Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

pocco said:
Also, why are these numpties on social media all of a sudden calling Ukraine Nazis and making out that Putin is some sort of hero?
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Most of them are russian bots and the rest are just trolls and brainwashed idiots.

pocco said:
Is there still no end in sight for this war? Are Russia just recruiting more and more troops until they win or what? What's the end game for Putin?
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There isn't. The war will last years, because neither will Ukraine surrender, nor will Putin end this war before reaching his goals. He would not only lose his political power, but probably his life too.
When they'll run out of the mobilized men, they will recruite more. They still have enough brainwashed people in rural areas and some rusty aks to equip them with.
The west needs to be prepared for such a scenario. There isn't a short term solution without giving Putin what he wants. His ideal end game in ukraine is a devided and destroyed country with no chance of turning into a western democracy, while russia holds all the eastern areas with valuable natural ressources.
 
pocco said:
Is there still no end in sight for this war? Are Russia just recruiting more and more troops until they win or what? What's the end game for Putin?
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If you want to join me in clinging on to a bit of hope - It is quite possible Ukraine has spent all winter stockpiling weapons and making plans for a large offensive come spring/summer, while committing the minimal amount they can get away with to hold the lines at Bakhmut, Vuhledar, etc. Ukraine has barely committed any significant force anywhere in the last 5 months. In all the footage I've seen released from both sides, and Russia releases a lot themselves, I don't think I've seen more than two Ukrainian armoured vehicles in the same picture.

They have a lot of new shiny toys coming online in the next few months and just because they have been begging for more of everything, doesn't mean they are massively short of anything. They will do whatever they can to receive as much aid as possible, they have to.

They just need to drive a wedge down past Melitopal toward the south coast (much easier said than done ofc). If they can do that, they can completely cut off supplies to Crimea and all Russian forces to the west. Hit the bridge, bomb the port at Sevastopol, Russian Navy will be scared to come anywhere near Neptune range.

If they can do that, then its job done. Big IF, but that's my wishful thought of the day.

What's the end game for Putin? Who gives a shit.
 
68cob said:
What has happened with the reported ammo/weapons etc at the salt mines near Soledar?
It was being reported here for a few weeks that there was a vast amount of useable gear down there, then Soledar was finally taken. Since then, the news was expressing the dire need for ammo.
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Sounds like you might be reading a load of old rubbish potentially. Either way, I shouldn't think anyone here would know.
 
TwoSheds said:
Sounds like you might be reading a load of old rubbish potentially. Either way, I shouldn't think anyone here would know.
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It might well be a lot of rubbish, but it's the line that the BBC, Sky or DW News were following. I don't do twitter so avoid that nonsense, but do catch up with Radio Free Europe on youtube occasionally and the odd clip here and there.
 
Simbo said:
If you want to join me in clinging on to a bit of hope - It is quite possible Ukraine has spent all winter stockpiling weapons and making plans for a large offensive come spring/summer, while committing the minimal amount they can get away with to hold the lines at Bakhmut, Vuhledar, etc. Ukraine has barely committed any significant force anywhere in the last 5 months. In all the footage I've seen released from both sides, and Russia releases a lot themselves, I don't think I've seen more than two Ukrainian armoured vehicles in the same picture.

They have a lot of new shiny toys coming online in the next few months and just because they have been begging for more of everything, doesn't mean they are massively short of anything. They will do whatever they can to receive as much aid as possible, they have to.

They just need to drive a wedge down past Melitopal toward the south coast (much easier said than done ofc). If they can do that, they can completely cut off supplies to Crimea and all Russian forces to the west. Hit the bridge, bomb the port at Sevastopol, Russian Navy will be scared to come anywhere near Neptune range.
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This plan has 2 big problems. First it's pretty obvious and that means the russians are prepared for it.
And the second one is how many of their new shiny toys Ukraine wants to commit, because there are actually not that many coming. It's clear that Ukraine will counter attack at some point, because it's as you said. They didn't do anything offensive in the last months. But if we know this, then the russian generals know this too of course. They worked for the last months on their defenses. Every part of the front line is massively barricaded with many layers of defensive lines against infantry and armor. Satallite photos show them pretty clearly, they even dug them in Crimea. And you can expect other weapons against armor waiting for that attack.
It seems like the russians learned from their mistakes in Kharkiv and Cherson and dug themselves in this time. It will be extremly hard to push through those layers especially without air support by the looks of it and then the question is, if it wouldn't be smarter to keep the new armor as a constant threat rather than risking it all in one offensive. Europe is still very slow in their support and I can't imagine that Ukraine will get a 2nd big armor delivery this year. Europe's industry isn't on war production yet. It's a tough choice to use those ~30-50 Leopards and a few hundred IFVs in a difficult attack and what would be even worse than just losing western armor is to give russia propaganda material for the next months. Putin is only waiting for destroyed western armor photos/videos to flood russian media and show off russian strength over western military.

