Possible for Ukraine to beat back Russia?

[Mblake1981]

Originally Posted by Gustoo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Battlefield video game tactics you’re welcome

The control center in a US Submarine has a console controller to manipulate some of the controls. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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[Gustoo]

Originally Posted by BlackBellamy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

My Islamic Mongol ancestors settled south of the Pripet Marshes after ravaging their way across Asia and the steppes. So taken were they with the fertile soil of the Ukraine and the natural beauty of their women, they accepted Lord Jesus Christ as their Orthodox Savior and named themselves and their settlement with a proper Christian name, which I bear today. This happened in 1423 and records exist to this day, so thorough was the Church in celebrating the heathen conversion.

I would like to think that the blood of Temüjin flows in my veins, but that is just fantasy. I probably am not a direct male descendant of Genghis Khan.

My grandmother was born in Kiev in 1916 and had to flee as a child with her aunt after the Bolsheviks took the city in the cold February of 1918, killing her father in the street along with anyone who wasn't an obvious laborer. The killing went on for days, there were bodies everywhere. The Red Army is infamous for sowing bastards in it's wake and they certainly held true that day, raping every woman they could find including my great-grandmother, who was then taken to the gulags to be a slave for three decades.

These people HATE Moscow. They don't hate Russians, the Russians are their brothers. The Kievan Rus from which the Ukrainians were born was a Rus, like all the other Rus' when the confederation broke up. They're of the Rus, but they are also their own.

They hate what comes out of Moscow. It's either famine or terror or pogroms since they can remember. It's rich Tzars from up north decimating their country almost for sport.

Ukrainians are Slavs. The Slavs know how to die for their home. They've been doing it over and over and over. Whether Poland or Ukraine or Russia, the Slavs have shown they're no strangers to courage. People laugh at lancers charging across open fields in the opening days of WW2 but what isn't mentioned was the charge was successful. When you rise up in a human wave attack to charge against German machine guns hoping to take up enough of their attention with your flesh so the sappers following can get closer and blow the bunkers, that takes balls of steel and a total disregard for death.

I laugh at the military 'experts' trotted out nightly by every single news network. These are West Point graduates, generals, former chiefs of staff, military men of great repute and they all repeat the same thing every night, that Kiev will fall that night because the Russian forces are overwhelming. Going on night four now.

They are all wrong because they have never fought for their homes. Not since the Civil War did American soldiers defend their land, a memory long forgotten and replaced by modern military thinking, where success is measured by quick 'decapitation' strikes with highly-trained professional forces following up with modern well-maintained equipment and overwhelming fire support.

The Russian army is conscripts, slaves brutally inducted and forced to fight. Their equipment is shit, a consequence of having conscripts maintain it. Most importantly their morale is low and they are not motivated by anything except threat of punishment. They are told they are fighting against "drug addicts" and "Nazis" which must be confusing to them when ordinary Ukrainian citizens stand in front of their tanks and call them invaders and criminals. Russian warship go fuck yourself indeed.

Very few people here know what urban combat looks like. Not against an 'insurgency' but against trained troops armed with modern weapons. When you have a company-sized element blocking your street you're either going to shell them into oblivion or take murderous defensive fire. You need to move your armor up but if you blow up the building the rubble will take a day to clear and slow you. If you don't you're taking fire from 3 directions with a vertical axis as you advance. Kiev is a big big city. Huge. You're going to run out artillery and tank shells long before you reach the city center. The Russians planned for a quick war. They don't have the logistics to support two weeks of offensive operations.

Let's imagine Kiev falls tomorrow but their President and the cabinet/ministers/etc all arrive in Lviv the next day (Kiev is not surrounded at all, you can drive in and out even right now). What happens then? Do the Russians now drive against that? It's 300 miles away from Kiev, close to the Polish border! I mean they can't install another government if 80% of the country is unconquered except for one city. Even if they kill Zelenskyy so what? The have a line of succession, some minister will assume the presidency and no Ukrainian is going to follow whoever the Russians install in the only city they control. Also, everyone agrees that the Russians don't have the manpower to occupy and control the entire country for any length of time. It's a giant mess.

Every day things get worse for the Russians and better for the Ukrainians. Germany is sending them 400 Javelin missiles, should be arriving tomorrow. If there's one thing the Germans love it's blowing up Russian tanks! That's just the public part. I'm sure a steady stream of night vision equipment, drones, sniper rifles and explosives are heading in from bordering countries. I am 100% positive there is US personnel in the Ukraine with no ID or uniforms doing shady work.

This is going to be Putin's Stalingrad.

He hasn't taken a single major city yet, but Kiev will be his death.

He's sitting in his bunker now, in the Urals, along with all his oligarch 'friends' brought along to make sure they don't flee the country. We're all in this together guys! Things will turn around soon and we'll be right back on schedule.

