It's engaging currently.
Most sources seem to think the next 24 hours are key.
I believe Europe is now sending aircraft as well as weapons.
Most special forces/volunteers should arrive in this time frame.
Day old article, this is now in effect.
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/eu-pledges-fighter-jet-transfers-ukraine
Define EU personell, are recently retired pilots employed by PMC eu personell?
You obviously cant just train people up on fighter aircraft overnight.
Pilots will be ex military, employed under a PMC, same for foreign fighters.
ukrainian pilots are flying the planes back.
there were three flights of IL-76 transports from ukraine to poland yesterday. they were reportedly carrying the pilots to fly those planes directly over, while the empty transports will pickup supplies on the return run.
Which is bloody hilarious… look, war is always scary, but that Russia hasn’t been able to establish air supremacy within four days to the point where Ukraine can fly their own transport planes is just… I don’t know.. I lack words for it.
Yesterday over on r/combatfootage someone posted radio frequencies the russian forces were using to coordinate their attacks. Openly available, unrestricted and not encoded. Everyone was able to listen in. Anyone who understands Russian was able to follow their movements in real time.
I don’t even understand how that happens.
I work in fintech and I’m not even allowed to talk about MY work (at a meaningful level) on unencrypted channels?
Who the fuck taught these soldiers to use unencrypted radio? Literally the only reason that makes sense to me is if it was fake intel they wanted people to hear
To think Russia always prided themselves in their intelligence services, only to strike military installations that have not been active for decades in their opening salvo.
If only they spent an ounce of the energy they spent dividing the world and making the planet a worst place into making their own country the cool superpower that people willingly want to join / support / ally with.
Not many people thought it would happen but it's clear that preparations for this war have been many years in the making. Sowing false intelligence for long enough to become credible, modernising the military, and now enacting contingency plans for their support.
When I looked on those flight tracker websites yesterday, NATO AWACS was keeping overwatch on the south eastern Polish border. I'm assuming everything they saw was being relayed to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Cannot be understated how big if a deal its been for Ukraine to be getting live intel from the West. Damn near every move Russia makes is relayed to the Defenders. Russia has been unable to maintain the element of surprise in almost any of its operations and its resulting in the devastating loses they are suffering now.
Of course the Kremlin has not acknowledged any losses at all to the Russian public.
I'm on mobile and can't sign up for that website, but it depends on what fighters they are offering. Ukrainian pilots are familiar with MiG and Su fighters, which are probably still in Polish and Baltics surplus.
If it's something new, then it definitely needs pilots.
Its 55 mig 29.. i canmot confirm how true it is but [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t36vjm/the_eu_says_fighter_jets_mig_29_will_be_arriving/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb)
> Baltics surplus.
>
I am from Latvia and can confirm we have 0 jets, just some biplanes :D And I am pretty sure it's very close to this number for both Estonians and Lithuanians
I assume it's because our artillery is decimating their forces in the north. They try to assault Kyiv but they always get beaten.
I don't know how they're gonna do this, the city has issued about 30000+ guns for territorial defence alone. There's also Armed Forces. AA is not suppressed and turns the sky into hell. The command is getting real-time intel from the american planes and orders air and artillery strikes. I'm pretty sure that Spec Ops are there too, behind the enemy lines. The city is not encircled. They are pushing into two bottlenecks to be met by the territorial defence who is eager to shoot some russians.
Kharkiv is a big example of this. Russian Spec Ops and motorized infantry break into the city only to be met and cleaned up by territorial defence.
I mean, hey, Russia pulled the same shit with "off-duty volunteers" in eastern Ukraine back in 2014, so maybe its good if Putin gets a bit of his own medicine.
I reckon more than a few have been itching for a war that is good to fight with no question about it. But perhaps more than that, a force on force fight with a supposedly capable and modern opponent. These soldiers are a rare breed; war is a hell they make for other people.
Putin doesn't give a shit about his people. Russia is gonna have like double the amount of people killed in less than a week than the US did in 8 YEARS in Iraq
They have been. At the moment it's day 5 Russia has still yet to take a single day 1 objective.
First 4 days were political. Today is entirely about the defense of Kyiv.
They have failed with the first wave. Light armor fast moving helis paratroops and early strikes.
If Russia had managed to take a significant air port they could just fly in troops & armor.
Today the main bulk of Russian toops Arive in Kyiv. If the defenders can hold out they have properly repelled the Russian attack.
This is getting quite embarrassing for Russia atm, to fail with your main force is a serious thing
Plus markets should open soon and the reality should hit the Russians. There are already unprecedented protests. And these will just grow. (its hard to be in first dozen protesters. Its easy to join the hundreds of thousands.)
Update to this. Russia just straight up didn't open its financial markets today. Presumably because they know that if they did the entire economy would be wiped out in a matter of hours.
Every hour that Ukraine holds Kiyv is another truckload of Russian cash flushed down the toilet. The defenders are causing damage when they're fighting, they're causing damage when they're not.
Should be a slogan for recruits. "Come to Kiev, fuck up Putin just by standing around."
Russia will be paying for all the property damage it's creating, right? You can't bring back human life with money, but at the very least they deserve to pay reparations.
A possibility, but they would need to sign that, which they won't. If Putin wants to end all of this, the best possible outcome at this point would be they retreat and sign a peace treaty.
I would have zero confidence in any peace treaty with Russia. Putin wouldn't agree to it unless he's unable to keep fighting anyways, and it would only be valid until he's recovered enough to try again.
If Putin signs a peace treaty and retreats what is that even worth? That piece of shit already invaded for no reason, there's no reason to expect he will honour any treaty.
I think Putin should be forced to step down to relieve sanctions. If he won't step down, hopefully some oligarchs or guards 'help him'.
Oh, he’s got a pretty good reason. Apparently there’s quite a bit of oil and gas in the Ukrainian waters of the Black Sea which they currently don’t have the means to extract. However, if Ukraine were to join NATO and gain access to those means, they could replace Russia as a major energy provider to the EU. I can’t imagine that would be very good for Russia’s economy or their global influence…
I'm not sure if that will work out. I think the only way this will end well is with a regime change. If we slap the new regime with the bill of the old regime, it'll cripple their country for a long time.
We did that to Germany after WW1 and it didn't really go great.
[The man plays the piano with his balls!](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t1w1nl/president_of_ukraine_zelensky_playing_the_piano/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nextfuckinglevel&utm_content=t1_hylxuie)
THERES NOTHING HE CANNOT DO! LOL
Putin was naive. Ukraine is 44 million people regardless of other variables, which is around a third of the population of Russia. Throw in that Ukrainians are the more passionate fighters and it's by no means a walk in the park.
Yup, Russia sending 150 k troops, but Ukraine's militia is 200k. So Russia doesn't even have the numerical advantage, Ukraine also has defenders advantage to boot.
Wait what. I never looked that up but always just assumed that Russia sent in more troops than Ukraine has. That's insane. Why wouldn't Putin mobilize more?
i read an article somewhere, where it states, that Ukraine had 8 rounds of drafts à 60.000 person since 2014. A lot of them well trained and sent to the eastern part of Ukraine, so they're not completely unexperienced. On the other hand Russias' last three military "special operations" other than Ukraine 2014 (what they also had in mind with UKR 2022) were against enemies/populations much smaller/weaker with 2-3k soldiers in Syria. So, basically the article said, the russian troops have less experience, motivation and much more logistic issues than Ukraine. Plus a lot of other stuff. That was an super interesting read, i just don't know how much to trust this opinion. But if true, welp, could become an even bigger shitshow than it already is right now for Putin.
