Abrams tanks.

I haven't even seen a hint of Russia's supposed latest tech. No Armata tanks. Nothing. They're using truly ancient hardware. Not only that, apparently, high-ranking Russian officers are being killed one after another because they aren't using battlefield encryption to mask their communications at all.

At first, I thought Russia would steamroll Kiev in a matter of a couple days or so, but it seems like they're getting bogged down. It's so difficult to tell exactly what the hell is going on over there, because both sides are lying and bolstering their respective causes with propaganda. All we know for certain is that the Russian encirclement and siege of key Ukrainian cities is continuing, however, Russia seem to be stalling unexpectedly. With the humanitarian corridors, they may be giving civilians a chance to evacuate, to avoid a bloodbath.

Everything about all of this is very odd. I don't think we'll have accurate casualty figures for either side for quite some time. I can't really offer any analysis because the signal-to-noise ratio here is so damn poor. It's all just noise right now.

tl;dr russians are poorly trained with shit gear

 

[mr.moon1488]

What's the point of stealing a really big boat and then not crashing it into something?

Fair point.

 

[MrJokerRager]

Ukraine since their ground force wasn't really in good shape to begin with, so they'll definitely ask for good foreign fighters, like ex-military (or PMCs) from the US or Britain. Due to their propaganda machine, I have no doubt that they'll attract a lot of them to their country like moths to a light

Since both Russia and Ukraine have started to take foreign fighters which side do you all think will have better foreign volunteer troops? The Russians are apparently getting most of the people from the Middle East while I imagine Ukraine has more ex-soldiers from countries in the West.

Well I think the muzzies will be better because they been fighting for a while against stronger retards.

I am surprised that Azov and Zelensky knew Russia forces were right there and set no IEDs or booby traps.

It's like they learned nothing from how the Taliban stunned America in Afghanistan. And how modern insurgents in the GWOT era use it as the number one tool of choice against a superior foe.

Convinceing civies to make molotovs cocktails are like some coping mechanism since they don't hurt modern MBTs.

A couple of IEDs and Russian advances would have been very slow when lord knows where are the IEDs hidden in those muddy roads.

They would have to sacrifice cannon fodder to detect them.

I guess they unironically expected to join NATO and not realizing Biden is a snake and Putin just went lolno.

And looking at all of those Zs, seems like Putin was like invade now and they ran to store and bought every spray can possible.

 

[ForTheHoard]

Look at this fucking thing, Poor slavs in Russia starving so these faggots can afford this type of luxury lol.
View attachment 3065360

This is a bad symbol for the message you're trying to spread. That might be one of the coolest boats I've ever seen. That's an incredible incentive for a man to try hard at life, and I'm a little envious of those able to afford such extravagant toys.

What the average person hates about oligarchs is the money they spend to directly subvert the will of the people. Nobody really gave a shit about Bill Gates back in the early 90's. Most people envied him. He was a dorky college dropout that kind of scammed the system and got lucky in a lawsuit against a big, powerful company. In a lot of ways that was the American dream, and a lot of middle class people related to the semi-humble beginnings thing. Now that he's a major financier of the world elite, everybody hates him because he spends a lot of that money on manipulating politics and fucking people over for his basement dwelling vision of a tech utopia.

If Bill Gates wasted a billion dollars making a totally functional bat-mobile, it would be the only thing people liked about him.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

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.

Plato is good too, especially the Allegory of the Cave

This means every bank account, stock exchange, crypo wallet, website, and any appliance plugged into the electrical grid gets immediately fried. We're talking trillions of dollars in damage if even one of their nukes gets off a national EMP.

wtf love Russia now

I haven't even seen a hint of Russia's supposed latest tech

You not see tank now tovarishch, tank will see you.

 

[Rezza]

Disagree on the AA part, AA isn't only meant to take down aircraft but is also supposed to serve as a deterrent to aircraft, if an AA system is forcing the enemy to use it's Airforce significantly less than it can, it's doing it's job, and the Russian Airforce has basically been MIA for the most part for the last week. A significant amount of the "bombings" seem to actually be artillery fire. The Stingers also seem to be just as much as a nightmare to Russian helicopters as they were to them in Afghanistan.

We are not seeing much of the Russian Air Force these days because they're switching to nighttime missions now. The air strikes on Ukrainian western cities were conducted on nighttime as well

 

[XYZpdq]

On this dark and troubled times where civilians are getting blown by the millions, bio weapons are about to turns us all gay, nukes are at the ready, famine is about to grip the places that are always in famine, and gas prices have made those of us who live in urban freedomland consider actually using public transport, I must mention the invisible victims in this conflict.

