Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread - Episode III - Revenge of the Ruski (now unlocked with new skins and gameplay modes!!!)

[Vexillology]

Even a tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine would send a radiation cloud across Europe that far exceeds anything put out by Chernobyl. You honestly believe that they wouldn't retaliate?

Tacnukes aren't horribly devastating as far as fallout, in reality. We're talking about devices that are a fraction the size of the bombs dropped on Japan, it won't end the world.

chances of a Russian-German alliance

hahaha lol lmao

 

[AgendaPoster]

Watched a CNN clip with Russians from all over the planet calling some Ukrainian hotline to find their missing sons and husbands, mental shit, some are missing without any clue since the invasion started in February. Yes yes yes CNN, but they openly admit bias, the Ukraine chick running the hotline said the purpose is to amplify Russian discontent to create an uprising, which is legitimate, that's the least bloodshed path, Russians fixing Russian leadership and restoring peace, repairing relations.
Also even the Russian propagandists are fucking stunned about the retreat, many clips of rabid ultranationalist Russians asking how come they advance so fast with some comical answers like "We're no longer fighting Ukrainians now, we're fighting NATO".
Tragic and lulzy at the same time, what a shitshow, to lose so many young men for this?!? Pathetic narcissistic insanity.

 

[UVB-76]

"We're no longer fighting Ukrainians now, we're fighting NATO".

And the absolute kicker is how the evidence for this is that they're seeing blacks lol

 

[Badungus Kabungus]

Good point, we've never been able to project power like this before. Russia is being absolutely ripped to pieces on its own doorstep, something unimaginable during the Soviet era, and we sold not only Sweden but Finland on joining NATO.

On its own doorstep meaning in the four new regions that just got annexed? Now try it without plunging the US economy into a depression, not to mention the economies of your NATO allies. It's quite shameful what America has done to their so-called allies in Europe, really.

And the absolute kicker is how the evidence for this is that they're seeing blacks lol

> he doesn't know there are no niggers in Ukraine

I'll repost this since it applies. Old Soviet joke:

During the cold war, Americans decided to send a spy into a Siberian village so from there he can get to the nearby missile base and steal some secret technology. So they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting all the equipment for the spy to be just right, look like exact Soviet equipment, etc. They come up with a backstory for him, import a native language teacher from that part of Russia to train him, they teach him how to drink without passing out, explain various cultural norms, local sayings, folklore, all that stuff. After over a year of training they finally infiltrate him into Siberia.

The spy parachutes down into the forest successfully, hides his parachute, changes into his Soviet gear, and starts walking on the road towards the village. He spots a villager and greets him. Suddenly the villager yells "Spy!" and soldiers come out and grab him before he realized what happened.

All tied up and being led away by the soldiers, he looks back and asks the villager "How did you know I was a spy? We prepared so well!"

The villager responds "Son, there ain't never been niggers in Siberia"

 

[Beak Thing]

On its own doorstep meaning in the four new regions that just got annexed? Now try it without plunging the US economy into a depression, not to mention the economies of your NATO allies. It's quite shameful what America has done to their so-called allies in Europe, really.

The Russian forces are getting their shit pushed in and are losing in their own backyard.

The United States of America, my homeland and source of your seething, was never able to get this close to Russia proper during the Cold War but thanks to Russia's inexplicable support for an atheist KGB goon who never put in an honest day's work in his life, we can reach out and touch you in HD.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Rybar seems to think Ukraine is going to counterattack in Zaporizhia. Those direction arrows seem pretty high energy.

 

[draggs]

Complaining is cheap?

What happened happened. The toll will be paid sooner or later.

Why invade something you practically own? A reminder, there are Chinese spies embedded with the US government, Chinese police stations on US soil, and Chinese spies working for every Big Tech company in the US.

Maybe try projecting enough power to close your own southern border from illegal immigrants and prevent them from flooding the country.

I also want to take this opportunity to wish a happy birthday to Vladimir Putin. You my nigga.
View attachment 3720712

The toll will be paid never though, as Russia is now further away from military parity with the United States than at any point since it lost the cold war

China practically owns Taiwan? Oh you meant the United States. China certainly acts like it owns the United States, what with its endless complaining about American aggression. I'm sure there is a glib reason for this too

As with most of your seethe, I fail to find the connection between the southern border of the United States and the military power projection capability of the United States. It's a sign that you're in a really strong position when you are always going "Look! A squirrel!" rather than talk about things you don't want to talk about

Russia is 96th in life expectancy in the world! Haha what a dumb shithole country! What does that have to do with anything? Nothing, fuck you!