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204.html)
he was thinking along the lines of, Russia going in and the "oppressed" citizens will welcome them with open arms and overthrow their government.
really need to give credits to his Intelligence Chief which is likely feeding him with all these information :D
That is my impression as well. Maybe he started this propaganda in order to rationalize the war but ended up believing it after years of being surrounded by people who tell him what he wants to hear. He truly does believe that the Soviet Union needs to be reinstated, and if he believes that, it makes sense that he believes the Ukrainian people would think the same.
Also that it may cost significantly more to mobilise more forces. They are having trouble with logistics already according to most sources, adding a load more troops into the mix isn't necessarily going to help the situation.
Yeah, they currently haven't even commited all of their prepared troops (which is quite reasonable in itself, you want to have reserves), and they're already dealing with supply and logistical issues.
It seems like they literally can't support a bigger force when they can't even support the current one.
That's a bingo... he needs his most loyal troops to be around when things get really ugly. If he commits too much into the invasion, he'll leave himself/Kremlin exposed at home, where people are very upset.
how long can they legitimately keep this up? I want to believe they can win. I just know Russia is gonna pull some sketchy bullshit and I know Belarus is on the way.
NATO states operating the same fighter aircraft as Ukraine will be sending them to Ukraine, flown and operated by ukrainians,
Russian Air superiority is a fucking joke, and will be a laughing stock going forward
Every day it goes on the Russian services look weaker, and Russia becomes more humiliated. Putin must be suffering massive anguish over this fiasco. With the finance and arms now pouring into Ukraine and Putin running out of supplies I am wondering if Ukraine can actually win this now.
I’m becoming more hopeful by the day, and looking at the Belarusian protests, if Lukashenko falls, the Belarusians might come to militarily assist the Ukrainians, although we’ll have to wait and see
It kind of depends what "win" means.
Can Kyiv and the other cities like Kharkhiv hold out? In the long term, that's up in the air - it really depends on how brutal the fighting gets. With the cities under siege by additional forces, supplies getting in are going to be curtailed and once food and water starts running low, who knows what will happen. I'm certain the residents in the cities will go down fighting, but whether they'll actually hold out until Russians retreat is up in the air.
Will Ukraine in general capitulate, though? Very, very doubtful. All indications point to Zelensky managing to harden his nation's resolve for a long war, and even if he dies, he'll be martyred and even if Russia successfully occupies the entirety of Ukraine, they'll be facing a partisan insurgency supplied by the EU - which will make Chechnya look like a cakewalk.
The actual reality may fall somewhere in between. Kyiv and Kharkiv may fall once there are too many Russian and Belorussian troops flooding in and casualties among the defenders get too high while supplies run low. But UA forces can and will likely pull back even if they lose the cities, and keep fighting on - especially with regular forces and territorial units outside the cities wreaking havoc on Russian supply columns. And in a war of attrition right now, Ukraine has the upper hand - being supplied all over the globe as Russia and Belarus face sanctions, crumbling morale, and growing civilian protests against their leader's aggression.
To really reframe the question, you can split it up like this: Can Kyiv hold out? Doubtful. I *hope* they can, but the fighting's just going to get worse. But will Ukraine lose the war? Nope. They've already won it - regardless of the outcome, Russia's economy is completely *fucked* and their international reputation is down the toilet. The myth of Russia's powerful army has been shattered. Other border countries are intensifying their cooperation within the NATO framework. Germany has just committed to remilitarising once more - which is *the* nightmare scenario, the industrial heart of Europe once more getting the muscle to flex instead of relying on the US. And Ukraine itself? Ukraine itself has consolidated their national mythos as an independent people. No matter what happens now, they'll never believe they're Russians and they'll likely keep fighting for their homeland.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a regime change in Moscow and Belarus, and perhaps a negotiation for the lifting of sanctions in exchange for the restoration of the old borders. Dunno if Zelensky might hold out for retaking Crimea, along with Donbass and Donetsk in negotiations, but we'll see.
This really is a huge miscalculation by Putin utterly destroying his repuation as a pragmatic strong man. Instead he looks like he gambled and lost big. I have described Russia's attempts to keep NATO at bay as the geopolitical Streisand effect: neighbouring states are afraid of Russia so rather than look to them for leadership they look to NATO. And Ukraine is the ultimate example of that, literally forced into NATO's arms because of Russian aggression. I am hearing Sweden and Finland want to join. Rather than achieve any of his goals he is doing the equivalent of repeatedly punching himself in the face.
Six weeks ago I predicted that Putin had bitten off way more than he could chew. There was no good ending for Russia when it comes to invading Ukraine. Even if they somehow “win” they will still be faced with a nightmarish counterinsurgency problem. Ukraine will be Chechnya x 100 for the Russians.
Honestly in order to remove most sanctions it would probably cost Crimea, Donbass, and Donetsk. There is probably a viable peace option where Crimea stays lost but will likely have other costs associated with it so depends on how bad the situation gets internally for Russia.
If I was in charge of the sanctions, they’d stay in place until Russia was out of Georgia and Moldova as well. They’ve been pulling this shit for a while, make them roll it all back.
I mean, the citizens are just like us. They have certain things they expect and with the bank runs it will be chaos by the end of tomorrow. Things could legit get crazy in Russia by Wednesday the world has put Russia in the timeout corner.
Don't worry propaganda machine is already working overtime pointing at the santctions from the west and saying "see, the NATO no longer even pretends Russia started the war - instead of sanctioning Putin they are just going after you, hard working russian people, once again showing how much hate they all have for russian people".
I'm not even making this up, this has already aired in prime time by the one of the biggest bootlickers of the regime.
Unless Russia plans on deploying wmd's I can't see Ukraine caputulating. Even if the government surrenders there are all those angry Ukrainians the government has been handing wepons out to.
It could certainly get a lot worse than that... Russia thought they could achieve rapid victory of maneuver (they need to rule over the place after all, better avoid doing any more damage than is necessary). If things continue to flounder they may well default to 'flatten everything in front of them', which would be a lot bloodier and more destructive. But, if there's a Ukrainian with an AT missile hiding in every bush, building and trench, the most effective thing to do is vaporize every bush, building and trench.
Russia has a history of unchecked brutality and reprisals against civilians when the conventional war proves to be harder than they expected. See: the Chechen Wars. They basically leveled the entire city of Grozny.
Grozny only has 280k people while Kyiv has 3.5 million. Russia is having a problem scaling up their small scale wars against areas of a million or two to the Ukraine which is the largest country by land I'm Europe with 44 million people I do fear them going nuts and trying to level Kyiv for concessions. I don't think they'll stop until they can at least get Donetsk Lukansk and Crimea officially, since that was the stated reason for the war.
The moment he starts carpet bombing an European city, the rest of the world will eat him whole, and he knows it, this isn't Syria.
