Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[MG-34]

Going after uniformed war criminals is one thing but assassinating a civilian drone engineer is some Israel-grade bullshit.

I would share this sentiment, if Russians weren't constantly killing civilians unapologetically.

 

[East_Clintwood]

I'm lowkey kinda tempted to try making some of these just for curiosities sake.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Apparently Russia is stopping some production of gas in the Arctic (archive).

Russia has been forced to shut down part of the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas plant, near the Arctic city of Murmansk, after demand was wrecked by Western sanctions.
The Belokamenka yard, completed last year and designed to employ 15,000 workers, is deserted, with most contractors having quit the site.

 

[World in Scarlet]

Another cruise missile intercepted with an Igla MANPADS

That's two MANPADS interceptions in a single wave.

 

[Ghostse]

It's not that simple. The West loaded Ukraine up with Western style training and weapons. But the one thing they didn't give them was the air power that plays an important part in Western military campaigns. That's why the Ukrainian offensive failed so badly last year. The Ukrainians lack the air force needed to provide their army with air cover. I'm not saying they should have given them the planes needed to do this. But that's one of the reasons why the Ukrainians haven't been able to push the Russians out.

It's also because the West doesn't want to escalate things with Russia. I imagine it's more because they don't want to completely defeat the Russians and destabilize the country. They just want to weaken Russia. Not totally defeat them. Ukraine just happens to be a pawn in the proxy war game. There was most likely never any intention to totally defeat Russia. Just to get Russia caught in another bear trap like Afghanistan.

The west didn't send no where near the amount of mine clearing equipment needed to clear a path. In addition to the Russians laying a few orders of magnitude more mines per grid area beyond what was in the Soviet Union and NATO handbooks. Nor did West send enough SPGs, MLRS, and radar to find and destroyed the defenses overwatching the minefields and fortifications.

Couple with Ukrainian military being in the process of reorganization to something applicable to the war needs. As the "peacetime" and COIN organization chart the West is using have been to be extremely lacking to actual conventional war.

There were multiple levels of failure from the 2023 offensive that turned it.... I don't want to say it was a failure, but the costs were very high for what it achieved.
Part of it was NATO - both a doctrinal failure and by pressuring Ukraine to do something before they were really ready.
But Ukraine fucked up mightly in ways that had nothing to do with NATO, from politicians giving away locations of massed armor, to letting Soviet-brained retards plan assaults leading to pretty lines of vehicles getting fed into the grinder and the cluster fuck in the minefield, to refusing to send out sapper teams ahead to try to clear mines wanting to use drones instead.

The issue isn't that NATO doesn't want to defeat Russia. They want that defeat managed in a way that doesn't cause Russia to descend into civilwar. Ukraine isn't existential for Russia, but it is for Putin. An unqualified failure there is likely to see Putin if not toppled then seriously threatened by internal players.

There's also the fact that in 2025 unlike in 2017 Trump is absolutely going to clean house, and if the State Department tried to fuck him he'd find a way to send people overseas to such prestigious posts as Mongolia and Lesotho.

I think there is also... people in 2017 had no idea what exactly they were signing up for with the MSM whipping everything up lots of State Department lifers honestly believed they were facing down Hitler and anything they could do to stop him from rounding up the queers and jews into camps would get a tree planted for them in Jerusalem or whatever the faggot equivalent is. This time there is much less completely unhinged insanity.

I think a lot of people in the State department also had to honestly admit: Trump's mean tweets really did make the world a safe place, and his low cunning actually does work. He is facing an over-all less hostile federal bureaucracy.

 

[Fuck It We'll Do It Live]

The animal that Russians disparagingly compare to Ukrainians quickly realizes unknown technology is not to be trifled with after a few investigative DSPesque snorts:

 

[No. 7 cat]

Preston Stewart on Ukraine-Syrian rebel links which seem mostly to have involved sharing expertise on drones with HTS. Russia claimed the Ukrainians were sharing UAV tech in order get more personnel, but Stewarts sees that improbable with any possible numbers tiny and simply getting there on scale would be nearly impossible. Russia recently discounted the GUR role, but Russia seems to have a Schroedinger's Ukraine both an international force involved in regime change and a failed, fake state. The GUR role in Ukraine is undoubted with their spox talking of it. Also Ukraine having too many dealings with HTS which has allied forces (particularly those who took Latakia) with more formal AQ ties.

