“Good news, comrades! We have enough bayonets to supply every soldier, and our Mosin-Nagants are longer than the enemy’s rifles!”
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Do any of the veterans here have a sense of what that weapon is that opens up at around :17 and continues with burst until pretty much the end? That thing sounds large and scary. Is it mounted on the armored vehicle that pulls up?
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It has to be, because it pans slightly to the left as the guy is moving behind the APC, definitely sounds like something that needs a very heavy mount.
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It sounds an awful lot like a MK-19 grenade launcher, but more likely its the 30mm gun firing from the BTR. Near the end of the video you can hear brass falling down inside the vehicle as each burst ends.
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Interesting, thanks. It was doing bursts of 8-10 rounds, which seems like it would be a lot of grenades? And, yeah, I missed hearing the rattle at the end.
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The MK-19 is more like a grenade machine gun. It can fire at about 240 rpm and has a belt that holds about 40 rounds before reloading. You usually fire it in 3-5 round bursts but depending on what you’re trying to hit you can do more
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I’m glad he’s pushing against the BS narrative that this will end in another Carthaginian Peace of Versailles. Russia’s humiliating performance and eventual defeat is entirely the fault of its own corrupt and incompetent military “leadership”. Plus there’s no reason to fret over the defeat leading to fascism in Russia because they’re already in charge there.
Anyone “concerned” about Russia experiencing a humiliating defeat should first be calling for a complete, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal of its military from all Ukrainian territory, including the BS “republics” in Donbas. If they aren’t then there’s another agenda at work.
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This also makes me want to look closer at China and India’s “support” of Russia, as we already knew it was a case of naked self-interest. China may be particularly interested in having Russia unable to muster any resistance when it starts moving fences further and further north.
As for pundits and politicians in North America and the EU, well, they are simply not interested in anything more than cheap point-scoring and looking good in sound bites.
Here’s a thought: could some playing the “don’t humiliate Russia too much” game are also tunnel-visioned on what will happen to the poor nukes if Putin can’t hold on to them? And are there any players out there hoping to actually acquire some of Mother Russia’s old nukes, and hoping to be in the right place at the right time?
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village’s sole resident
Reminds me of this pre-invasion (and charming) book
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Personally I hope Russia suffers a military, political and economic humiliation. I want Russia to be knocked down, then kicked while they are down, until the dreams of being a great power, and fantasies of special God-given destiny and right to dominate their neighbors, are beaten out of the Russian culture. But I doubt it will happen.
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Rashist mobiks in Bakhmut refused to complete “suicide orders” and are now threatened with shooting by their leadership. The men hit all bingo cards: terrible commanders, no ammo, no artillery and aviation support, delays in payments, and no rotation or rest:
"Hello. We’re the mobilised from the 85th Brigade. Together with us are also contractors whose contracts ran out, but they’re still fighting here with us, now for 10-11 months.
We’d like to say that during all this time, we’ve been mobilised for 7-8 months, we always unconditionally completed all orders at fronts near Kreminna and Belohirivka, without fear.
But now, we’ve been thrown to Bahkmut to unprepared unmined positions, with a drunk company commander who led us to these positions. We didn’t reach them, we were shelled with tanks, mortars, Polish missiles.
We came to the company commander and explained that we won’t pass there. We came across employees of PMC “Hurricane” who were leaving those positions, they were the first with losses.
They explained to us that we’re simply suiciders, we won’t pass there. To which the company commander said we needed to complete the order. But as we’re the mobilised, not stormtroopers or spetsnaz, without ammo, without food, without evacuation, without vehicles, we were thrown in like stormtroopers.
We refused, only laying down weapons by the order of the Brigade commander, under threats of shooting, accused of betrayal, and threatened with imprisonment.
We didn’t reach those positions. We are now sat in Svetlodarsk, in some strange building. But as they didn’t take away our phones, we’re trying to record a video for our relatives who could help us.
We do not refuse to fight, we can take weapons again, but not in this direction, and not in the first line of defence. As I already said, we always followed our orders without being afraid, under mortar and enemy bullets.
But now, after this time, we’re simply defeated psychologically by our command. We don’t even have medals for the SMO, we were not given any payments. By the way, our salaries come late and not in full.
There’s no rotation, no rest provided to us. So that’s what it is. And we’re now accused of betrayal and cowardice forgetting about our previous achievements.
We were sent there without artillery and aviation support which are unable to suppress the enemy fire. We came under shelling, and after all that happened, the commander, answering why our artillery and aviation were silent, said there’s no ammo - “Go die an honourable death”.
But we’re not suiciders, we’re simple mobilised, workmen, just like anyone else.
We were called P.O.W.s and threatened with killing, threatened to be sent to Storm units containing unprepared people, or sent back to the zero line. But we’re simply afraid that our commanders will shoot us there.
We do not refuse to serve and complete combat tasks, just not in this direction, not on the first line, and not with these commanders."
Anders Nielsen, a military analyst at the Royal Danish Defense College, posted a brief analysis of the current state and prospects of the Ukrainian counteroffensive:
The Ukrainian offensive is not going as fast as many had hoped. It may even not be going as fast as the Ukrainians themselves had hoped, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to succeed later this summer.
Underestimation of the Russians – after all their previous stupidity, many in the West believed that it was only necessary to give the Armed Forces enough Western military equipment and sprinkle NATO doctrine on top, then the victory would be won by itself.
It cannot be said that NATO countries themselves are waging an exclusively maneuver warfare, and not a war of attrition. Before a maneuver war, in any case, it is necessary to weaken the enemy’s defense lines – and in the West this is done by air force, gaining air superiority and destroying ground targets. When transferring military equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, this part of the depletion from the air was forgotten.
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It might be wise to think back to WW2 here, as well.
As far as I am aware, this could have happened to Germany. But it did, in a way, only happen to the eastern part. I am not sure if you are aware of the intricacies of allied de-nazification on all sides, nor if you are aware of what happened since a bit before the 1990s in regard to the rise of the current neo-fascists which, right now, are represented in parliament, have won their first district office, and have currently more support in opinion polls than each of the parties which are currently in government.
This is a turning point in German history, and I don’t let anyone weasel out of it by any straw man.
However, the situation is far, far more complicated for me than just claiming that what you suggest doesn’t work, because it did not for the fascists in Germany. I do not want to derail the topic here, but I want to remind everyone that much of what was achieved in Germany after the two world wars wasn’t build on a violent style of Umerziehung, but on Bildung and non-violent (re-)education. (Sorry, I think this is rather difficult to translate, and I hope you guys get what I mean.)
I don’t know how to achieve a turn for humanity and humanitarianism with the Russian state, the Russian people, the Russian population. But I think that if history can teach us something, then it is that we need to convince people. Not to force onto them different ideas.
Which must be possible. It must, must, must.
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