Onion articles are writing itself: Western Military Observers shocked that Russians are not commiting war crimes like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. - When we were in Middle East, we started to wreck shit up, shelling with depleted uranium, bombing villages. I'm suprised that Russian are such weak bitches - retired col. said. - My men have PTSD and are homeless but at least we protected special interests of Oil Companies and the ruling class.
say their opinion of Russia’s military abilities has gone down.
Wasn't there some post/comment earlier this week mentioning that the Russian military forces going in first were going in with greener troops and older gear? I mean, the stuff I was driving around in Iraq during the 2003 invasion was ancient.
Ukraine’s defense forces, bolstered by civilian volunteers, have managed to keep Russian forces from overrunning Ukraine’s two biggest cities, although the on-the-ground fighting has moved closer to those locations.
Reading between the lines, Russian forces aren't yet doing a mass causality event to take those cities.
The sources pointed out just how shocked many in the broader NATO military community were at how incompetent Russian soldiers appeared, especially the officer and non-commissioned officer corps. Many described the professionalism and efficiency of the entire Russian military operations in Ukraine as unimpressive and sloppy.
Nothing in the article explains why they have come to this opinion.
Ukrainian military is publishing videos claiming to show their successful attacks, which have been incredibly valuable for morale and drawing support from
Yeah, that's just propaganda. You don't show the bad things until after the war is over. Don't tell the soldiers on the front lines that they are about to get rolled up because they are expected to stand their ground to slow enemy troops, have them use up supplies and reduce their numbers through causalities/fatalities.
Another way to read this article.... this means that all of the NATO/USA anti-Russian propaganda about how the Russian military is some big scary thing waiting to gobble up Europe... was a lie to justify NATO expansion, military buildups, etc. The Russian military might be little different then any other large modern military, a few units and their victories are doing the heavy lifting for the reputation of the military as a whole.
I'm seeing mostly T-72s and light vehicles in the "Ukraine destroys armoured column" vids, only one or two T80s, all older, no T90s so far.
Apparently, there are mostly Su27s and older bombers in the air, though I have no idea how you could tell a 27 from a 35 from grainy phone footage. It's hard enough to differentiate T72s from T90s.
There is a mix of old and new equipment. From what we see most of their tanks seem to be T-72B3s alongside older models such as the T-72A and T-72AV (which seem to be used for rear echelon troops). I've seen pictures of a single T-90 and a video of a T-80BVM (apparently, hard to confirm) which suffered an internal detonation which separated the turret from the hull.
Their IFVs and APCs are also mixed equipment, MT-LBs from the 60s as well as BMP-1s, a couple of BMP-2 which is still reliable in today's battlefield but very few modern armored transports so far.
They've also held their strategic bomber fleet back, so no Tu-160s. As for their rocket and missile artillery, they're using Kalibr and Iskanders.. which are pretty new.
And this is the so-called military disappointment, a regular army that is advancing on another regular army with mostly late soviet era tech.. and in two or three days it managed to reach the capital and make a series of breakthroughs in the south and east without fully deploying it's firepower and being quite soft with it's artillery.
I don't know if there is much of a practical difference between their T72s and newer tanks under the conditions they are fighting in right now. They aren't facing peer armor very much.
It was old Soviet doctrine to use the older T55s and such ahead of the newer T62s, T64s , and T72s for similar reasons. So this is to be expected.
Another military source told VICE News that officials and analysts within the U.S. military were “psyched” to see what types of weapons and hardware their Russian adversaries are using and how their airstrike tradecraft and radar systems work.
Fucking jizzing in their pants over death and destruction
The Russian military that basically paused operations for negotiations for half of the invasion so far? lol
Also hilarious that these are all anonymous sources.
oh cool i guess thats why they arent circling kiev and kharkiv, ukraines two biggest cities, as we speak
As someone else pointed out elsewhere, the actual combat portion of the Gulf War called 'Operation Desert Storm', which was a war known mostly for how vicious and fast it was, took 42 days.
That was with all of NATO ganging up on one nation with a comparatively under-equipped military, and NATO didn't exactly care about civilian casualties (Highway of Death? Never heard of her). From what I've heard about this, Russia is mostly refraining from artillery, and is advancing with older equipment and gear
I remember that; funny as hell that even a video game can't bring itself to be honest about things
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/01/huge-convoy-of-russian-vehicles-approaching-kyiv.html
Russia appears to have upped the ante in its invasion of Ukraine overnight with satellite imagery indicating that a long convoy — some 40 miles (65 kilometers) long — of Russian military vehicles is heading toward Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv.
Teneo analysts said Monday that “the movement of Russian military forces suggests preparations for new, likely heavier, military action against the capital Kyiv and other key cities in the coming days.”
In conjunction with this US senate intel briefing: https://twitter.com/jackturmanIII/status/1498478403250446337
After the classified briefing on Ukraine/Russia, Sen. Graham said, “I expect a scorched earth policy to unfold here in the coming days regarding Ukraine. I expect wholesale slaughter of Ukrainian citizens by the Russian military.”
https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1498477863804313600
1/ Confirmation that the Russians have fallen behind their timeline. Ukrainian resistance has been fierce and there have been multiple Russian equipment and logistics failures.
2/ DoD and DHS are pressing hard for Congress to end the continuing resolution and get a budget passed. There is no way for our national security agencies to be nimble enough to support Ukraine if they are operating on the 2020/21 budget. [editor’s note: fuck you]
3/ The ability to keep supply lines running to Ukraine remains alive, but Russia will try to encircle and cut off Kiev in the next several weeks. The fight for Kiev will be long and bloody and Ukrainians are rapidly preparing for street to street combat.
I didn't think Russia would escalate the war this far, so I'm keeping a very open mind on how much restraint they're showing. Showing off new equipment would disclose all of its vulnerabilities to the NATO weapons Ukraine has been given. That's what we'd euphemistically call live tissue training in medicine. The US will come away from this war with so much quality data about how to shoot down a helicopter or blow up a tank under any environmental condition. If Russia can still advance with acceptable losses using old equipment, they're not disclosing anything of actual value to the enemy. Adjustments to those weapons will only be specific to old platforms that Russia wouldn't use as frontline troops in a higher grade war.
That convoy seems like the thing to watch for me. If they repeat Grozny with Kyiv, it's a war where winning and losing don't mean anything like Syria. It seems like they're building the capabilities to at least threaten the city with a siege and the city has outfitted itself for the house-to-house fighting the Chechens used.
My sweet summer child. Your efforts to predict the future by trying to understand each party's material interests failed (somewhat). Therefore, all of our baseless/racist hysteria must be correct.
They don't, they're just talking bollocks. Russia is announcing incoming strikes and safe routes out of danger and neither the Ukrainian or Western press is helping to spread it.
Russia can still advance with acceptable losses using old equipment, they’re not disclosing anything of actual value to the enemy
but pretty please i wana know what the new Armata system is capable of :soviet-bottom:
