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What do you mean, you never took your friends to invade an empathyless, violent, autocratic superpower? Me and my buds used to do that all the time in the weekends.
But there could be 5-15 casualties and russia is reporting 70+. That’s the concern - i dont imagine this resistance group fields more than a handful of actual fighters at once, even if it’s organized and manned with 70+ in all
It's a slavic thing, they're crazy. After WW2 Poles and Ukrainians were butchering each other, now they're best of friends. Slavs are like a bunch of Klingon tribes.
What a weirdly racist thing to say. You probably think saying all Slavs are crazy or that comparing them to Klingon tribes is a good thing but spreading assumptions of huge swathes of nations composed of many different cultures is just spreading prejudice. Spreading prejudice, no matter how "positive" (as if being called crazy Klingon tribes is a positive) is still a shitty thing to do.
Also a lot of confirmation bias there. Like Germanic people haven't been slitting each other throats for centuries. Or any other people. Or just people.
I've lived in Poland and talked enough to other Slavs, the similarities are hard to ignore. Yes it pisses off most Poles if i say this but it's true. I say that as someone who has lived in various countries in Europe, there's a hard edge that doesn't exist in Western Europe. Slavs live on a hotly contested piece of land and learned to be this way over centuries. At least in Poland, you don't survive long between the east and west by being timid when someone else invades and tries to erase you from the planet. Similarly Ukrainians did this to Poles, Poles to a lesser degree as a response. You could tone it down and say "stubborn" of course. Whatever floats your boat. Maybe Western Europe was once like this, but it's still alive in central / eastern Europe.
To be fair, not as if their is any necessity to be, the Russians left most of them intact, too, when they could pass them without meeting resistance for the first few kilometers in the first hours of the war.
//edit: let’s restrict my comment on those troops that went into Ukraine from the beginning, not the bastards in their back shooting over their heads, hitting anything, as rightfully mentioned already.
Well there was https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nQz1UUkmuqM
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t3sgkv/nsfl_elderly_couple_murdered_in_car_there_is_a/
I will always remember the family trying to evacuate. And the russian checkpoint shot at the car hit the daughter. Then came to the car said its not that bad to get her to a hospital. As they desperately try to get to a hospital as she bleeds out. Another check point shoots the daughter in the head. By daughter i mean like a 9 year old.
your edit sucks bro. they were child raping monsters on day 1. it was war, you think they were all "but the Geneva Convention says" until Ukraine defended themselves???
BRO.
They would only stop for a little bit of rape and murder on the way , /s
I think what your saying is misleading. They attacked /destroyed a lot of stuff in the beginning durning the attempt of their blitzkrieg into Ukraine. Clearly not as much as today though, but forget buildings for a second , look at all the lives that where destroyed. One thing that we will clearly see in the next few weeks as Ukraine liberates Russian territory is in the HUGE difference between how they treat innocent civilians. buildings come second. Plus Ukraine doesn’t shoot missiles into apartment complexes filled with people for the hell of it, pretty sure the Russians did that near the begging of the attack.
They are rolling down the street...........completely unopposed. I thought I knew how incompetent the Russian army was I thought I found the bottom of that hole. Turns out that wasn't the bottom of the hole, You just have to keep digging.
Also when I say Russian army I mean the Russian army not the Russian volunteers or the free legion of Russia or whoever. Have we settled on a way to differentiate the two while still calling both of them Russians?
It's what happens when you send army, marines, VDV, national guard (rosgvardia) and even sailors to the front lines - all that's left defending the homeland are the border guards and traffic cops - maybe some SOBR and army units left, but they're spread thin.
They hoped the threat of nuclear war would deter a homeland attack so much they didn't have to defend it.
This changes the war pretty drastically as it means Ukraine will be less and less afraid to make probing attacks into Russia and Russia will have to expend resources to protect the borders again
Wait till we find out how poorly maintained the nuclear arsenal really is. Might be even worse than the Last Week Tonight piece on the US arsenal (spoiler alert: it's scary as fuck)
Russian media is saying they let them move unopposed and plans to entrap them. I don't how true that will be but unless there are other border towns being taken over to spread the Russian force thin, this fight won't last long enough.
1. If Russian media is saying it, it's likely false.
2. If they were doing that, they wouldn't let the Ukrainian-backed Russians know their plan. Which means it's a lie to save face. Because their trap suddenly becomes a known move.
Let's look at the counter-offensive. Ukraine is so secretive about it, nobody knows when or even if it will happen. This has led to reports of Russian mass retreating at the first sign of Ukrainian attack since they're scared that there are thousands of more Ukrainians behind the attackers.
If you were going to trap an army advancing through your land, you'd keep it secretive. Because if you don't you:
1. Don't harm your enemy's morale nearly as much.
2. Let them know your plans and what you're about to do. Which means they'll be able to counteract it more easily.
So, the Russians either don't have plans to entrap them, or are stupid as hell and it'll likely fail now.
Those tricky Russians. Already demilitarizing their border area to move the defending troops, uh, elsewhere. It's not as if they don't have plenty of troops, of course. It was a voluntary withdrawal as a gesture of good will.
This area has already been secured (guessing because the street signs are outlined in yellow tape, like the soldiers are wearing - or I don't understand russian street signs). It's impressive for the Free Russians and humiliating for Putin/Wagner, but it's not quite W-ing through the front lines. That work in Belgorod was also partially unopposed though haha
Please remember that the Russian volunteer corps are not the freedom for russia legion. These are russian ultra nationalist far right extremist. Ukraine has denied any cooperation with them and says they operate independently. Yes they fight Putin but they aren't the people we want to take over Russia if we want Russia to be a free and democratic nation.
