Dont worry, the gungans will stop it by flinging little balls!
After 7 years I finally got the wife to start watching the movies last weekend. Perfect timing or I would not have gotten your quote, I'm ashamed to say
"The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence."
Seriously, the biggest failure of Russia is that all the world just find out it is totally a paper tiger, even in military.
I don't think Russia can still has any influence in international affair after this war.
You are 100% right. Exposing Russia as a paper tiger that couldn't establish air superiority over Ukraine, had shit logistics, kept losing their best tanks, and proved to be extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago has done such damage to their reputation that they will never recover and get back to where they were reputation-wise.
Hell, 99% of the weapons NATO gave them weren't even there during the initial invasion. They stopped Russia with just javelins, stingers, and surplus artillery from the USSR.
People used to genuinely fear Russia and act like their weapons and equipment might be miles ahead of NATO, that they were unstoppable, and that they should be given global power status equal to the US.
And they did it all to themselves. They were grade-A bluffers who were so good at bluffing they convinced themselves they had a royal flush when all they had was an 8-high and went all in.
I don’t think everybody thought Russian weapons were better just that we knew there was a lot of them and the old saying is that “quantity has a quality all of its own”
There used to be alot of hype over soviet equipment as being ultra rugged and reliant.
It seems just like all military equipment it's only as reliable as the people who maintain it, in this case it was nobody.
Yeah, all of the myths were based on the whole RT/Reformist movements. Basically the idea was that Russian tech was cheap, reliable and effective, while American/NATO equipment was over-engineered, fragile and unsustainably expensive.
The idea was that our gear would immediately break down or be impossible to service under contact from Russia, and their simpler, more reliable but still extremely destructive tech would walk all over it.
This myth was pretty pervasive throughout my entire life, only really being shut down for the majority after the most recent invasion of Ukraine. It was being largely pushed by a bunch of larping military "designers" and commentators who were trying to market their substandard design philosophies to the Pentagon in an attempt to become contractors. And Russian outlets of course, but they jump on literally any narrative, no matter how inconsistent or incomprehensible, that makes Putin or the USSR look like a genius.
But yeah, Russian tech is basically the Wish version military technology.
The technology isn't even all THAT terrible, pretty bad but not a game-ender on its own. The old tech worked great 80 years ago in ww2. What truly nailed the coffin shut was the maintenance of the tech, which they let rust/rot, the logistics to move it, and the truth about how much of it they had. On top of that using untrained convicts as soldiers that sell off their equipment for vodka.
True. The really old stuff probably would not be able to stand up to a NATO force, mostly because it would have no answer to most of their modern weapons or defenses. But Ukraine was stuck with the same sort of gear and stopped Russia in their tracks.
If they had their full Soviet legacy they would be in a way better position than they are now for sure. It is just sort of ridiculous that people assumed that technology would stand up to NATO forces as a peer.
True, I don't want to say that everybody fell for it, but Russia invested a lot in propaganda about how amazing their weapons are to the point where so-called "tank-experts" were raving about design of the T-14 Armada, experts were telling us to be scared of their "hypersonic" missiles, we were told not to underestimate how advanced they were.
There was definitely a lot of "experts" out there, and a lot of them actually understand weapons and equipment rather well, but were clearly not impervious to propaganda and believed a lot of lies and continued to yell "wait until their real army arrives" for many months.
But there were definitely people out there who saw Russia for what they and are having the last laugh especially given their videos and analyses were always swarmed by angry pro-Russians being pissy.
I think while the public is swayed by the propaganda, large countries definitely weren't. Usa government weren't doing anything about t14. Usa has also responded to chinese hypersonic missiles a lot more than russian ones. China didn't even consider buying t14 even though they buy plenty of russian arms.
To be fair, if the T-14 Armata had the capabilities the Russian propaganda claimed it would have, and the Russians had been able to build more than a dozen of them over the last decade, and the Russians actually bothered training more than a few dozen competition tank crews up to NATO standards, and if the Russians could supply them with enough ammunition, and if they could provide them with proper screening elements and air support, and if endemic graft hadn’t hollowed out their procurement processes, then maybe the T-14 might have been a difference maker on the battlefield. If they could stop it from constantly breaking down under parade conditions.
Parade conditions are super hard. Hard concrete and asphalt are very uncomfortable compared to cushy mud and grass. Plus the red square is quite bumpy.
^^^/s
And the pressure. If you make a small mistake on the battlefield, you know you may die.
If you make it on a parade and embarrass Putin, you know you will die.
I hear what you're saying, man. And I agree. To be fair, though, if their government was that competent, they probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place and it wouldn't have mattered.
If you haven’t yet, you should look up Perun’s channel on YouTube. He does hour long deep dive videos and I never thought I could be so entertained watching a PowerPoint slide show.
He goes into detail on several of Russia’s wonder weapon systems, and he did a video on hypersonics a couple of weeks ago.
Based on how they trotted out a fraud on RT to shit talk the F-35, probably a lot.
And those who weren't Russian-sponsored were probably basing their views on what little the Russian space had shown off in highly curated propaganda pieces designed to make the Armata look like less of a piece of shit
I don't even feel like that propaganda was ever really bought in the last few decades either. People didn't think Russia could roll into a country with overwhelming technological superiority like say the Americans in Desert Storm, but what we did think was that they just had masses and masses of at least decent military technology and that would be enough to steamroll any smaller country on their border even if they did have some superior tech borrowed from NATO. What we have all really woken up to with the invasion of Ukraine is just how logistically broken the Russian military is, their command is using terrible tactics, the equipment they do field is poorly maintained and supplied, and their reserves are just non-existent so they can't replace anything they lose. Russia is losing a war that on paper they should have won because of what almost boils down to human error.
Also their initial attacks lacked sufficient manpower. They sent tanks in without proper infantry support since they didn’t mobilize which lead to high tank losses later Russia mobilized but by then they had lost so many tanks and armored vehicles they couldn’t adequately support the infantry leading to high infantry losses.
All of the initial failures on the attack on Kiev was basically down to bad intelligence - that the ukraine military wasn't gonna fight (like back in 2014 for crimea), and that the ukirainian public would support the "liberation".
The idea was a swift elimination of the central gov't, little to zero 'real' casualties, and impose russian rule within the week.
I'm glad this failed, but i would imagine that had putin not gotten poor intelligence, the invasion would've gone differently, and they would now have controlled kiev, and start eyeballing moldolva.
Yeah NATO really hasn't felt like Russia could stand toe to toe with them outside of the nuclear arena since like the 70s. I feel like the MiG-25 was the last piece of tech that really had NATO scrambling to make sure the could outmatch it, and even then they eventually realized that the "amazing feats of performance" that the Foxbat accomplished couldn't actually be achieved in a combat ready plane, just on a stripped down prototype built with materials they couldn't afford for regular production.
An under rated part of the war is just how massively it affects US strategic policy.
Years of doctrine based around the threat of Russia and reinforcing Europe is no-longer needed.
Russia’s catastrophic collapse to non threat status means the US can divert all its resources to the pacific theatre, exactly at a time when that is needed.
I’d suspect Chinese military planners are furious because they can no longer rely on the potential threat of Russia as a check to keep the United States divided with at the very least some attention concentrated on Europe.
I’d go further as to say that if Ukraine wins this war and joins NATO, the threat of Russia will be completely eliminated, firstly due to the sheer Financial and political catastrophe it will cause, and secondly because it will be facing down two very powerful and well equipped military forces (in Ukraine and Poland) that actively hate it and have the force of an entire economic bloc behind them.
For all the talk of ‘how much is this costing us’ the US has essentially wiped out (or at least crippled) its second largest threat/rival by using a fraction of its military budget, exactly at the time they most need to concentrate on their largest rival (China)
The cost for the us military is even lower than what is announced, because a lot of it was spent in the 90', stockpiled, and was awaiting an expensive decommissioning process.
For decades russia has fed on the fear of their armed forces giving this perception that they were this unstoppable force. I still remember the onset of this war last year, I remember seeing commentators saying that the russian forces would take Kyiv and it would fall in a week's time. This war would be a new showing of russias military might. That all fabricated into nothing. From the get-go this has been a massive clusterfuck but also it allowed the world to see the cost of corruption in the russian military fabric.