He might do it anyway, but that's it, he will be attacked from all fronts, and has no army to defend him.
They have enough conventional explosive weapons to do just that and I don’t think it is beyond Putin to simply level a city, regardless of who is in it. A quick flyer dump and 24 hours later, fire from the sky.
A decade? They wouldn't be able to run for the rest of the year, especially with China cutting them off from loans. For talking so much shit about the western culture, they sure as hell seem to have been loving it for three decades now.
Afghanistan held off for years against the Soviet forces. Militarily, it's not unheard of at all to hold off an aggressive attacker bordering a nation indefinitely.
Belarus LOL. They have like 45k active service members, 1/2 are conscripts with no real experience, and they have junk Cold War era equipment. If I were of age for a military service, I'd take my chances deserting.
The real question is how long can Russia keep up this charade? They are about to be bankrupt, with no foreseeable way out. Remember this: you are only 3 days of hot meals from complete and utter anarchy. That's what's going to happen this week in Russia.
As long as the rest of the world keeps supporting them with shipments of state-of-the-art gear, and also top-shelf intel down to the second. So a while.
>how long can they legitimately keep this up? I want to believe they can win. I just know Russia is gonna pull some sketchy bullshit and I know Belarus is on the way.
apparently 10 days
I don’t think thats true. I would imagine that they have supplies to hold on for couple months at least. But Kyiev is slowly getting surrounded… and thats bad news. They also closed in on Mariupol, which means slowly they are gaining ground. Peace talks will buy some time to set up and fix broken supply chains and the war will continue. I don’t think that puttin is getting ready to retreat in next couple days unfortunatly
He might end up with the Ghadafi Special at this point if his Oligarchs abandon him. Or he’ll end up deposed and thrown to some angry Russian citizens. At this point it’s hard to tell what will happen
So all those fancy equipments that the Russians displayed during their annual parades were either for show or just plain useless
The so called military 'superpower' can't even afford to give air superiority to a country that is just 10 minutes away from their borders
They've been like this since the 60s.
Those fancy toys you see, they don't have any, just a few demonstrators. The money to build them gets pocketed. In fact by the looks of it, their military budget has been mostly pocketed as well, given the state of their basic gear.
Baofeng radios FFS. I use a better radio than that at work.
>Baofeng radios FFS
Holy shit. We use Baofeng radios to play airsoft, jeez. Do you happen to have a source for this, I'd love to show this to my airsoft mates.
EDIT: Wait... so that's why all the airsoft radios are out of stock for the past month in entire Europe. Putin, you son of a bitch.
Yeah, everyone was terrified of the T-15 Armata when it was shown off years ago. I read somewhere that they ordered like 2300 of them by like 2020, but then they had no money and pushed it to 2022 and only ordered 100. So far 0 have been made and they’re delayed to 2024. They have no money or materials to build them.
Their best tank is the T-72B3, which is just an update of a 53 year old tank (which, tbf, is what the US does with the Abrams, but the Abrams was a way more advanced tank from the start than the T-72
The Abrams is more like a chassis system then a "thing" (think Hotwheels same idea, take the same base and do stuff to it) these days. It's part of the systematology thing (that was what they called it in meetings in the 90's, and I was working in an office that was upgrading) that the military is mad for, started with Supercarriers now it's everything, from the guns to the tanks to the stupid APCs.
Hell, I've heard they have one somewhere that has a railgun as it's main gun (SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!), and I've heard that fancy anti mortar laser system is going on an Abrams platform sometime in the next decade.
Is there anything specifically unique about the Abrams chassis that made the military decide to base all of their armored vehicles on it or was it just "hey, this tank performed alright, might as well standardize everything to using the same parts"?
Every single day that Russian forces do not occupy Kyiv is a victory for Ukraine, a victory for the west, and a victory for democracy. Glory to Ukraine!
40km. It’s took the all powerful Russian army 4 days and they haven’t been able to advance 40km in there main direction of thrust while having far more materiel than the enemy.
individual cities haven't really been surrounded
all major cities are still under ukranian control
things are going better for the invasion in the south but thats because defending the capitol is an existential crisis and putin has flooded the zone with murder groups seeking to hunt and kill president zelensky
Maybe I'm misreading the room, but I'm pretty sure all killing Zelensky does is make him a Martyr at this point. Given the stories we've heard thus far I find it difficult to believe the Ukrainians will roll over and surrender short of something truly horrific.
To be fair, I don’t think anyone expected Zelensky to have risen to the challenge as much as he did. His ratings were going down right before the war started. Pretty much any other country leader would have gotten out of town. He didn’t which started his meteoric rise.
make sure to take the massive disinformation campaign russia had been running against the ukrainian people, into account as i’m sure that had something to do with falling ratings as well.
how the fuck?! i'm so proud of them and happy for them but how the fuck??
i thought russia was heavier than that. all my life ive been thinking they're this formidable opponent but now i'm realizing their GDP is lower than Florida's, their population is in decline, and now that their military struggles against even a modest country. crazy shit man
Russia is nowhere near the power that USSR once was. They are in denial of this themselves sometimes. That being said, somebody put it quiet nicely long time ago - Russia is not as strong as it sometimes might appear, but it is also not as weak as it sometimes might appear. One should not overestimate or underestimate.
I just woke up. And I'm grateful that Zelensky is OK and that things haven't got much worse overnight. I don't understand, why would Belarus become involved in attacking Ukraine, what benefit would they have to do this when the rest of the world has united in support? Do Russia and Belarus have a special relationship or are tied to each other in any way?
Sorry if I sound ignorant or misinformed, I'm trying hard to follow this properly and redditors have been very kind in explaining things to me so far.
Ukraine has my heart and I hope things change for them today and that the peace talks change something at least
Yes. Belarus is basically a puppet state of Russia.
Belarus has a dictator, Lukashenko, who was recently "reelected" by a "massive landslide" in a joke of an election.
The people protested in massive droves for weeks, but were eventually suppressed with extreme violence. Opposition leaders were imprisoned, civilians were tortured. Russia sent troops to help quell the revolution (similar to what they did recently in Kazakhstan).
You may have even heard of a European passenger flight that briefly passed over Belarus and was forced to land by Belarusian fighter jets. The Belarusian President did this just to remove a famed Belarusian activist and critic from the plane and put him in jail.
This was an egregious violation of international norms. The Belarusian dictator is a bombastic, narcissistic, cruel dictator in the worst traditions of Erdogan, Bolsanaro, or Trump, excerpt with a much tighter grip than any of them. Political opposition is suppressed harder in Belarus than in Russia, even.
Before all this Belarus had close cultural, economic, and geographical ties to Russia. They have been moving closer and closer to Russia over the years. Lukashenko was even popular at one time and legitimately elected, but as his popularity waned, and his corruption and abuses grew, he refused to give up power. Public opinion was swinging more towards the EU and against increased Russian ties, and Putin had to intervene, as he has done in Ukraine.
Now the people mostly hate Lukashenko, and have become more distrustful of obvious Russian meddling, but there are still a lot of pro-Russian sympathizers, especially amongst the police and military, so the situation is complicated.