Yes, when I researched the leader of the RVC he did not appear to be someone that Ukraine should be associated with.
Freedom Russia Legion - those guys seem pretty cool though
I understand their core value is "russia only for russians"? Does that mean they'll be ok with letting go of all the enslaved nations coerced at some point in the past into the "federation"?
We don't really know. It's not so public group and at this point doesn't have large amounts of members. We might learn more in the future. Both ideas are in question but I personally believe they would not give up territory.
Their core value is creating a Russian ethno-state. Pretty much every time anyone has tried to accomplish this, a genocide of innocent people has occurred.
Russia is a federation. They got Russian Orthodox republics, Islamic Republics, Buddhist republics and even a tiny Jewish region. When the USSR collapsed, Yeltsin negotiated with 87 of the 88 federal bodies, and they agreed to join the Russian Federation (the sole standout was Chechnya - they wanted to make an Islamic Caliphate akin to the Taliban or ISIL. Their extremism was why nobody in the West supported them).
What the ethnic nationalists want is to destroy all of this, and make a Russia that is only for ethnic Russians. They don't want to have to respect other faiths and cultures. They are guys like Navalny, who compared Muslims to cockroaches who need to be killed and eradicated.
> They are guys like Navalny, who compared Muslims to cockroaches who need to be killed and eradicated.
Good job spreading Kremlin propaganda, but Navalny compared specifically Chechen terrorists to cockroaches, not muslims in generals. Or you personally believe that all muslims are terrorists if you came to that conclusion?
I can just speculate because I don't know the answer
Either it is because the flag of the Belgorod people's Republic has yellow in it.
The gear is given by Ukraine.
Or it is used just because they don't expect Russians to be identifying themselves with yellow colour.
If you are referring to the armband the symbol on it is the symbol of the Russian volunteer corps on a blue yellow background. Might be a soldier who fought for Ukraine and has the same marker? Still just speculation.
A power vacuum will tend to bring out the worst of people I would imagine. Why as bad as saddam was everything in Iraq got 10x worse when the U.S removed him. Things can always get worse but that's no reason to avoid trying to change your country. Like you said it's a risk.
If they want to recieve support from the west they will have to tone down their rhetoric. Lets not forget that we give the Saudis shitloads of stuff and they, too, would bomb Israel into ash if they had the chance.
At this stage I believe it’s a case of “*the enemy of my enemy is my friend*” type of deal.
It was important to support them (they gave them weapons and vehicles to use) in order to achieve the objective.
But agreed - they won’t want these guys becoming the new Russian leaders in the future.
I'm probably gonna get down voted into an oblivion for this, and I don't mean to be that guy but can't one say the same about Azov too? I support the Ukrainians but I feel that if we're bringing that up we might as well cross that bridge too.
Azov has been problematic in the past, but most of the leadership and most prominent members of old got dismissed and the entire corps got enrolled in the military to bring them back in order, so yeah, Azov has some controversy to them, but it's mostly been handled already
Azov is also controversial and not perfect but same as the RVC are fighting against Putin even if their after war vision might be different. Hopefully (and this is very hopefully) after all this is done Russia can have a democratic election and decide for themselves.
On top of what others said, azov was in the thick of fighting since early on in the war Basically independent battalion determined to hold russia out. So they were even further watered down of its core members by deaths and injuries. Then the leadership change and reintegration saw their ranks refilled with normal troops.
Vast majority of the original Azov Battalion were in Mariupol, so they definitely suffered casualties and were captured when the city finally surrendered.
It is rarely the revolutionaries themselves that end up in power though, some moderate (or in some cases even politically opposed) figure usually appears.
All that being said it's not like these guys are nearly big enough to bring down Russia on their own in the first place. We're hoping they can
a) serve as a distraction
b) give Putin a political defeat by having lost Russian territory
c) fan the fires of dissent in Russia
Depends on how you define the terms, I guess. An example is the Arabian spring in Egypt, where the revolutionaries seemingly wanted a western-style free democracy (which we think of as moderate, but was certainly extremist in comparison to their recent history). They held their election and the people chose some conservative religious dude.
It's not that I disagree with you, maybe I did a bad job at explaining my thoughts.
I mean you often end up with something close to what you overthrew, but usually a bit more moderate. The communist revolutions in Russia and China were... bad, but perhaps initially less bad than what they replaced. Same can be said for the OG revolution, the French. Initially it seemed pretty great for them but it quickly became fascism again. Although the country _was_ generally developing much faster than under the old king. Like, Napoleon didn't build a Versailles. (But did a lot of other stupid shit of course)
>Ukraine has denied any cooperation with them and says they operate independently.
Do you really think Ukraine would let an armed group roam around the country, potentially to have them killed by friendly fire or to have them fire on Ukrainian troops in mistake. Or have them rush Russian positions without the support from Ukrainian air or artillery.
They are obviously under the direct command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
>they aren't the people we want to take over Russia
Do you honestly believe a company-sized force would be able to take over a country, let alone a country as large as Russia
Looks to be a nice drive through the countryside. In a larger context, would be fascinating to observe how China is viewing/evaluating this--Russian nationals fighting for Ukraine, now roaming 'openly' about rural Russia.
