Meanwhile, Ukraine's full mobilization is going to start deploying its first units in about 2 weeks? with several hundred thousand freshly trained soldiers becoming available over the next month and a half, and a vast cadre of experienced officers and ncos in other units to be promoted and moved to the new units
This aint lookin good for Russia
override367 on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Russia's navy is almost certainly too incompetent and/or under-equipped to do anything other than lob missiles from range. If their army and special forces can't do anything, there's no chance that their navy personnel can do anything meaningful other than work basic logistics and security. Expecting them to perform some kind of combined arms maneuver as part of a larger offensive against a better-equipped, better-trained, higher-morale adversary is a pipe dream.
If this fiasco has proven anything, it's that a modern military can never have enough professionalism or training. Jobs and roles are so specialized now that you can't put impoverished contract soldiers and conscripts together and expect them to do anything beyond the most rudimentary tasks. As a contrast, the U.S. Marines are currently attempting to transition to having more generalists and fewer specialists in their ranks, and part of that transition is expanding every single Marine's introductory training another full six weeks.
The Marines have always had the mentality that everyone is a rifleman regardless of MOS. So that fits with their overall mentality.
There is a cost to that. And 6 weeks is a good chunk of time.
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ArmsForPeace84Your Partner In FreedomRegistered Userregular
Russia's navy is almost certainly too incompetent and/or under-equipped to do anything other than lob missiles from range. If their army and special forces can't do anything, there's no chance that their navy personnel can do anything meaningful other than work basic logistics and security. Expecting them to perform some kind of combined arms maneuver as part of a larger offensive against a better-equipped, better-trained, higher-morale adversary is a pipe dream.
If this fiasco has proven anything, it's that a modern military can never have enough professionalism or training. Jobs and roles are so specialized now that you can't put impoverished contract soldiers and conscripts together and expect them to do anything beyond the most rudimentary tasks. As a contrast, the U.S. Marines are currently attempting to transition to having more generalists and fewer specialists in their ranks, and part of that transition is expanding every single Marine's introductory training another full six weeks.
In defense of NOT the assholes Putin installed in the upper ranks of the Russian Navy, but rather of the naval officers who planned the USSR's naval strategy, that's what the Soviet Navy's surface fleet and its land-based air support were designed to do. Stand off and launch missiles. Only way, realistically, they had to try and neutralize carrier battle groups. Even the Kiev, which had a flight deck for Yak-38 fighters, was loaded down with launch tubes, and these were its primary armament.
Pressing naval crewmen into infantry roles is some real Last Days of the Third Reich shit.
Next thing Russia will be sending 10 year olds to the front lines with last ditch AKs made out of particle board and tin cans.
There won't be any shortage of AKs built up to a standard where they will at least run. The bigger problem is that a conscript army won't put them to much effective use. As someone quipped while taking prisoners in Desert Storm, "this wasn't an army, it was a bunch of assholes with rifles!"
Sometimes it feels that Putin is playing a Total War game: badly.
No. This is the result of, effectively, corrupt management from the top down. Its very analogous to the soviet economy in the 50's/60's. The reported numbers were very high but this was because production had to increase year over year. And production had to increase by more than the last year or the manager of the plant would be "replaced". So instead of being "replaced" the plant manager would lie. And this lie would continue more or less all the way up the chain. The plants further down in the supply chain stopped getting enough materials to make quota even if they could. So instead of that manager being "replaced" they would also lie. The lie goes all the way up the chain until it gets to people who don't have to actually produce anything based on that lie. And then the lie is believed. After all, we counted the barrels of millet, surely they must be full.
Instead of needing to meet impossible quota's managers in Russia are dealing with graft. But the fear of being "replaced" still exists. If you fail to make tanks because half the materials were co-opted for a super yacht and then tell someone in power this you will quickly find out what the inside of a Russian prison is like.
A war is more or less full "find out" mode. You cannot hide things, no one can, because while you can lie about the number of tanks you have in storage you cannot lie about how many tanks you have managed to cross a river.
But managers still have a threat of being replaced. So instead of doing the reasonable thing and say "that is impossible, i do not have the resources", which is what would happen in the US. You just... go get whatever resources you could possibly acquire in order to at least attempt the goal. Its a bad idea, a failing idea for whole, but its the best option for the management currently in charge of the situation who does not want to be executed for failing.
Sometimes it feels that Putin is playing a Total War game: badly.
No. This is the result of, effectively, corrupt management from the top down. Its very analogous to the soviet economy in the 50's/60's. The reported numbers were very high but this was because production had to increase year over year. And production had to increase by more than the last year or the manager of the plant would be "replaced". So instead of being "replaced" the plant manager would lie. And this lie would continue more or less all the way up the chain. The plants further down in the supply chain stopped getting enough materials to make quota even if they could. So instead of that manager being "replaced" they would also lie. The lie goes all the way up the chain until it gets to people who don't have to actually produce anything based on that lie. And then the lie is believed. After all, we counted the barrels of millet, surely they must be full.
Instead of needing to meet impossible quota's managers in Russia are dealing with graft. But the fear of being "replaced" still exists. If you fail to make tanks because half the materials were co-opted for a super yacht and then tell someone in power this you will quickly find out what the inside of a Russian prison is like.
A war is more or less full "find out" mode. You cannot hide things, no one can, because while you can lie about the number of tanks you have in storage you cannot lie about how many tanks you have managed to cross a river.
But managers still have a threat of being replaced. So instead of doing the reasonable thing and say "that is impossible, i do not have the resources", which is what would happen in the US. You just... go get whatever resources you could possibly acquire in order to at least attempt the goal. Its a bad idea, a failing idea for whole, but its the best option for the management currently in charge of the situation who does not want to be executed for failing.
So Putin is playing Skaven that can't progress pas tier two rather than Kislev?
German reunification was another great example of finding out. West Germany vastly overestimated the state of the East German economy. That’s because its intelligence was based on East German assessments of East Germany’s economy.
The more authoritarian a system the more it tends to lie to itself. Insert pithy 1984 quote.
German reunification was another great example of finding out. West Germany vastly overestimated the state of the East German economy. That’s because its intelligence was based on East German assessments of East Germany’s economy.
The more authoritarian a system the more it tends to lie to itself. Insert pithy 1984 quote.
And yet east German economy was one of the strongest in the Soviet block..
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
German reunification was another great example of finding out. West Germany vastly overestimated the state of the East German economy. That’s because its intelligence was based on East German assessments of East Germany’s economy.
The more authoritarian a system the more it tends to lie to itself. Insert pithy 1984 quote.
And yet east German economy was one of the strongest in the Soviet block..
Worlds Tallest Infant, World’s Smartest Horse, et al
And 30 years later the east and west of Germany are still not on the same economical level. Like, the eastern states still have lower pensions.
Welllllll... another reading of that is that the east-german economy was shit, but. One issue, for example was that under Honecker they agglomerated a lot of business into big state concerns. But a big part of the problem is how those got sold (privatized) to the friends of Wolfgang Schauble nickels on the dime. Since then the investments in the area have largely been state or EU investments, used not to boost local development into services, R&D etc. but to build production plants for the existing West-German concerns.
So, yeah, opening up a new low-wage hinterland does not create a magical burgeoning economic hub but a slightly higher wage hinterland.
The same happened to the rest of Eastern Europe, and you could argue that during the Euro crisis the north of Western Europe tried to force this status on the south.
That said, there has been Eastern European growth in services, especially digital, where people from the ex-Warsaw pact were not as dependent on Western European investments but could instead create their own growth. I think Eastern Germany hasn't benefited from this because of the domination of the German car industry and generally its focus on production.
TLDR: the West creating low-skilled jobs in ex-communist countries was never going to give them a high-skilled economy, so they're starting to do it themselves.
tl;dw: Finland has a significantly bigger army than Russia sent into Ukraine, they've fortified the whole urban part of the country with a system of Azovstal-style bunkers and they have shit tons of artillery and supplies.
Also Russia has nothing much left to invade them with.
"Can Russia sink any lower? Apparently it can". Officially there was still just 1 dead sailor and it did not participate in military operation on Moskva. Military on every level refuses to say more even to grieving parents searching their kids, at most they get propositions to change "MIA" status to "Dead in action", so they can get goverment pay. One mother flew to Sevastopol and tried searching by city hospitals, but every wounded sailor either nervously refused to talk or could only confirm if he knew missing sailors on photo. Also there is present military personnel watching sailors in hospitals when they were visited.