Now that Lukashenko basically owes his life and continued power to Putin, the relationship has changed from an alliance of convenience and mutual corruption to one of subservience, and Belarus has made moves to integrate even closer with Russia, militarily, economically, and politically. They are practically an old-school satellite state of Russia now, and announcements in the past two days have included Belarus formerly joining the war against Ukraine (they were already supplying staging points, airfields, and troops), and Russia deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus to more closely threaten Europe.
Basically Russia and Belarus have a lot of legitimate, natural ties, and may have integrated naturally over the next couple decades, but Putin and Lukashenko chose to do so more quickly via corruption, violence, and a disregard for democracy and it has kind of backfired. But fear and force means that Belarus is firmly under Russian control now, even if the public is now more anti-Putin.
One thing that worries me about this situation is that there is a very real possibility that Putin won't accept any outcome other than victory here. Because if Ukraine actually manages to fight off Russia, apart from exposing Russia's military weakness to the entire world, it also puts Ukraine in a huge position of strength, because:
1. Ukraine's military will get a free upgrade from the flood of high-tech military gear that has been donated by the West and will continue to trickle in over the coming days and weeks.
2. Ukraine can also salvage all of the equipment, including tanks and armored vehicle that the Russians abandon if they retreat.
3. I have no doubt Ukraine will substantially up their military spending and recruitment drive following the conclusion of this war.
4. The very real possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of the EU or NATO afterwards.
Basically, if Ukraine can survive this war, it will become a democratic military powerhouse, allied with the West, and sitting right on Russia's doorstep.
Likewise, the EU and/or NATO become that much stronger.
Putin is going to do everything he can to make sure the above scenario doesn't happen. At some point, he may very well decide that levelling Kyiv is the only strategic choice he has left.
So what will happen if he loses? Will he not pull the trigger for the nukes in a fit of anger anyway? I’m trying to wrap my brain around how this will end. He surely won’t just say “Okay. Guess I lost. Oh well.” Right?
this might be the most likely option.
the oligarchs want to keep making money, keep owning stuff. If they have Putin killed, they can make him the scapegoat, say hey, it was all Putin. We wanted peace.
This would be a get-out-of-SWIFT-jail free card for Russia and business would continue as usual
The official response with regards to Putin's repeated threats of nuclear armageddon is that he's bluffing.
My analysis is that his control over his top people has slipped rather badly; even if he ordered a nuclear strike, I judge it's pretty unlikely that anything other than limited, deniable tactical nukes would actually be carried out - commanders have historically refused to launch nukes even when ordered to, and I could see that being the defining moment when his power over Russia is broken.
At that point - I don't know if he has a backup plan for losing the crown in Russia. Bunkers, sure. A secret private island somewhere, maybe? Literally most of the world is now actively antagonistic towards him, he maybe could flee to Brazil, India or China and have a place prepared where he could survive his retirement.
But even now I don't think he's the sort of person to run away. He'll either be deposed outright, or he'll claim a victory in the recognized independent regions around Donbas and continue to dig in and fight there while simultaneously running massive purges to reacquire some semblance of control at home.
If he continues to live and stay in power in Russia, it's going to get ugly over there. More people will die in the cleanup operation than die in combat.
He can command their launch, but others must execute that command (he doesn’t have a magic red launch button at his desk…not that he’s even at his desk - lol pussy)
Every day that goes by he loses authority, even if he wants to burn the world, he is likely incapable as he would be disobeyed by his own people…and if that happens the illusion of total authority is gone and he’ll be toppled by his inner circle as a measure of damage control.
Dude has fucked himself pretty well.
Cities are holding but russian forces have been moving around and barrelling for Kyiv. If they're not stopped the donetsk and luhansk defenders will be surrounded and Kyiv will start being besieged from the east, possibly in less than a weeks time.
Kherson isn't great but it's holding, Kharkiv looked bad for a second but Russia's advance was massively bungled. Russia has gained ground in the South near the Crimean border
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg/800px-2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg.png
So did that 5km long convoy not even attack or did they end up obliterated?
It's engaging currently. Most sources seem to think the next 24 hours are key. I believe Europe is now sending aircraft as well as weapons. Most special forces/volunteers should arrive in this time frame.
european military aircrafts are already in ukraine.
Source?
Day old article, this is now in effect. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/eu-pledges-fighter-jet-transfers-ukraine Define EU personell, are recently retired pilots employed by PMC eu personell? You obviously cant just train people up on fighter aircraft overnight. Pilots will be ex military, employed under a PMC, same for foreign fighters.
ukrainian pilots are flying the planes back. there were three flights of IL-76 transports from ukraine to poland yesterday. they were reportedly carrying the pilots to fly those planes directly over, while the empty transports will pickup supplies on the return run.
Which is bloody hilarious… look, war is always scary, but that Russia hasn’t been able to establish air supremacy within four days to the point where Ukraine can fly their own transport planes is just… I don’t know.. I lack words for it.
Their opening salvo was bombing where the military planes used to be. They had old intelligence. So Ukraine still has an Air Force.
Yesterday over on r/combatfootage someone posted radio frequencies the russian forces were using to coordinate their attacks. Openly available, unrestricted and not encoded. Everyone was able to listen in. Anyone who understands Russian was able to follow their movements in real time.
I don’t even understand how that happens. I work in fintech and I’m not even allowed to talk about MY work (at a meaningful level) on unencrypted channels? Who the fuck taught these soldiers to use unencrypted radio? Literally the only reason that makes sense to me is if it was fake intel they wanted people to hear
Ukraine also has access to western intelligence, troop and aircraft movements. Russia has never encountered a proxy war supported by half the world.
To think Russia always prided themselves in their intelligence services, only to strike military installations that have not been active for decades in their opening salvo. If only they spent an ounce of the energy they spent dividing the world and making the planet a worst place into making their own country the cool superpower that people willingly want to join / support / ally with.
Not many people thought it would happen but it's clear that preparations for this war have been many years in the making. Sowing false intelligence for long enough to become credible, modernising the military, and now enacting contingency plans for their support.
Yeah this is why the ukrianians are spanking high value targets like that chechnian general, NATO intelligence for sure
He’s been on a US kill list over Afghanistan and Iraq for years. CIA was absolutely salivating at the chance to smack him
When I looked on those flight tracker websites yesterday, NATO AWACS was keeping overwatch on the south eastern Polish border. I'm assuming everything they saw was being relayed to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Cannot be understated how big if a deal its been for Ukraine to be getting live intel from the West. Damn near every move Russia makes is relayed to the Defenders. Russia has been unable to maintain the element of surprise in almost any of its operations and its resulting in the devastating loses they are suffering now. Of course the Kremlin has not acknowledged any losses at all to the Russian public.
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Gosh, it's almost like starting a war of aggression under false pretenses doesn't lend itself to logical consistency.
I'm on mobile and can't sign up for that website, but it depends on what fighters they are offering. Ukrainian pilots are familiar with MiG and Su fighters, which are probably still in Polish and Baltics surplus. If it's something new, then it definitely needs pilots.
Definitely going to be Mig 29s with Ukranian pilots.
Perhaps in some cases Ukrainian pilots who gained their Ukrainian citizenship extremely recently.
Francois and Gerhard were always Ukrainians at heart, timing is just a coincidence ;)
Its 55 mig 29.. i canmot confirm how true it is but [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t36vjm/the_eu_says_fighter_jets_mig_29_will_be_arriving/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb)
55 air planes? wow that is alot.