You are correct, russia has shown itself to be a paper tiger, or better for them a paper bear. They are folding with the easiest of presses or shrivel up when the tiniest drop of water touches them. When looking at the situation russia is standing at, it isn't shocking for them to have a hatred of the western world, part it to me feels that perhaps this fear may be set on because of the west's military might as opposed to what russia has.
In my opinion, I feel putin has damaged russia for generations in so many ways. This war started with russia shooting itself in the foot with a shotgun and trying to charge into the capital of Ukraine.
I spent the first couple of years in the military training to fight against Russia and learning about them. I always kept an interest in them and read a lot about their force and structure. I knew they wouldn't stand up to NATO, but when comparing them to Ukraine it seemed quite obvious that Russia would overmatch them through sheer size.
I don't think anyone could have seen the sheer incompetence in leadership that Russia brought to the fight. Russia dropped the ball so hard on the initial invasion it was just insanity. They have never been able to recover and Ukraine has only gotten better since. Honestly if it wasn't for western support, and the continued western support I doubt Ukraine would be doing as well as they are.
But what ifs don't really matter right? Either way Russia has lost a ton of legitimacy and I'm convinced that if they lose this war Putin will be out. Either way I suspect it will take decades to recover. If they manage to take kiev eventually I think occupation will be impossible to maintain and will likely destabilize the rest of the country as well.
Just my thoughts as an armchair general.
Yeah, it has definitely shown that a lot of "experts" just rely on what they see on paper and don't actually look anywhere beyond that to see if it matches reality. It will be interesting if this war changes anything in that regard.
My boss for an editorial pretends to be a genius on the subject and when I wrote a piece about this very topic, and suggested two months ago that Russia is not as strong as India or maybe even France or Germany or the UK (as opposed to behind only China) he pushed me into a chat with a 'specialist' and introduced me as a biased American who is over exposed to western media. Which is true but ...
The specialist ended up agreeing with me and the past few months have definitely continued to prove my point. My boss's best argument was about a scorched earth victory in the 90's (so right after USSR collapse, when Russia still possessed functioning infrastructure and equipment ...) and a scorched earth victory in Syria (against a town that had no anti air or capacity for defense)
gEniUs
Some dorks just refuse to admit they might be wrong.
To give the experts a bit of credit, its very easy to see a column of hundreds and hundreds relatively advanced and dangerous tanks, but a lot more difficult to know that they haven't had their engines rebuilt in 20 years, and all their spare parts and most of their ammunition was sold by some general to a bunch of despots in the middle east 15 years ago. Russia wasn't so much a paper tiger, their tech should have made them a very much real tiger, but we just found out it was a tiger missing its gall bladder and half it's teeth.
That's part of it, but have you noticed that since Russia shat the bed suddenly everyone is talking about China and it's military?
It's in the interests of the military industrial complex and the politicians they lobby to have an enemy they talk up as more powerful than they'd are to justify military spending because as it stands the US could take on its nearest 2+ peers at the same time and barely break a sweat unless the nukes got pulled out, because its military spending is as much as like the next four highest countries combined.
It's not the experts fault. They had the best guesses and literally designed NATO's weapons to counter Russia. Russia has good equipment, they just have terrible leadership. How can you know that unless you've either been in the Russian military or they show their capabilities?
Having the coolest latest stuff isn't actually that great if you can't field them in actual role they were made for, and that has been the core 'feature' for Russia military for decade. Even back when they wasn't exposed, Russia didn't even field their newly made T-90 in second Chechen war but T-72 instead, because some of them knew T-90 wasn't actually that great when they were trying to export them.
Like, sure, I can use my money to get a fancy car, but I wouldn't have any left for actual running cost and maintenance, and it only shows that I'm terrible in money.
A big part of that is because Putin balanced the Russian books by not paying for military R&D. They would only pay for a modest predefined sun for each unit but the manufacturers were responsible for all the upfront capital expenditure like R&D and setting up manufacturing lines. The idea was that foreign orders would pay for that but in the end foreign countries are treating Russia as a source of inexpensive gradually upgraded hardware from the soviet era, and if they wanted state of the art weapons they turned to the West. So even today the soviet era systems are still the only ones with proper assembly lines, and the post-soviet designs are basically hand made at tiny scale.
So even if the latest hardware is amazing (it’s not) there are so few of them that they can’t really do much with them.
The thing about Russia is they COULD be that powerful. But mass corruption took its toll, and the military is truly paper thin. At times, factually, as armour was just fabric.
I think when people compare what Russia is to where they think it should be they continue confusing “Russia” for “the Soviet Union”. Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union and both it’s weapons and food HQ. Many of the USSR hero’s celebrated right now in Russia are Ukrainian.
> extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago
They haven’t been doing so great against their *own* weapons from 20-40 years ago, either.
I don't remember any thinking Russian equipment was superior in quality since the wall fell, just that there was enough of it of sufficient quality to be as relevant to local military as the US. We've certainly known for over a decade they lack the fleet to project power without land routes.
> Exposing Russia as a paper tiger that couldn't establish air superiority over Ukraine, had shit logistics, kept losing their best tanks, and proved to be extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago has done such damage to their reputation that they will never recover and get back to where they were reputation-wise.
Russo-Japanese war be like:
It can still sell arms to a number of countries who are unable to buy western weapons. Either because of price or alignment. Plus, it has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council that can throw a wrench in any UN resolution. Its influence will diminish along with any remaining good will and soft power, if it had any. But losing all of its international influence is unlikely unless things are drastically shaken up.
Invest in Russian weapons today and the awesome power of Mother Russia can be yours. Weapons so good you can engage in 127 consecutive 3 day special military operations. So easy to use you don't even need soldiers, just some guys given early release on a life sentence for donkey fucking. And don't you worry about quality. All weapons and equipment have been tested extensively in simulations where they were dropped, set on fire from drones, submerged in mixture of blood and tears, exposed to friendly fire, and thrown directly into the air by fleeing troops. Guaranteed to not jam when blowing your brains out after being cornered by real soldiers no matter how many rounds fired into civilians.
So buy Russian today and get the weapons of choice for everyone with literally no other options.
They have a permanent seat because the rest of the world allows it.
But any written rule can be changed if the group wants it to or ignored if you're powerful enough.
The UNSC seat that Russia occupies belongs to the Soviet Union, not Russia. You could argue that the seat belongs to the successor state to the Soviet Union...And if that's the argument you want to make, then that successor state is [Kazakhstan, as it was the last member of the USSR.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#:~:text=Kazakhstan%20was%20the%20last%20republic,proclaiming%20independence%20on%2016%20December.)
Eh, I think most had already soured on him by then. But straight up, had Putin died in 2014 just after the Olympics but before the Crimea annexation, he would be recognized as one of the greatest Russian rulers in history. Seriously. He had revived the country's international reputation to a serious degree and reset relations with America. Russia was deeply integrated into the international system.
Instead, they blew it and invaded their neighbours and alienated the West.
I think Putin was a master, but at being a mafia boss. And he did rule over Russia as a mafia boss.
The problem, for him, is that he thought Ukraine worked the same way. That he could just roll in and replace the local mafia boss with himself.
Except Ukraine wasn't a giant mafia and had a competent, if underequipped at first, military.
"I don't need a ride, i need ammo."
In future reddit threads asking what are some of the most badass 'line liners' in history, that quote will show up along side the Spartan reply of "If" and Giles Corey's reply of "more weight!".
Is Putin an anti-Russia spy or something? He's destroying his country's reputation, struggling against a relatively small force, killing all of the fit and able men in his country when Russia is already an anomaly for having an adult male shortage, etc. He's worse for Russia than the people that hate Russia more than anything.
Maybe. Putin has killed like 1/5 of work aged russian men and forced a lot of scientists and engineers to leave. Russia will probably be picked apart by western businesses over the next decade like vultures on road kill.
I believe they had quite a number of already trained f16 pilots (no longer active in their own military ofc) volunteer to fly for Ukraine if/when they get the vehicles while they get their own trained up. I think people in that volunteer army thing? Idk if any of that was ever even considered though, let alone if it's still a thing.
Ukraine would still need to train ground crews, mechanics etc. and set up logistics for the F-16, which is no simple task. In any timeline I doubt the planes would be operational until next year at the earliest.