After few such visits mother of one such MIA sailors was informed by military that she is now on watch-list. And remember father of one MIA sailor who Day 1 wrote very emotional post about "stopping at nothing to get to truth" and kept re-posting iy when it got deleted and raising storm? Well, he suddenly deleted posts himself and posted "thanking High Command of Black Sea Fleet for honest decisions and humanity". When one of parents surprised called him to find out what is happening, he said in low voice "they are coming for us, I won't say anything anymore", after this any attempts to contact him failed - he was seemingly just gone.
Oh, producer of independent local TV channel got fined for "defamation of armed forces" for posting quote from old article consisting of interviewing random passerby on support of special operation
Source: his Telegram channel https://t.me/VadimVostrov/190
And things keep failing apart - Airport Association asks to keep devices for searching of personal belongings to be allowed to use past exploitation date, cause they are all made in the "West" and they ran out of spare parts, but have nothing to replace them with. Alternative - return to full physical search of passengers and bags in airports and long ques. Back to 90-x I guess. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5354737
Sometimes it feels that Putin is playing a Total War game: badly.
No. This is the result of, effectively, corrupt management from the top down. Its very analogous to the soviet economy in the 50's/60's. The reported numbers were very high but this was because production had to increase year over year. And production had to increase by more than the last year or the manager of the plant would be "replaced". So instead of being "replaced" the plant manager would lie. And this lie would continue more or less all the way up the chain. The plants further down in the supply chain stopped getting enough materials to make quota even if they could. So instead of that manager being "replaced" they would also lie. The lie goes all the way up the chain until it gets to people who don't have to actually produce anything based on that lie. And then the lie is believed. After all, we counted the barrels of millet, surely they must be full.
Instead of needing to meet impossible quota's managers in Russia are dealing with graft. But the fear of being "replaced" still exists. If you fail to make tanks because half the materials were co-opted for a super yacht and then tell someone in power this you will quickly find out what the inside of a Russian prison is like.
A war is more or less full "find out" mode. You cannot hide things, no one can, because while you can lie about the number of tanks you have in storage you cannot lie about how many tanks you have managed to cross a river.
But managers still have a threat of being replaced. So instead of doing the reasonable thing and say "that is impossible, i do not have the resources", which is what would happen in the US. You just... go get whatever resources you could possibly acquire in order to at least attempt the goal. Its a bad idea, a failing idea for whole, but its the best option for the management currently in charge of the situation who does not want to be executed for failing.
Also - when journalists or independent citizens find out about this corruption and try to bring it to light and get some actions taken - they are arrested for "not minding their own business" and "bringing shame to country"
Родина вернись домой
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
tl;dw: Finland has a significantly bigger army than Russia sent into Ukraine, they've fortified the whole urban part of the country with a system of Azovstal-style bunkers and they have shit tons of artillery and supplies.
Also Russia has nothing much left to invade them with.
Yeah Finland is low key a highly militarized state.
tl;dw: Finland has a significantly bigger army than Russia sent into Ukraine, they've fortified the whole urban part of the country with a system of Azovstal-style bunkers and they have shit tons of artillery and supplies.
Also Russia has nothing much left to invade them with.
Yeah Finland is low key a highly militarized state.
At least when it comes to -that- border.
I wonder how many bridges aren't prepared for remote detonation in case of war.
Also - when journalists or independent citizens find out about this corruption and try to bring it to light and get some actions taken - they are arrested for "not minding their own business" and "bringing shame to country"
The "lalalala I'm not listening!" method of dealing with problems works great until someone calls your bluff...
tl;dw: Finland has a significantly bigger army than Russia sent into Ukraine, they've fortified the whole urban part of the country with a system of Azovstal-style bunkers and they have shit tons of artillery and supplies.
Also Russia has nothing much left to invade them with.
Yeah Finland is low key a highly militarized state.
At least when it comes to -that- border.
I wonder how many bridges aren't prepared for remote detonation in case of war.
Or, at the very least, aren't zeroed in on by artillery batteries stationed within range of the border.
Any Russian unit trying to cross a bridge on or near the Finnish border better have air superiority several dozen miles past, or they're going to have a very bad day.