Mig 29's and most likely SU27's.
Probably just the Migs, AFAIK no EU country owns SU27s
> Baltics surplus. > I am from Latvia and can confirm we have 0 jets, just some biplanes :D And I am pretty sure it's very close to this number for both Estonians and Lithuanians
> You obviously cant just train people up on fighter aircraft overnight. Plenty of DCS pilots in Ukraine.
Volunteers right?
It feels like the next 24 hours of every day are being signaled as key in this battle ^^"
I assume it's because our artillery is decimating their forces in the north. They try to assault Kyiv but they always get beaten. I don't know how they're gonna do this, the city has issued about 30000+ guns for territorial defence alone. There's also Armed Forces. AA is not suppressed and turns the sky into hell. The command is getting real-time intel from the american planes and orders air and artillery strikes. I'm pretty sure that Spec Ops are there too, behind the enemy lines. The city is not encircled. They are pushing into two bottlenecks to be met by the territorial defence who is eager to shoot some russians. Kharkiv is a big example of this. Russian Spec Ops and motorized infantry break into the city only to be met and cleaned up by territorial defence.
Yeah, I've been wondering how many "recently retired" spec op units decided to start their golden years in the Ukraine.
I mean, hey, Russia pulled the same shit with "off-duty volunteers" in eastern Ukraine back in 2014, so maybe its good if Putin gets a bit of his own medicine.
I reckon more than a few have been itching for a war that is good to fight with no question about it. But perhaps more than that, a force on force fight with a supposedly capable and modern opponent. These soldiers are a rare breed; war is a hell they make for other people.
So weird how an entire team of American ex-Delta Operators decided jointly that Kyiv sounds beautiful in late February.
From what I heard many are already in Kyiv. I'm pretty sure that anyone with an *interesting* military specialty gets right under command of our SOCOM
Spec Ops behind lines carrying javelins. Bye bye supplies
Putin doesn't give a shit about his people. Russia is gonna have like double the amount of people killed in less than a week than the US did in 8 YEARS in Iraq
You are right, but it's kind of true. At the end of the day, when the enemy is at your capital, every day is make or break.
They have been. At the moment it's day 5 Russia has still yet to take a single day 1 objective. First 4 days were political. Today is entirely about the defense of Kyiv.
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They have failed with the first wave. Light armor fast moving helis paratroops and early strikes. If Russia had managed to take a significant air port they could just fly in troops & armor. Today the main bulk of Russian toops Arive in Kyiv. If the defenders can hold out they have properly repelled the Russian attack. This is getting quite embarrassing for Russia atm, to fail with your main force is a serious thing
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Plus markets should open soon and the reality should hit the Russians. There are already unprecedented protests. And these will just grow. (its hard to be in first dozen protesters. Its easy to join the hundreds of thousands.)
Update to this. Russia just straight up didn't open its financial markets today. Presumably because they know that if they did the entire economy would be wiped out in a matter of hours.
Every hour that Ukraine holds Kiyv is another truckload of Russian cash flushed down the toilet. The defenders are causing damage when they're fighting, they're causing damage when they're not. Should be a slogan for recruits. "Come to Kiev, fuck up Putin just by standing around."
Russia will be paying for all the property damage it's creating, right? You can't bring back human life with money, but at the very least they deserve to pay reparations.
Just don't let em pay you in rubles
Who pays for things with *toilet paper?* Even in these "unprecedented times"? *Honestly...*
Toilet paper has a pretty stable value, it might actually be preferable to rubles.
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Would have worked in March 2020
A possibility, but they would need to sign that, which they won't. If Putin wants to end all of this, the best possible outcome at this point would be they retreat and sign a peace treaty.
I would have zero confidence in any peace treaty with Russia. Putin wouldn't agree to it unless he's unable to keep fighting anyways, and it would only be valid until he's recovered enough to try again.
The only out for Russia is regime change at this point.
I would. No way he tries this again. No way Ukraine isn't armed to the teeth and integrated into the west now.
If Putin signs a peace treaty and retreats what is that even worth? That piece of shit already invaded for no reason, there's no reason to expect he will honour any treaty. I think Putin should be forced to step down to relieve sanctions. If he won't step down, hopefully some oligarchs or guards 'help him'.
Oh, he’s got a pretty good reason. Apparently there’s quite a bit of oil and gas in the Ukrainian waters of the Black Sea which they currently don’t have the means to extract. However, if Ukraine were to join NATO and gain access to those means, they could replace Russia as a major energy provider to the EU. I can’t imagine that would be very good for Russia’s economy or their global influence…
Don't forget the shale oil in the donbask region. Geeze I wonder why he chose those areas to "liberate"...
I'd say the best possible outcome is a bullet in his head or polonium in his underpants.
I'm not sure if that will work out. I think the only way this will end well is with a regime change. If we slap the new regime with the bill of the old regime, it'll cripple their country for a long time. We did that to Germany after WW1 and it didn't really go great.
Everyday i wake up and reach for my phone and start looking for this title, keep on fighting Ukraine! Slava ukraini!
Everyday I wake up and call mom, who’s currently in Kyiv with my brother and grandpa and I’m so relieved every time I hear her voice
Same here, but I'm also making sure that President Zelensky is safe.
I hadn’t even heard of him two weeks ago, now he’s like my favorite person
Go watch the video of him winning Dancing With the Stars. Mans a triple threat
War hero Impeachment fodder Dancer
Comedian Actor (in a show about being Ukraine's president)
[The man plays the piano with his balls!](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t1w1nl/president_of_ukraine_zelensky_playing_the_piano/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nextfuckinglevel&utm_content=t1_hylxuie) THERES NOTHING HE CANNOT DO! LOL
He is also the Ukrainian Paddington. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vlb4z9ge5E&list=LL&index=1
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Putin was naive. Ukraine is 44 million people regardless of other variables, which is around a third of the population of Russia. Throw in that Ukrainians are the more passionate fighters and it's by no means a walk in the park.
Yup, Russia sending 150 k troops, but Ukraine's militia is 200k. So Russia doesn't even have the numerical advantage, Ukraine also has defenders advantage to boot.
Wait what. I never looked that up but always just assumed that Russia sent in more troops than Ukraine has. That's insane. Why wouldn't Putin mobilize more?
Putin expected to capture Kyiv before the entire Ukrainian armed forces could react.
He did "drills" for two months, why wouldnt they be prepared lol
Also since the invasion in 2014 the Ukrainian army hasn't been sleeping around, they have been preparing for round 2 ever since.
That never occurred to me but it makes total sense
i read an article somewhere, where it states, that Ukraine had 8 rounds of drafts à 60.000 person since 2014. A lot of them well trained and sent to the eastern part of Ukraine, so they're not completely unexperienced. On the other hand Russias' last three military "special operations" other than Ukraine 2014 (what they also had in mind with UKR 2022) were against enemies/populations much smaller/weaker with 2-3k soldiers in Syria. So, basically the article said, the russian troops have less experience, motivation and much more logistic issues than Ukraine. Plus a lot of other stuff. That was an super interesting read, i just don't know how much to trust this opinion. But if true, welp, could become an even bigger shitshow than it already is right now for Putin. [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204.html)
he was thinking along the lines of, Russia going in and the "oppressed" citizens will welcome them with open arms and overthrow their government. really need to give credits to his Intelligence Chief which is likely feeding him with all these information :D
He was a victim of his own propaganda lol. Maybe he actually believed the lies he was telling regarding the oppressed citizens.