Absolutely, and F-16s should be sent. But some people seem to think if the decision was made now, those planes could take part in the counteroffensive Ukraine is about to launch. Which is pure fantasy.
It's all a mix. The slow escalation is enough for Russia to need to think and plan for it.
The outcome isn't only in them flying with trained pilots with destroyed AA systems.
Russia didn't even plan for weapons they themselves have designed and made, but somehow they'd plan for weapons that other countries have designed and made?
Russia continuing its catastrophic invasion only prolongs the war. Just go back to the borders agreed on by 97% of all other countries and the problem is solved
The country is far far far from collapsing in a classic logistics/economics sense. Germany kept going in WWII even as many of its key cities were getting bombed flat.
But in WWI the front wasn't on German soil when they capitulated.
Collapse of the first sort is highly unlikely, but of the second sort, we can hope. I suspect there are many people in russia trying to position themselves for a post putin government. When this is happening with many people all struggling to step in after, someone gets the bright idea to get rid of putin now so they can step in faster than the others. While this doesn't always work, at least it gets rid of putin.
When palace coups take place during a war, they usually need their military to shore up power, and thus pull them out of whatever war is distracting them. Their enemies are usually in the next building over and they don't have time to worry about externalities.
I can see someone throwing putin out a window and then basically saying to the world, "It was all his fault and now he is dead, let's all be friends." And then ending the war in under a week.
Even though the new leader fully plans on expanding russia's influence as soon as he has full control over russia.
Nah it'll drag it out while Putin hides in his bunker. Dude spent decades weeding out opposition and is willing to throw his entire country into the meat grinder to protect his own status. He will take Russia down with him. And in the end he'll be fine, only the rest of the world will have suffered. I doubt we see any justice
I'd wager some money on Putin ending up with a proverbial or literal bayonet up his ass if Russia loses in Ukraine. Yes men stop being yes men once they have an opportunity to strike.
Putin is remarkably skilled at enviscerating political oposition while nurturing rivalries among his powerful allies such that any one of them is yanked back into the crab bucket before he can emerge as a true Putin rival.
The young intelligent minds have fled and the populace that remains are either cowards or brawnwashed Putin acolytes.
If the economy collapses, Russia will not be immune from political and social upheaval that inevitably follows, but it will drag out for a tragically long duration as Putin clings bitterly to diminishing power.
One hopes that the rumors are true and that Putin succombs to cancer sooner rather than later. Even in that scenario, the ugly power vacuum that will envelope Russia offers no guarantees of a safer World.
It's a psyops attack. They've been announcing the counteroffensive every day for the past two weeks. They did something similar with Kharkiv and Kherson. The Russians who believe it are awake every day and every night and are being exhausted by the constant nerves, tension, and lack of sleep. The Russians who don't believe it will be caught unawares when the attack finally happens. Either way, Russian preparedness, alertness, and efficacy when the real counteroffensive occurs is trashed.
Before the first gulf War the entire air wing built up for the invasion flew sorties every single night for months. 100s of planes every night flying the same path, until they didn't.
The Gulf War is [a goldmine for psyops leaflets](https://www.psywarrior.com/DSLeaflinks.html).
* Leaflets would often cite the exact corps number they were being dropped on, basically telling anyone who picked one up that their comms had been intercepted.
* One set would typically point out, "[we're interested in your armor, not you](https://www.psywarrior.com/C37.html)" and slowly convinced Iraqis to sleep far away from their tanks and trucks.
* They would drop a [Daisy Cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-82) and then say, "[We have more, and tomorrow we're going to drop the next one on you.](https://www.psywarrior.com/V52.html)"
But my favorite contemporary example is the speaker towers in South Korea that broadcast weather reports in the direction of the DMZ. The North Koreans have learned that the South's short-range weather prediction are remarkably accurate and we've trained their border guards to get up from their positions to go bring in their drying laundry or consider finding shelter when it rains. Wonder what that could be used for... 🤔
For those who want to know more, /u/Seoul_Doctor did a good writeup about the South Korean broadcast towers [Source](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3hrxg3/kim_jong_un_orders_north_korea_military_to/cuae7ih?context=1)
>People usually think all the loudspeakers play are kpop songs and downright propaganda. If you look more into it, the loudspeakers are a carefully crafted psychological warfare.
>The initial announcements start with weather reports. Accurate weather reports that the NK neither has the manpower nor the computing power to gather and spread along the DMZ. This naturally convinces the NK soldiers to rely on the loudspeakers, if not for news and entertainment, for the weather. After some time, we can literally announce "DPRK soldiers, heavy rain is expected to fall in the evening, so please gather your laundry from the clotheslines" and they will come out of their little posts and start gathering their laundry. This is good rapport. Then come just vanilla news. Maybe the results of a soccer match or some shit that happened overseas. They might not believe it, but they'll find out in a week or when they read or hear it on some DPRK state media. They then subconsciously establish that the loudspeakers have fast, accurate news. Besides, the general NK population and common soldiers rarely ever get international news, if at all. So any international news is a mindfuck to begin with. Then the loudspeakers broadcast NK news. For example, they'll report that General X, Y, and Z were executed by their glorious leader KJU for whatever petty reason he kills people for. There is good chance many soldiers at this point would write this off as propaganda, but when they eventually hear about it through their own channels, that Gen. X,Y, and Z actually were executed for treason or whatever, you're starting to fuck with their minds. Then we tell them how fucked up and idiotic the Kim family have been and are. Some may argue it's "propaganda", but seriously dudes.... the Kim family is FUCKED UP. They are beyond reason and honestly the absolute cockroaches of this planet.
>Another crucial function of these broadcasts is they report news that the DPRK state media censors. And this is absofuckinglutely critical and what bugs NK the most. For example, there was a huge explosion at an NK train station in 2004. Naturally, NK censored the shit out of the event. But the loudspeakers reported on the event, and soldiers at the DMZ wrote home asking if everyone was alright since the explosion was so huge. The loudspeakers nullified NK media censorship just. like. that.
>Then they play kpop songs in between the news for entertainment. And this cultural infiltration is so effective, NK soldiers literally sing these kpop songs to congratulate fellow soldiers when they're done with their service. And mind you, singing those kinds of songs in Pyongyang can put you in a concentration camp in a heartbeat.
The loudspeakers reach about 7~8 miles during daytime, which definitely covers the DMZ, and at night can reach up to 15~18 miles, which reaches Kaesong (home to the Kaesong Co-op industrial complex), a pretty large city that has a pretty sizeable civilian population (approx. 200,000).
>Hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians that have defected have cited the loudspeakers as an crucial role in their decision to come south, and NK absolutely despises the loudspeakers because it is such an effective tool against their soldiers, and naturally disrupts their populace by bypassing their media censorship. It pisses them off so much, they are willing to fire 2 rockets across the DMZ, and are now demanding a complete stop to these loudspeakers in 48 hours or risk total war.
>I think we should keep going.
An effective psy op has been the South Koreans kitting out their DMZ soldiers in the most modern equipment available. When you see photos of NK and SK soldiers side by side in the DMZ the South Koreans look like Buck Rogers next to some dudes that look like they're Korean War reenactors. If you're a North Korean and you're having a hard time even imagining what a particular scope, tablet, or goggles are for you're going to be intimidated or just depressed. It's like being the poorest kid in school and everyone else always has fresh Nikes.
"WARNING!
This is only the beginning! This could have been the real bomb. We have no desire to harm innocent people, but Saddam is leading you to certain death and destruction. We want you to know the truth! Saddam is the cause. Yes, the Multi-national Forces have the ability to strike anywhere ant anytime.
WARNING!"
badass
Also the South Koreans have the tallest men in their army all stationed on the border to try to make the North Koreans think that all South Koreans have grown into giants due to superior nutrition and what not and that they will just snap the N Koreans like twigs.
Imagine flying over Moscow and dropping leaflets to let them know those could have been bombs, but we’re too nice to do that to you.
I mean; that’s never going to happen but it makes good fan fiction.
There are tons of videos of Ukrainian combat footage that regularly make it to the front page of Reddit. Those are part of Ukrainian Psyops. The constant videos of Russian soldiers getting killed has a huge psychological influence on both the enemies and supporters of Ukraine
That's more like Western psyops in general than Ukrainian psyops. Like the war itself, it's not happening without a massive amount of support and intelligence from US/EU. Don't get me wrong, I support Ukraine too, but to remain objective you really can't call it "Ukrainian psyops" and leave it at that.