What gives hope is, that Nato advises Ukraine and I'm pretty sure they work together on a plan of attack the russians won't expect. The same as last year, when everyone was expecting a Cherson offensive and Ukraine just rolled over the Kharkiv region instead. I expect something similar. While everyone is expecting the obvious wedge to Melitopol because the Donbass is too well defended and the Dnipro river is blocking Cherson, it will be something completely different like crossing the Dnipro with pontoon bridges nobody saw coming. But no matter what, it will be far more difficult than last year I expect.
 
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China’s blacklisted Spacety allegedly shared satellite images with Russia’s Wagner group-U.S. official.
Chinese satellite firm Spacety, which was added to a U.S. trade blacklist earlier this month, provided satellite images to Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, a Biden administration official said on Tuesday.

Daniel Kritenbrink , U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, made the remarks during a congressional hearing on Tuesday morning.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/usa...ssias-wagner-group-u-s-official-idUKL1N3581PC
 
VorZakone said:
I think the first time I heard about Bakhmut was like...late September or something?
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I think they have been attacking it for ages. But it looks like they started really going at it (more human waves + better equipment) around at the end of the November. UA's manpower loss started going really high since December for that place.

I am hoping anyway that UAF is holding on as long as possible because they have massive advantages of doing it.
 
Ragnar123 said:
This plan has 2 big problems. First it's pretty obvious and that means the russians are prepared for it.
And the second one is how many of their new shiny toys Ukraine wants to commit, because there are actually not that many coming. It's clear that Ukraine will counter attack at some point, because it's as you said. They didn't do anything offensive in the last months. But if we know this, then the russian generals know this too of course. They worked for the last months on their defenses. Every part of the front line is massively barricaded with many layers of defensive lines against infantry and armor. Satallite photos show them pretty clearly, they even dug them in Crimea. And you can expect other weapons against armor waiting for that attack.
It seems like the russians learned from their mistakes in Kharkiv and Cherson and dug themselves in this time. It will be extremly hard to push through those layers especially without air support by the looks of it and then the question is, if it wouldn't be smarter to keep the new armor as a constant threat rather than risking it all in one offensive. Europe is still very slow in their support and I can't imagine that Ukraine will get a 2nd big armor delivery this year. Europe's industry isn't on war production yet. It's a tough choice to use those ~30-50 Leopards and a few hundred IFVs in a difficult attack.

What gives hope is, that Nato advises Ukraine and I'm pretty sure they work together on a plan of attack the russians won't expect. The same as last year, when everyone was expecting a Cherson offensive and Ukraine just rolled over the Kharkiv region instead. I expect something similar. While everyone is expecting the obvious wedge to Melitopol because the Donbass is too well defended and the Dnipro river is blocking Cherson, it will be something completely different like crossing the Dnipro with pontoon bridges nobody saw coming. But no matter what, it will be far more difficult than last year I expect.
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Yeh, agree on all points. I only hope that with all their planning and advice and resource from all over the right places, they somehow figure out a way to do it.
 
Ragnar123 said:
I certainly can't remember such a pathetic win in modern war.
I think the defense of the town started in the summer. That's about 6-8 months of heroic defence against an aggressor who uses his troops in ww1 style. The attack/defence kill ratio is normally around 3:1. It wouldn't surprise me, if Bakhmut is closer to 7-10:1.
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You would think that would be the case with the way and how long UAF is holding on there. I doubt that the ratio would be anywhere close to that though. But destroying most of Wagner group at one place would be efficient even though UAF themselves has lost a lot of men for that.
 
The guy ringing me up at the grocery store yesterday was Mexican but was a dead ringer for Solovyev. I was expecting the below, but ended up with a friendly Solovyev with a Mexican accent. This thread is beginning to live in my head

 
68cob said:
It might well be a lot of rubbish, but it's the line that the BBC, Sky or DW News were following. I don't do twitter so avoid that nonsense, but do catch up with Radio Free Europe on youtube occasionally and the odd clip here and there.
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This thread is a pretty good place to keep up with the topic. We have primarily pro-Ukrainian news, but then again, there's little to no truthful information coming out of Russia theses days.
 
