Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Option 6 - get Allardyce in till the end of the season.
They basically played Allardyce ball until the US gave Ukraine the artillery equivalent of Rory Delap and now they’re outranged and being beaten at their own game.
 


Does he mean 2500 square km? This person seems to have a PhD and he can't even write basic units properly?

(for the mathematically challenged, 2500 square km = 25 km x 100 km, it is significant but it is not as great as 2500 km which is about the distance from Kyiv to Paris.)
 
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They basically played Allardyce ball until the US gave Ukraine the artillery equivalent of Rory Delap and now they’re outranged and being beaten at their own game.

Delap and maybe Fellaini coming on to cause havoc in the box (the 2500km box).
 
This is the outcome everyone wanted but is nobody else slightly concerned about what happens next?
There's been an 8-year war in the Donbas already. We might see Russians pulling back all troops to the Donbas and continue the war for another decade there, on a lower intensity level. Unless Ukraine decides to capture all of the Donbas...
 

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This is the outcome everyone wanted but is nobody else slightly concerned about what happens next?

We have discussed this during the first couple of months of this war. But actually nobody can predict anything in this war.

For example, my opinion was that the West should do more, like using the NATO air force to help the Ukrainians. A lot of people said that this is nonsense because Putin will go nuclear. I was saying that Putin is not crazy enough to use nuclear arms, and anyway if he is crazy enough, then it is more dangerous for him to lose vs Ukraine, than to lose vs NATO. I believe it would be easier for Putin to "save face" if he says that the "US Air Force beat Russia", than if it comes to "Ukraine beat Russia".

Today, it seems to me I was wrong, and I have changed my opinion. If the Ukrainians win this war by themselves, it will cement their national identity. That's probably the best possible outcome. We still don't know what Putin will do if he loses the war. Probably he doesn't know, either. Perhaps he will do nothing and just send anyone who complains to the gulags, that was the standard KGB playbook!
 
We have discussed this during the first couple of months of this war. But actually nobody can predict anything in this war.

For example, my opinion was that the West should do more, like using the NATO air force to help the Ukrainians. A lot of people said that this is nonsense because Putin will go nuclear. I was saying that Putin is not crazy enough to use nuclear arms, and anyway if he is crazy enough, then it is more dangerous for him to lose vs Ukraine, than to lose vs NATO. I believe it would be easier for Putin to "save face" if he says that the "US Air Force beat Russia", than if it comes to "Ukraine beat Russia".

Today, it seems to me I was wrong, and I have changed my opinion. If the Ukrainians win this war by themselves, it will cement their national identity. That's probably the best possible outcome. We still don't know what Putin will do if he loses the war. Probably he doesn't know, either. Perhaps he will do nothing and just send anyone who complains to the gulags, that was the standard KGB playbook!

I think it’s more what will putin do when he loses the war - not if.
Either he loses to Ukrainians “on their own” or he loses to “the west” I think both must be equally unpalatable.
If he’s hoping a cold winter will make everyone forget what he’s done and beg for Russian gas he’s in for another shock.
I just hope there is no further escalation from here
 
I think it’s more what will putin do when he loses the war - not if.
Either he loses to Ukrainians “on their own” or he loses to “the west” I think both must be equally unpalatable.
If he’s hoping a cold winter will make everyone forget what he’s done and beg for Russian gas he’s in for another shock.
I just hope there is no further escalation from here
He’s got basically no sizable conventional forces left to escalate with. The only thing he has are his nukes, and I don’t think his military high command are suicidal to go along with them being used without Russia itself being invaded.
 
Ukrainians using maskirovka on the Russians.

The much-publicised Ukrainian southern offensive was a disinformation campaign to distract Russia from the real one being prepared in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine’s special forces have said.

“[It] was a big special disinformation operation,” said Taras Berezovets, a former national security adviser turned press officer for the Bohun brigade of Ukraine’s special forces.

“[Russia] thought it would be in the south and moved their equipment. Then, instead of the south, the offensive happened where they least expected, and this caused them to panic and flee.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...outhern-offensive-was-disinformation-campaign
 
Brilliant. Whether this story is true or not doesn’t even matter. They’re paralyzing the Russian military with this kinda thing. Because of their backward training methods, the Russians have no ability to act independently down the chain of command, and their upper command are totally inexperienced in command & control at the scale this war is being fought at, and are constantly being drawn into front line areas in order to direct their forces, completely negating their ability to direct their forces properly from a central command position.
 
I think it’s more what will putin do when he loses the war - not if.
Either he loses to Ukrainians “on their own” or he loses to “the west” I think both must be equally unpalatable.
If he’s hoping a cold winter will make everyone forget what he’s done and beg for Russian gas he’s in for another shock.
I just hope there is no further escalation from here
I think we should worry less about what they might or what they might not do. There will always be escalations with Russia for years to come unless they completely collapse as a country which is unlikely to happen. They don't have anything we wouldn't be able to reply to with and just like North Korea, they like to talk nonsense and make completely meaningless threats that they fully know are complete fantasies.
 
Come on surely they gave em a KDB on a free.
I know it's just an analogy, but don't think HIMARS would even rate as high as KDB. KDB would be more like a squadron of some sort of aircraft, maybe F-35s. HIMARS is more like Cancelo, can create chances but not the most relied upon player to do so.
 
Absolutely fantastic news, but now comes the tricky part. Substantial gains have to be locked in, defended, and progressed all at the same time. With the speed of the collapse, logistics for the forward units will be crucial.

The Russian military in the area will be substantial panic.
 
We may need NATO to apply some tough talk again very soon. No way Putin takes this lightly. I fully expect the Nuclear discussion comes up again. What happens when you humiliate a paranoid dictator?
I think it’s become pretty clear that he’s basically a European version of Kim Jong Un with that kinda talk
 
We have not had much news about how many Russian soldiers were captured at this moment.

I am hoping that a lot of them got captured, resulting in destroying their army groups. It might save most of their lives and the ZSU can focus more on the southern front. Otherwise, they will be sent back to the battlefield again in a few weeks.
 
They truly haven’t learned a thing
guess we are getting a good insight into what corruption and a decades-long sole focus on nuclear weapon "diplomacy" can lead to in former superpowers military capacity.

All well an good to threaten the end of civilsation in a nuclear confrontation, but combine all these factors into a ground war against proxies and it's fallen a part real quick.
 
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guess we are getting a good inside into what corruption and a decades-long sole focus on nuclear weapon "diplomacy" can lead to in former superpowers military capacity.

All well an good to threaten the end of civilsation in a nuclear confrontation, but combine all these factors into a ground war against proxies and it's fallen a part real quick.
Quite right. The smartest thing Ukraine did was to go through westernizing their military’s training about a decade ago.
 
He’s got basically no sizable conventional forces left to escalate with. The only thing he has are his nukes, and I don’t think his military high command are suicidal to go along with them being used without Russia itself being invaded.
He can still declare actual war and call a draft.