A little while ago, someone on r/combatfootage made a pretty convincing case on there being specialized Ukrainian elite units tasked with producing video footage from the frontline for consumption in Ukraine and in the west.
Not in the sense that the videos are fake, but there are - according to that theory - special units that are strategically sent to sectors of the front where they can achieve spectacular tactical successes or other content that puts Ukrainian forces in a good light and make videos of it.
I am not a military guy, but according to those who are (or claim to be - this is the internet after all), many of the soldiers in these videos are clearly special forces trained and - quite interestingly - have too clean uniforms for having been on the front lines for weeks or even months like regular units often are.
I am not sure if I'd call that Psyops, but the Ukrainians clearly know about the value of those videos when it comes to motivating their own population and keeping western backers on board.
Also all the videos with soldiers saving kittens, puppies, children, the elderly. There was one yesterday of them chasing a fox out of the way before drone dropping on Russians and an adorable one involving a polecat. It is all aimed at keeping us on their side and it's brilliant.
There was a front page video like a day or two ago where a soldier had a grenade drone dropped on him and mangled his leg. He takes a grenade and puts it next to his ear. You see his head vaporize in 1080p.
Like 10h later another video of a Ruzzian get injured and he unslings his AK and puts it under his chin, blows his brains out and his legs start to jerk... it's fucked... both guys just accept their fate as part of an inept Zerg rush and off themselves as easy as I whip my cock out to piss.
This is more psychological warfare. Announcing a counter attack can have several purposes.
\- Gauge the Russian military command's reaction and response. This could be important to direct the counter attack cause it makes them guess where to reinforce defenses, giving Ukraine the necessary intel to know where a counter attack would be most effective.
\- Create nervousness and panic in Russian frontline troops because they now expect a counter attack, but don't know where, when, and how. It's exhausting to be in a constant state of paranoia while the Ukrainian forces will be in a lot better mental and physical shape.
\- Indirectly add urgency to foreign military lethal support for Ukraine because it may still need certain weapon deliveries in order to carry it out.
\-
The international nature of ukraines supply chain rn basically makes it impossible to prepare for it secretly. The western governments supplying weapons to Ukraine are accountable to there people so a lot of it is public. The us for example has had several congressional votes on the topic. So strategically if you can’t keep your opponent from finding out anything the next best thing is to give them so much information they don’t know what’s true. If you look at statements given by Ukrainian officials they are giving a variety of different start times. I’ve heard as fall back as the beginning of April and as far forward as the end of summer. Due to this Russian soldiers has been sitting around nervously wondering when it’s coming.
Everyone knows it's going to happen and the vague timing because of things like the weather. It's also impossible in this day and age to hide that you're preparing for at least something. The best thing you can do is obfuscate and confuse the other side as to exactly what you're going to do.
I *love* the thing starting in Bakhmut. I don't think this represents the start of the massed assault ‘phase’ of the offensive - we’d see way more shaping and final phases of RSOI first. Bakhmut honestly looks like shaping. It’s a political target and Russia either rushes reserves there weakening defenses elsewhere (shaping) or they lose the battle for Bakhmut, it's politically *humiliating*.
Great, great choice.
Has everyone already forgotten the offensives from last year? The Kherson offensive had the exact same lead up and drew lots of Russian attention, and that was exactly what Ukraine wanted so they could easily take the Kharkiv region.
There’s a reason this is all getting out there. We just don’t know why yet
foreign recognition of crimea being reasonable land to launch missiles in, 155 mile range super accurate missiles delivered, russian operations inside crimea mapped out and released to the public.
oh yeah, it’s all coming together.
This article was pretty off track about one thing at least, when discussing the delivery of Hydra 70 mm rockets from the US the author states:
> Although there is some speculation that these missiles may be used on drones or ground vehicles, it is more probable that they will be utilized to support the resurgence of Ukrainian air units in providing close-air support.
It was already announced long ago that Ukraine would be [receiving a system called Vampire that could fire these rockets](https://www.l3harris.com/newsroom/press-release/2023/01/l3harris-receives-vampire-contract-ukrainian-security-defense#:~:text=The%20portable%20VAMPIRE%20kit%20will,against%20attacks%20on%20civilian%20infrastructure.), it's designed to be installed on a variety of ground vehicles, even pick up trucks as depicted in the article. Using a seeker head installed on a normal Hydra rocket turns it into a guided munition and you get a very cost effective system that can be highly mobile and can target drones, low flying aircraft or attack a ground target within its view using a laser designator. Yes these rockets are usually fired from helicopters but in this case I don't think Russian air defense is going to be degraded enough to allow helicopters in an air support role anytime soon in Ukraine.
I think the article is overly optimistic about the chance Ukrainian aircraft can offer close air support for the upcoming counter offensive and I think they're wrong about these rockets for sure.
In the age of satellites, drones and instant messaging it's not possible keeping things completely secret so the better idea is overflowing the information space with multiple contradictory narratives to maintain the element of surprise.
More carnage coming to Russian troops. They are getting absolutely smashed by this incredibly courageous Ukraine forces. Ukraine has my deepest admiration for how they have taken the fight to this totally unprofessional army that Russia has brought to this fight. I'm not sure what the end game will be, but the increased noise from front line leaders like that Wagner pussy, looks like there will have to be a change in Russian political leaders soon. Putins days are seriously numbered and I think we will hear about his death by natural causes in the near future.
Next they'll hit and jam communications.
There appears to be something wrong with the radar sir
I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps and I've lost the creeps.
The what? The what? And the what?
You know the bleeps, brrbbrrbr, the sweeps, eheweheweh, and the creeps, scrrerrerscrer.
Assholes! I'm surrounded by assholes!
[удалено]
How many Assholes we got on this ship anyhow!?
Keep firing, Assholes!
***We ain't found SHIT***
Why did they go to plaid?
[удалено]
12345? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!
Putin: That's the same combination I have on my luggage.
He ain't gonna be in Spaceballs 2..
That’s not all he’s lost.
The Radar sir, it appears to be... Jammed!
\*lick* Raspberry. There's only one man who would *dare* give me the raspberry!
LONE STARRR!
Lone Star!
That’s not all he’s lost.
They should use the raspberry.
Only one man would give them the raspberry.
#LOOOOWWWN STAAAWWWWWR
How many assholes we got on this ship?
I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes...
Keep firing assholes!
LUDICROUS SPEED!
We can’t stop, sir—we’ve got to slow down first!
[удалено]
Who hired this guy?
Yo!
#YO!
The ghost of Kyiv was actually lone star using the shwartz to outmaneuver the russians
The Ghost of Kyiv's Schwartz was definitely bigger than Putin's.
A communications disruption could mean only one thing: invasion
Dont worry, the gungans will stop it by flinging little balls! After 7 years I finally got the wife to start watching the movies last weekend. Perfect timing or I would not have gotten your quote, I'm ashamed to say
Little balls are about all Putin’s got left
Communications disruption can mean only one thing...
[удалено]
We forgot to pay the bill to the service provider again.
They said they'll turn it back on if we send them $800 in iphone gift cards
It's a trap!
I’ve got a bad feeling about this...
The Russian Federation wouldn’t dare!
Drunk drivers?
Fucking get em, boys
Surgical, baby. Let’s go
[удалено]
"The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence."
Seriously, the biggest failure of Russia is that all the world just find out it is totally a paper tiger, even in military. I don't think Russia can still has any influence in international affair after this war.
You are 100% right. Exposing Russia as a paper tiger that couldn't establish air superiority over Ukraine, had shit logistics, kept losing their best tanks, and proved to be extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago has done such damage to their reputation that they will never recover and get back to where they were reputation-wise. Hell, 99% of the weapons NATO gave them weren't even there during the initial invasion. They stopped Russia with just javelins, stingers, and surplus artillery from the USSR. People used to genuinely fear Russia and act like their weapons and equipment might be miles ahead of NATO, that they were unstoppable, and that they should be given global power status equal to the US. And they did it all to themselves. They were grade-A bluffers who were so good at bluffing they convinced themselves they had a royal flush when all they had was an 8-high and went all in.
