The War in Ukraine

[Dogg Thang]

Many of the Eastern European countries have not forgotten life under the Soviets and have had their independence for only a matter of decades and are very ready and willing to protect that.

[Anpanman]

Interesting piece here which is more or less the transcript from a presentation on Sky News yesterday about Russian nuclear weaponry. The tactical nuclear weapon was mentioned a lot, it's a smaller device to make the enemy back down. Rather than something massive which would take out a city like London.
Still a massive risk and surely he would kill loads of Russian troops as well if he set one off.
Putin's an utter buffoon.

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-invasion-what-nuclear-weapons-does-russia-possess-and-what-might-it-use-them-for-12554087

[dataDave]

He wants to claim Ukraine, not detonate nukes over it so that he can trigger WW3 and have nukes detonated over Moscow, and many other places he loves dearly.

No one in his chain of command wants that, and neither do his backers.

[Neon Ignition]

On LBC earlier they had various correspondences on talking about the potential developments in the next few days and when talk came around to the amount of out of fuel tanks etc they said that the reason it's been such a ****show for Putin is because he genuinely convinced himself that he could do it on the cheap as when the tanks rolled in the Ukranians would be waving flags and welcoming the Russians. He just couldn't conceive that they didn't want him and since then it's been a violent reaction to the offence he's suffered at their rejection.

The other point was that they thought there was no chance Putin would use nukes but the fact that for most, they would say No but it not be in a way that was resolute said volumes about how bad a situation this has already become.

The next bit was that the first rumbles of dissent are being mentioned within Russia. Apparently, most of the soldiers sent to Ukraine are new conscripts who were told they were being placed on a training operation. It's apparently illegal to send them into oversea's conflict but Putin broke that law and lied to them, that's why so many are captured and say they don't know why they're there. Ukraine has been allowing POW's to have mobile phones to ring relatives back home and this is causing the dissent because mothers and fathers are finding out their children aren't training but are in face now at war, imprisoned or dead contrary to what the Russian propaganda has claimed.

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And the war has cost us the Meerkats

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/28/comparethemarket-meerkat-ads-tv-ukraine-russian-aleksandr-orlov

[MartyG]

It's probably worth giving this article a read, although it's quite a long read: https://warontherocks.com/2020/06/re...rrence-policy/ - it might give you a little bit of an easier night's sleep.

If you want to know more about who The War On the Rocks is, there's an about page here: https://warontherocks.com/about/

[fishbowlhead]

“They used the vacuum bomb today, which is actually prohibited by the Geneva convention"

Well he’s gone that far, nothings off the table now.

[CMcK]

Just to put Nukes in perspective, after the US dropped the second one even Stalin ground to a halt on his race to Japan, dead in his tracks and turned the army around, and he was worse than Hitler.

The bombs on Japan weren't dropped to stop the Japanese. Over 40 cities had been firebombed by then leaving smaller targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs were dropped as a deterrent to the advancing Russian forces.

[MartyG]

It hasn't been corroborated and the videos of a "huge explosion" going around on Twitter are not of a thermobaric weapon. They are also not prohibited in use (the US used them in Afghanistan).

This is just what I was speaking of earlier about using Twitter as a source of news.

[Cassius_Smoke]

So far, reports say that roadside bombs and drone strikes have prevented the 40mile long convoy from reaching Kyiv.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I'm no military expert, but having a 40 mile long snaking line of vehicles sounds like a recipe for disaster. Surely if you blow up and disrupt the front of the queue the 39 miles of vehicles behind it have then got to find a way round. Then you have the issue of fuel... How do you refuel the middle of the pack?
How is the convoy defended from simple rocket attacks from the side of the road?
Jets can sweep right along the full length at speed and cause chaos.

It doesn't sound like it's a good idea to me. I mean if I did it on C&C red alert I'd be expecting to lose.

[dataDave]

It was a translation error. It was actually a four-mile long convoy forty miles from Kyiv.

[Cassius_Smoke]

It was a translation error. It was actually a four-mile long convoy forty miles from Kyiv.

I mean that sounds more realistic. But still, 4 miles of vehicles in a long straight line can't be a good strategy.

[Brad]

I mean that sounds more realistic. But still, 4 miles of vehicles in a long straight line can't be a good strategy.

Seems weird but yet it is. If you want to use roads that’s the fastest way. There would be heavy defence vehicles scattered through and a mobile SAM launcher if they thought there was an air threat with possible close air support as well.

[Brad]

Obviously also not military expert so trust me about as much as a twitter post. Everything I say is based on playing DCS! It does claim to be a simulator though and the places I frequent have lots of ex military types.

[fishbowlhead]

I mean that sounds more realistic. But still, 4 miles of vehicles in a long straight line can't be a good strategy.

It would be ok as long as it was defended with air support, which it doesn’t sound like it’s getting much if any. This is where Ukraine is doing so well as they are able to actually fight back on ground offensives, without worrying about Russias full airforce overhead.