 

[Beak Thing]

Rybar seems to think Ukraine is going to counterattack in Zaporizhia. Those direction arrows seem pretty high energy. View attachment 3720964

It's amazing how the Ukrainians can keep total operational silence and coordinate offensives across multiple fronts with their increasingly well-equipped and fresh forces. It's almost as if everyone in the country hates Russia.

What a formative moment for the Ukrainain national identity. I bet corruption will be nonexistent after this war is over.

Kherson will be a difficult fight, because if it falls Crimea is the next target for liberation and Putin will definitely not like that.

 

[Suburban Bastard]

POV: you're rushing Russian positions in Kherson
View attachment 3720874

That actually looks a little fun ngl.

 

[Bork Laser]

So on the topic of tact nukes. People need to stop looking at this like it's one big RTS or WW2 where you had massive armies huddled in a wide spaces of land. The Ukrainian forces are rather spread out, meaning a tact nuke is relatively useless if you wanna wipe out their army. Sure you maybe obliterated a small chunk of troops...but you probably did more damage to the area you want to keep and your own forces. Something you could have done if you had competent airforce.

Ok, scratch that, you hit Kiev instead. Alright, depending on the size of the nuke, its gonna do damage but it's not gonna wipe the city off the map. You just galvanized the enemy for a purely optics victory and they'll fight harder. Not only that but even your allies, India and China will start to distance themselves from you.

Oh ok, you attack the US. Game over, no one wins. That is if anyone in your government doesn't decided to push you down a flight of stairs first.

I'll admit, Russia is very good in it's cyber warfare and deception tactics. They probably didn't do it, atleast not to extent where it had any impact, but just the idea they where able to fuck with US elections sent everyone into a tizzy and it certainly seemed like Russia was coming back in force. But that illusion was shattered with this war. Putin got over confident and believed the in his own hype too much. He should have stuck with the cloak and dagger shit. He would have won in time if he waited.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

Ok, scratch that, you hit Kiev instead. Alright, depending on the size of the nuke, its gonna do damage but it's not gonna wipe the city off the map. You just galvanized the enemy for a purely optics victory and they'll fight harder.

Not if you nuke them a bunch of times.

 

[76LD910]

How close are the Ukrainians to the newly annexed border? Close?

If your talking about the official pre-war borders of the four oblasts Russia said it annexed, at the time of the formal announcement only one of them didn't have vast tracks of territory that Russian forces haven't set foot in since the war began. They were loosing ground in all of them to varying degrees on the same day the announcement was made including the forth (Luhansk) and that's only continued since.

It's entirely up in the air as to what the retards who approved the annexation think the actual borders are and they're being deliberately vague about it. But even if they cede pre-war territory it cant be as the battle lines are drawn now because Ukraine has always had control of one oblast's capital (Zaporozhia), remains within artillery distance of another (Donetsk), and we soon might see a battle and/or forced Russian evacuation of a third (Kherson).

 

[Mr E. Grifter]

For whatever reason I can't reply, so @Mr E. Grifter.

The point about willpower is relative - a sixth of Ukraine's population has fled. It's logistical infrastructure that Ukraine has on account of 8 years of preparing for war footing and a state of mobilization from the very start of the war. Russia doesn't, but there's no meaningful difference in the quality of the manpower brought out and even a comparative outflow of human capital to what Ukraine already went through would leave it with far more to work with. Time is the object, much like just how poor the current mobilization system is. Because it has far more people, Russia doesn't need parity efficiency-wise in mobilizing and arming them, it only needs to be better. The morale question is less about not having people and far more about public and leadership willingness to take on the costs of a protracted war on the scale required in the faces of the losses to come.

Regarding materiel, China's imports haven't reduced, they've increased relative to last year for the same period by 30%. The braindead policy of the US in saying it'll dismantle Russia in order to use the remaining satrapies as outposts to then go after China gives it every reason to prop up Russia, likewise others like Iran. This also isn't in any state of war footing or rush in production. The same stakes mean that unless Russia quits soon it's better positioned to last long term than nations to whom stepping back imposes a much lower cost, i.e the West.

Russia's losses are unsustainable in a limited scenario of 200k~ troops opposite 3-4 times more troops, with no war footing to speak of. Commentators, from tard appreciation forum spergs like me down to the CIA claiming Kiev would fall in 3 days and most importantly the Russians themselves overestimated the extent to which there was an armament or doctrine advantage on the Russian end that'd compensate for the massive difference in numbers, and the Russians then doubled by only attacking vital infrastructure half-heartedly 8 months in. Math won out. That same math points overwhelmingly in the opposite direction if Russia mobilizes to a similar extent to Ukraine. The question is only if the Russians are willing to do it and if the intangibles like morale and a Ukrainian doctrinal edge will trump math where it didn't for Russia. I see zero reason why it would and remain bullish on an eventual Russian victory, and will either smugpost or own up accordingly when we cross that bridge.