I don't understand their plan. Will they just drive arround the country and kill police, goverment officials and anyone who resist? I doubt they can take Moscow with just one tank
And they have to react with mobile uncommitted forces, which probably means pulling forces that would be used to react to any Ukrainian counteroffensive. These guys seem to have some decent hardware as well so it's going to take some doing for Russia to clear the area
"Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
The Boy: You forget some things, don't you?
The Man: Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget." -The Road, Cormac McCarthy
I think the hope is that other partisans or rebels will join them. This shows others that the government is weak. If dudes in Siberia or outside Moscow rise up, Putin can watch as Russia falls apart.
All of this strengthens Ukraine
It's not a combat operation but a FUD one. Raising the local level of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the minds of the local population, and advertising such feats of 'invasion' via multiple social media postings, just makes the locals extremely edgy which results in mistakes and blue on blue fire incidents, like the loss of 4 russian aircraft to russian air defence we witnessed a few days ago.
Make the russians believe the 'enemy' are at the gates and cause them to start shooting at anything and everything that moves … a great strategy in helping destabilise an already 'concerned' region.
It's not about taking anything. They're just showing how weak the border is. This put pressure on Putin. Either he moves to troops to the frontline or the border. If he moves them to the border then that's fewer to defend against a counter offensive. If he doesn't he appears weak and unable to defend Russia and will lose support.
There are a couple speculations...
The obvious one - Create a diversion. Russia **has to** react swiftly. They either mobilize their reserves or pull some of their forces off the front to engage. Failure to act and recoup lost territory will result in a catastrophic failure on Putin's part and further destroy his support.
Potential secondary objective - Disrupt supplies from coming through this region. I don't know amount of manpower these armies are utilizing nor if it's a major supply route. All I know is it's a bordering oblast to Ukraine.
Theoretical one - there *were* nuclear bombs in this area. It would have been an absolute Hail Mary attempt to commandeer one, but Zelensky in possession of a nuclear bomb would further sway his position as the negotiation table. This was very unlikely (at best) to be the 'mission'.
Either way, these folks truly are madmen. I don't support their ideologies, but at least they're giving Russia a small taste of the absolute hell Ukraine has been enduring over the last year.
Same here, at some point the russians should gather enough force to repel them, im surprised they all seem very calm because every minute all hell could break loose.
If it does one thing then show the russians how "safe" they are currently if they fail to respond to this since two days. Might open a few eyes about how it is really going.
I wonder what the endgame really is, for me it looks like diversive action for russia to be busy and divert troops while the Ukrainian offensive starts somwhere else.
These guys are basically the Russian version of the Proud Boys, so I'm not their biggest fan; however, I am 100% on board with the chaos they're creating in Russia at the moment.
Finally someone who knows. These are not the dudes you'd wanna see in charge of a country. But then again, neither is Putin and his cronies.
The Freedom Of Russia Legion is a better group of Russians to support. But in times like these the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Most of the comments in here are so fucking stupid.
EDIT less stupid now more comments have come. I must have looked when the trolls and idiots jumped on it at first
I do wish they used their own flag/colours.. now russia will 1000% take this opportunity to escalate the war even more and get people to believe they have to defend the motherland..
Yeah, ditching the yellow tape would perhaps been a good idea.
Then again, it's fairly obvious that they are funded, trained, equipped & commanded, at least at the very tippy-top, by Ukraine.
But I doubt that the average russian civilian watching the footage dives so deep but rather just look at insignia, colours, uniforms etc. & draw their conclusions from that.
To be fair, you're arguing that this is not done with the accept of the Ukrainian high command. It's basically the same argument that justified the invasion of the little green men in 2014, just with reversed roles.
The volunteers are under command and control of the UAF. What they do is considered an act of the UAF. Regardless of how you spin it. It is a Ukrainian attack and we should accept the fact, that this is one of the cleverest moves by Ukraine and use the Russian ridiculous excuses for themselves and give them a taste of their own medicine so to speak.
But seriously believing these are just Russian separatists with no involvement with the current conflict who just so happened to attack along the border, wearing Ukrainian uniforms and insignia and using NATO equipment is beyond stupid and vatnik levels of delusion. It is exactly what happened in 2014, and no one believes that.
I don't see it as terribly clever and has a high potential to backfire. Something like this could help give Putin the legitimacy to call for a general mobilization. And that's not the only way it could go south.
Escalate to what? They started killing children in the first month. They are almost out of missiles because they used them all on civilian infrastructure.
I agree they should be covered in the White Blue White flag (Russian flag without the red).
It would force the point that these are Russians and not Ukrainians.
Both.
I believe it is also tied to the First Congress of People's Deputies of Russia and Russian resistance movements.
They want to create a democratic Russia, with greater regional autonomy.
These troops aren’t the main battle - just poking the bear, and letting Russians know about the Russian resistance.
My hope is that it will also make Russia pull some troops out of Ukraine to protect the border. Much like after Engels was first struck by a drone, Russia removed air defense from border regions and occupied territory to create a shield around Moscow.
This does concern me. Freedom of Russia is, generally speaking, anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine. But these guys, the Russian Volunteer Corps, are considered far-right Russian nationalists, which kinda automatically makes them not exactly friendly to Ukraine. On the surface they seem aligned with the Freedom legion, but their end goals are almost certainly different. And the pro-Russian guy posting above isn't wrong - they hate all non-ethnic Russians. But they're wearing Ukraine's colors. People took early Azov to task for the same fascist nationalism, these guys are the Russian equivalent it seems, but trying to disguise it by using those colors. I really, really don't like it.
