Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[TurdFondler]

I mean we could do it with Beijing, but then it would just be a giant smog cloud. Plus nothing in Beijing looks as cool as the Kremlin.

You're right, it wouldn't hit the same. The west didn't spend decades anticipating Chinese nukes so Beijing is really a mid tier generic villain, like the black clad SPECTRE agents in Bond.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

You're right, it wouldn't hit the same. The west didn't spend decades anticipating Chinese nukes so Beijing is really a mid tier generic villain, like the black clad SPECTRE agents in Bond.

Plus Russian language and accents are just so much more ominous. Seriously Russian is the most angry sounding language out there, even more than German. Great language for swearing in as well.

 

[glib]

View attachment 3078956
This literly just like the Goerge Orwell Novel 1984.

"The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."

 

[XYZpdq]

Plus Russian language and accents are just so much more ominous. Seriously Russian is the most angry sounding language out there, even more than German. Great language for swearing in as well.

Turkish sounds pretty constantly pissed off too.

 

[Hell on Earth]

"At least 7,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine and more than 14,000 injured, according to U.S. estimates - NYT"

My trust in U.S. officials plumeted after the Afghanistan fiasco, specially when they mistaken children for terrorists (and then killed them) in the last fucking days of the evacuation.

My own estimate is 3000 KIA and 10.000 wounded

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Plus Russian language and accents are just so much more ominous. Seriously Russian is the most angry sounding language out there, even more than German. Great language for swearing in as well.

Have you heard Russian girl band music? It's so high pitched and not ominous at all.

 

[The best and greatest]

I'm not certain about either of those tbh. Chinese vassal state would be for a rather short period of time, if it even happened. There's plenty of bad history there, and Putin's Russia getting along with them is a bit of an anomaly that won't last. Same thing happened in the 60s with the sino soviet split.

As to Russia collapsing in on itself because vlad died? I don't think it's likely. Russia historically handles strongman transitions of power decently well, at least compared to most other countries with em.

Since we're on the subject, What do you think happens after Vlad goes to the big gulag in the sky. Who gets to command the government then?

 

[hooboy]

Turkish sounds pretty constantly pissed off too.

id also be angry if i was a cockroach

Since we're on the subject, What do you think happens after Vlad goes to the big gulag in the sky. Who gets to command the government then?

im going to take the kremlin when the yard sale happens and he’s in the sky and he can’t stop it

 

[MindYourSeabiscuits]

Since we're on the subject, What do you think happens after Vlad goes to the big gulag in the sky. Who gets to command the government then?

This kid.

 

[No Batty Boys in Jamaica]

This is my problem with speculative fiction. As it ages and its premise becomes unrealistic or laughable it becomes harder to connect with its message. The idea of a soviet-born super state probably seemed a lot more plausible before the union came crashing down.

People get 1984 wrong because they don't understand the context that it was written in. It's more of a stab at the Soviet Union when it was written than it was speculation about its future. The rape themes can especially throw readers off because back in the day, it was common knowledge that Beria, Stalin's right hand man, was a prolific rapist. But now you have to have more than a cursory knowledge of the Stalinist era or watch Death of Stalin to know that little detail. The work was also shaped by Orwell's experience in the Spanish Civil War living amongst the various leftist factions. But now people read it and are like "lol anyone I don't like is big brother".
Which is actually ok because the surveillance state themes are applicable to today's society. The KGB/Stasi/Gestapo/FBI used to keep files on people. Now people write their own files on Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

Since we're on the subject, What do you think happens after Vlad goes to the big gulag in the sky. Who gets to command the government then?

No clue, he hasn't really been grooming a successor from what I've seen, but maybe one of our Russia posters knows a bit better. His parents both lived to damn near 90, so we may be dealing with him for quite a while before we find out.

 

[76LD910]

For all their talk of Taiwan, seeing what is happening in Ukraine might give them pause. Both for how effectively the (similarly equipped to their own) Russian Army is being chewed up by light arms. And by the realization that all of a sudden the Siberian Oil fields seem like a softer target than Taiwan.

Taiwan was always going to be a harder target for China than Ukraine is for Russia just because of the nature of amphibious warfare, even assuming they could get a decent number of troops ashore if your using what we're seeing now as an example of how an invasion would go it looks grim.

Taiwan is a small country but not so small that it wouldn't be massive undertaking to secure. Most of the population, including the capital, is concentrated in the north of the island but there are several cities of comparable size to Kiev spanning the western coast all the way to the southern end, a distance greater than Russian forces have managed to advance on any front in Ukraine so far. So any strategy to take the island would mean landing whatever meager forces can be transported the 100 miles across the strait directly into major metro areas or the small easily flanked margins between them on the western coast and hope they don't get ground to dust shortly after they land, and/or taking the long way round and landing somewhere on the eastern coast and trying to establish a beachhead there before anyone can react with something more than a piecemeal response.

That second option was never a good one considering the logistical challenges but I think its been effectively killed now judging by how easily we were able to spot this invasion coming. It may only take a few hours to cross the strait but there's no way they would be able to pull that off without the US, Taiwan along with every ally in the region seeing the potential weeks if not months beforehand and preparing for it. The waters of the eastern coast and any landing sites not adjacent to populated areas can be lit up with impunity in addition to being quickly mined beforehand if we're ready for it.

They would have to go with the more direct approach and hope for the best, we'd obviously still see that coming way beforehand but its not like Taiwan can evacuate their largest cities or flatten them once enemy troops are inside.

Attempting it would require a much heaver use of force like air ordinance and standoff weapons than we've seen so far in Ukraine to soften up Taiwanese defenses and troops would be dumped directly into urban combat, they wouldn't have the luxury of scratching their asses for weeks on the outskirts in preparation or hoping for a surrender like the Russians are doing now. There would be no easy way out either, they'd have to fully commit from the start and take an enormous risk.

 

[XYZpdq]

This kid.

Young ReviewBrah and Old ReviewBrah meet in the big crossover event

 

[No Batty Boys in Jamaica]

Since we're on the subject, What do you think happens after Vlad goes to the big gulag in the sky. Who gets to command the government then?

Sminem. He saved my portfolio. He will save Russia.

 

[hooboy]

Sminem.

bro pls thumbnail your sminems this is literally 1984

 

[Protistology]

The rape themes can especially throw readers off because back in the day, it was common knowledge that Beria, Stalin's right hand man, was a prolific rapist.

Winston wanting to rape and kill Julia and having a relationship with someone 10 years younger than him is still weird and the oddest part of an otherwise brilliant book.

 

[hooboy]

Winston wanting to rape and kill Julia and having a relationship with someone 10 years younger than him is still weird and the oddest part of an otherwise brilliant book.

I found it actually the most down to earth and realistic character trait of a government hating recluse.

 

[LUNEKO]

Sminem.

Sminem is too busy taking over the Bogdanoff throne after they left the physical realm, Russia is but pennies to him

 

[JosephStalin]

The Pajeets beat them off with nothing but Sticks and Stones just last year. So I'm going to maintain a healthy skepticism regarding the Pooh Patrol's actual real world military capabilities. Yeah they are spending a lot. But how many Generals have they found with luxury mansions stuffed basement to ceiling with shrink wrapped pallets of money measured in hundreds of metris tons? Their money is not going to actual capabilities.

Indeed. You can have all the equipment you want. You can have your sailors march in choreographed time on the deck of your aircraft carriers. But one thing money cannot buy is real-world combined-arms operational experience. The Chinese have no combined-arms combat experience later than 1979. Not sure the PLA Navy played any role. And while officers buy and sell commissions, they cannot buy combat experience. Bunch of corrupt motherfuckers. Let's also not forget the vast majority of Chinese troops/officers come from one-child families. That child is expected to be the parents' primary support in their old age, per the Confucian model. China has no US-style Social Security/SSI system. This very likely makes the Chinese military rather casualty-averse. Suggest the internal reverberations within China to large numbers of sons coming home in boxes or not at all could dwarf what might come out of Russia.

 

[glib]

People get 1984 wrong because they don't understand the context that it was written in. It's more of a stab at the Soviet Union when it was written than it was speculation about its future. The rape themes can especially throw readers off because back in the day, it was common knowledge that Beria, Stalin's right hand man, was a prolific rapist. But now you have to have more than a cursory knowledge of the Stalinist era or watch Death of Stalin to know that little detail. The work was also shaped by Orwell's experience in the Spanish Civil War living amongst the various leftist factions. But now people read it and are like "lol anyone I don't like is big brother".
Which is actually ok because the surveillance state themes are applicable to today's society. The KGB/Stasi/Gestapo/FBI used to keep files on people. Now people write their own files on Facebook and LinkedIn.

To me it describes the worst case scenario alongside brave new world. Trying to judge it based on how accurate it predicts things isnt the point. To me it predicts what could be, not what will be. Its totally relevant to a war none of us can see and are told to take sides with.
"We've always been at war with russia" and "support ukrainian nationalism" are completely at odds with things that people said less than a decade ago. Jewish funded nazis and an open borders multicultural united states of europe vs Putin's soviet esque tsardom with hyper capitalist yet communist china makes no sense except through the lens of nonstop alteration of history and the manipulation of people through propaganda.