I was skeptical of the stated 4500 enemy kills Ukraine has claimed.
However, more and more details like this make me wonder if it might be true. The first wave using open radio frequencies and getting constantly ambushed.
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Have you seen the videos of abandoned/captured tanks and vehicles running around?
They’re absolutely dilapidated. The armored fighting vehicle in the second tweet looks like it has a 1/2 gap in the hull panels right at the front.
Russia’s entire military doctrine revolves around these things. The more of these things I see, the less exaggeration I expect out of those Ukrainian numbers.
Likewise I was fairly skeptical of the reports of defections and desertion by Russians. But then I started to run across photos and videos by civilians finding unattended Russian equipment as they evacuated towards Lviv.
Like here is a Russian rocket system with all it’s doors open just sitting on the highway. And there’s a pile of Russian pants in the woods 20 feet down the road.
It seems to pop up far too often, far too consistently across different contexts and sources to be staged. And if was just the fuel shortages why are some of them ditching their uniforms?
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The EU exists for crises like these, and their prevention.
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Wow. Now I don’t want to get too much into speculation, but this makes me wonder if the second wave is going to be comprised of the same sort of troops and equipment as the first wave.
I would not put it past Putin to send in a wave of teenagers as cannon fodder so Ukraine uses up all its ammo. Then later the real military arrives.
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Because with out their vehicles, the probably feel pretty vulnerable. If they can blend in as Ukrainians and head back east, it may up their chances for survival. Same for desertion/surrender.
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The people of Russia do not want this, and they are not backing down.
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Yeah, and the number of images of just destroyed vehicles is high too.
Though, what I remind myself of is that it can be hard to tell from pictures and video what the reality is. When the '89 quake hit the bay area I was on vacation down in LA and watching the coverage on TV made it look like the city was destroyed. It was not. It was damaged for sure, but a lot of footage was a the same damage from multiple outlets and from different angle presented without a lot of context.
But this, yeah, it does look like a lot of damaged, abandoned, and broke vehicles in a lot of places…
I used to have a soviet military great coat. Those things are scratchy
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I hear there is an American billionaire with a new boat that needs experienced crew members.
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As you say, very hard to know the big picture from random videos like this. Even if hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles really were destroyed or abandoned the Russian military has somewhere on the order of 30,000 armored vehicles at its disposal. But I’m hoping that the Russian morale is as bad as has been depicted so that the fighting ends without the need to destroy thousands more vehicles and kill who knows how many reluctant soldiers.
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Speaking of yachts…
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I don’t think so, but if he did it is backfiring. Having what looks like a major defeat as the first act of your invasion looks bad to your allies (we will find out how bad when Tucker’s show airs tomorrow), and all those kids that died have parents and support is already so low for this war that there are protests despite the arrests (I did not say threat of arrests, cuz it ain’t a threat). Having it become apparent that he sacrificed those lives would mean he could not leave the Kremlin without being torn to pieces. And any tea he is served in the Kremlin will be mostly polonium
@bluehenbear Yes, but he is already fighting against a force of evil now…why would he sign on with a different one?
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Some people are saying Poland will send Her MIG-29 fighters to Ukraine as they cannot fly Rafales, Tornadoes or Eurofighters. Training a pilot to fly a whole new airplane would take months and a lot of money.
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Yeah, those two guys that “asked for gas at a police station” did not really look too unhappy to be detained there
That means that the ruble now has approx 1/2 the buying power of Robux!
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I can only imagine the lines in front of the banks in Moscow this freezing morning.
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Russia has more modern equipment. Like a lot of the tanks in Ukraine right now are apparently t72s. Which is a design from the 60’s. The latest and greatest version Russia has is the t90, which was designed in the 90s. And their big braggy super modern tank is the t14.
It’s known they delayed the roll out of the t14s cause they couldn’t afford it. So they don’t have any or many of those. But they supposedly have a lot of t90s.
And yet we’re mostly seeing the t72s. At this point I don’t think Russia actually has much in the way of “good stuff” to send in. I also suspect they don’t have as many soldiers as they indicated they did. They’re apparently pulling in the Belarusians, and they’re making a big deal about pulling in a Chechen paramilitary group.
Even after they supposedly started to “take this seriously”, rolled more troops in, took the “big push” or however people want to phrase it.
We’re mostly seeing moldy soviet era equipment, teenage conscripts, and a constant burble about Russia looking for more troops.
IIRC that is a violation of international law. Not that Russia cares. But it would put the soldiers at increased risk if caught.
Especially with the Ukrainian forces reporting and actively seeking “saboteurs” masquerading as Ukrainian civilians.
Either way if those soldiers are traveling with other soldiers, they would just join those other soldiers.
And unless there’s a bunch of naked Russians running around, the abandoned uniforms indicate these people brought a change of cloths.
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It’s been going on all weekend.
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Hopefully someone inside Putin’s inner circle gets angered enough by this.
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Yes. Their kids are going to be screaming when they are unable to buy new skins because the prices are so high.
Or do you have inside info about someone in his inner circle being a Bloxhead themselves?
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The current site 404ed
It’s mirrored at the internet archive
The stirring conclusion:
Because the construction of a new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are increasingly emerging through the spreading cover of globalization in Anglo-Saxon. The multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is not able to rally against Russia except the West. Because the rest of the world sees and understands perfectly well - this is a conflict between Russia and the West, it is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlantists, it is Russia’s return to its historical space and its place in the world.
China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West is leading the world order, much less establishing the rules of the game. Russia has not just challenged the West - it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally completed. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers by forces, of course, together with the West (one or not) - but not on its terms and not according to its rules.
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