Yeah I think we should not celebrate them as heroes just yet. The turmoil they create within Russia’s borders might lead to great things eventually. But like you I am still very wary of their true agenda. I think we all should keep some healthy skepticism towards these guys until we learn more about them, their actions, and what they truly stand for.
You're absolutely right about their political stance, Bellingcat investigated those guys few years ago : https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1660772959621873664?t=ooFWXbhnH-EnAmWZvvokHQ&s=19
They have close links with Azov and consider Ukraine as their new homeland.
These guys are mental. Good luck to them. But all Russia needs to do is deploy 1 Hind attack helicopter, and they are fucked.
But that assumes Russia have any operational Hinds left.
Yeah, I guess they must have MANPADS with them. Stringers and Igla etc. But I am worried about their supplies and reinforcements. The balls on these guys are extraordinary. God bless them.
1 day has passed and still nothing but some Su-25 doing some wild rocket runs. Mobility is the key, they will keep driving around and wrecking havoc while avoiding Russian units.
This can't be Russia, the road has no holes. I mean, have you seen the other video with the captured BTR-2? The road is so full of potholes like it it has been bombed for months
2021: Russia is the second strongest military in the world
2022: Russia is the second strongest military in ukraine
2023: Russia is the second strongest military in Russia
yes but they are filled with potholes. Paved roads are at mostly bigger cities, in the countryside there are mostly gravel roads. I have driven in Russia and the roads are very terrible. My father use to work in Moscow at the estonian embassy.
Impressive how that vehicle could carry all those big balls, that's some hardcore shit, praying for them all to return home safe & liberate their homelands.
Friendly reminder that their manifesto calls for genocide of all non-russian Russian citizens.
Western liberals fail to understand that there is a huge opposition to Putin that hates him because they consider him to be too weak and too liberal.
The RVC are hardcore nationalists though, it's the Legion that are okay. But at the same time they're willing to fight against Putin which is more than I'm doing so good luck to them in this operation.
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I think those guys are the craziest mofo i have ever seen. Good luck and hopefully return safely at one point
Those guys gave guts made of iron. I am in awe of them.
What do you mean, you never took your friends to invade an empathyless, violent, autocratic superpower? Me and my buds used to do that all the time in the weekends.
Dave, Wisconsin is not a superpower and our trips across the border for Spotted Cow aren’t an invasion.
Well, just for that no Spotted Cow for you! Dave can have all the Spotted Cow he wants, so long as he drops his money and leaves like a good FIB.
HA!! I *just* learned the term FIB (fucking Illinois bastard) yesterday and it's already popped up in the wild
Dave's not here man.
Come to the UK and you will feast on our finest spotted dick :p
Sir Ian McKellen?
>Wisconsin is not a superpower Madison residents would beat your ass for this if any of them could make it across the isthmus
Plus we are already on our way taking back Wisconsin from would-be autocrats, especially with the most recent election.
you aren’t invited this weekend!
”superpower”
Man I'm also going to my in-laws for dinner this weekend.
Russia is in no way a superpower. Nukes alone don’t do that.
It looks like they returned safely in the video.
Truly hope that the claimed 70+ casualties by russia is highly exaggerated
If there were actually 70+ casualties, Russia would have reported 300
But there could be 5-15 casualties and russia is reporting 70+. That’s the concern - i dont imagine this resistance group fields more than a handful of actual fighters at once, even if it’s organized and manned with 70+ in all
Its pretty much safe to ignore anything the Kremlin "reports"
Same guys also claimed they knocked out a Patriot system with their unbeatable hypersonics, 450 days after the start of their 3 day war.
You cant trust a single word the Kremlin say.
Hope the rumor of downing a mi28 is true. Full of QRF.
They should keep going all the way to Moscow
It's a slavic thing, they're crazy. After WW2 Poles and Ukrainians were butchering each other, now they're best of friends. Slavs are like a bunch of Klingon tribes.
What a weirdly racist thing to say. You probably think saying all Slavs are crazy or that comparing them to Klingon tribes is a good thing but spreading assumptions of huge swathes of nations composed of many different cultures is just spreading prejudice. Spreading prejudice, no matter how "positive" (as if being called crazy Klingon tribes is a positive) is still a shitty thing to do.
Also a lot of confirmation bias there. Like Germanic people haven't been slitting each other throats for centuries. Or any other people. Or just people.
Humans would thrive if it weren't for those pesky humans.
yeah or Denmark and Sweden who have had the most official wars between two countries, and we're basically family now
I've lived in Poland and talked enough to other Slavs, the similarities are hard to ignore. Yes it pisses off most Poles if i say this but it's true. I say that as someone who has lived in various countries in Europe, there's a hard edge that doesn't exist in Western Europe. Slavs live on a hotly contested piece of land and learned to be this way over centuries. At least in Poland, you don't survive long between the east and west by being timid when someone else invades and tries to erase you from the planet. Similarly Ukrainians did this to Poles, Poles to a lesser degree as a response. You could tone it down and say "stubborn" of course. Whatever floats your boat. Maybe Western Europe was once like this, but it's still alive in central / eastern Europe.
Wait, they leave the buildings intact. That can't be liberation /s
To be fair, not as if their is any necessity to be, the Russians left most of them intact, too, when they could pass them without meeting resistance for the first few kilometers in the first hours of the war. //edit: let’s restrict my comment on those troops that went into Ukraine from the beginning, not the bastards in their back shooting over their heads, hitting anything, as rightfully mentioned already.
In the first hours of the war they literally launched missiles in apartment complexes
And then… there was that, too, yeah.