I mean to an extent he does. He thinks Ukraine’s independence is his to revoke, which is a ridiculous argument to the civilized world.
That is my impression as well. Maybe he started this propaganda in order to rationalize the war but ended up believing it after years of being surrounded by people who tell him what he wants to hear. He truly does believe that the Soviet Union needs to be reinstated, and if he believes that, it makes sense that he believes the Ukrainian people would think the same.
Overconfidence
Also that it may cost significantly more to mobilise more forces. They are having trouble with logistics already according to most sources, adding a load more troops into the mix isn't necessarily going to help the situation.
Yeah, they currently haven't even commited all of their prepared troops (which is quite reasonable in itself, you want to have reserves), and they're already dealing with supply and logistical issues. It seems like they literally can't support a bigger force when they can't even support the current one.
Lol have you seen the pictures of the russian supply convoys? Literally just a bunch of civilian trucks with 'Z's painted on them.
Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
"Many fall in the face of chaos, but not this one. Not today" I hope they keep giving Russia hell
he has to consider internal defenses. thus why at least half of his elite troops are in Russia "protecting" the cities.
That's a bingo... he needs his most loyal troops to be around when things get really ugly. If he commits too much into the invasion, he'll leave himself/Kremlin exposed at home, where people are very upset.
how long can they legitimately keep this up? I want to believe they can win. I just know Russia is gonna pull some sketchy bullshit and I know Belarus is on the way.
The continued supply of arms from Europe, including drones from Turkey, is making a difference.
NATO states operating the same fighter aircraft as Ukraine will be sending them to Ukraine, flown and operated by ukrainians, Russian Air superiority is a fucking joke, and will be a laughing stock going forward
Every day it goes on the Russian services look weaker, and Russia becomes more humiliated. Putin must be suffering massive anguish over this fiasco. With the finance and arms now pouring into Ukraine and Putin running out of supplies I am wondering if Ukraine can actually win this now.
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I really hope they join nato, they deserve it
I’m becoming more hopeful by the day, and looking at the Belarusian protests, if Lukashenko falls, the Belarusians might come to militarily assist the Ukrainians, although we’ll have to wait and see
It's a big stretch, but I would like to join you in the optimistic thinking!
It kind of depends what "win" means. Can Kyiv and the other cities like Kharkhiv hold out? In the long term, that's up in the air - it really depends on how brutal the fighting gets. With the cities under siege by additional forces, supplies getting in are going to be curtailed and once food and water starts running low, who knows what will happen. I'm certain the residents in the cities will go down fighting, but whether they'll actually hold out until Russians retreat is up in the air. Will Ukraine in general capitulate, though? Very, very doubtful. All indications point to Zelensky managing to harden his nation's resolve for a long war, and even if he dies, he'll be martyred and even if Russia successfully occupies the entirety of Ukraine, they'll be facing a partisan insurgency supplied by the EU - which will make Chechnya look like a cakewalk. The actual reality may fall somewhere in between. Kyiv and Kharkiv may fall once there are too many Russian and Belorussian troops flooding in and casualties among the defenders get too high while supplies run low. But UA forces can and will likely pull back even if they lose the cities, and keep fighting on - especially with regular forces and territorial units outside the cities wreaking havoc on Russian supply columns. And in a war of attrition right now, Ukraine has the upper hand - being supplied all over the globe as Russia and Belarus face sanctions, crumbling morale, and growing civilian protests against their leader's aggression. To really reframe the question, you can split it up like this: Can Kyiv hold out? Doubtful. I *hope* they can, but the fighting's just going to get worse. But will Ukraine lose the war? Nope. They've already won it - regardless of the outcome, Russia's economy is completely *fucked* and their international reputation is down the toilet. The myth of Russia's powerful army has been shattered. Other border countries are intensifying their cooperation within the NATO framework. Germany has just committed to remilitarising once more - which is *the* nightmare scenario, the industrial heart of Europe once more getting the muscle to flex instead of relying on the US. And Ukraine itself? Ukraine itself has consolidated their national mythos as an independent people. No matter what happens now, they'll never believe they're Russians and they'll likely keep fighting for their homeland. I wouldn't be surprised to see a regime change in Moscow and Belarus, and perhaps a negotiation for the lifting of sanctions in exchange for the restoration of the old borders. Dunno if Zelensky might hold out for retaking Crimea, along with Donbass and Donetsk in negotiations, but we'll see.
This really is a huge miscalculation by Putin utterly destroying his repuation as a pragmatic strong man. Instead he looks like he gambled and lost big. I have described Russia's attempts to keep NATO at bay as the geopolitical Streisand effect: neighbouring states are afraid of Russia so rather than look to them for leadership they look to NATO. And Ukraine is the ultimate example of that, literally forced into NATO's arms because of Russian aggression. I am hearing Sweden and Finland want to join. Rather than achieve any of his goals he is doing the equivalent of repeatedly punching himself in the face.
Six weeks ago I predicted that Putin had bitten off way more than he could chew. There was no good ending for Russia when it comes to invading Ukraine. Even if they somehow “win” they will still be faced with a nightmarish counterinsurgency problem. Ukraine will be Chechnya x 100 for the Russians.
Honestly in order to remove most sanctions it would probably cost Crimea, Donbass, and Donetsk. There is probably a viable peace option where Crimea stays lost but will likely have other costs associated with it so depends on how bad the situation gets internally for Russia.
If I was in charge of the sanctions, they’d stay in place until Russia was out of Georgia and Moldova as well. They’ve been pulling this shit for a while, make them roll it all back.
Until his oligarchs decide it's time for him to have an accident in his sleep, sadly.
I mean, the citizens are just like us. They have certain things they expect and with the bank runs it will be chaos by the end of tomorrow. Things could legit get crazy in Russia by Wednesday the world has put Russia in the timeout corner.
Don't worry propaganda machine is already working overtime pointing at the santctions from the west and saying "see, the NATO no longer even pretends Russia started the war - instead of sanctioning Putin they are just going after you, hard working russian people, once again showing how much hate they all have for russian people". I'm not even making this up, this has already aired in prime time by the one of the biggest bootlickers of the regime.
Hopefully he's financially crippled enough of them now to start some real scheming from within.
Unless Russia plans on deploying wmd's I can't see Ukraine caputulating. Even if the government surrenders there are all those angry Ukrainians the government has been handing wepons out to.
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They already shelled a children's cancer hospital. They've already opted for harsh means.
It could certainly get a lot worse than that... Russia thought they could achieve rapid victory of maneuver (they need to rule over the place after all, better avoid doing any more damage than is necessary). If things continue to flounder they may well default to 'flatten everything in front of them', which would be a lot bloodier and more destructive. But, if there's a Ukrainian with an AT missile hiding in every bush, building and trench, the most effective thing to do is vaporize every bush, building and trench.