It does that when the posts are really long, I will try and keep my sperging to a minimum.

On the china part - you're right I had a brainfart and misread the headlines! Overall Russian trade has dropped and the increase with China has not offset this.

I massively disagree on the willpower aspect of this, yes there are 7 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe - but 90% of these are women and children, the other 10% is hard to get figures on but if you start adding into that men over the age of 60 and disabled people the number of fighting age males who have left Ukraine is low. What does this tell us - these people are not traditional combatants. This does not tell you about the moral of the nation, and actually given that this then takes away large welfare burdens from the state and moves civilians out of harms way there are benefits to this outflow as well as draw backs. If we look at the polling data, Ukrainian moral is actually very high - iirc some 86% would not even consider a peace deal which included territorial losses. Even if we look at polling data in the US and Europe the support has remained strong, as opposed to some predictions that people would stop caring.

Russian men in contrast are fleeing across the border because they are scared of being mobilised for a war they probably just don't care about. It's a stark contrast.

As for numbers, in a sense you are right - but in such a broad stroke manner that it ignores all the other elements that go into making civilians into soldiers, which are then able to be used to generate combat power. Russia does not have the means to train these men quick enough, they don't have the means to properly equip them or sustain them in the field. Infantry, poorly trained and unsupported, are going to be no use on a modern battlefield. Even as early as WWII they were little use in certain environments, on the fronts which used more motorised units - look at how the Italians fared in North Africa during Operation Compass, their massed infantry were quickly isolated and defeated in detail by a force not even a quarter of their size. If Russian logistics is being strained with their current forces, how will they sustain a larger force in the field? Their automotive industry is on it's knees and their logistics fleet has been decimated - are they going to revert to horses?

Again, I agree on the sustainability point in very broad terms, if we are specifically talking about numbers and current loss rates - but this is not the entire story. Their loss rate of trained soldiers is unsustainable regardless, because they lack the soldiers to train a vast mobilised army - they have either died in Ukraine or are fighting there, the training infrastructure Russia uses is at Unit, units which have deployed to Ukraine. Their loss rate of kit and equipment is unsustainable because even without the current sanctions regime their economy couldn't replace what they have lost to the Ukrainians in a quick enough time. Their stocks of kit and equipment are deep, but they are unreliable, rusted, broken, cannibalised and also out of date and unfit for the modern battlefield. Their aircraft losses, pilot losses, use of PGMs and cruise missiles are unsustainable especially when we consider the maintenance routines on their aircraft. This means that over time the Russian Armed Forces will be severely degraded, well I think we have already seen this - and then okay they can put a million civilians into the field in uniform, with what logistics support? With what heavy weapons? That is not effective combat power, and it has not been effective combat power since prior to WW1, without heavy weapons and effective use of armoured vehicles to overcome defensive positions throwing those empty uniforms into the meat grinder achieves nothing.

None of the trends favour Russia when you scratch the surface. They are losing, and short of a political miracle for Russia in Europe and the US which is nowhere to be seen, the slide into defeat will continue and will continue to be smug about it.

 

[76LD910]

Rybar seems to think Ukraine is going to counterattack in Zaporizhia. Those direction arrows seem pretty high energy.

He's not the first or the only somewhat credible Russian observer to think that, they've all pointed out the possibility since the Kharkov offensive and have been shitting bricks about it since the Kherson offensive started gaining ground.

Ukraine telegraphed the Kherson offensive for months and then made little progress once it was underway, only to then demonstrate they have both the reserves and long term thinking to allow short term loses in exchange for long term gains when they attacked the depleted Russians in Kharkov. The gains in the east keep coming as Russian forces try to stymie them by moving additional assets in and now suddenly the front is shifting in Kherson which is likely stretching other sectors even thinner.

Even with all the intelligence we're getting in the midst of all this movement there are still large elements of Ukraine's forces not accounted for and its only logical if the Russians are loosing ground on two fronts at the extreme opposite ends of the theater to wonder how strong the center is.

 

[Titos]

Are niggas really so fucking dumb in this thread that they think Russia will be able to fire nukes at Ukraine and not get fucked into the dirt? Lay off the crack. If they used a nuke the options are basically
A: MAD, less likely
B: Everyone, potentially even fuckin Best Korea looking at Russia and telling them to fuck off forever, no more trade ever, multiple countries probably fire missiles and flatten half of Moscow and St. Petersburg. People with good taste in architecture rejoice as St. Basils is reduced to rubble.