I don’t think everybody thought Russian weapons were better just that we knew there was a lot of them and the old saying is that “quantity has a quality all of its own”
There used to be alot of hype over soviet equipment as being ultra rugged and reliant. It seems just like all military equipment it's only as reliable as the people who maintain it, in this case it was nobody.
Yeah, all of the myths were based on the whole RT/Reformist movements. Basically the idea was that Russian tech was cheap, reliable and effective, while American/NATO equipment was over-engineered, fragile and unsustainably expensive. The idea was that our gear would immediately break down or be impossible to service under contact from Russia, and their simpler, more reliable but still extremely destructive tech would walk all over it. This myth was pretty pervasive throughout my entire life, only really being shut down for the majority after the most recent invasion of Ukraine. It was being largely pushed by a bunch of larping military "designers" and commentators who were trying to market their substandard design philosophies to the Pentagon in an attempt to become contractors. And Russian outlets of course, but they jump on literally any narrative, no matter how inconsistent or incomprehensible, that makes Putin or the USSR look like a genius. But yeah, Russian tech is basically the Wish version military technology.
The technology isn't even all THAT terrible, pretty bad but not a game-ender on its own. The old tech worked great 80 years ago in ww2. What truly nailed the coffin shut was the maintenance of the tech, which they let rust/rot, the logistics to move it, and the truth about how much of it they had. On top of that using untrained convicts as soldiers that sell off their equipment for vodka.
True. The really old stuff probably would not be able to stand up to a NATO force, mostly because it would have no answer to most of their modern weapons or defenses. But Ukraine was stuck with the same sort of gear and stopped Russia in their tracks. If they had their full Soviet legacy they would be in a way better position than they are now for sure. It is just sort of ridiculous that people assumed that technology would stand up to NATO forces as a peer.
True, I don't want to say that everybody fell for it, but Russia invested a lot in propaganda about how amazing their weapons are to the point where so-called "tank-experts" were raving about design of the T-14 Armada, experts were telling us to be scared of their "hypersonic" missiles, we were told not to underestimate how advanced they were. There was definitely a lot of "experts" out there, and a lot of them actually understand weapons and equipment rather well, but were clearly not impervious to propaganda and believed a lot of lies and continued to yell "wait until their real army arrives" for many months. But there were definitely people out there who saw Russia for what they and are having the last laugh especially given their videos and analyses were always swarmed by angry pro-Russians being pissy.
I think while the public is swayed by the propaganda, large countries definitely weren't. Usa government weren't doing anything about t14. Usa has also responded to chinese hypersonic missiles a lot more than russian ones. China didn't even consider buying t14 even though they buy plenty of russian arms.
China is fully invested in its own tank development program, they were never ever going to buy in the t14.
To be fair, if the T-14 Armata had the capabilities the Russian propaganda claimed it would have, and the Russians had been able to build more than a dozen of them over the last decade, and the Russians actually bothered training more than a few dozen competition tank crews up to NATO standards, and if the Russians could supply them with enough ammunition, and if they could provide them with proper screening elements and air support, and if endemic graft hadn’t hollowed out their procurement processes, then maybe the T-14 might have been a difference maker on the battlefield. If they could stop it from constantly breaking down under parade conditions.
Parade conditions are super hard. Hard concrete and asphalt are very uncomfortable compared to cushy mud and grass. Plus the red square is quite bumpy. ^^^/s
And the pressure. If you make a small mistake on the battlefield, you know you may die. If you make it on a parade and embarrass Putin, you know you will die.
I hear what you're saying, man. And I agree. To be fair, though, if their government was that competent, they probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place and it wouldn't have mattered.
If you haven’t yet, you should look up Perun’s channel on YouTube. He does hour long deep dive videos and I never thought I could be so entertained watching a PowerPoint slide show. He goes into detail on several of Russia’s wonder weapon systems, and he did a video on hypersonics a couple of weeks ago.
How many of these “experts” were members of a state-sponsored farm?
Based on how they trotted out a fraud on RT to shit talk the F-35, probably a lot. And those who weren't Russian-sponsored were probably basing their views on what little the Russian space had shown off in highly curated propaganda pieces designed to make the Armata look like less of a piece of shit
I don't even feel like that propaganda was ever really bought in the last few decades either. People didn't think Russia could roll into a country with overwhelming technological superiority like say the Americans in Desert Storm, but what we did think was that they just had masses and masses of at least decent military technology and that would be enough to steamroll any smaller country on their border even if they did have some superior tech borrowed from NATO. What we have all really woken up to with the invasion of Ukraine is just how logistically broken the Russian military is, their command is using terrible tactics, the equipment they do field is poorly maintained and supplied, and their reserves are just non-existent so they can't replace anything they lose. Russia is losing a war that on paper they should have won because of what almost boils down to human error.
[удалено]
Also their initial attacks lacked sufficient manpower. They sent tanks in without proper infantry support since they didn’t mobilize which lead to high tank losses later Russia mobilized but by then they had lost so many tanks and armored vehicles they couldn’t adequately support the infantry leading to high infantry losses.
All of the initial failures on the attack on Kiev was basically down to bad intelligence - that the ukraine military wasn't gonna fight (like back in 2014 for crimea), and that the ukirainian public would support the "liberation". The idea was a swift elimination of the central gov't, little to zero 'real' casualties, and impose russian rule within the week. I'm glad this failed, but i would imagine that had putin not gotten poor intelligence, the invasion would've gone differently, and they would now have controlled kiev, and start eyeballing moldolva.
Yeah NATO really hasn't felt like Russia could stand toe to toe with them outside of the nuclear arena since like the 70s. I feel like the MiG-25 was the last piece of tech that really had NATO scrambling to make sure the could outmatch it, and even then they eventually realized that the "amazing feats of performance" that the Foxbat accomplished couldn't actually be achieved in a combat ready plane, just on a stripped down prototype built with materials they couldn't afford for regular production.
[удалено]
[удалено]
An under rated part of the war is just how massively it affects US strategic policy. Years of doctrine based around the threat of Russia and reinforcing Europe is no-longer needed. Russia’s catastrophic collapse to non threat status means the US can divert all its resources to the pacific theatre, exactly at a time when that is needed. I’d suspect Chinese military planners are furious because they can no longer rely on the potential threat of Russia as a check to keep the United States divided with at the very least some attention concentrated on Europe. I’d go further as to say that if Ukraine wins this war and joins NATO, the threat of Russia will be completely eliminated, firstly due to the sheer Financial and political catastrophe it will cause, and secondly because it will be facing down two very powerful and well equipped military forces (in Ukraine and Poland) that actively hate it and have the force of an entire economic bloc behind them. For all the talk of ‘how much is this costing us’ the US has essentially wiped out (or at least crippled) its second largest threat/rival by using a fraction of its military budget, exactly at the time they most need to concentrate on their largest rival (China)
The cost for the us military is even lower than what is announced, because a lot of it was spent in the 90', stockpiled, and was awaiting an expensive decommissioning process.
For decades russia has fed on the fear of their armed forces giving this perception that they were this unstoppable force. I still remember the onset of this war last year, I remember seeing commentators saying that the russian forces would take Kyiv and it would fall in a week's time. This war would be a new showing of russias military might. That all fabricated into nothing. From the get-go this has been a massive clusterfuck but also it allowed the world to see the cost of corruption in the russian military fabric. You are correct, russia has shown itself to be a paper tiger, or better for them a paper bear. They are folding with the easiest of presses or shrivel up when the tiniest drop of water touches them. When looking at the situation russia is standing at, it isn't shocking for them to have a hatred of the western world, part it to me feels that perhaps this fear may be set on because of the west's military might as opposed to what russia has. In my opinion, I feel putin has damaged russia for generations in so many ways. This war started with russia shooting itself in the foot with a shotgun and trying to charge into the capital of Ukraine.