Russia's oil and gas revenues fell nearly 40% in Jan, IEA says.

STOCKHOLM, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Russia’s revenues from oil and gas exports dropped by nearly 40% in January as price caps and Western sanctions squeezed the proceeds from Moscow’s most lucrative export, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. Russia’s oil and gas export revenues were $18.5 billion in January, 38% lower than the $30 billion Moscow received in January 2022, a month before its invasion of Ukraine, according to IEA numbers shared with Reuters.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said Western measures targeting Russian energy exports had achieved their aims of stabilising oil markets and reducing Moscow’s revenues from oil and gas exports.

“Our expectation is that this oil and gas revenue decline will be steeper in the next months to come. And even more steep in the mid-term, as a result of the lack of access to technology and investment,” Birol told Reuters.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/iea...-fell-nearly-40-in-jan-iea-says-idUSL4N3582TJ
 
Raoul said:
This thread is a pretty good place to keep up with the topic. We have primarily pro-Ukrainian news, but then again, there's little to no truthful information coming out of Russia theses days.
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I only got promoted from newbie recently and was frustrated before at not being able to ask questions here. I'll be keeping an eye on the thread, thanks.
 
Raoul said:
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Moldova should just ask Ukraine to pacify Transnistria. This would really take probably 3 days. Those 1500 armed soviet zealots wouldn't stand a chance against Ukraine's army and what would Russia do as retaliation? Start a war? Europe needs to get rid of every soviet carcass. If you leave it, it just poisons the soil and creates problems in the future.

e: It's funny how they chant "dictatorship" and love Putin at the same time. The hypocrisy has no ends.
 
Ragnar123 said:
Moldova should just ask Ukraine to pacify Transnistria. This would really take probably 3 days. Those 1500 armed soviet zealots wouldn't stand a chance against Ukraine's army and what would Russia do as retaliation? Start a war? Europe needs to get rid of every soviet carcass. If you leave it, it just poisons the soil and creates problems in the future.
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Yeah it would be an easy task for the now battle hardened Ukrainians to get rid of the Russian troops there (most of which are there in more of a policing role). Its not as if Putin could do anything to stop it.
 
Sir Matt said:
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I don’t use it as my main one but I’ve just checked and any of the three ExpressVPN servers that I’ve tried work without any issues.
 
Ragnar123 said:
This plan has 2 big problems. First it's pretty obvious and that means the russians are prepared for it.
And the second one is how many of their new shiny toys Ukraine wants to commit, because there are actually not that many coming. It's clear that Ukraine will counter attack at some point, because it's as you said. They didn't do anything offensive in the last months. But if we know this, then the russian generals know this too of course. They worked for the last months on their defenses. Every part of the front line is massively barricaded with many layers of defensive lines against infantry and armor. Satallite photos show them pretty clearly, they even dug them in Crimea. And you can expect other weapons against armor waiting for that attack.
It seems like the russians learned from their mistakes in Kharkiv and Cherson and dug themselves in this time. It will be extremly hard to push through those layers especially without air support by the looks of it and then the question is, if it wouldn't be smarter to keep the new armor as a constant threat rather than risking it all in one offensive. Europe is still very slow in their support and I can't imagine that Ukraine will get a 2nd big armor delivery this year. Europe's industry isn't on war production yet. It's a tough choice to use those ~30-50 Leopards and a few hundred IFVs in a difficult attack and what would be even worse than just losing western armor is to give russia propaganda material for the next months. Putin is only waiting for destroyed western armor photos/videos to flood russian media and show off russian strength over western military.

What gives hope is, that Nato advises Ukraine and I'm pretty sure they work together on a plan of attack the russians won't expect. The same as last year, when everyone was expecting a Cherson offensive and Ukraine just rolled over the Kharkiv region instead. I expect something similar. While everyone is expecting the obvious wedge to Melitopol because the Donbass is too well defended and the Dnipro river is blocking Cherson, it will be something completely different like crossing the Dnipro with pontoon bridges nobody saw coming. But no matter what, it will be far more difficult than last year I expect.
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What's the downsight to Putin getting this footage, though? Right now it doesn't seem as if a lack of domestic support is a problem for him. It is unlikely the Russian population will act anytime soon and if they do it is because the sanctions take their toll on them or because they lose their loved ones on the battle field, not because they think Russia as a state is losing a war.