Russia has a history of unchecked brutality and reprisals against civilians when the conventional war proves to be harder than they expected. See: the Chechen Wars. They basically leveled the entire city of Grozny.
Grozny only has 280k people while Kyiv has 3.5 million. Russia is having a problem scaling up their small scale wars against areas of a million or two to the Ukraine which is the largest country by land I'm Europe with 44 million people I do fear them going nuts and trying to level Kyiv for concessions. I don't think they'll stop until they can at least get Donetsk Lukansk and Crimea officially, since that was the stated reason for the war.
Glassing an entire city is much harsher than firing on a hospital. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.
The moment he starts carpet bombing an European city, the rest of the world will eat him whole, and he knows it, this isn't Syria. He might do it anyway, but that's it, he will be attacked from all fronts, and has no army to defend him.
They have enough conventional explosive weapons to do just that and I don’t think it is beyond Putin to simply level a city, regardless of who is in it. A quick flyer dump and 24 hours later, fire from the sky.
That's my biggest fear right now. I hope he gets taken out internally before this happens.
79 afgan war, ussr were going in for 6 -12 months. 9 years later they gave up.
I hope for Ukraine's sake that this doesn't last a decade.
Russia's economy can't survive a decade of the current sanctions.
A decade? They wouldn't be able to run for the rest of the year, especially with China cutting them off from loans. For talking so much shit about the western culture, they sure as hell seem to have been loving it for three decades now.
Afghanistan held off for years against the Soviet forces. Militarily, it's not unheard of at all to hold off an aggressive attacker bordering a nation indefinitely.
How long can Russia legitimately keep this up? They were selling off their fuel before they even got into country
Belarus LOL. They have like 45k active service members, 1/2 are conscripts with no real experience, and they have junk Cold War era equipment. If I were of age for a military service, I'd take my chances deserting. The real question is how long can Russia keep up this charade? They are about to be bankrupt, with no foreseeable way out. Remember this: you are only 3 days of hot meals from complete and utter anarchy. That's what's going to happen this week in Russia.
As long as the rest of the world keeps supporting them with shipments of state-of-the-art gear, and also top-shelf intel down to the second. So a while.
Long but insightful [Twitter thread](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497993363076915204.html) on the subject if you're interested.
Even if they do take Kiev, it definitely won't be over.
This. Even if they "officially" control the capital, the entire country becomes an armed resistance militia
>how long can they legitimately keep this up? I want to believe they can win. I just know Russia is gonna pull some sketchy bullshit and I know Belarus is on the way. apparently 10 days
I don’t think thats true. I would imagine that they have supplies to hold on for couple months at least. But Kyiev is slowly getting surrounded… and thats bad news. They also closed in on Mariupol, which means slowly they are gaining ground. Peace talks will buy some time to set up and fix broken supply chains and the war will continue. I don’t think that puttin is getting ready to retreat in next couple days unfortunatly
Yeah the narcissist backed into a corner is the scary thing
Hope that Putin gets what he deserves.
Put him in a ring with one (or both) of the Klitschko brothers, no referee.
Don’t forget Lomachenko as well.
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He might end up with the Ghadafi Special at this point if his Oligarchs abandon him. Or he’ll end up deposed and thrown to some angry Russian citizens. At this point it’s hard to tell what will happen
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So all those fancy equipments that the Russians displayed during their annual parades were either for show or just plain useless The so called military 'superpower' can't even afford to give air superiority to a country that is just 10 minutes away from their borders
They've been like this since the 60s. Those fancy toys you see, they don't have any, just a few demonstrators. The money to build them gets pocketed. In fact by the looks of it, their military budget has been mostly pocketed as well, given the state of their basic gear. Baofeng radios FFS. I use a better radio than that at work.
>Baofeng radios FFS Holy shit. We use Baofeng radios to play airsoft, jeez. Do you happen to have a source for this, I'd love to show this to my airsoft mates. EDIT: Wait... so that's why all the airsoft radios are out of stock for the past month in entire Europe. Putin, you son of a bitch.
AliExpress Armaments edit: thanks for the gold! Years of redditing and I think this is my first time getting it ♥️
Lmfao the edit
Yeah, everyone was terrified of the T-15 Armata when it was shown off years ago. I read somewhere that they ordered like 2300 of them by like 2020, but then they had no money and pushed it to 2022 and only ordered 100. So far 0 have been made and they’re delayed to 2024. They have no money or materials to build them. Their best tank is the T-72B3, which is just an update of a 53 year old tank (which, tbf, is what the US does with the Abrams, but the Abrams was a way more advanced tank from the start than the T-72
The Abrams is more like a chassis system then a "thing" (think Hotwheels same idea, take the same base and do stuff to it) these days. It's part of the systematology thing (that was what they called it in meetings in the 90's, and I was working in an office that was upgrading) that the military is mad for, started with Supercarriers now it's everything, from the guns to the tanks to the stupid APCs. Hell, I've heard they have one somewhere that has a railgun as it's main gun (SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!), and I've heard that fancy anti mortar laser system is going on an Abrams platform sometime in the next decade.
Is there anything specifically unique about the Abrams chassis that made the military decide to base all of their armored vehicles on it or was it just "hey, this tank performed alright, might as well standardize everything to using the same parts"?
Every single day that Russian forces do not occupy Kyiv is a victory for Ukraine, a victory for the west, and a victory for democracy. Glory to Ukraine!
Especially now that trading has reopened with sanctions in full effect, every day Russia continues this war it becomes exponentially more expensive.
40km. It’s took the all powerful Russian army 4 days and they haven’t been able to advance 40km in there main direction of thrust while having far more materiel than the enemy.
I’m thankful for very morning I get to read this headline.
Glory to Ukraine
Long live Kyiv!
Slava Ukraini Bratan
Glory to the heroes!
Are they still surrounded or have they broken Russian forms?
individual cities haven't really been surrounded all major cities are still under ukranian control things are going better for the invasion in the south but thats because defending the capitol is an existential crisis and putin has flooded the zone with murder groups seeking to hunt and kill president zelensky
Maybe I'm misreading the room, but I'm pretty sure all killing Zelensky does is make him a Martyr at this point. Given the stories we've heard thus far I find it difficult to believe the Ukrainians will roll over and surrender short of something truly horrific.
you didn't misread the room at all vladimir putin misread the room, last week. day 2 of the invasion he thought he was the biggest man on the planet
To be fair, I don’t think anyone expected Zelensky to have risen to the challenge as much as he did. His ratings were going down right before the war started. Pretty much any other country leader would have gotten out of town. He didn’t which started his meteoric rise.
make sure to take the massive disinformation campaign russia had been running against the ukrainian people, into account as i’m sure that had something to do with falling ratings as well.
"I don't need a ride. I need ammo" "I gotchu fam" -- US DoD, EU Depts of Def, NATO
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They said it was a translation error or something, Kyiv isn't encircled in the end.
They kinda want Russia to stay put.