Vodka drinkers. I started drinking vodka when Tequila and wines became too much of a chore to drink. Vodka cheaper or expensive you can just drink it straight, chill it a little, or like I do which is with a bit of lemon juice and maybe some mineral water. Don't know what to drink on the weekend? buy a bottle of Stoli, Ketel One, Svedka , or Russian Standard. Only the last one is actually Russian but last week when I got a bottle of Stoli at my local liquor store I had to point out to the mixed Arab-American guy who looked at me inquisitively that it was ok because it wasn't really Russian vodka, only pretended to be and it was actually from Latvia. Guess that'll be my life from now on.
Sure, I could give up and slurp that french gay juice they call Grey Goose to let my those I drink with that I'm totally not a Putin sympathizer, but in life one must take a stand from time to time and I will continue to drink my low-tier non Russian vodkas that sound like they could be until the day I die of alcohol poisoning.
Thank you, and please pour one for me.

costco generic american vodka
is from glorious american co-op of the people

Imagine getting seriously mad at fellow folks on here over Ukraine lmao.

It could be completely razed to the ground tonight and within 3 months people will have forgotten all about it. Relax, there's more pressing issues than calling your fellow man a putinbot or a uknigger.

seriously as much as this is leaning towards Archduke Ferdinand unless it does this will all mean literally fuckall in five years

 

[mr.moon1488]

This shit matter or is it a literally who?

https://twitter.com/razor_destiny/status/1502523531069997059

Think this might have been his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alexander_taran_/

 

[PyrrhicRustle]

This shit matter or is it a literally who?
View attachment 3065516

https://twitter.com/razor_destiny/status/1502523531069997059

View attachment 3065517
Think this might have been his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alexander_taran_/

He's 21-22, how important do you think he is?

 

[Reign Deer]

The thing is, you might have been correct a hundred years ago. Hell, you might have been mostly correct ten years ago. However, a lot has changed after that.

Most Russians think as you do. Ukraine is a country full of people who are exactly the same as them. Things have changed quite a bit in the last few years, however. I already know Russian speaking Ukrainian expats who, even before the invasion, hated Russia and Russians more than anything. After the invasion, they will not be the same people any more than North and South Koreans are the same people.

There has already been a lot of bad blood festering between Ukraine and Russia after 2014. If you think about how the people in the Donbas have felt that they have suffered due to the Ukrainian bombing (leading Russia to call it genocide), the Ukrainians on the other side have also suffered similarly due to the Russian bombing and skirmishes from Donbas. Once the invasion started, the Russians lost the Ukrainians for generations. One does not forget your own brother stabbing you in the back. Especially not now when the Ukrainians all have guns.

Also note, that the Russians and other orthodox people are no longer part of the same communion after the orthodox schism of 2018, where the Holy Synod of Constantinople declared the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as its own church. This led the Russian orthodox church to cut its ties with the Patriarch of Constantinople and several other extant Orthodox churches. The Ukrainian question has essentially separated the Orthodox church in two. Currently about half of the churches and 1/4 of the clergy in Ukraine consider themselves part of the new autocephalous Ukrainian Church, not as an autonomous part of the Moscow Patriarchate. However, even the Metropolitan Onuphrus, the head of the Ukrainian Church that considers itself led from Moscow, has declared that the Russian attack on Ukraine is akin to the "sin of Cain, who killed his brother out of envy" and describes the Ukrainian soldiers as "(people) fulfilling their duty to defend the Motherland."

TLDR: The Russians would probably have an easier time occupying Uganda than Ukraine.

There's been bad blood since the USSR fell. But starting in like 2004 they started teaching kids poems about le evil russians and how they should all die. North korea type stuff I guess. Anyways now those kids are grown up so you know

 

[Screamer]

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.

As far as I can observe and no offence to your mother. Most people don't know anything about most things and have no critical thinking filter.

It seems that propaganda these days works simply as a story. They don't convince anyone of anything, they just tell them the narrative. Which is blindly accepted. A story, unlike facts or an argument to convince people. It doesn't need to make sense, it doesn't need to even be consistent from one point or the next. You're always in the current part of the story.

Nothing made this more clear than COVID. With how often the story and rules around everything would change and seemingly people never noticed that they were now following a different script. They were always right there on the same page. Never going, "wait a minute, this contradicts and doesn't make sense from what was on the previous page."

 

[mr.moon1488]

He's 21-22, how important do you think he is?

Don't really think he's important, but I have no fucking clue as to who Russia has on their HVT lists.