 

[The Foldless Brain]

@Mr E. Grifter

Nope, reply function still fucked.

The gender ratio of the retreating soldiers is lopsided towards women, but 10% still amounts to 700k men, and the more bandied about later stats of 20% is 1.4mil, this in a country with a 54% to 46% ratio of men towards women. There's a reason that a little before he made progress in Kharkov Zelensky was talking about mooobilizing women, after he'd already started it out with convicts and so forth. Fleeing the country as being evidentiary of patriotism about it by reducing your welfare burden, that in a state where the welfare packet is around a 100 bucks, is a joke. Though I'm all for it. I'm sure the Russian liberals fleeing right now are actually sleeper agents out to collapse the Georgian economy. Either way, Russian support for the SMO is in the 70-80% range on paper. The truth is the only way to see if there's a conscriptable population and a morale high enough to keep fighting is when it's tested shortly. Ukraine was expected to melt on contact and didn't, and its million man conscription march was expected to fail, but while there's less than a mil out there for sure, it was still enough to double or triple their starting army, which already outnumbered the contract soldiers sent as part of the SMO.

Suppose we pretend that none of the reservists have any training to speak of and that Russia has now lost all of its instructors. Few have anything but wishful thinking to back it considering how a large portion of the reason posts are so undermanned is because contract soldiers have gone home since their deals expired and they weren't rotated. Even someone with completely basic training holding a gun can prevent losses of the kinds of Kharkov and Kherson. We're not talking about defeats caused by tactical or technological superiority, but by the lack of people of any kind. The Ukrainians flung people down a meatgrinder at Suhoy Stavok for a month plus to be shot, but because they could replenish them manpower wise and learn where to strike they could eventually pull it off. Kharkov was even more telling when you had stretches of essential logistical territory guarded by a couple hundred people. Numbers have a quality all their own, especially defensively, and the ones making the progress they are now aren't elite disguised NATO niggers or whatever, they're mostly territorial battalions with a few others spruced in, either with minimal military experience in the Donbass or none, just training over the course of the war.

The same applies to stocks, given the Russians are still chucking missiles six months after they're supposed to have run out, and that same unit with the rusted AKs got a new one, much like the hohols with their rusted panzerfaust and decayed Polish Tanks, we get to the point I mentioned last post, the Russians don't need to achieve parity per capita, they only need to be successful enough to overwhelm the force that's there. Fronts decided by 100 armored vehicles and 6k troops, as Kherson is right now, do not hinge on the possibility of millions of troops or existence of Soviet stocks of tens of thousands of old tanks and missiles, but by a fraction of those being usable.

Where you are right now is where a lot of people and whole agencies were at the start of the operation. You're looking at the numbers and they're very clear, but you're engaged in magical thinking as to how they don't actually apply. Luckily, these things are falsifiable. Morale'll be tested fairly soon by how the Russians react to the upcoming defeats in Kherson and Lysychansk and if they really fuck up Melitopol and the worth of manpower will be seen further into winter when the mobilized are actually due to come in.

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

@Mr E. Grifter

Again, I agree on the sustainability point in very broad terms, if we are specifically talking about numbers and current loss rates - but this is not the entire story. Their loss rate of trained soldiers is unsustainable regardless, because they lack the soldiers to train a vast mobilised army - they have either died in Ukraine or are fighting there, the training infrastructure Russia uses is at Unit, units which have deployed to Ukraine. Their loss rate of kit and equipment is unsustainable because even without the current sanctions regime their economy couldn't replace what they have lost to the Ukrainians in a quick enough time. Their stocks of kit and equipment are deep, but they are unreliable, rusted, broken, cannibalised and also out of date and unfit for the modern battlefield. Their aircraft losses, pilot losses, use of PGMs and cruise missiles are unsustainable especially when we consider the maintenance routines on their aircraft. This means that over time the Russian Armed Forces will be severely degraded, well I think we have already seen this - and then okay they can put a million civilians into the field in uniform, with what logistics support? With what heavy weapons? That is not effective combat power, and it has not been effective combat power since prior to WW1, without heavy weapons and effective use of armoured vehicles to overcome defensive positions throwing those empty uniforms into the meat grinder achieves nothing.