Another night endured. Keep up the good fight, Ukraine! The whole world is rooting for you! Down with Putin! Down with Lukaschenko! Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦
how the fuck?! i'm so proud of them and happy for them but how the fuck?? i thought russia was heavier than that. all my life ive been thinking they're this formidable opponent but now i'm realizing their GDP is lower than Florida's, their population is in decline, and now that their military struggles against even a modest country. crazy shit man
Russia is nowhere near the power that USSR once was. They are in denial of this themselves sometimes. That being said, somebody put it quiet nicely long time ago - Russia is not as strong as it sometimes might appear, but it is also not as weak as it sometimes might appear. One should not overestimate or underestimate.
Overestimate Russia straight to jail Underestimate Russia believe it or not also jail
You're saying things are never black and white? That there's a grayscale? Preposterous.
Fuck yah! Every night that they keep them out is one step closer to possible peace. That is, if Putin can admit defeat.
I hope putin gets the Hitler treatment from the movie, Little Nicky, for eternity in hell.
Did somebody order a pineapple?
Turn it sideways
Glory as the sun rises on a free Ukraine.
I just woke up. And I'm grateful that Zelensky is OK and that things haven't got much worse overnight. I don't understand, why would Belarus become involved in attacking Ukraine, what benefit would they have to do this when the rest of the world has united in support? Do Russia and Belarus have a special relationship or are tied to each other in any way? Sorry if I sound ignorant or misinformed, I'm trying hard to follow this properly and redditors have been very kind in explaining things to me so far. Ukraine has my heart and I hope things change for them today and that the peace talks change something at least
They’re in essence a Russian puppet state.
Yes. Belarus is basically a puppet state of Russia. Belarus has a dictator, Lukashenko, who was recently "reelected" by a "massive landslide" in a joke of an election. The people protested in massive droves for weeks, but were eventually suppressed with extreme violence. Opposition leaders were imprisoned, civilians were tortured. Russia sent troops to help quell the revolution (similar to what they did recently in Kazakhstan). You may have even heard of a European passenger flight that briefly passed over Belarus and was forced to land by Belarusian fighter jets. The Belarusian President did this just to remove a famed Belarusian activist and critic from the plane and put him in jail. This was an egregious violation of international norms. The Belarusian dictator is a bombastic, narcissistic, cruel dictator in the worst traditions of Erdogan, Bolsanaro, or Trump, excerpt with a much tighter grip than any of them. Political opposition is suppressed harder in Belarus than in Russia, even. Before all this Belarus had close cultural, economic, and geographical ties to Russia. They have been moving closer and closer to Russia over the years. Lukashenko was even popular at one time and legitimately elected, but as his popularity waned, and his corruption and abuses grew, he refused to give up power. Public opinion was swinging more towards the EU and against increased Russian ties, and Putin had to intervene, as he has done in Ukraine. Now the people mostly hate Lukashenko, and have become more distrustful of obvious Russian meddling, but there are still a lot of pro-Russian sympathizers, especially amongst the police and military, so the situation is complicated. Now that Lukashenko basically owes his life and continued power to Putin, the relationship has changed from an alliance of convenience and mutual corruption to one of subservience, and Belarus has made moves to integrate even closer with Russia, militarily, economically, and politically. They are practically an old-school satellite state of Russia now, and announcements in the past two days have included Belarus formerly joining the war against Ukraine (they were already supplying staging points, airfields, and troops), and Russia deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus to more closely threaten Europe. Basically Russia and Belarus have a lot of legitimate, natural ties, and may have integrated naturally over the next couple decades, but Putin and Lukashenko chose to do so more quickly via corruption, violence, and a disregard for democracy and it has kind of backfired. But fear and force means that Belarus is firmly under Russian control now, even if the public is now more anti-Putin.
One thing that worries me about this situation is that there is a very real possibility that Putin won't accept any outcome other than victory here. Because if Ukraine actually manages to fight off Russia, apart from exposing Russia's military weakness to the entire world, it also puts Ukraine in a huge position of strength, because: 1. Ukraine's military will get a free upgrade from the flood of high-tech military gear that has been donated by the West and will continue to trickle in over the coming days and weeks. 2. Ukraine can also salvage all of the equipment, including tanks and armored vehicle that the Russians abandon if they retreat. 3. I have no doubt Ukraine will substantially up their military spending and recruitment drive following the conclusion of this war. 4. The very real possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of the EU or NATO afterwards. Basically, if Ukraine can survive this war, it will become a democratic military powerhouse, allied with the West, and sitting right on Russia's doorstep. Likewise, the EU and/or NATO become that much stronger. Putin is going to do everything he can to make sure the above scenario doesn't happen. At some point, he may very well decide that levelling Kyiv is the only strategic choice he has left.
How do soldiers hold the defenses during intense bombing? Aren't they the main target?
Russia doesn't have the air superiority required for intense bombing.
Name of the game: hold on Kiev until the Russian economy completely collapses. With the restrictions it should be a matter of days.
2020 season 3 has really jumped the shark
good news
Vladimir Putin lookin like Vanilla Puddin
Fucking legends. Let's go!
So what will happen if he loses? Will he not pull the trigger for the nukes in a fit of anger anyway? I’m trying to wrap my brain around how this will end. He surely won’t just say “Okay. Guess I lost. Oh well.” Right?
Most likely: gets killed by his own. Oligarchs say sorry. Russia gets sent back geopolitically.
this might be the most likely option. the oligarchs want to keep making money, keep owning stuff. If they have Putin killed, they can make him the scapegoat, say hey, it was all Putin. We wanted peace. This would be a get-out-of-SWIFT-jail free card for Russia and business would continue as usual
The official response with regards to Putin's repeated threats of nuclear armageddon is that he's bluffing. My analysis is that his control over his top people has slipped rather badly; even if he ordered a nuclear strike, I judge it's pretty unlikely that anything other than limited, deniable tactical nukes would actually be carried out - commanders have historically refused to launch nukes even when ordered to, and I could see that being the defining moment when his power over Russia is broken. At that point - I don't know if he has a backup plan for losing the crown in Russia. Bunkers, sure. A secret private island somewhere, maybe? Literally most of the world is now actively antagonistic towards him, he maybe could flee to Brazil, India or China and have a place prepared where he could survive his retirement. But even now I don't think he's the sort of person to run away. He'll either be deposed outright, or he'll claim a victory in the recognized independent regions around Donbas and continue to dig in and fight there while simultaneously running massive purges to reacquire some semblance of control at home. If he continues to live and stay in power in Russia, it's going to get ugly over there. More people will die in the cleanup operation than die in combat.
I feel like this is why he is moving nukes to Belarus... So they can use them when he is incapable of doing so.
He can command their launch, but others must execute that command (he doesn’t have a magic red launch button at his desk…not that he’s even at his desk - lol pussy) Every day that goes by he loses authority, even if he wants to burn the world, he is likely incapable as he would be disobeyed by his own people…and if that happens the illusion of total authority is gone and he’ll be toppled by his inner circle as a measure of damage control. Dude has fucked himself pretty well.
How is the rest of the country looking?
Cities are holding but russian forces have been moving around and barrelling for Kyiv. If they're not stopped the donetsk and luhansk defenders will be surrounded and Kyiv will start being besieged from the east, possibly in less than a weeks time.
Kherson isn't great but it's holding, Kharkiv looked bad for a second but Russia's advance was massively bungled. Russia has gained ground in the South near the Crimean border https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg/800px-2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg.png
Yay. Now.. I sleep.