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Russias war crimes will continue until they get tossed out of [Ukraine]
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Its one of those "technically, yes, but legally, probably no" situations. The Logan act is about negotiating with a foreign power that is in a dispute with the United States, and any good lawyer could probably argue that Russia's dispute is with Ukraine, not the US, and convince at least a few members of the jury to vote not guilty.
Starts out talking about the AMX10 but later shifts to experiences in the counter offensive.
Meanwhile BBC brings us a crossover with the social media thread, reporting on a big increase in bluecheck accounts spreading Russian propaganda. Glancing at Twitter now and then even despite my much-reduced use of the site, I've noticed any Ukraine-themed hashtags are absolutely overwhelmed with that kind of thing now, while only a few weeks ago there was a variety of positions being thrown around. I have no idea if it's because of more people bailing on the site with the latest fiascos, or if the propagandists are just getting worse.
"What is still called Ukraine". And people wonder why the so-called negotiation tables keep failing.
Even there they're cowards.
When Ukraine eventually blows up the Kerch bridge and the siege starts, because that's the most likely way this is going to play out, Putin is going to milk those morons to try to get pity points. That's more of a long term plan though, the short term is that Putin cannot affort to admit (more) weakness, specially after the mutiny, so that's the largest priority of the Russian military.
It's the Russian Navy. It's not like they were gonna be doing anything else in the Black Sea.
Catching fire and sinking isn't *nothing*!
Well, they can have some things. They can have every single person who either immigrated to eastern Ukraine from Russia, lives in Ukraine and likes Russia, or supported the Russian invasion in any way. They can all go back to Putin.
I'm not as familiar with this particular area of things, but how does the AMX10 compare to the M1128 version of the Stryker? I know the US is phasing them out but on paper they seem similar. Only asking as if we're largely going to start getting rid of them, I know a place that could use them.
Sure, I just meant, we know for sure they'll be available and we know they operate. More than can be said apparently for some countries militaries.
The AMX10 has better frontal armor (capable of taking on russian 30mm autocannons), lower center of mass and better weight distribution (the turret is mounted in the center instead of at the rear of the vehicle) and is better designed for hot climates.
It also has the advantage/disadvantage that it doesn't use NATO 105mm, and rather uses a proprietary medium pressure gun. This gives it less power with its Sabot rounds, but the recoil is much more appropriate for its weight (especially when firing towards the sides).
It does have a less powerful engine, but the main difference here is about 5km road speed and slightly less "oomph" when climbing hills, but the better weight distribution means that it's a toss-up in off-road terrain. The AMX10s armor upgrades does mean (as is common) that its gearbox is slightly under-dimensioned. Not unreliable, but reports from Ukraine implies that there is a lot of wear and tear even after just a few months.
Overall it's the difference between being designed from the ground up as a mobile gun system and having mobile gun system capability bolted on as an afterthought. The M1128s 105mm gun really belongs on something at least 10 tons heavier.
P.S: The M1128 though is afaik slightly less prone to killing its crew when the armor is penetrated as the autoloader means that the ammunition is isolated from the crew compartment.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
And to that goal, can you persuade me that he will not absolutely use them as human shields for important locations, and even have the more able-bodied pressed into service as emergency recruits. Talk about an easy way to get a few tens of thousands of chumps to bring themselves to be conscripted to fight in Ukraine...
Honestly it's the best safety for those boats money could ever buy, Ukraine isn't going to blow them up while they're carrying a thousand civilians.
The fact these people are basically consenting to being human shields tells me they probably don't actually know the facts on the ground, though!
https://mastodon.social/@ChrisO_wiki/110679070598575740
They interview quite a lot of people from all walks of life, including some family members of Wagner.
The fact that people were openly admitting weeks after the fact that they wanted a glorified thug running a nazi goon squad (that Cannon films would have said was too many stereotypes mashed together to be credible) to overthrow putin (or at least part of his government) should be filling Putin with pant's shitting terror.
Like in a way I can see the appeal of the man; he got wins under his belt and was saying what everyone was thinking. Things like the war was started for bullshit reasons, nukes were stupid and that the MoD was run by fucking idiots.
Also russia has a very different interpretation of the word "nazi" then what most of us would have so the whole ethno-nationalist thing doesn't bother them to the same degree.
But like I said earlier: this is a wake up call to putin that the situation is catastrophically bad.
Like that's the horrible catch 22 of this; Prghozin would be the main bad guy in one of Cannon's shitty direct to video movies back in the mid 80's (a russian business man with a criminal hisotry who has nazi russian mercenaries working for him), but a lot of what he said was rational and logical (IE that the MoD needed to focus on defensive positions and not just cities, that the casus belli with denazification was bullshit, that thousands of lives were being wasted) was spot on.
Like... we've reached a point where putin has actually achieved a new level of horrible when nazi's are above him in terms of rational and logic.
Edit: Disregard that, reread it and saw "Colonel General" as his actual rank. Which a quick Google tells me is equivalent to a US Lieutenant General.
Colonel-general is their three-star rank. They go major, lieutenant, colonel and army general, compared to the US military's brigadier-major-lieutenant-justgeneral progression.
Campism predates the Hungarian Revolution by something like 25 years.
The latter can just be myopic and often just believes the negative things about non-Western nations are propaganda or that they're just doing their best against bullies even if it's ugly. Mostly because it's the failures of Western nations that have screwed them personally.
That said, modern tankies and campists seem a bit more out there to me than their predecessors.
At least back in the day you might reasonably think that something might come of the USSR or China thriving and the US taking lumps, even if they were a shameful mess in the moment. Pragmatic dedication to potentially leftist governments at least has some sort of logic to it. And you had far less access to information about what these places are actually like.
Being either today is just naked stupidity.
If that's true, guess that Erdogan finally got fed up with Putin, and decided to just do as he pleases and dare the Kremlin to do something about it.
Erdoagn can see which way the wind is blowing.
Also that said wind is being generated by russia collapsing in on itself.