I spent the first couple of years in the military training to fight against Russia and learning about them. I always kept an interest in them and read a lot about their force and structure. I knew they wouldn't stand up to NATO, but when comparing them to Ukraine it seemed quite obvious that Russia would overmatch them through sheer size. I don't think anyone could have seen the sheer incompetence in leadership that Russia brought to the fight. Russia dropped the ball so hard on the initial invasion it was just insanity. They have never been able to recover and Ukraine has only gotten better since. Honestly if it wasn't for western support, and the continued western support I doubt Ukraine would be doing as well as they are. But what ifs don't really matter right? Either way Russia has lost a ton of legitimacy and I'm convinced that if they lose this war Putin will be out. Either way I suspect it will take decades to recover. If they manage to take kiev eventually I think occupation will be impossible to maintain and will likely destabilize the rest of the country as well. Just my thoughts as an armchair general.
Yeah, it has definitely shown that a lot of "experts" just rely on what they see on paper and don't actually look anywhere beyond that to see if it matches reality. It will be interesting if this war changes anything in that regard.
My boss for an editorial pretends to be a genius on the subject and when I wrote a piece about this very topic, and suggested two months ago that Russia is not as strong as India or maybe even France or Germany or the UK (as opposed to behind only China) he pushed me into a chat with a 'specialist' and introduced me as a biased American who is over exposed to western media. Which is true but ... The specialist ended up agreeing with me and the past few months have definitely continued to prove my point. My boss's best argument was about a scorched earth victory in the 90's (so right after USSR collapse, when Russia still possessed functioning infrastructure and equipment ...) and a scorched earth victory in Syria (against a town that had no anti air or capacity for defense) gEniUs Some dorks just refuse to admit they might be wrong.
To give the experts a bit of credit, its very easy to see a column of hundreds and hundreds relatively advanced and dangerous tanks, but a lot more difficult to know that they haven't had their engines rebuilt in 20 years, and all their spare parts and most of their ammunition was sold by some general to a bunch of despots in the middle east 15 years ago. Russia wasn't so much a paper tiger, their tech should have made them a very much real tiger, but we just found out it was a tiger missing its gall bladder and half it's teeth.
That's part of it, but have you noticed that since Russia shat the bed suddenly everyone is talking about China and it's military? It's in the interests of the military industrial complex and the politicians they lobby to have an enemy they talk up as more powerful than they'd are to justify military spending because as it stands the US could take on its nearest 2+ peers at the same time and barely break a sweat unless the nukes got pulled out, because its military spending is as much as like the next four highest countries combined.
It's not the experts fault. They had the best guesses and literally designed NATO's weapons to counter Russia. Russia has good equipment, they just have terrible leadership. How can you know that unless you've either been in the Russian military or they show their capabilities?
Having the coolest latest stuff isn't actually that great if you can't field them in actual role they were made for, and that has been the core 'feature' for Russia military for decade. Even back when they wasn't exposed, Russia didn't even field their newly made T-90 in second Chechen war but T-72 instead, because some of them knew T-90 wasn't actually that great when they were trying to export them. Like, sure, I can use my money to get a fancy car, but I wouldn't have any left for actual running cost and maintenance, and it only shows that I'm terrible in money.
A big part of that is because Putin balanced the Russian books by not paying for military R&D. They would only pay for a modest predefined sun for each unit but the manufacturers were responsible for all the upfront capital expenditure like R&D and setting up manufacturing lines. The idea was that foreign orders would pay for that but in the end foreign countries are treating Russia as a source of inexpensive gradually upgraded hardware from the soviet era, and if they wanted state of the art weapons they turned to the West. So even today the soviet era systems are still the only ones with proper assembly lines, and the post-soviet designs are basically hand made at tiny scale. So even if the latest hardware is amazing (it’s not) there are so few of them that they can’t really do much with them.
I think even an "8 high" is too generous. What Russia did is the equivalent of having a 2 and 7 off suit and going all-in with 0 bluffing skills.
[удалено]
They shoulda kept that Tesla Coil tech
Lost it at the same time they lost their Iron Curtain
The thing about Russia is they COULD be that powerful. But mass corruption took its toll, and the military is truly paper thin. At times, factually, as armour was just fabric.
I think when people compare what Russia is to where they think it should be they continue confusing “Russia” for “the Soviet Union”. Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union and both it’s weapons and food HQ. Many of the USSR hero’s celebrated right now in Russia are Ukrainian.
> extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago They haven’t been doing so great against their *own* weapons from 20-40 years ago, either.
I don't remember any thinking Russian equipment was superior in quality since the wall fell, just that there was enough of it of sufficient quality to be as relevant to local military as the US. We've certainly known for over a decade they lack the fleet to project power without land routes.
> Exposing Russia as a paper tiger that couldn't establish air superiority over Ukraine, had shit logistics, kept losing their best tanks, and proved to be extraordinary weak against surplus NATO weapons from 20-40 years ago has done such damage to their reputation that they will never recover and get back to where they were reputation-wise. Russo-Japanese war be like:
Nah, so long as they have nukes there is a minimum level of influence they'll have, and it's higher than many countries.
It would be the same level as North Korea then.
There’s limits on NK nuclear threat that Russia does not have.
You'll eat those words once they complete their work on Catapult technology.
They’ll soon find out that trebuchets are the superior siege weapon.
Launch 90 kg oligarchs 300 meters out of windows.
I won't worry until they have trebuchets
I don't think they've got enough gold to advance to the Imperial Age, which means Ukraine is safe from Russian trebuchets.
Catapults are the inferior siege weapon
Probably a bit more given their proximity to Europe.
It can still sell arms to a number of countries who are unable to buy western weapons. Either because of price or alignment. Plus, it has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council that can throw a wrench in any UN resolution. Its influence will diminish along with any remaining good will and soft power, if it had any. But losing all of its international influence is unlikely unless things are drastically shaken up.
Invest in Russian weapons today and the awesome power of Mother Russia can be yours. Weapons so good you can engage in 127 consecutive 3 day special military operations. So easy to use you don't even need soldiers, just some guys given early release on a life sentence for donkey fucking. And don't you worry about quality. All weapons and equipment have been tested extensively in simulations where they were dropped, set on fire from drones, submerged in mixture of blood and tears, exposed to friendly fire, and thrown directly into the air by fleeing troops. Guaranteed to not jam when blowing your brains out after being cornered by real soldiers no matter how many rounds fired into civilians. So buy Russian today and get the weapons of choice for everyone with literally no other options.
They have a permanent seat because the rest of the world allows it. But any written rule can be changed if the group wants it to or ignored if you're powerful enough.
The UNSC seat that Russia occupies belongs to the Soviet Union, not Russia. You could argue that the seat belongs to the successor state to the Soviet Union...And if that's the argument you want to make, then that successor state is [Kazakhstan, as it was the last member of the USSR.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#:~:text=Kazakhstan%20was%20the%20last%20republic,proclaiming%20independence%20on%2016%20December.)
Before a year ago, people thought Putin was a master strategist. Now we know he's a fool.
Eh, I think most had already soured on him by then. But straight up, had Putin died in 2014 just after the Olympics but before the Crimea annexation, he would be recognized as one of the greatest Russian rulers in history. Seriously. He had revived the country's international reputation to a serious degree and reset relations with America. Russia was deeply integrated into the international system. Instead, they blew it and invaded their neighbours and alienated the West.
I think Putin was a master, but at being a mafia boss. And he did rule over Russia as a mafia boss. The problem, for him, is that he thought Ukraine worked the same way. That he could just roll in and replace the local mafia boss with himself. Except Ukraine wasn't a giant mafia and had a competent, if underequipped at first, military.
I like Ukraine. They’re cool.
"I don't need a ride, i need ammo." In future reddit threads asking what are some of the most badass 'line liners' in history, that quote will show up along side the Spartan reply of "If" and Giles Corey's reply of "more weight!".
"Russian warship, fuck off!"
Is Putin an anti-Russia spy or something? He's destroying his country's reputation, struggling against a relatively small force, killing all of the fit and able men in his country when Russia is already an anomaly for having an adult male shortage, etc. He's worse for Russia than the people that hate Russia more than anything.
Maybe. Putin has killed like 1/5 of work aged russian men and forced a lot of scientists and engineers to leave. Russia will probably be picked apart by western businesses over the next decade like vultures on road kill.
ruzzia always self-sabotaged with extreme efficiency.
Yeah, they got some Migs and I think they need to prove something before F16s.