 

[Optimus Prime]

This time there is much less completely unhinged insanity.

Yes, because apparently, we don't need to give a shit about Polio Vaccines anymore, according to recent news feeds.

Trump himself may not be the main problem with round 2; it's the people he's decided to have as his cabinet that concern me more this time around with regards to how unhinged things are going to get.

 

[Fuck It We'll Do It Live]

Ukrainian drone hits an oil depot / pumping station in Oryol, Russia. 14 December 2024

Still burning the morning after:

 

[3-2-1836]

I'm lowkey kinda tempted to try making some of these just for curiosities sake.

That's odd that isn't already a product on the Russian market, I could've sworn I saw 7.62x39 shotshells in Russia a decade ago due to how Russian gun laws are, that is you have to hold a shotgun license for 5 years before you can get a rifle license, so they make smooth bore 7.62 AKs to get around that rule.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Ukrainian FrankenSAM 9K33 "Osa" (SA-8 "Gecko") fitted with R-73 (AA-11 "Archer") air-to-air missiles:

 

[jalopy]

How do shadow fleets work? Are the cargo vessels registered with a different country? or are they owned by a different country? if either one of these, does the government of that country know they are doing this?

They aren't using one of the major shipping insurers. So if you are in taking one of these vessels you are trusting Russia to pony up any damages these old rust buckets might incur from shitting the bed while in port.

I am shocked there hasn't been a newsworthy failure yet, flat out wrong prediction on my part from a few years back.

There is no ambiguity. Anyone who works for the Russian military is enabling crimes. They openly admit to that on their own channels. The more significant the position in military industry, the more blame, but there are no innocents.

I will push back a little on this. We both know the the Russian's high precision weapons are either shit or precisely target children cancer wards with intention. Difference being that energy infrastructure falls squarely in duel use, and are thus not criminal targets. That and splicing a war like this into being "illegal" when the inhumanity of it all is on full display is reductive to the point of being diminishing.

 

[World in Scarlet]

energy infrastructure falls squarely in duel use, and are thus not criminal targets

>Well ackchually civilians are dual use because they work in factories and pay taxes which the government spends to procure weapons, therefore bombing hospitals is just common sense

What's the point of this, everyone knows that factories run on electricity.
They've been targeting civilian infrastructure for 3 years now, with the obvious rationale that this will cause civilian suffering and ideally make more people flee the country.

That and splicing a war like this into being "illegal" when the inhumanity of it all is on full display is reductive to the point of being diminishing.

link

 

[msd]

The animal that Russians disparagingly compare to Ukrainians quickly realizes unknown technology is not to be trifled with after a few investigative DSPesque snorts:
View attachment 6748325

Pigs are actually one of the smartest animals around

And are notorious for dealing with in the wild, because unlike other animals, they will learn and teach other pigs.

Its why people who hunt them to deal with overpopulation can't use the same traps, tbe pigs learn, and alert the pack, and any survivors promptly teach other pigs

 

[World in Scarlet]

NATO justified taking out civilian infrastructure in Serbia using the same rationale.

Different goals, different means, different context.
Not that you know anything about that, because you're just an "America bad" NPC parroting talking points.

Also the usual implication of "you approve if it's your team", because you do approve of any type of atrocity committed by the Russians.
Incapable of even conceiving of the idea that someone might be opposed to an action because of what it entails, as opposed to judging the morality solely based on who is the doer and who is the doee.

 

[Fuck It We'll Do It Live]

"Russian Forces Appear To Be Pulling Out Of Prized Syrian Air Base"

There are clear signs that Russian forces, including an S-400 surface-to-air missile system, are withdrawing from Khmeimim Air Base in Syria.

