The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[Garrison]

Perhaps that's why Putin has moved up the status of Russian nuclear weapons and is testing out the Iskanders from Belarus - he's planning to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Which is the point at which I would expect some sense of self-preservation to kick in at the Kremlin and a sombre announcement is swiftly made that President Putin has suffered a stroke/heart attack.

 

[theprestige]

I'm not saying it in jest. I fear it's a possibility if Ukraine looks like it's going to hold out.

He may use one and then claim that it was a Ukrainian device.

Ukraine doesn't have any nuclear devices. Nor does it have any program to develop such devices. Putin may use one and claim it was necessary, but he's not going to claim it's Ukrainian.

 

[Darat]

Ukraine doesn't have any nuclear devices. Nor does it have any program to develop such devices. Putin may use one and claim it was necessary, but he's not going to claim it's Ukrainian.

I know, as if Putin would tell a lie! Whiter than snow he is.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

He's seen "The GOdfather" He remembers how Michael was going to be set up to be killed at a meeting with Barzini.

The non-fictional Pál Maléter, minister of defense in the 1956 Hungarian uprising, was invited to come and negotiate with the Russians, whereupon he got arrested by the KGB and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pál_Maléter

 

[crescent]

Video of destroyed Russian convoy vehicles reportedly from Bucha outside Kyiv, near the Hostomel airbase, some of those not destroyred are abandoned
and the engines are still running.

https://twitter.com/shaunwalker7/status/1497946816087789569

Soundtrack is ostly swear words. But among them: This is there technical equipment. So that they all burn in hell. I won't regret my life for these beasts. This all is near my house. It’s Kadyrovtsi. As they came, so they went to the next world. See, what’s left from them – only spare parts

Here is a video taken from inside one of the houses of the vehicles arriving.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1497838808104116227

No spacing between the vehicles, guns down/not at the ready, terrible situational awareness, packed in narrow street with no visibility.
They have no training on securing a position, dispersal, patrolling or conducting operations in enemy or contested territory, they got destroyed

People are sending the locations of Russian vehicles to the military to organise strikes against them!

Reddit thread about the video. The thread's creator insists that the soldiers seen at the end are Russian and that Russians still control the area.

the r/Russia thing in Reddit is still unabashedly pro-Russian and is still showing the line that Russia is winning big time. Any Ukrainian victories are claimed to be the result of non-Ukrainians fighting in Ukraine, or just false propaganda from doctored video and such. Any posts disputing that are immediately removed and whoever posted it gets banned from the subReddit. Interesting read if you want to see people in full denialism.

 

[Mike!]

Ukraine doesn't have any nuclear devices. Nor does it have any program to develop such devices. Putin may use one and claim it was necessary, but he's not going to claim it's Ukrainian.

Going with the idea Putin has decided he's better than all Bond Villains combined, what would happen if he hit the old Chernobyl site with a small tactical nuke, thinking he could blame it on sabotage? I know it'd ruin a lot of peoples day, but on what scale? I honestly haven't a clue, but I know a lot of our friends here likely do. Anyone care to chime in on that dark question?

 

[Olmstead]

Going with the idea Putin has decided he's better than all Bond Villains combined, what would happen if he hit the old Chernobyl site with a small tactical nuke, thinking he could blame it on sabotage? I know it'd ruin a lot of peoples day, but on what scale? I honestly haven't a clue, but I know a lot of our friends here likely do. Anyone care to chime in on that dark question?

They might as well bomb an active power plant in that case.

 

[crescent]

The big An-225 Mriya airplane is reported as having been destroyed by Russian forces.

Photos here.

 

[Mike!]

I know, as if Putin would tell a lie! Whiter than snow he is.

I'm kind of at the point where I expect the next wild claim to come out of him will be saying that an actual portal to hell has opened up in Ukraine and the Russian forces are now directly fighting a widely dispersed demon army of Hellspawn.

 

[theprestige]

I know, as if Putin would tell a lie! Whiter than snow he is.

It's not that he wouldn't tell a lie. It's that he probably wouldn't tell a lie that has absolutely no chance of being mistaken for true, even by his useful idiots.

 

[Meadmaker]

Not that I know anything about how to win a battle, but I might make taking the enemies' mobile phone network out a priority...