You're not considering that the US and European NATO nations are also tapped out for equipment as well: CNBC: EUROPE NEWS The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine there is countless articles since the beginning of the summer talking about how the stockpiles for NATO members are nearly empty and that they're beginning to cannibalize NATO units for equipment. Furthermore these toys are expensive, and hard to make, meaning they're not going to be replenished any time soon. Ukraine has turned into an attrition war and this is entirely dictated by economic circumstances for the players involved. Right now Europe is likely going to have to contemplate an EU without German heavy industry as energy prices are expected to fly away during the winter. There is serious questions on whether or not European nations are going to be dealing with rolling blackouts for parts of the day in winter time -- the EU and US can print money indefinitely but this will never conjure, diesel fuel, LNG or any other energy source to light a fire to smelt iron down into usable product. The West isn't the fresh untouched combatant that people think it is, a lot of the financial institutions like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are weak kneed and likely to capitulate in the worsening liquidity environment, Credit Suisse is already at the firesale stage and selling assets such as the Savoy Hotel in Zurich to remain afloat. I'm not entirely convinced that the West is going to be capable of keeping Ukraine afloat in an environment where they're going through a 2008 financial collapse on top of 10% inflation and an energy crisis at the same time.

This winter is less about the maneuvering of units in the field and more about the stability of the economies involved. If the West can come out of this winter without blackouts and economic collapse its over for Russia in this war, which in itself is an extremely dangerous position to be in. I have zero faith in the leadership of western powers to properly walk this tightrope, they're playing with forces way beyond their capabilities and this can easily end up with a nuclear exchange. Its unbelievable that Trump is probably the most effective President we have had in the realm of foreign policy for 40 years or more solely because he was capable of determining that the status quo in Ukraine was better than this dangerous quagmire that everyone is being drawn into.

 

[draggs]

@Mr E. Grifter

You're not considering that the US and European NATO nations are also tapped out for equipment as well: CNBC: EUROPE NEWS The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine there is countless articles since the beginning of the summer talking about how the stockpiles for NATO members are nearly empty and that they're beginning to cannibalize NATO units for equipment. Furthermore these toys are expensive, and hard to make, meaning they're not going to be replenished any time soon. Ukraine has turned into an attrition war and this is entirely dictated by economic circumstances for the players involved. Right now Europe is likely going to have to contemplate an EU without German heavy industry as energy prices are expected to fly away during the winter. There is serious questions on whether or not European nations are going to be dealing with rolling blackouts for parts of the day in winter time -- the EU and US can print money indefinitely but this will never conjure, diesel fuel, LNG or any other energy source to light a fire to smelt iron down into usable product. The West isn't the fresh untouched combatant that people think it is, a lot of the financial institutions like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are weak kneed and likely to capitulate in the worsening liquidity environment, Credit Suisse is already at the firesale stage and selling assets such as the Savoy Hotel in Zurich to remain afloat. I'm not entirely convinced that the West is going to be capable of keeping Ukraine afloat in an environment where they're going through a 2008 financial collapse on top of 10% inflation and an energy crisis at the same time.

This winter is less about the maneuvering of units in the field and more about the stability of the economies involved. If the West can come out of this winter without blackouts and economic collapse its over for Russia in this war, which in itself is an extremely dangerous position to be in. I have zero faith in the leadership of western powers to properly walk this tightrope, they're playing with forces way beyond their capabilities and this can easily end up with a nuclear exchange. Its unbelievable that Trump is probably the most effective President we have had in the realm of foreign policy for 40 years or more solely because he was capable of determining that the status quo in Ukraine was better than this dangerous quagmire that everyone is being drawn into.

Take a moment to consider that stories have been published since beginning of summer that Western countries are running out of weapons and this is the end of the first week of October with weapons stocks still not exhausted and the stories still being recycled through the media

This suggests something. That these stories were and are kinda BS. It's not easy to be running out of weapons for 3-4 months yet not actually run out. The answer, of course, is that they are not actually running out of weapons because it is the US sending 90% of them and the US is neither running out nor incapable of production

 

[teriyakiburns]

They probably didn't do it, atleast not to extent where it had any impact, but just the idea they where able to fuck with US elections sent everyone into a tizzy and it certainly seemed like Russia was coming back in force.

That was no hacking or direct action in Russia's part. Instead, what Russia did was buy a bunch of campaign ads in Facebook, for both parties. Nobody likes to mention that part. They did it not because they thought it would influence voters one way or the other, but because they wanted to sow conflict and distrust over the election results. They did the same for Britain's EU exit referendum, with the inevitable result that the winning side was accused of russian collusion.

 

[Kenya Jones]

Russians gay, russians big ghey. - average brain rotted ameritard.

meanwhile, in reality.
View attachment 3720344

Oh ok I'm back on the Ukrainians side now. Gooooo Ukrainians!!!