Russia might have learned a thing or two from its mistakes but at least my impression is that they're still incredibly relentless with the lifes of their own soldiers, they're still fighting a war of attrition and it is questionable how long they can keep that up. A lot probably depends on whether China is going to support them with ammunition and weapons which could prolong the war significantly.

It's also worth mentioning that time is still on Ukraine's side, isn't it? At least as long as the NATO is supplying Ukraine. Economically, this war is much more costly to Russia than it is to the NATO. They aren't going to recover from the setback they'll have to endure. Core industries shrinking 40% within less than a year - especially in a country so reliant on a few economic sectors - is really bad. Especially when it comes hand in hand with losing up to 200k young males that would probably be part of the spine of their working class.
 
Raoul said:
A misleading headline given that the article claims the "nearly 40%" reduction is over the span of a year, not in one month
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I don't think it's misleading, that's a common way of talking about these things isn't it? Energy is surely heavily season dependent, so it makes sense to compare it to the equivalent period last year. Also it's not a drop over the span of a year, it's a drop compared to a year ago.
 
nimic said:
I don't think it's misleading, that's a common way of talking about these things isn't it? Energy is surely heavily season dependent, so it makes sense to compare it to the equivalent period last year. Also it's not a drop over the span of a year, it's a drop compared to a year ago.
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If the headline infers the drop was in one month then its misleading. The first sentence of the article is equally misleading.

"Russia’s revenues from oil and gas exports dropped by nearly 40% in January..."

Why not stipulate it was over the course of the year in the headline instead of luring visitors in only to then spring it on them later.
 
Raoul said:
If the headline infers the drop was in one month then its misleading. The first sentence of the article is equally misleading.

"Russia’s revenues from oil and gas exports dropped by nearly 40% in January..."

Why not stipulate it was over the course of the year in the headline instead of luring visitors in only to then spring it on them later.
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It was not over the course of the year, but revenue for January 2022 compared to January 2023, only those months.
 
Shakesey said:
This might be a silly question, but can people there read the caf without a VPN?
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It's not completely silly as there are some extremely odd choices on that Roscomnadzor's black list (like chess.com because they've removed the little picture of a Russian flag that shows next to the account name) but no, caf hasn't managed to get itself noticed by them yet.

I do use VPN (based on my private virtual server) as a default though — call it paranoia but encrypting your info from the provider is a necessity. Not that anyone's watching me now (I hope) but due to Russian laws providers need to keep logs on everyone for a significant time if the police/FSB would wish to access them.
 
Zehner said:
What's the downsight to Putin getting this footage, though? Right now it doesn't seem as if a lack of domestic support is a problem for him. It is unlikely the Russian population will act anytime soon and if they do it is because the sanctions take their toll on them or because they lose their loved ones on the battle field, not because they think Russia as a state is losing a war.
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In my opinion it's all a big picture. Right now it's quiet, but in big cities more out of fear than propaganda I would assume. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think when Putin announces a second mobilazation wave and has nothing to show for in Ukraine, then more people start to get angry about the fact their sons die for nothing. The only way he can keep the public quiet is showing them victories and destroyed western armor would be perfect for it, as it would be also a "proof" they fight against the whole west and win. I wouldn't underestimate that message. They tell it anyways of course, but pictures are more powerful. When russia retreated in Kharkiv and Cherson, many critics appeared inside russia and their Social Media. His status depends only on victories and defeats in Ukraine. That's also the reason they want Bakhmut so badly. They need a bigger town again simply for propaganda value. He needs to sell victories or he is doomed in the long run.

Zehner said:
Russia might have learned a thing or two from its mistakes but at least my impression is that they're still incredibly relentless with the lifes of their own soldiers, they're still fighting a war of attrition and it is questionable how long they can keep that up. A lot probably depends on whether China is going to support them with ammunition and weapons which could prolong the war significantly.
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Agree. If they keep it up, they need soon another mobilization wave. And the less victories he is able to show with this kind of attrition, the more pressure he is under.

edit: a video from a russian tanker. His buddies don't look like they will leave this crater alive. But yeah, keep "pushing" for the guy in his 2 billion € palace.

 
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Footage from an evacuation unit operating around Bakhmut over the last couple months.

 
"The Russian man is a slow starter, but a fast rider."

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