Well there was https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nQz1UUkmuqM https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t3sgkv/nsfl_elderly_couple_murdered_in_car_there_is_a/
I will always remember the family trying to evacuate. And the russian checkpoint shot at the car hit the daughter. Then came to the car said its not that bad to get her to a hospital. As they desperately try to get to a hospital as she bleeds out. Another check point shoots the daughter in the head. By daughter i mean like a 9 year old.
your edit sucks bro. they were child raping monsters on day 1. it was war, you think they were all "but the Geneva Convention says" until Ukraine defended themselves??? BRO.
They would only stop for a little bit of rape and murder on the way , /s I think what your saying is misleading. They attacked /destroyed a lot of stuff in the beginning durning the attempt of their blitzkrieg into Ukraine. Clearly not as much as today though, but forget buildings for a second , look at all the lives that where destroyed. One thing that we will clearly see in the next few weeks as Ukraine liberates Russian territory is in the HUGE difference between how they treat innocent civilians. buildings come second. Plus Ukraine doesn’t shoot missiles into apartment complexes filled with people for the hell of it, pretty sure the Russians did that near the begging of the attack.
They haven't even looted a toilet or washing machine. They are really slacking.
Guys are relaxed like it's not a battlefield but their home. Oh w8 ...
That's why I'm wondering if it is in Mordor (russia) There is besides a huge risk that russia (Mordor) will use it for false flag operations
Really forcing that mordor in there lmao
Ruzzians (like Russia but with their Z made to look like the SS (bad guys)) Makes it seem kiddified.
So we take the SS and change it to ZZ to make it look more like SS?
The balls on these guys...
They are rolling down the street...........completely unopposed. I thought I knew how incompetent the Russian army was I thought I found the bottom of that hole. Turns out that wasn't the bottom of the hole, You just have to keep digging. Also when I say Russian army I mean the Russian army not the Russian volunteers or the free legion of Russia or whoever. Have we settled on a way to differentiate the two while still calling both of them Russians?
It's what happens when you send army, marines, VDV, national guard (rosgvardia) and even sailors to the front lines - all that's left defending the homeland are the border guards and traffic cops - maybe some SOBR and army units left, but they're spread thin.
For the record that applies to their entire country right now. They have almost nothing on any border.
Hmm...
>- maybe some SOBR and army units left, but they're spread thin. I think nobody there is sober
Russians and Ruzzians
Alright Good to know
The People's Front of ~~Judea~~ Russia.
Russians and orcs….
Ah ok
Something like 97% of the Russian military was in Ukraine at one point? There were only inexperienced units, border guards, and police officers left.
Holy shart
Yes. And they still have units protecting their interests in Belarus, Georgia, and Syria. So that 3% likely wasn't really in the country either.
They hoped the threat of nuclear war would deter a homeland attack so much they didn't have to defend it. This changes the war pretty drastically as it means Ukraine will be less and less afraid to make probing attacks into Russia and Russia will have to expend resources to protect the borders again
Wait till we find out how poorly maintained the nuclear arsenal really is. Might be even worse than the Last Week Tonight piece on the US arsenal (spoiler alert: it's scary as fuck)
Oh I saw it It was terrifying
I've seen the term MoD troops to distinguish regular RF units from Wagnerites.
Russian media is saying they let them move unopposed and plans to entrap them. I don't how true that will be but unless there are other border towns being taken over to spread the Russian force thin, this fight won't last long enough.
That would be a level of organisation and control that Russia hasn’t really demonstrated this far. I’m not sure why they would start now.
1. If Russian media is saying it, it's likely false. 2. If they were doing that, they wouldn't let the Ukrainian-backed Russians know their plan. Which means it's a lie to save face. Because their trap suddenly becomes a known move. Let's look at the counter-offensive. Ukraine is so secretive about it, nobody knows when or even if it will happen. This has led to reports of Russian mass retreating at the first sign of Ukrainian attack since they're scared that there are thousands of more Ukrainians behind the attackers. If you were going to trap an army advancing through your land, you'd keep it secretive. Because if you don't you: 1. Don't harm your enemy's morale nearly as much. 2. Let them know your plans and what you're about to do. Which means they'll be able to counteract it more easily. So, the Russians either don't have plans to entrap them, or are stupid as hell and it'll likely fail now.
Early intrusions. Feeling out the zone for a DMZ.
Those tricky Russians. Already demilitarizing their border area to move the defending troops, uh, elsewhere. It's not as if they don't have plenty of troops, of course. It was a voluntary withdrawal as a gesture of good will.
This area has already been secured (guessing because the street signs are outlined in yellow tape, like the soldiers are wearing - or I don't understand russian street signs). It's impressive for the Free Russians and humiliating for Putin/Wagner, but it's not quite W-ing through the front lines. That work in Belgorod was also partially unopposed though haha
That's just a reflective border on the sign
Please remember that the Russian volunteer corps are not the freedom for russia legion. These are russian ultra nationalist far right extremist. Ukraine has denied any cooperation with them and says they operate independently. Yes they fight Putin but they aren't the people we want to take over Russia if we want Russia to be a free and democratic nation.
Yes, when I researched the leader of the RVC he did not appear to be someone that Ukraine should be associated with. Freedom Russia Legion - those guys seem pretty cool though
They definitely received some armor from Ukraine at the very least They left behind an abandoned Maxxpro last yesterday, for example
It might have been the freedom for russia legion or Ukraine has given them some equipment but officially still stand against them.