 

[Sammich]

I keep seeing posts around the internet about the seizure of yachts belonging to (rich therefore totes evol) Russian oligarchs and it makes part of my brain itch and toss up warnings about a lack of due process.
Then I remember that the real world does not work like civics textbooks would have us believe it does.

I still don't know the legality of that shit, in what world is it cool to yoink some dude's yacht. Putin's yacht, sure, but some random russian rich dude. You best believe that's gonna get taken advantage of.

 

[Screamer]

I keep seeing posts around the internet about the seizure of yachts belonging to (rich therefore totes evol) Russian oligarchs and it makes part of my brain itch and toss up warnings about a lack of due process.
Then I remember that the real world does not work like civics textbooks would have us believe it does.

It's highly worrying. The targeting of individuals, as well as the practice of trying to get rish Russians to overthrow their government.

I suspect they're seizing the yachts under the guise that they are property of the Russian State and this is part of the sanctions. Something about oligarchs are the ruling elites, the government of Russia, purchased with ill-gotten gains and all that crap.

With no concern if it is true or a legally valid argument. They know lawyers will be told to handle it. It'll go through the courts before the yacht gets returned.

It is seen it as worth it for the immature reason of, "we deprived you of your toy" as well as it's a big sexy story they can show on the news to look like they're doing something.




Also, is calling them oligarchs, actually part of anti-Russian propaganda? Why not just billionaires. Although I'm all for calling people like Bezos an oligarch.

 

[Toothpaste]

Russia fortunately (or unfortunately) has a lot of experience being dirt poor with the world disavowing it, while still maintaining a military strong enough to prevent the other nations from just steamrolling it.

I'm not saying the Russians will be in strong economic shape, no. They'll be dirt poor in the short-term at least. But all those years as the Soviet Union demonstrated that they can be self-sufficient (enough) to survive, even on a low level, as a country while still keeping their military "good enough".

Given that the average Russian is used to living in poverty and squalor, I don't see them staging a massive revolution the way people in the west are headed with rising gas prices and inflation.

The west has a much higher QoL, which means that we're much more intolerant of the pain from the squeeze, imo. So the Western sanctions against Russia will be like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die.

This is largely true. The Russian tenacity for suffering is well known. It's even considered a virtue, in some senses.

It's also very true that in times of hardship, Russians tend to support their leaders even more tightly. This was a major theme of the famous Stalin "For the Russian People" speech on the 24th of May, 1945, where he essentially declared that it was Russian patriotism that defeated fascism in Europe. Not communism, not "the unity of peoples", not the Soviet Union, Russian nationalism. Where other people might have desired to change their leaders when things started to go bad in 1941, the Russians instead threw their full support behind Stalin and persevered. Other peoples of the Soviet Union, like the Ukrainians, were not so reliable.

This concept of Russian perseverance has survived in Russian popular culture. There is a very good scene in the equally brilliant Soviet movie Zerograd (1989) that explains the concept very well:

(1:00:00 - 1:03:23)

There is just a couple problems with this concept.

1. It's uniquely Russian. Other minorities in Russia do not historically or culturally share this same characteristic. It's not without reason that Stalin sent so many different minorities to Siberia after WW2.

2. It's absurd. The creative classes of the Soviet Union knew it was absurd and most Russian people today know it's absurd. The movie linked above where a Russian character explains this to a Tatar character is absurd.

The core idea behind this tenacity for suffering during the Czarist era was the faith in everlasting life and in that God would grant salvation to those who served the Czar and his Boyars in life. During the Soviet days, it was faith in the idea that, while things might look bad now, once we reach Communism, everything will be wonderful.

It was already clear to everyone in the 1980s that the Soviet Union would never reach Communism and Religion had been discouraged for so long that it no longer held any sway over the people.

Russia has tried to reinvigorate the old Czarist era orthodoxy with the Czar (the president) as the head of the church. However, the wast majority of educated urban Russians have no connection to this orthodoxy. Russian Millenials and Zoomers have lived in a society that worships media idols and money much more than they worship God and the State. Millennials growing up in the 90s grew up often in absolute poverty where achieving fancy cars and clothes became the sign of success. In this, both Russian millennials and zoomers tend to be very similar to black Americans who grew up in ghettos. They listen to rap and will look with spite at people who don't have the newest and most fashionable clothes and electronics. For many, consooomerism is their only goal in life. When it comes to the Russian ability to survive suffering, they consider this to mean that they must suffer living in Russia for long enough that they have enough money to move to the West where they'll find their salvation. At this moment, there is a massive exodus of young people from Russia. Anyone with the means to do so is trying to leave. They have no intention of suffering for Russia if they can prevent it. Even if you have high pain tolerance, you would be an idiot to leave your hand on a hot stovetop if you can just as easily put your hand elsewhere.

