Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Rajma said:

Unlucky lads
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Yeah, this is one of the biggest impacts of today’s mess and possibly even a more important one than the actual mobilization (at least short-term). The current contracted soldiers that were on short-term contracts (usually 3 months and most of them were signed in June) are now there indefinitely and they don’t have an option of nulling them void. And you’d imagine that not many of them would’ve signed a new one after what they’ve seen, especially with colder seasons incoming.

I find it hard to empathize with them but that is a huge blow.
 
NotThatSoph said:
Then you go sit in a field as a decoy.
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And how do you KNOW that I’m not already doing that? Why do you ASSUME that I’m not using the gravitational pull of my gigantic testicles to crash Russian satellites? I don’t need to prove anything to you.
 
Nazis are now forcibly mobilizing the men in Kherson/Zaporizhia regions under the freshly arrived Kadyrovites “help”. Pure genocide in its worst form, I’m not sure what US/Nato is waiting for by not delivering the most advanced weapons as quickly as possible! Ukraine clearly has an upper hand in the short-to-medium term and initiative on the battlefield why not let them fully exploit it?
 
Rajma said:
Nazis are now forcibly mobilizing the men in Kherson/Zaporizhia regions under the freshly arrived Kadyrovites “help”. Pure genocide in its worst form, I’m not sure what US/Nato is waiting for by not delivering the most advanced as quickly as possible!
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It does seem that NATO Is keen not to be seen to be overtly contributing to the escalation. If you look back over the last 7 months they’ve clearly supplied better and heavier weapons as time has gone on, but they’ve done a lot of it on the sly. No big leaps forward but a slow build up of pressure. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
 
NicolaSacco said:
It does seem that NATO Is keen not to be seen to be overtly contributing to the escalation. If you look back over the last 7 months they’ve clearly supplied better and heavier weapons as time has gone on, but they’ve done a lot of it on the sly. No big leaps forward but a slow build up of pressure. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
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That’s how it should be. NATO doesn’t need to go around chest beating, it’ll also be far more embarrassing for Putin if NATO stays in the background given Ukraine + better weapons is seemingly battering the hyped up Russians on their own.
 
Raoul said:
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As predicted though these small peaceful protests have amounted to nothing, unless moscow comes out in hundreds of thousands these protests will be crashed for the breakfast. It seems like I overestimated russian people will for resistance when I said that general mobilization will be the end of Putin. Everyone is for themselves in russia, it’s a lost and sad nation that I don’t think will ever be fixed unfortunately.
 
spiriticon said:
And how do you know I haven't or am not planning to? How do you know I have or haven't had a few refugees in my home?

Please. I don't need to prove anything. I will help in my own way.
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By doing those things are you in danger of ending up in a russian prison? Because that's the fate of those you're accusing of being cowards.

Massive respect to russians protesting and endangering themselves, but I would never criticize those concerned with their well being or families or call them cowards.
 
groovyalbert said:
It'll be months before concripts are ready for the battlefield surely? Unless Putin has gone fully lambs to the slaughter. I'd assume this is Putin onboarding next spring's military in the hope that Ukraine is unable to reinforce as fully as Russia after winter. It would be entirely in-line with Putin's thinking to rely on winter to come to Russia's aid once again. In reality, he's chucking numbers at a problem he's unable to contend with through technology, intelligence and knowhow.
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Lt. Gen. Hertling posted this thread right here.



His account of a first-hand contact with Russian basic and unit training a decade ago is categorical. It is awful and he knows since he supervised the training process for 150,000 rookie US soldiers in 2 years (2009-2011). The US has about 5 basic training sites (for a 10-week course) and 21 advanced training locations (advanced courses can vary in length). In comparison, Russia has one main basic training site and a rather unknown number of advanced training locations. If active Russian troops already look this poorly trained and poorly equipped, I can only imagine how worse it would be for reserves and former soldiers by the time they get there should they get there.

VorZakone said:
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The "partial mobilization" will only create a serious demographic imbalance in Russia because men will choose to leave the country ASAP. And I don't think that the POS sitting in his Kremlin ivory tower will even consider a form of mobilization of women; there has been none of that in the Soviet/Russian armed forces since the Second World War and that would be met with fiercer backlash.

There is always a moment when one must know that the elastic can no longer be stretched. Looking at the protests in Russia, it hopefully is that moment.
 
Huge reaction to this mobilization story, seems a bit overblown to me. Everything Putin does is primarily to the detriment of Russia and this is no different. Its more a problem for Russians than Ukranians.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
That’s how it should be. NATO doesn’t need to go around chest beating, it’ll also be far more embarrassing for Putin if NATO stays in the background given Ukraine + better weapons is seemingly battering the hyped up Russians on their own.
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completely agree, btw.
 
maniak said:
By doing those things are you in danger of ending up in a russian prison? Because that's the fate of those you're accusing of being cowards.

