2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Part 1)

That sounds like a lot, until you realize a light combat load out (6 magazines in carrier, 1 in rifle) is 210 rounds, meaning you equip 4,761 people fully. I guess you could halve or quarter that to supply more people.

Still, every bit helps.

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OH, I agree that line was off, but the historic use of their Russian Paratroopers was interesting.

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Russia is going “full fascist” and the war is very popular. Putin is making Russia great again. The war is now an Orthodox Christian crusade. The Z marking is a patriotic symbol seen everywhere.

Russian intelligence is using Telegram, which is owned by a Putin loyalist, to gather intelligence on Ukrainian soldiers, volunteers and officials to be eliminated when they take over. Pro-Russian snitches can report movements of Ukrainian troops.

In terms of military tactics Russian forces are now “going full Syria mode”.

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I think in some sense Russia may have lost, in the same way that the war in Afghanistan was lost very early on. As was confirmed twenty years of fighting later. :disappointed:

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I would like to know who on this site prayed to whichever gods to get covid off the front page in the media. Congratulations: you got your wish. Now we have covid in the background, thanks to the much more immediate concern of a potential nuclear WWIII. Whoo-hoo.

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From what i understand the hold up there is Poland offered to take on flying guard missions for the other nations involved. Who only have those Migs and SUs. But Poland would need to reactivate their own reserved Russian jets, the ones they’re offering to Ukraine, to do that.

These are basically the only available, flight worthy, jets that Ukrainian pilots have the training to fly. And Poland has most of them.

So the idea is the US replaces the jets, Poland will then have enough to cover their commitment to help anyone else who participates.

But to make the situation saltier Russia has been saying providing jets or Ukrainian pilots using Polish airfields is an act of war.

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The other hold-up is that the US F-16s have components and software that are not included in their export versions, so they are reluctant to transfer them to Poland to replace the Soviet-made planes. Using the retired Norwegian F-16s would circumvent that issue.

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“General Mud”, scourge of any invader in the Bloodlands.

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This nugget was very interesting:

We’ve lost contact with major divisions.

I dunno if there is a translation issue, but if the Russians have lost contact with two Army divisions, that’s incredible. Their ground forces consist of ten divisions, total. If it’s plural, and they e lost two, that a huge chunk of their army gone missing.

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The media focuses on the biggest crisis at the time. Though if you see the various shots of Ukrainian civilians, many of them are masked. So it isn’t like it has totally gone away (though in the US numbers are way down again). One would think most of the armed forces on both sides were immunized, even if it was with that meh performing Sputnik vaccine.

War, traditionally, is a huge vector for disease, which kills more people than actual fighting. WWI had large losses due to the Spanish Flu. It is entirely possible some new strain rips through either side’s troops at some point. :confused:

One more thing to worry about!

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Helping Ukraine in any way will soon be regarded as an act of war.

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And who decides what is the biggest crisis of the time?

Rhetorical question, not directed to you.

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Animated GIF

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Definitely a translation issue. The original uses the phrase “крупные подразделения”, which refers to “large units” in general, not “divisions” (“дивизионы”) or any other specific type of military formation.

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I’m surprised that it’s taken so long for Russia to start rattling that sabre. The amount of military aid going to Ukraine really does start to look like a proxy war to my eye.

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Huh…I guess Hillary’s e-mails were a bigger deal than I thought.

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The move is expected to accelerate Russian banks’ adoption of Mir’s own cards, which are accepted in a handful of countries including Turkey, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

On Saturday, Mir said it already had seen a surge in demand for its cards following sanctions being imposed against Russian banks by the US, EU and UK. According to its own statistics, more than half of Russians already owned a Mir card as of September 2021, accounting for 32% of all transactions.

The uptake is likely to play into critics’ fears that economic sanctions will merely incentivise Russia to invest in alternative schemes. Similar concerns have been raised about blocking Russia from Swift – the secure message system used by banks for cross-border payments – and the potential rise of alternatives such as Russia’s equivalent SPFS system.

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A bit of an open secret now I’d say, sending everything but trooops.

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