Up to this point, the thing keeping a lot of Russians in Russia has been the fact that life in places like Moscow and St. Petersburg has been as comfortable, if not more so, than life in most Western European cities. I know people who have never thought about leaving and have looked at the "old fashioned" cities in Western Europe with scorn, feeling pride towards the level of automation that cities like Moscow have put in their public services. Now, all this automation has bitten them in the ass. You can't get spare parts for your fancy metro robots and Roombas, face pay and the ubiquitous cameras that were supposed to make the city easy and safe to get around can now be used to track you and dissidents wherever you go and all the money you were planning on saving for your retirement just lost practically all it's value. If you can't even get your favourite foods in the supermarket, what point is there for any urbanite to live in Russia.

You might laugh and say good riddance to these people, but these are still the people who are the core of your economy. The educated young urban middle classes. If enough of them leave, Russia will end up being a country of militarists and pensioners. Neither of which is able to keep the other fed.

TLDR: The foundations of the Russian state that have given them their ability to survive suffering are no longer relevant for the younger population.

 

[Duke Nukem]

It's been years since the US government has given me any reason to take its word over even the most corrupt Slavic shithole.

>corrupt Slavic shithole

Which one?

Any time I hear shit about bioweapons I just assume it's a disinfo campaign.

I remember Iraq WMD. Putin has taken a page out of Dick Cheney's playbook.

I don't know who is going to false flag but somebody is going to false flag. It will be with real chemical weapons or fake bioweapons.

Putin is doing this because he didn't expect so many Republicans in the US to suddenly turn on him. He thought "lol Nazis" would be adequate. However, his invasion has gotten the Republicans' old Cold War conditioning to override all the softening on Russia that happened under Trump. He didn't want to bring out the plan B with bioweapons because it's much more likely to devolve into nuclear war. But he's doing it. China is helping him because big tech learned how to counter Russian disinfo campaigns, but were clueless about the more subtle Chinese ones.

This whole Bioweapons thing is bullshit and reeks of QAnon, but I have no way to disprove it. Nobody does.

Funny thing is, there actually is a theory that Iraq actually did have WMDs like chemical and biological stuff, but it was removed by Russkie glowies or something right before the invasion.

Honestly I don't believe a God damn thing that comes out of Washington, I haven't for years TBH.

Here's the DNC's 2022 midterm strategy guide.

1. Use some undemocratic executive order or maybe get the dumbass Republicans on board with some "Anti-Russian financial sanctions" that target Americans domestically that are financially involved with Russians. Get some rules about "Russian financial interference" in """"democracy"""".
2. Get the CIA to make deals with some rich Russians that are getting squeezed by sanctions to make some choice donations to get some of their shit unfreezed, do it Steele dossier style.
3. You get every candidate you don't like banned from social media, banks, and you label their supporters as domestic terrorists that are "enabling Russia" so that you can create a chilling effect where people disengage with democracy as to not lose their bank accounts.

They are already prepping this narrative. Here's a Clinton affiliated rag setting it up.

View attachment 3063770

We can't win the normal way because we suck and everyone can see right through us. Might as well cheat!

Besides, anyone stupid enough to connect their elections to the internet is an idiot in a way I can't even describe. So even if Russia did hack the election and made Donald Trump president that way, it's your own damn fault America.

 

[Drain Todger]

I believe these are more useful when they can be installed permanently in urban locations and used to deal with things like mass shooter situations. Gunfire coming from several different directions is going to be a lot harder to parse usefully.

It's kind of a communication and doctrinal thing in itself. Gunfire locators could be handy, but the guy looking at the screen still has to call out on the radio where it's coming from accurately. In the chaos of an ambush, you're basically relying on someone to not panic, and to make an accurate, clinical, and quick report of what the sensors are actually saying. In the opening phases of an ambush, with armored vehicles taking rocket fire, every single second counts.

This reminds me of all that Land Warrior bullshit over a decade back. They wanted to have all sorts of networked sensors on armored vehicles that could talk to each other over short-range digital radio and share information. So, instead of everyone in the convoy relying on that one vehicle with the sensors and its one crewman watching a screen (and hopefully not panicking or getting information overload and not even knowing what the hell they're looking at), they could all share data between each other.

None of that shit has ever panned out in practice, though. So many canceled programs, so little time.