Massive respect to russians protesting and endangering themselves, but I would never criticize those concerned with their well being or families or call them cowards.
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I have never called them cowards. I think they are brave, but just not as brave as the Iranians or Ukrainians. Nothing will change in Iran I'm sure, but at least the President acknowledged the dissent publicly.

I'm just being objective when I say that these protests won't even cause the local Moscow sheriff to break sweat. Unpopular opinion? Maybe. In these videos, you have 5 police blokes beating the bejesus out of one poor soul while everyone else stands a 5 metre radius behind. I mean, seriously guys, help him out? What are people there for if you're just going to film people getting beat?

We need a little more to make the Kremlin think seriously about their position, otherwise the few brave guys are actually are being hauled off to jail for nothing. And now perhaps even hauled off to the frontlines.
 
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africanspur said:
What do you mean even Iran?

Stop being offensive, please.

So easy for certain people on here, who've probably never had to undergo that much real hardship, to turn their noses up at people who live in a country where the system can and does kill and imprison its citizens for prolonged periods of time without any justification.
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Agree 100%.
calling people cowards for not doing something you think you would do in the same situation when you have minimal idea of what that actually means in real life is despicable.
 
I suppose Ukraine had a surplus of Russian pow's to tilt the balance, wonder how many were sent the other way.
 
Are we to assume that the majority of Russians support this? Still very difficult to get a sense of the popular feeling around actions being taken. Maybe they aren’t a country of protest?
 
harms said:
Yeah, this is one of the biggest impacts of today’s mess and possibly even a more important one than the actual mobilization (at least short-term). The current contracted soldiers that were on short-term contracts (usually 3 months and most of them were signed in June) are now there indefinitely and they don’t have an option of nulling them void. And you’d imagine that not many of them would’ve signed a new one after what they’ve seen, especially with colder seasons incoming.

I find it hard to empathize with them but that is a huge blow.
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Sounds like a recipe for deserters to be honest.
 
rpitchfo said:
Are we to assume that the majority of Russians support this? Still very difficult to get a sense of the popular feeling around actions being taken. Maybe they aren’t a country of protest?
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We’ll see in the upcoming days how the mobilization will affect this, but before that, sadly, yes. There’s a huge part of the public that tries to ignore what’s happening (which still makes then pro-war) and now they’ve been forced to choose; an equally big part that is openly pro-war and a lesser group that stands against it, many of whom (those who had the opportunity) had left the country.
 
Simbo said:
I suppose Ukraine had a surplus of Russian pow's to tilt the balance, wonder how many were sent the other way.
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Looks like they’ve traded Medvedchuk.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Genuinely, how does this end?
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Either Putin pulls back and his ‘partial’ victory will be he devastated Ukraine and his population will swallow it or he turns off the gas over a harsh winter and Germany pull away from the alliance and the rest voicing concerns which concludes Putin keeping East Ukraine.

Oh and nuclear war is just rhetoric and scaremongering. Putin ain’t giving up his billions, yachts, daughters and mistress’s to go in the history books.
 
Port Vale Devil said:
Either Putin pulls back and his ‘partial’ victory will be he devastated Ukraine and his population will swallow it or he turns off the gas over a harsh winter and Germany pull away from the alliance and the rest voicing concerns which concludes Putin keeping East Ukraine.

Oh and nuclear war is just rhetoric and scaremongering. Putin ain’t giving up his billions, yachts, daughters and mistress’s to go in the history books.
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You obviously missed the news that he already turned off the gas and nobody cared. He fired his last shot for the economic war against Europe and he failed.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Genuinely, how does this end?
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To be fair to Putin (hah), he did seem to keep the majority of Azovstal in fairly decent nick, despite thermobombing 55 of them at Olevnika. I gave them all near to no chance of survival after surrendering. It's little things like this, along with his resistance to fully mobilise, that makes me unconvinced that he will ever go nuclear.

The sad thing is that I think a true Ukrainian win (i.e. back to 1992 borders) is very difficult. Liberating Crimea is no easy feat without a navy. But they should be given every chance to claim as much back as much of their own land back before negotiating. It should be them who decides when to stop. And when the conflict is frozen this time, we need to give them security guarantees otherwise it's just a matter of time before invasion no.3 starts.

If Russia wins, Europe will break I think. At least I think there will be a major division within the EU between Eastern and Western Europe.
 
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stefan92 said:
You obviously missed the news that he already turned off the gas and nobody cared. He fired his last shot for the economic war against Europe and he failed.
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Guessing turning it off in the summer is completely different to doing it in the winter.
 
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