"Will Russia lose military bases in Syria?" [in Russian]

The airbase in Khmeimimam is likely to be lost for the Russian Federation, the expert also suggested. “And it was an airfield jumping to Africa. It was from there that the Wagnerites and military equipment were transported to another continent. Russia had great appetites for Africa, it helped overthrow regimes in some countries and retain power to the local tsars. So the keys are lost not only from the Middle East, but also from Africa. I would like to note that a Russian military-technical intelligence structure was deployed on the border with Lebanon and Israel. These were the eyes and ears of Moscow in the Middle East. Now Russia, in fact, is leaving the region,” concluded Maxim Glikin.

Russian grandads with AK-12s (vastly superior to any tranny NATO rifle, xaxaxa, even a Russian boomer with frostbitten fingers can reload it in mere seconds) being the next human wave, making sure churkas in Moscow need not bleed in their place:

Россия is truly fighting for the third world.

 

[N Space]

"Russian Forces Appear To Be Pulling Out Of Prized Syrian Air Base"

"Will Russia lose military bases in Syria?" [in Russian]

There goes their last cope

 

[World in Scarlet]

Difference being that energy infrastructure falls squarely in duel use

Something to add, because I think my previous post was a bit aggressive. This is because it is a pet peeve of mine: People for come across a reason for doing a thing, and jump to the conclusion that it must be justified after all.

Saying blowing up dams and thermal power plants because they also supply energy to factories, misses the discussion of whether this is an efficacious and proportional means to accomplish that. It also misses whether that is the actual goal or merely the stated goal.
How do we tell the difference? Look at the actions and see which goal they align with more closely.
These attacks had very little impact on the war so far, outside of making civilians miserable. The military and industrial facilities are far better adapted to dealing with the after effects than regular people. I recall an article a while ago saying that it barely affects the military at all, because they have backups, and that is borne out by the situation on the front. I'm not ware of any finding that connects these bombings to a weakening of Ukrainian resistance.

IMO there's two reasons for these attacks against electricity infrastructure:
>terrorize civilians
>lack of alternatives
I remember reading that factories are relatively resilient to attacks. You need a lot to thoroughly destroy a single facility and there is a large number of facilities. After the Russians used up their stockpiles, they probably no longer have a sufficient amount of missiles to make a substantial dent in industrial production. They can't consistently attack military targets, because they can't find them and the ones that can't be hidden are well defended (again, issues with availability). The air fields that are attacked continue to operate. Targeting the plants themselves, rather than the grid, also shows that there's no expectation of it having an impact in the short or medium term (repair times for power plants are much more long term than those of substations).
Recall that terror bombing with the goal of creating refugee streams has been a tactic employed by the Russians in Syria as well. This is a thing in their military culture, not something they invented out of nowhere for Ukraine. The random shelling of frontline cities is another implementation of this Russian method of warfare.
However, their bombing of Ukraine didn't have the desired effect of driving everyone to try to leave, and while it negatively impacts mood, it doesn't seem to affect the willingness to resist much either. It also obviously doesn't deter the Ukrainian military from attacking Russian military sites.
Therefore I think one of the core reasons for these attacks at this point is propaganda and "revenge", targeting the Russian population (similar to the German use of missiles against the UK during WW II). This is supported by the timing as well: They often follow closely on some embarrassing failure of the Russian government to protect military facilities. Any impact on factories is incidental at most.

 

[MG-34]

Allegedly there is an ongoing attack in Ukraine controlled Kursk where North Korean soliders are being sent in unsupported to flush out AFU positions for a later offensive.

 

[No. 7 cat]

A simple le 56 face meme from the internet (which well represents the other other thread). Drink too small tho.

Enemy strike UAVs in the central part of Chernihiv region on a southwesterly course towards Kyiv region;
UAV in Kharkiv region heading west (Poltava region);
UAVs in the south of Sumy region in the direction of Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions;
UAV in the north of Sumy region, heading west.

source

President Zelensky: Today there is already preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use soldiers from North Korea in assaults - a significant number. The Russians are including them in consolidated units and using them in operations in the areas of the Kursk region. Losses among this category are also already significant.

source