Modern war isn't World War II style total war. It isn't always about "winning battles" in isolation. Having won the battle, you have to do something, and if you break everything in your path, that might make the "doing something" more difficult.

I don't know what Putin and cronies were expecting to happen when they invaded Ukraine, but my guess is they didn't expect this, and they're a bit taken aback by the fireceness of the resistance, and by the international reaction. I think he expected a quick surrender and some very severe finger wagging from Europe. Now, they have to realize that even after they overthrow Zelensky, assuming they manage to do that, they are going to face a quagmire far worse than Afghanistan. I can't imaging what the conversations in the Kremlin sound like these days. It might even be the case that there are powerful people in Russia that don't like this invasion and who knows whether Vlad is confident he can keep his job.....or his breath.

That being said, it seems to me like if I were in charge of the Russian invasion, knocking out the Ukranian cell phone network would be a good idea. I'm not sure why it hasn't been done.

 

[theprestige]

Going with the idea Putin has decided he's better than all Bond Villains combined

Yeah I don't go with that idea at all. I actually find all the weird gloating over this fantasy of Putin being a crazy cartoon villain kind of repellent.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Apparently this is Russian armour destroyed in Kyiv.

(don't worry, no bodies).

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1497918774657355778

Chilling. At first it looked like burned out vehicles but as he went on the level of destruction got worse and worse. An engine block hurled far from whichever vehicle it came from. Bright rivulets of melted aluminium on the road.

 

[Arcade22]

For the first time, the Russian defence ministry has acknowledged casualties in Ukraine, but it has not given figures.

"There have been killed and wounded among the Russian military during the course of the special military operation," the defence ministry in Moscow said in a statement quoted by TASS news agency.

"The losses suffered by the Russian armed forces are several times less than the number of exterminated nationalists," it said.

Hm...

 

[Oystein]

How do you figure? I haven't yet seen any real signs of zero-sum thinking from Putin.

One such sign is that he started a war without a clear strategy of overwhelming superiority that will guarantee a quick and clean victory.

Another sign is that he has chosen to go all-in with economic confrontation (and has been for years)

He does not seem to believe in the otherwise "common" wisdom that both sides could win through co-operation and peaceful trade, nor that both sides could lose in a war of attrition.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Modern war isn't World War II style total war. It isn't always about "winning battles" in isolation. Having won the battle, you have to do something, and if you break everything in your path, that might make the "doing something" more difficult.

I don't know what Putin and cronies were expecting to happen when they invaded Ukraine, but my guess is they didn't expect this, and they're a bit taken aback by the fireceness of the resistance, and by the international reaction. I think he expected a quick surrender and some very severe finger wagging from Europe. Now, they have to realize that even after they overthrow Zelensky, assuming they manage to do that, they are going to face a quagmire far worse than Afghanistan. I can't imaging what the conversations in the Kremlin sound like these days. It might even be the case that there are powerful people in Russia that don't like this invasion and who knows whether Vlad is confident he can keep his job.....or his breath.

That being said, it seems to me like if I were in charge of the Russian invasion, knocking out the Ukranian cell phone network would be a good idea. I'm not sure why it hasn't been done.

It should have been the first thing that was done.
You don't leave you enemies their communications networks when you are advancing in to their territory.
It is another example of how inept the Russians are being and an indication they weren't expecting anything other than token resistance.

 

[theprestige]

One such sign is that he started a war without a clear strategy of overwhelming superiority that will guarantee a quick and clean victory.

Another sign is that he has chosen to go all-in with economic confrontation (and has been for years)

He does not seem to believe in the otherwise "common" wisdom that both sides could win through co-operation and peaceful trade, nor that both sides could lose in a war of attrition.

None of that says "zero-sum thinking" to me.

 

[Mike!]

Yeah I don't go with that idea at all. I actually find all the weird gloating over this fantasy of Putin being a crazy cartoon villain kind of repellent.

Have you seen the picture of him riding a bear through a forest?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

How do you figure? I haven't yet seen any real signs of zero-sum thinking from Putin.

If he wasn't zero-sum then he'd want to trade with Ukraine rather than invade it.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Carl Bildt tweeted

@carlbildt
In the one country after the other what was unthinkable yesterday becomes necessary today. Sweden now announces sending also 5.000 AT4 antitank weapons to Ukraine.
That’s substantial. It’s an effective weapon highly regarded by also the US Army.