#Russian forces have likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of #Ukrainian units from #Donetsk City to #Izyum in favor of completing the seizure of #Luhansk Oblast.
What's crazy about this is that there is zero advantage in completing the capture of an administrative unit and likely the effort would have been far better spent elsewhere. For Russia, it checks the box to grab Luhansk oblast in their weird 'referendum' style which no-one recognizes, but Russian soldiers are going to die to check that box.
ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research think tank heavily sponsored by the defense industry.
#Russian forces have likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of #Ukrainian units from #Donetsk City to #Izyum in favor of completing the seizure of #Luhansk Oblast.
What's crazy about this is that there is zero advantage in completing the capture of an administrative unit and likely the effort would have been far better spent elsewhere. For Russia, it checks the box to grab Luhansk oblast in their weird 'referendum' style which no-one recognizes, but Russian soldiers are going to die to check that box.
ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research think tank heavily sponsored by the defense industry.
Simple answer - Russian military recognizes that it lacks capabilities to succeed in encirclement, so switched to something more tangible
What does Russia's reporting of the warspecial operation even look like? They seem to be arresting/firing people for asking what happened to that ship they used to have, have they even acknowledged that a lot of their tanks seem to have suffered mechanical difficulties after trying to cross a river?
As far as I can tell, most ship crewmembers are basically mechanics. The rest are trained mostly towards reading screens. Neither of those are super useful for infantry.
They are super useful and at fixing broken ships though, including some with highly specialized knowledge that isn’t easily replaceable
#Russian forces have likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of #Ukrainian units from #Donetsk City to #Izyum in favor of completing the seizure of #Luhansk Oblast.
What's crazy about this is that there is zero advantage in completing the capture of an administrative unit and likely the effort would have been far better spent elsewhere. For Russia, it checks the box to grab Luhansk oblast in their weird 'referendum' style which no-one recognizes, but Russian soldiers are going to die to check that box.
ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research think tank heavily sponsored by the defense industry.
Simple answer - Russian military recognizes that it lacks capabilities to succeed in encirclement, so switched to something more tangible
"We'll take the whole country in a couple days."
"We'll take everything east of Kyiv in a week."
"We'll take Kharkiv down to Kherson in a month."
"We'll take Luhansk, Donetsk and a land bridge to Crimea in three months."
"We'll take Luhansk and Mariupol in six months."
Followed by...
"We'll take a bucket of dirt, and maybe one of those washing machines?"
Seriously, it's Maxwellian (as in Don Adams) at this point.
I can't imagine a country the size and stature of Russia demoting itself to North Korea status... and yet here we are.
Russia is large by land area, but if you cut out a few major cities you're left with a population density comparable to Greenland. It's 9th by population, and with stagnant growth it's likely to fall to 11th or 12th in the next couple decades. Brazil or Philippines is a better comparison than US or China.
What does Russia's reporting of the warspecial operation even look like? They seem to be arresting/firing people for asking what happened to that ship they used to have, have they even acknowledged that a lot of their tanks seem to have suffered mechanical difficulties after trying to cross a river?
"Our military destroyed x military targets yesterday" or "Ukraine military shelled some settlement" and so on every day. Hell, even Kremlin backed polls started showing tendency of Russians using oficial sources less and less each month. Nothing at all about actual actions taken by the military, unless you check banned media, you wont even know that attempted river crossing even happened for example.
EDIT: oh, and of course "everything going according to a plan" - how could I forget that soundbite
Sometimes it feels that Putin is playing a Total War game: badly.
No. This is the result of, effectively, corrupt management from the top down. Its very analogous to the soviet economy in the 50's/60's. The reported numbers were very high but this was because production had to increase year over year. And production had to increase by more than the last year or the manager of the plant would be "replaced". So instead of being "replaced" the plant manager would lie. And this lie would continue more or less all the way up the chain. The plants further down in the supply chain stopped getting enough materials to make quota even if they could. So instead of that manager being "replaced" they would also lie. The lie goes all the way up the chain until it gets to people who don't have to actually produce anything based on that lie. And then the lie is believed. After all, we counted the barrels of millet, surely they must be full.
Instead of needing to meet impossible quota's managers in Russia are dealing with graft. But the fear of being "replaced" still exists. If you fail to make tanks because half the materials were co-opted for a super yacht and then tell someone in power this you will quickly find out what the inside of a Russian prison is like.