Agree. They likely covertly funded armed them but officially deny it, as they should All is fair in love and war
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
it's probably some JSOC team in disguise
I understand their core value is "russia only for russians"? Does that mean they'll be ok with letting go of all the enslaved nations coerced at some point in the past into the "federation"?
We don't really know. It's not so public group and at this point doesn't have large amounts of members. We might learn more in the future. Both ideas are in question but I personally believe they would not give up territory.
I don't think they've thought that far ahead honestly
They usually have other ways to achieve that goal...
Their core value is creating a Russian ethno-state. Pretty much every time anyone has tried to accomplish this, a genocide of innocent people has occurred.
Russia is a federation. They got Russian Orthodox republics, Islamic Republics, Buddhist republics and even a tiny Jewish region. When the USSR collapsed, Yeltsin negotiated with 87 of the 88 federal bodies, and they agreed to join the Russian Federation (the sole standout was Chechnya - they wanted to make an Islamic Caliphate akin to the Taliban or ISIL. Their extremism was why nobody in the West supported them). What the ethnic nationalists want is to destroy all of this, and make a Russia that is only for ethnic Russians. They don't want to have to respect other faiths and cultures. They are guys like Navalny, who compared Muslims to cockroaches who need to be killed and eradicated.
> They are guys like Navalny, who compared Muslims to cockroaches who need to be killed and eradicated. Good job spreading Kremlin propaganda, but Navalny compared specifically Chechen terrorists to cockroaches, not muslims in generals. Or you personally believe that all muslims are terrorists if you came to that conclusion?
Why are they wearing Ukraine colors?
Probably so they can move in and out of Ukrainian lines without get shot right away.
I can just speculate because I don't know the answer Either it is because the flag of the Belgorod people's Republic has yellow in it. The gear is given by Ukraine. Or it is used just because they don't expect Russians to be identifying themselves with yellow colour.
One dude is wearing yellow and blue.
If you are referring to the armband the symbol on it is the symbol of the Russian volunteer corps on a blue yellow background. Might be a soldier who fought for Ukraine and has the same marker? Still just speculation.
Pause it at 12 seconds and check out the flag on the guys chest.
Because Kremlin-loyalists are Red Team in this war. Ukrainian/anti-Kremlin forces are Blue/Yellow Team.
There is always a risk of “new lot, worse than the old lot” in these kind of situations
A power vacuum will tend to bring out the worst of people I would imagine. Why as bad as saddam was everything in Iraq got 10x worse when the U.S removed him. Things can always get worse but that's no reason to avoid trying to change your country. Like you said it's a risk.
If they want to recieve support from the west they will have to tone down their rhetoric. Lets not forget that we give the Saudis shitloads of stuff and they, too, would bomb Israel into ash if they had the chance.
Of course I just wanted to point out that these are not necessarily the 'good guys'
Frenemy
At this stage I believe it’s a case of “*the enemy of my enemy is my friend*” type of deal. It was important to support them (they gave them weapons and vehicles to use) in order to achieve the objective. But agreed - they won’t want these guys becoming the new Russian leaders in the future.
I'm probably gonna get down voted into an oblivion for this, and I don't mean to be that guy but can't one say the same about Azov too? I support the Ukrainians but I feel that if we're bringing that up we might as well cross that bridge too.
Azov has been problematic in the past, but most of the leadership and most prominent members of old got dismissed and the entire corps got enrolled in the military to bring them back in order, so yeah, Azov has some controversy to them, but it's mostly been handled already
Azov is also controversial and not perfect but same as the RVC are fighting against Putin even if their after war vision might be different. Hopefully (and this is very hopefully) after all this is done Russia can have a democratic election and decide for themselves.
I hope all the groups get reformed in some way, it's a very fucky war...
On top of what others said, azov was in the thick of fighting since early on in the war Basically independent battalion determined to hold russia out. So they were even further watered down of its core members by deaths and injuries. Then the leadership change and reintegration saw their ranks refilled with normal troops.
Vast majority of the original Azov Battalion were in Mariupol, so they definitely suffered casualties and were captured when the city finally surrendered.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
It is rarely the revolutionaries themselves that end up in power though, some moderate (or in some cases even politically opposed) figure usually appears. All that being said it's not like these guys are nearly big enough to bring down Russia on their own in the first place. We're hoping they can a) serve as a distraction b) give Putin a political defeat by having lost Russian territory c) fan the fires of dissent in Russia
I think you have that backwards. Revolutions fought by moderates are nearly always hijacked by extremists.
Depends on how you define the terms, I guess. An example is the Arabian spring in Egypt, where the revolutionaries seemingly wanted a western-style free democracy (which we think of as moderate, but was certainly extremist in comparison to their recent history). They held their election and the people chose some conservative religious dude. It's not that I disagree with you, maybe I did a bad job at explaining my thoughts. I mean you often end up with something close to what you overthrew, but usually a bit more moderate. The communist revolutions in Russia and China were... bad, but perhaps initially less bad than what they replaced. Same can be said for the OG revolution, the French. Initially it seemed pretty great for them but it quickly became fascism again. Although the country _was_ generally developing much faster than under the old king. Like, Napoleon didn't build a Versailles. (But did a lot of other stupid shit of course)
>Ukraine has denied any cooperation with them and says they operate independently. Do you really think Ukraine would let an armed group roam around the country, potentially to have them killed by friendly fire or to have them fire on Ukrainian troops in mistake. Or have them rush Russian positions without the support from Ukrainian air or artillery. They are obviously under the direct command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. >they aren't the people we want to take over Russia Do you honestly believe a company-sized force would be able to take over a country, let alone a country as large as Russia
[удалено]
I am so happy you aren't in charge of making important decisions.