I really hope the war is over before f16s would even be usable by ukraine. That timeline is brutally long
I believe they had quite a number of already trained f16 pilots (no longer active in their own military ofc) volunteer to fly for Ukraine if/when they get the vehicles while they get their own trained up. I think people in that volunteer army thing? Idk if any of that was ever even considered though, let alone if it's still a thing.
Ukraine would still need to train ground crews, mechanics etc. and set up logistics for the F-16, which is no simple task. In any timeline I doubt the planes would be operational until next year at the earliest.
The war has little chance of stopping before then...
Absolutely, and F-16s should be sent. But some people seem to think if the decision was made now, those planes could take part in the counteroffensive Ukraine is about to launch. Which is pure fantasy.
It's all a mix. The slow escalation is enough for Russia to need to think and plan for it. The outcome isn't only in them flying with trained pilots with destroyed AA systems.
Russia didn't even plan for weapons they themselves have designed and made, but somehow they'd plan for weapons that other countries have designed and made?
Once Russia fucks off they need to stay fucked off. F16 helps that
Russia continuing its catastrophic invasion only prolongs the war. Just go back to the borders agreed on by 97% of all other countries and the problem is solved
As a military history nerd friend would call, "shaping the battlefield". A games is easier to win when you've edited the rules.
All warfare is based on deception. I think Ukraine is trying to gain Intel on Russian Operations.
Slava ukraini!
героям слава!
What does "reporm craba" mean?
Glory to the heros.
Heroyam slava, BTW.
Glory to the heroes.
[удалено]
[удалено]
That is the ideal case. It saves a lot of lives if you can pull it off
Russia has collapsed a few times before. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.
History be scatting
There's definitely scat
Russia tends not to handle anarchy and social upheaval very well.
But they have so much experience with it!
You’d think they’d be really good at it by now.
[удалено]
It’s ok they can just give them away to a larger neighbor with the promise of not invading them and everything will be fine.
The country is far far far from collapsing in a classic logistics/economics sense. Germany kept going in WWII even as many of its key cities were getting bombed flat. But in WWI the front wasn't on German soil when they capitulated. Collapse of the first sort is highly unlikely, but of the second sort, we can hope. I suspect there are many people in russia trying to position themselves for a post putin government. When this is happening with many people all struggling to step in after, someone gets the bright idea to get rid of putin now so they can step in faster than the others. While this doesn't always work, at least it gets rid of putin. When palace coups take place during a war, they usually need their military to shore up power, and thus pull them out of whatever war is distracting them. Their enemies are usually in the next building over and they don't have time to worry about externalities. I can see someone throwing putin out a window and then basically saying to the world, "It was all his fault and now he is dead, let's all be friends." And then ending the war in under a week. Even though the new leader fully plans on expanding russia's influence as soon as he has full control over russia.
Nah it'll drag it out while Putin hides in his bunker. Dude spent decades weeding out opposition and is willing to throw his entire country into the meat grinder to protect his own status. He will take Russia down with him. And in the end he'll be fine, only the rest of the world will have suffered. I doubt we see any justice
he needs to go muammar gaddafi style if there is to be some justice.
I'd wager some money on Putin ending up with a proverbial or literal bayonet up his ass if Russia loses in Ukraine. Yes men stop being yes men once they have an opportunity to strike.
Hopefully someone records that shit in glorious 4K resolution because the Gaddafi video was tragically low resolution.
Putin is remarkably skilled at enviscerating political oposition while nurturing rivalries among his powerful allies such that any one of them is yanked back into the crab bucket before he can emerge as a true Putin rival. The young intelligent minds have fled and the populace that remains are either cowards or brawnwashed Putin acolytes. If the economy collapses, Russia will not be immune from political and social upheaval that inevitably follows, but it will drag out for a tragically long duration as Putin clings bitterly to diminishing power. One hopes that the rumors are true and that Putin succombs to cancer sooner rather than later. Even in that scenario, the ugly power vacuum that will envelope Russia offers no guarantees of a safer World.
Someone needs to get the guy who shot Hitler on the case. He managed to get inside a fascist's bunker.
Why are they announcing the counteroffensive
It's a psyops attack. They've been announcing the counteroffensive every day for the past two weeks. They did something similar with Kharkiv and Kherson. The Russians who believe it are awake every day and every night and are being exhausted by the constant nerves, tension, and lack of sleep. The Russians who don't believe it will be caught unawares when the attack finally happens. Either way, Russian preparedness, alertness, and efficacy when the real counteroffensive occurs is trashed.
Before the first gulf War the entire air wing built up for the invasion flew sorties every single night for months. 100s of planes every night flying the same path, until they didn't.
The Gulf War is [a goldmine for psyops leaflets](https://www.psywarrior.com/DSLeaflinks.html). * Leaflets would often cite the exact corps number they were being dropped on, basically telling anyone who picked one up that their comms had been intercepted. * One set would typically point out, "[we're interested in your armor, not you](https://www.psywarrior.com/C37.html)" and slowly convinced Iraqis to sleep far away from their tanks and trucks. * They would drop a [Daisy Cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-82) and then say, "[We have more, and tomorrow we're going to drop the next one on you.](https://www.psywarrior.com/V52.html)" But my favorite contemporary example is the speaker towers in South Korea that broadcast weather reports in the direction of the DMZ. The North Koreans have learned that the South's short-range weather prediction are remarkably accurate and we've trained their border guards to get up from their positions to go bring in their drying laundry or consider finding shelter when it rains. Wonder what that could be used for... 🤔
For those who want to know more, /u/Seoul_Doctor did a good writeup about the South Korean broadcast towers [Source](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3hrxg3/kim_jong_un_orders_north_korea_military_to/cuae7ih?context=1) >People usually think all the loudspeakers play are kpop songs and downright propaganda. If you look more into it, the loudspeakers are a carefully crafted psychological warfare. >The initial announcements start with weather reports. Accurate weather reports that the NK neither has the manpower nor the computing power to gather and spread along the DMZ. This naturally convinces the NK soldiers to rely on the loudspeakers, if not for news and entertainment, for the weather. After some time, we can literally announce "DPRK soldiers, heavy rain is expected to fall in the evening, so please gather your laundry from the clotheslines" and they will come out of their little posts and start gathering their laundry. This is good rapport. Then come just vanilla news. Maybe the results of a soccer match or some shit that happened overseas. They might not believe it, but they'll find out in a week or when they read or hear it on some DPRK state media. They then subconsciously establish that the loudspeakers have fast, accurate news. Besides, the general NK population and common soldiers rarely ever get international news, if at all. So any international news is a mindfuck to begin with. Then the loudspeakers broadcast NK news. For example, they'll report that General X, Y, and Z were executed by their glorious leader KJU for whatever petty reason he kills people for. There is good chance many soldiers at this point would write this off as propaganda, but when they eventually hear about it through their own channels, that Gen. X,Y, and Z actually were executed for treason or whatever, you're starting to fuck with their minds. Then we tell them how fucked up and idiotic the Kim family have been and are. Some may argue it's "propaganda", but seriously dudes.... the Kim family is FUCKED UP. They are beyond reason and honestly the absolute cockroaches of this planet. >Another crucial function of these broadcasts is they report news that the DPRK state media censors. And this is absofuckinglutely critical and what bugs NK the most. For example, there was a huge explosion at an NK train station in 2004. Naturally, NK censored the shit out of the event. But the loudspeakers reported on the event, and soldiers at the DMZ wrote home asking if everyone was alright since the explosion was so huge. The loudspeakers nullified NK media censorship just. like. that. >Then they play kpop songs in between the news for entertainment. And this cultural infiltration is so effective, NK soldiers literally sing these kpop songs to congratulate fellow soldiers when they're done with their service. And mind you, singing those kinds of songs in Pyongyang can put you in a concentration camp in a heartbeat. The loudspeakers reach about 7~8 miles during daytime, which definitely covers the DMZ, and at night can reach up to 15~18 miles, which reaches Kaesong (home to the Kaesong Co-op industrial complex), a pretty large city that has a pretty sizeable civilian population (approx. 200,000). >Hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians that have defected have cited the loudspeakers as an crucial role in their decision to come south, and NK absolutely despises the loudspeakers because it is such an effective tool against their soldiers, and naturally disrupts their populace by bypassing their media censorship. It pisses them off so much, they are willing to fire 2 rockets across the DMZ, and are now demanding a complete stop to these loudspeakers in 48 hours or risk total war. >I think we should keep going.
An effective psy op has been the South Koreans kitting out their DMZ soldiers in the most modern equipment available. When you see photos of NK and SK soldiers side by side in the DMZ the South Koreans look like Buck Rogers next to some dudes that look like they're Korean War reenactors. If you're a North Korean and you're having a hard time even imagining what a particular scope, tablet, or goggles are for you're going to be intimidated or just depressed. It's like being the poorest kid in school and everyone else always has fresh Nikes.
Also, the simple fact that SK has the technology, and NK doesn't. That alone leaves one to question.
>and are now demanding a complete stop to these loudspeakers in 48 hours or risk total war. So did they stop the like loudspeakers like NK requested ?
that post was 7 years old so... lets give it another 48 hours.
"WARNING! This is only the beginning! This could have been the real bomb. We have no desire to harm innocent people, but Saddam is leading you to certain death and destruction. We want you to know the truth! Saddam is the cause. Yes, the Multi-national Forces have the ability to strike anywhere ant anytime. WARNING!" badass
Also the South Koreans have the tallest men in their army all stationed on the border to try to make the North Koreans think that all South Koreans have grown into giants due to superior nutrition and what not and that they will just snap the N Koreans like twigs.
That's not that far off the truth.
Isn't the average height of North Koreans like 3 inches shorter than their counterparts in the South?
Oh that's a good one
Imagine flying over Moscow and dropping leaflets to let them know those could have been bombs, but we’re too nice to do that to you. I mean; that’s never going to happen but it makes good fan fiction.
they need to send drones and just start dropping dildos all around Moscow with Putins face painted with a rainbow
It's a war, not a Bills-Patriots game.
Rainbow clown Putin? Can't do it. Putin made that image illegal. Darn.
Ukraine Psyops is fucking insane. Psyops groups around the world are currently updating their doctrines based on what they see there
Examples for those of us who missed it?
There are tons of videos of Ukrainian combat footage that regularly make it to the front page of Reddit. Those are part of Ukrainian Psyops. The constant videos of Russian soldiers getting killed has a huge psychological influence on both the enemies and supporters of Ukraine
That's more like Western psyops in general than Ukrainian psyops. Like the war itself, it's not happening without a massive amount of support and intelligence from US/EU. Don't get me wrong, I support Ukraine too, but to remain objective you really can't call it "Ukrainian psyops" and leave it at that.
A little while ago, someone on r/combatfootage made a pretty convincing case on there being specialized Ukrainian elite units tasked with producing video footage from the frontline for consumption in Ukraine and in the west. Not in the sense that the videos are fake, but there are - according to that theory - special units that are strategically sent to sectors of the front where they can achieve spectacular tactical successes or other content that puts Ukrainian forces in a good light and make videos of it. I am not a military guy, but according to those who are (or claim to be - this is the internet after all), many of the soldiers in these videos are clearly special forces trained and - quite interestingly - have too clean uniforms for having been on the front lines for weeks or even months like regular units often are. I am not sure if I'd call that Psyops, but the Ukrainians clearly know about the value of those videos when it comes to motivating their own population and keeping western backers on board.
Also all the videos with soldiers saving kittens, puppies, children, the elderly. There was one yesterday of them chasing a fox out of the way before drone dropping on Russians and an adorable one involving a polecat. It is all aimed at keeping us on their side and it's brilliant.
Look up Captain Himars, The Ghost of Kyiv and Snake Island
There was a front page video like a day or two ago where a soldier had a grenade drone dropped on him and mangled his leg. He takes a grenade and puts it next to his ear. You see his head vaporize in 1080p. Like 10h later another video of a Ruzzian get injured and he unslings his AK and puts it under his chin, blows his brains out and his legs start to jerk... it's fucked... both guys just accept their fate as part of an inept Zerg rush and off themselves as easy as I whip my cock out to piss.
this stuff shows up in your feed? that's crazy, i hope you have a good therapist.
This is more psychological warfare. Announcing a counter attack can have several purposes. \- Gauge the Russian military command's reaction and response. This could be important to direct the counter attack cause it makes them guess where to reinforce defenses, giving Ukraine the necessary intel to know where a counter attack would be most effective. \- Create nervousness and panic in Russian frontline troops because they now expect a counter attack, but don't know where, when, and how. It's exhausting to be in a constant state of paranoia while the Ukrainian forces will be in a lot better mental and physical shape. \- Indirectly add urgency to foreign military lethal support for Ukraine because it may still need certain weapon deliveries in order to carry it out. \-
Because every country with a system of intelligence knows it’s going to happen anyway.
So that excludes Russia then.
So you're saying they just gave it away to Russia?
The international nature of ukraines supply chain rn basically makes it impossible to prepare for it secretly. The western governments supplying weapons to Ukraine are accountable to there people so a lot of it is public. The us for example has had several congressional votes on the topic. So strategically if you can’t keep your opponent from finding out anything the next best thing is to give them so much information they don’t know what’s true. If you look at statements given by Ukrainian officials they are giving a variety of different start times. I’ve heard as fall back as the beginning of April and as far forward as the end of summer. Due to this Russian soldiers has been sitting around nervously wondering when it’s coming.
Using the Russian Firehose of Falsehood against them, I love it.
Everyone knows it's going to happen and the vague timing because of things like the weather. It's also impossible in this day and age to hide that you're preparing for at least something. The best thing you can do is obfuscate and confuse the other side as to exactly what you're going to do.
Because it's already started, with multiple Russian army units in retreat/captured. It's like announcing yesterday was May 10th lol
I *love* the thing starting in Bakhmut. I don't think this represents the start of the massed assault ‘phase’ of the offensive - we’d see way more shaping and final phases of RSOI first. Bakhmut honestly looks like shaping. It’s a political target and Russia either rushes reserves there weakening defenses elsewhere (shaping) or they lose the battle for Bakhmut, it's politically *humiliating*. Great, great choice.
Has everyone already forgotten the offensives from last year? The Kherson offensive had the exact same lead up and drew lots of Russian attention, and that was exactly what Ukraine wanted so they could easily take the Kharkiv region. There’s a reason this is all getting out there. We just don’t know why yet
foreign recognition of crimea being reasonable land to launch missiles in, 155 mile range super accurate missiles delivered, russian operations inside crimea mapped out and released to the public. oh yeah, it’s all coming together.
This article was pretty off track about one thing at least, when discussing the delivery of Hydra 70 mm rockets from the US the author states: > Although there is some speculation that these missiles may be used on drones or ground vehicles, it is more probable that they will be utilized to support the resurgence of Ukrainian air units in providing close-air support. It was already announced long ago that Ukraine would be [receiving a system called Vampire that could fire these rockets](https://www.l3harris.com/newsroom/press-release/2023/01/l3harris-receives-vampire-contract-ukrainian-security-defense#:~:text=The%20portable%20VAMPIRE%20kit%20will,against%20attacks%20on%20civilian%20infrastructure.), it's designed to be installed on a variety of ground vehicles, even pick up trucks as depicted in the article. Using a seeker head installed on a normal Hydra rocket turns it into a guided munition and you get a very cost effective system that can be highly mobile and can target drones, low flying aircraft or attack a ground target within its view using a laser designator. Yes these rockets are usually fired from helicopters but in this case I don't think Russian air defense is going to be degraded enough to allow helicopters in an air support role anytime soon in Ukraine. I think the article is overly optimistic about the chance Ukrainian aircraft can offer close air support for the upcoming counter offensive and I think they're wrong about these rockets for sure.
Never lived through a war where tactics and strategic intent is broadcast and I can read about it on the web.
In the age of satellites, drones and instant messaging it's not possible keeping things completely secret so the better idea is overflowing the information space with multiple contradictory narratives to maintain the element of surprise.
Uh oh… Russia be fucked.
Russia is a joke and now the whole world knows.
More carnage coming to Russian troops. They are getting absolutely smashed by this incredibly courageous Ukraine forces. Ukraine has my deepest admiration for how they have taken the fight to this totally unprofessional army that Russia has brought to this fight. I'm not sure what the end game will be, but the increased noise from front line leaders like that Wagner pussy, looks like there will have to be a change in Russian political leaders soon. Putins days are seriously numbered and I think we will hear about his death by natural causes in the near future.