A war is more or less full "find out" mode. You cannot hide things, no one can, because while you can lie about the number of tanks you have in storage you cannot lie about how many tanks you have managed to cross a river.
But managers still have a threat of being replaced. So instead of doing the reasonable thing and say "that is impossible, i do not have the resources", which is what would happen in the US. You just... go get whatever resources you could possibly acquire in order to at least attempt the goal. Its a bad idea, a failing idea for whole, but its the best option for the management currently in charge of the situation who does not want to be executed for failing.
I think this is certainly a big part of things, but the other problem is that Russia has hit a perfect storm here of institutional corruption combined with a nationalistic/fascist ideology based on selling people on essentially lies about the strength of the country and the country’s history, which ultimately has penetrated into the mindset of the leadership itself. (I think the last 100 years have proven that it is impossible for a government to push an ideology to the people that involves building a false narrative without eventually buying into it themselves, there’s no true kayfabe in politics over the long term.). So not only have the people been sold a bill of goods about the capabilities and “destiny” of Russia but Putin and those around him have come to believe their own bullshit.
But you can lie to your people, you can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to a javelin missile.
McDonald's says that it has started the process of selling its Russian business, which includes 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people, making it the latest major Western corporation to exit Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. https://t.co/wxrfV9OYyG
Ukrainian breakdown of private chat group of Russian soldiers, just more confirmation the average person had no idea they were going to war, and anyone speaking out is being silenced by the FSB.
The Chinese withdrew in the Sinovietnamese war, abandoning it as unwinnable without taking unacceptable losses, after only losing about 10-20% of their invasion force. The Chinese didn’t have as much at stake militarily or ideologically though (the invasion forces were of similar size but the Russian force accounts for its entire military while the Chinese invasion force was a fraction of the total capability of the PLA.)
You can look at losses of great powers in war since the cold war, and you see examples like Vietnam, the two Afghanistan wars, etc. And those were certainly devastating psychologically to the US and Soviet Union but they were also losses whose human and economic impact was spread over several years. I don’t think we have an example of a major power suffering the kind of losses the Russians are suffering here over this short of a time.
McDonald's says that it has started the process of selling its Russian business, which includes 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people, making it the latest major Western corporation to exit Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. https://t.co/wxrfV9OYyG
You done fucked up when you piss off The Ronald.
I remember as a kid McDonalds opening in Russia was a big sign of the Iron Curtain slowly crumbling
McDonald's says that it has started the process of selling its Russian business, which includes 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people, making it the latest major Western corporation to exit Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. https://t.co/wxrfV9OYyG
You done fucked up when you piss off The Ronald.
I remember as a kid McDonalds opening in Russia was a big sign of the Iron Curtain slowly crumbling
There's a diplomatic school of thought that states "two countries with McDonald's in their capitals won't go to war", so kind of a distressing sign really.
McDonald's says that it has started the process of selling its Russian business, which includes 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people, making it the latest major Western corporation to exit Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. https://t.co/wxrfV9OYyG
You done fucked up when you piss off The Ronald.
I remember as a kid McDonalds opening in Russia was a big sign of the Iron Curtain slowly crumbling
There's a diplomatic school of thought that states "two countries with McDonald's in their capitals won't go to war", so kind of a distressing sign really.
this does depend heavily on your definition of "go to war"
there were McDonalds in several Balkan states in the 90s, for example
Posts
This aint lookin good for Russia
There is a cost to that. And 6 weeks is a good chunk of time.
In defense of NOT the assholes Putin installed in the upper ranks of the Russian Navy, but rather of the naval officers who planned the USSR's naval strategy, that's what the Soviet Navy's surface fleet and its land-based air support were designed to do. Stand off and launch missiles. Only way, realistically, they had to try and neutralize carrier battle groups. Even the Kiev, which had a flight deck for Yak-38 fighters, was loaded down with launch tubes, and these were its primary armament.
Next thing Russia will be sending 10 year olds to the front lines with last ditch AKs made out of particle board and tin cans.
There won't be any shortage of AKs built up to a standard where they will at least run. The bigger problem is that a conscript army won't put them to much effective use. As someone quipped while taking prisoners in Desert Storm, "this wasn't an army, it was a bunch of assholes with rifles!"
No. This is the result of, effectively, corrupt management from the top down. Its very analogous to the soviet economy in the 50's/60's. The reported numbers were very high but this was because production had to increase year over year. And production had to increase by more than the last year or the manager of the plant would be "replaced". So instead of being "replaced" the plant manager would lie. And this lie would continue more or less all the way up the chain. The plants further down in the supply chain stopped getting enough materials to make quota even if they could. So instead of that manager being "replaced" they would also lie. The lie goes all the way up the chain until it gets to people who don't have to actually produce anything based on that lie. And then the lie is believed. After all, we counted the barrels of millet, surely they must be full.
Instead of needing to meet impossible quota's managers in Russia are dealing with graft. But the fear of being "replaced" still exists. If you fail to make tanks because half the materials were co-opted for a super yacht and then tell someone in power this you will quickly find out what the inside of a Russian prison is like.
A war is more or less full "find out" mode. You cannot hide things, no one can, because while you can lie about the number of tanks you have in storage you cannot lie about how many tanks you have managed to cross a river.
But managers still have a threat of being replaced. So instead of doing the reasonable thing and say "that is impossible, i do not have the resources", which is what would happen in the US. You just... go get whatever resources you could possibly acquire in order to at least attempt the goal. Its a bad idea, a failing idea for whole, but its the best option for the management currently in charge of the situation who does not want to be executed for failing.
So Putin is playing Skaven that can't progress pas tier two rather than Kislev?
The more authoritarian a system the more it tends to lie to itself. Insert pithy 1984 quote.
And yet east German economy was one of the strongest in the Soviet block..
Worlds Tallest Infant, World’s Smartest Horse, et al
And I'm glad!
Welllllll... another reading of that is that the east-german economy was shit, but. One issue, for example was that under Honecker they agglomerated a lot of business into big state concerns. But a big part of the problem is how those got sold (privatized) to the friends of Wolfgang Schauble nickels on the dime. Since then the investments in the area have largely been state or EU investments, used not to boost local development into services, R&D etc. but to build production plants for the existing West-German concerns.
So, yeah, opening up a new low-wage hinterland does not create a magical burgeoning economic hub but a slightly higher wage hinterland.
The same happened to the rest of Eastern Europe, and you could argue that during the Euro crisis the north of Western Europe tried to force this status on the south.
That said, there has been Eastern European growth in services, especially digital, where people from the ex-Warsaw pact were not as dependent on Western European investments but could instead create their own growth. I think Eastern Germany hasn't benefited from this because of the domination of the German car industry and generally its focus on production.
TLDR: the West creating low-skilled jobs in ex-communist countries was never going to give them a high-skilled economy, so they're starting to do it themselves.
tl;dw: Finland has a significantly bigger army than Russia sent into Ukraine, they've fortified the whole urban part of the country with a system of Azovstal-style bunkers and they have shit tons of artillery and supplies.
Also Russia has nothing much left to invade them with.
After few such visits mother of one such MIA sailors was informed by military that she is now on watch-list. And remember father of one MIA sailor who Day 1 wrote very emotional post about "stopping at nothing to get to truth" and kept re-posting iy when it got deleted and raising storm? Well, he suddenly deleted posts himself and posted "thanking High Command of Black Sea Fleet for honest decisions and humanity". When one of parents surprised called him to find out what is happening, he said in low voice "they are coming for us, I won't say anything anymore", after this any attempts to contact him failed - he was seemingly just gone.
Also another shitty thing: said mother searching for her kid was contacted by Ukrainians saying "they are glad her son died" and "when she'll come to collect pieces" - not cool
https://meduza.io/feature/2022/05/16/nashih-rebyat-sudya-po-vsemu-zabyli
This all needs to end.
Oh, producer of independent local TV channel got fined for "defamation of armed forces" for posting quote from old article consisting of interviewing random passerby on support of special operation
Source: his Telegram channel
https://t.me/VadimVostrov/190
And things keep failing apart - Airport Association asks to keep devices for searching of personal belongings to be allowed to use past exploitation date, cause they are all made in the "West" and they ran out of spare parts, but have nothing to replace them with. Alternative - return to full physical search of passengers and bags in airports and long ques. Back to 90-x I guess.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5354737
Also - when journalists or independent citizens find out about this corruption and try to bring it to light and get some actions taken - they are arrested for "not minding their own business" and "bringing shame to country"
Yeah Finland is low key a highly militarized state.