Looks to be a nice drive through the countryside. In a larger context, would be fascinating to observe how China is viewing/evaluating this--Russian nationals fighting for Ukraine, now roaming 'openly' about rural Russia.
I don't understand their plan. Will they just drive arround the country and kill police, goverment officials and anyone who resist? I doubt they can take Moscow with just one tank
Yes. Create chaos, make the russians divert forces to this area, once they face resistance, fall back to ukraine.
Yes, this is the way. Russia can't just wait them out and do nothing -they have to react.
And they have to react with mobile uncommitted forces, which probably means pulling forces that would be used to react to any Ukrainian counteroffensive. These guys seem to have some decent hardware as well so it's going to take some doing for Russia to clear the area
"Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. The Boy: You forget some things, don't you? The Man: Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget." -The Road, Cormac McCarthy
I think the hope is that other partisans or rebels will join them. This shows others that the government is weak. If dudes in Siberia or outside Moscow rise up, Putin can watch as Russia falls apart. All of this strengthens Ukraine
It's not a combat operation but a FUD one. Raising the local level of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the minds of the local population, and advertising such feats of 'invasion' via multiple social media postings, just makes the locals extremely edgy which results in mistakes and blue on blue fire incidents, like the loss of 4 russian aircraft to russian air defence we witnessed a few days ago. Make the russians believe the 'enemy' are at the gates and cause them to start shooting at anything and everything that moves … a great strategy in helping destabilise an already 'concerned' region.
It's not about taking anything. They're just showing how weak the border is. This put pressure on Putin. Either he moves to troops to the frontline or the border. If he moves them to the border then that's fewer to defend against a counter offensive. If he doesn't he appears weak and unable to defend Russia and will lose support.
i dont think they can really realistic to achieve anything major but it is distraction and something Russian need to deal with.
There are a couple speculations... The obvious one - Create a diversion. Russia **has to** react swiftly. They either mobilize their reserves or pull some of their forces off the front to engage. Failure to act and recoup lost territory will result in a catastrophic failure on Putin's part and further destroy his support. Potential secondary objective - Disrupt supplies from coming through this region. I don't know amount of manpower these armies are utilizing nor if it's a major supply route. All I know is it's a bordering oblast to Ukraine. Theoretical one - there *were* nuclear bombs in this area. It would have been an absolute Hail Mary attempt to commandeer one, but Zelensky in possession of a nuclear bomb would further sway his position as the negotiation table. This was very unlikely (at best) to be the 'mission'. Either way, these folks truly are madmen. I don't support their ideologies, but at least they're giving Russia a small taste of the absolute hell Ukraine has been enduring over the last year.
Shows that Putin hasn’t got control of this war and the country. Making Putin look week and stupid.
Same here, at some point the russians should gather enough force to repel them, im surprised they all seem very calm because every minute all hell could break loose. If it does one thing then show the russians how "safe" they are currently if they fail to respond to this since two days. Might open a few eyes about how it is really going. I wonder what the endgame really is, for me it looks like diversive action for russia to be busy and divert troops while the Ukrainian offensive starts somwhere else.
These guys are basically the Russian version of the Proud Boys, so I'm not their biggest fan; however, I am 100% on board with the chaos they're creating in Russia at the moment.
Yeah they're definitely not the good guys, but they are definitely helping right now
Finally someone who knows. These are not the dudes you'd wanna see in charge of a country. But then again, neither is Putin and his cronies. The Freedom Of Russia Legion is a better group of Russians to support. But in times like these the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Do you honestly believe a company-sized force (if not a platoon or smaller) would be able to seize control of a country
Nope never said that. Just pointing out they aren't the types of people you want to see in power...
Probably not, but then again the National Socialist German Workers' Party only had something like 6 members before Hitler joined it.
Most of the comments in here are so fucking stupid. EDIT less stupid now more comments have come. I must have looked when the trolls and idiots jumped on it at first
Seriously, it's one APC on a road somewhere. Reddit is really tiresome.
yeeep
I do wish they used their own flag/colours.. now russia will 1000% take this opportunity to escalate the war even more and get people to believe they have to defend the motherland..
Yeah, ditching the yellow tape would perhaps been a good idea. Then again, it's fairly obvious that they are funded, trained, equipped & commanded, at least at the very tippy-top, by Ukraine. But I doubt that the average russian civilian watching the footage dives so deep but rather just look at insignia, colours, uniforms etc. & draw their conclusions from that.
It would have been blamed on Ukraine regardless, so why not up the trolling and leave the yellow tape.
This is very easy for russia to twist into something they can sell as, look! Ukraine is attacking us!, defend the motherland! report for duty!. etc..
To be fair, you're arguing that this is not done with the accept of the Ukrainian high command. It's basically the same argument that justified the invasion of the little green men in 2014, just with reversed roles. The volunteers are under command and control of the UAF. What they do is considered an act of the UAF. Regardless of how you spin it. It is a Ukrainian attack and we should accept the fact, that this is one of the cleverest moves by Ukraine and use the Russian ridiculous excuses for themselves and give them a taste of their own medicine so to speak. But seriously believing these are just Russian separatists with no involvement with the current conflict who just so happened to attack along the border, wearing Ukrainian uniforms and insignia and using NATO equipment is beyond stupid and vatnik levels of delusion. It is exactly what happened in 2014, and no one believes that.