Zelenskyy is on TV every day. I'm watching his selfie-video from today showing him standing in the middle of the street in front of some Kiev landmark telling Putin to go fuck himself and his people to resist and fight the invaders. People marvel that a leader is not fleeing the country in the face of such an attack, guaranteed by all to succeed and nodding sagely at the inevitable. Those people have never fought for their homes.

I spoke with my mom today. She's back there in the old Slavic homeland. She's fine, everyone is fine, it's safe over there, they're not close to anything except a big refugee stream. She told me among other things, she sees families heading west and then single men heading east. People are dropping off their families at the border and going back to fight for their land.

The Ukrainians are going to win this war. You can split hairs about tactical vs. strategic victory but in the end everyone will know who the winners and losers are.

Also, Putin is a dead man.

Post of the year give this man a new red server. Makes all the forum quest I’ve ever done worth it to see this post in real time

[starkind]

Service in Ukraine is, was mandatory. Every civilian is trained to some degree as well. Ukrainians themselves do not have this "us vs them" mentality that pervades our culture. They are tough bastards and do not tolerate bullshit.

P.s. the civilians staying:

Civilians young and old are making camouflage nets for the army in Khmelnitsk, Ukraine. https://imgur.com/gallery/JOhPyrE

This is how you stay free.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by New_Guy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

He has Parkinson's and it is eroding his sanity

My dad has Parkinson's (actually more Lewy body dementia), as do many of my patients. The delusions are real. He is no longer cognitively capable of using his phone or email. My family tried to sit him down for his safety because he was crashing his car and mismanaging his medication, and in his mind, he is perfectly fine, absolutely nothing is wrong. They make up lies and delusions, then believe them. They turn their back on anyone who questions their sanity.

I saw a lot of the symptoms in Putin's address. Hunched behind a desk, stiff, stone-faced. I sincerely hope those are symptoms of KGB and not advanced Parkinson's. This is terrifying.

[Topgunben]

Not that I’m in the mood for finger pointing, but I wish 13 years ago Obama didn’t do this.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...d-barack-obama

It was a big deal at the time but the media covered for him, like they are doing for Biden. But these bad decisions don’t come without a cost, and just because the media wants us to forget about it, doesn’t mean it won’t have repercussions.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Topgunben [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not that I’m in the mood for finger pointing, but I wish 13 years ago Obama didn’t do this.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...d-barack-obama

It was a big deal at the time but the media covered for him, like they are doing for Biden. But these bad decisions don’t come without a cost, and just because the media wants us to forget about it, doesn’t mean it won’t have repercussions.

All that would have done is forced Russia to spend a little more money on countermeasures. Would be totally ineffective against hypersonics. Putin has nuclear submarines parked hundreds of miles off shore, capable of fire-and-forget nuclear torpedoes right up the Hudson River and into the port of Long Beach.

We are a long ways off from truly reliable missile defense that covers all vectors.

More than anything, I think it was scrapped as ineffective and another military-industrial boondoggle. Not that I have any love for Obama and his "red line" for Syria lol

PS, Pentagon, it's time to launch your ASW and look for those submarines because there is a madman at the button on the other end.

[starkind]

Yes. Paint those subs so they know we know exactly where they are.

Also reassure the Russian elite and inner circle that they will benefit from a peaceful resolution and pull out of Ukraine.

They can then retire Putin to his own private war room where the monitor shows a complete and total loss. Then he stays underground forever and the rest of Russia moves on with life.

[New_Guy]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

My dad has Parkinson's (actually more Lewy body dementia), as do many of my patients. The delusions are real. He is no longer cognitively capable of using his phone or email. My family tried to sit him down for his safety because he was crashing his car and mismanaging his medication, and in his mind, he is perfectly fine, absolutely nothing is wrong. They make up lies and delusions, then believe them. They turn their back on anyone who questions their sanity.

I saw a lot of the symptoms in Putin's address. Hunched behind a desk, stiff, stone-faced. I sincerely hope those are symptoms of KGB and not advanced Parkinson's. This is terrifying.

No it's Parkinson's, hence his delusions, you can see the deterioration of his physical condition through his addresses.

[Reiwa]

Originally Posted by Topgunben [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not that I’m in the mood for finger pointing, but I wish 13 years ago Obama didn’t do this.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...d-barack-obama

It was a big deal at the time but the media covered for him, like they are doing for Biden. But these bad decisions don’t come without a cost, and just because the media wants us to forget about it, doesn’t mean it won’t have repercussions.

Czechs complained too much so we put it in Romania instead. Also AEGIS boats and ashore.

[Lune]

On Friday, Putin apparently told Xi, in confidence, that he would be seeking to negotiate a resolution to the war. Xi did something interesting; he publicized the call and divulged to the rest of the world that Putin would be seeking an end to the war, which is a very subtle expression of Chinese disapproval for the endeavor. (If you know any Chinamen they can be very round-about like this). Zelensky is headed to the border for talks.