At least when it comes to -that- border.
I wonder how many bridges aren't prepared for remote detonation in case of war.
The "lalalala I'm not listening!" method of dealing with problems works great until someone calls your bluff...
Or, at the very least, aren't zeroed in on by artillery batteries stationed within range of the border.
Any Russian unit trying to cross a bridge on or near the Finnish border better have air superiority several dozen miles past, or they're going to have a very bad day.
What's crazy about this is that there is zero advantage in completing the capture of an administrative unit and likely the effort would have been far better spent elsewhere. For Russia, it checks the box to grab Luhansk oblast in their weird 'referendum' style which no-one recognizes, but Russian soldiers are going to die to check that box.
ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research think tank heavily sponsored by the defense industry.
Simple answer - Russian military recognizes that it lacks capabilities to succeed in encirclement, so switched to something more tangible
They are super useful and at fixing broken ships though, including some with highly specialized knowledge that isn’t easily replaceable
"We'll take the whole country in a couple days."
"We'll take everything east of Kyiv in a week."
"We'll take Kharkiv down to Kherson in a month."
"We'll take Luhansk, Donetsk and a land bridge to Crimea in three months."
"We'll take Luhansk and Mariupol in six months."
Followed by...
"We'll take a bucket of dirt, and maybe one of those washing machines?"
Seriously, it's Maxwellian (as in Don Adams) at this point.
Russia is large by land area, but if you cut out a few major cities you're left with a population density comparable to Greenland. It's 9th by population, and with stagnant growth it's likely to fall to 11th or 12th in the next couple decades. Brazil or Philippines is a better comparison than US or China.
Hate to spoil it, but it was just a piece of the helicopter.
"Our military destroyed x military targets yesterday" or "Ukraine military shelled some settlement" and so on every day. Hell, even Kremlin backed polls started showing tendency of Russians using oficial sources less and less each month. Nothing at all about actual actions taken by the military, unless you check banned media, you wont even know that attempted river crossing even happened for example.
EDIT: oh, and of course "everything going according to a plan" - how could I forget that soundbite
I think this is certainly a big part of things, but the other problem is that Russia has hit a perfect storm here of institutional corruption combined with a nationalistic/fascist ideology based on selling people on essentially lies about the strength of the country and the country’s history, which ultimately has penetrated into the mindset of the leadership itself. (I think the last 100 years have proven that it is impossible for a government to push an ideology to the people that involves building a false narrative without eventually buying into it themselves, there’s no true kayfabe in politics over the long term.). So not only have the people been sold a bill of goods about the capabilities and “destiny” of Russia but Putin and those around him have come to believe their own bullshit.
But you can lie to your people, you can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to a javelin missile.
You done fucked up when you piss off The Ronald.
Tweeter: NEXTA
Text: 🔥 DM Tower business center is on fire in #Moscow.
Have we had a day yet where something isn't spontaneously combusting across the boarder?
Well you can, but it’s a different lie.
I really wonder what the base rate is for structure fire in Russia when there is no special operation going on.
Putin is speed running his "munity" achievement I see.
The Chinese withdrew in the Sinovietnamese war, abandoning it as unwinnable without taking unacceptable losses, after only losing about 10-20% of their invasion force. The Chinese didn’t have as much at stake militarily or ideologically though (the invasion forces were of similar size but the Russian force accounts for its entire military while the Chinese invasion force was a fraction of the total capability of the PLA.)
You can look at losses of great powers in war since the cold war, and you see examples like Vietnam, the two Afghanistan wars, etc. And those were certainly devastating psychologically to the US and Soviet Union but they were also losses whose human and economic impact was spread over several years. I don’t think we have an example of a major power suffering the kind of losses the Russians are suffering here over this short of a time.
A testament to how badly dreams of empire's past can lead to terrible decision making.
I remember as a kid McDonalds opening in Russia was a big sign of the Iron Curtain slowly crumbling
There's a diplomatic school of thought that states "two countries with McDonald's in their capitals won't go to war", so kind of a distressing sign really.
this does depend heavily on your definition of "go to war"
there were McDonalds in several Balkan states in the 90s, for example