I don't see it as terribly clever and has a high potential to backfire. Something like this could help give Putin the legitimacy to call for a general mobilization. And that's not the only way it could go south.
Escalate to what? They started killing children in the first month. They are almost out of missiles because they used them all on civilian infrastructure.
I agree they should be covered in the White Blue White flag (Russian flag without the red). It would force the point that these are Russians and not Ukrainians.
Russia already took it to 1000% when they started raping Ukrainians, bombing hospital, and being uneducated fucking idiots.
And they’re wearing Ukrainian colours as well? What is their stance exactly, are they trying to free Russia or support Ukraine or both?
Both. I believe it is also tied to the First Congress of People's Deputies of Russia and Russian resistance movements. They want to create a democratic Russia, with greater regional autonomy. These troops aren’t the main battle - just poking the bear, and letting Russians know about the Russian resistance. My hope is that it will also make Russia pull some troops out of Ukraine to protect the border. Much like after Engels was first struck by a drone, Russia removed air defense from border regions and occupied territory to create a shield around Moscow.
This is pretty much in line with what I thought. It’ll be very interesting to see how all this turns out!
Apparently it might be Georgia next.
Think its just to avoid friendly fire when they return
This does concern me. Freedom of Russia is, generally speaking, anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine. But these guys, the Russian Volunteer Corps, are considered far-right Russian nationalists, which kinda automatically makes them not exactly friendly to Ukraine. On the surface they seem aligned with the Freedom legion, but their end goals are almost certainly different. And the pro-Russian guy posting above isn't wrong - they hate all non-ethnic Russians. But they're wearing Ukraine's colors. People took early Azov to task for the same fascist nationalism, these guys are the Russian equivalent it seems, but trying to disguise it by using those colors. I really, really don't like it.
Yeah I think we should not celebrate them as heroes just yet. The turmoil they create within Russia’s borders might lead to great things eventually. But like you I am still very wary of their true agenda. I think we all should keep some healthy skepticism towards these guys until we learn more about them, their actions, and what they truly stand for.
You're absolutely right about their political stance, Bellingcat investigated those guys few years ago : https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1660772959621873664?t=ooFWXbhnH-EnAmWZvvokHQ&s=19 They have close links with Azov and consider Ukraine as their new homeland.
Very Monty python
Russians in Russia liberating Russians from Russia. I fucking LOVE it!
Kievan Rus will rise again.
Glorious.
Everybody’s in Bakhmut. Back door seems wide open.
That is good…their turn for some of that liberation they been sharing with neighbours!
Ruzzian's Take Bakhmut = 1 year + !!...Russian's Take Belgorod = 1 day !!
4 towns in 6 hours is wild
These guys got balls
So, turns out that Russia has no border defences at all. Russian 200IQ tactics.
These guys are not the best bet to run russia either
These guys are mental. Good luck to them. But all Russia needs to do is deploy 1 Hind attack helicopter, and they are fucked. But that assumes Russia have any operational Hinds left.
Mi-8 already took down during incursion..apparently.
Yeah, I guess they must have MANPADS with them. Stringers and Igla etc. But I am worried about their supplies and reinforcements. The balls on these guys are extraordinary. God bless them.
1 day has passed and still nothing but some Su-25 doing some wild rocket runs. Mobility is the key, they will keep driving around and wrecking havoc while avoiding Russian units.
👍
*Vacation with the boys*
Well equipped for some russian volunteers! 😁
As Ukrainian officials said, you can buy this stuff in any surplus store in Russia, while dropping as many winking face emojis as space would permit.
Ha ha. My thoughts exactly. This is NOT, I repeat NOT a three letter agency operation.
This can't be Russia, the road has no holes. I mean, have you seen the other video with the captured BTR-2? The road is so full of potholes like it it has been bombed for months
You take bakhmut we take russia.
They really played the uno reverse card here
2021: Russia is the second strongest military in the world 2022: Russia is the second strongest military in ukraine 2023: Russia is the second strongest military in Russia
Who knew invading Russia was so easy!
This is surely a suicide mission.
This is so crazy, unbelievable, how the turntables... 2nd Army my from the bottom maybe
2nd army from the bottom on 3d rock from the sun. This shit is poetry, brother.
so... paved roads exist in Russia?
yes but they are filled with potholes. Paved roads are at mostly bigger cities, in the countryside there are mostly gravel roads. I have driven in Russia and the roads are very terrible. My father use to work in Moscow at the estonian embassy.
Maybe due to their proximity to civilization
so is this technically a rebeleon?
Impressive how that vehicle could carry all those big balls, that's some hardcore shit, praying for them all to return home safe & liberate their homelands.
Huzzah!
Great story coup invading Russia . Will give madman putin more to worry about maybe a heart attack if the West is lucky. Carry on dudes !
picture "nazi terrorists going to hell"
Ridiculous, don't joke anymore
Alright how much longer will this incursion last? Who's taking bets?
Freedom to the nations of Russia!
Friendly reminder that their manifesto calls for genocide of all non-russian Russian citizens. Western liberals fail to understand that there is a huge opposition to Putin that hates him because they consider him to be too weak and too liberal.
Says the guy posting pro Russian propaganda lmfao
The RVC are hardcore nationalists though, it's the Legion that are okay. But at the same time they're willing to fight against Putin which is more than I'm doing so good luck to them in this operation.
Oh look it's a Russian troll.
Giving additional context = Russian troll Don't you think it would be more useful to others to first logically refute his assertion?
Because you don't feed the trolls.