Sure, but this thread is a partly a location for bringing relevant news into one place, which quite a few posters have said they find useful.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Sure, but this thread is a partly a location for bringing relevant news into one place, which quite a few posters have said they find useful.
You are just a GlastonHater . When will you admit it...
fair playI don't have Twitter so I'm grateful others are sharing stuff here.
Fair fecks if people are getting something out of it, just seems like half of them are plucked with barely any thought
I definitely find it useful. I don't have time to scroll through 100s of tweets, this thread seems to have a decent overview of most important things happening.
I'm under the impression he is a bit of a hardliner and not very rational. He called for NATO involvement, claimed that without at least a NFZ Putin would invade the whole of Europe, etc.
As it stands, Ukraine is winning and it is doing so without escalating the nuclear threat.
I may be wrong but to my knowledge nobody has suggested that Ukraine accepts a ceasefire at the cost of surrendering the occupied territories?
Moreover, I'm no expert but from my perspective, time is on Ukraine's side so it's highly unlikely that Russia come out of the pause stronger than Ukraine. The only thing they could gain from that is that they could fortify in the Donbas. But meanwhile, Ukraine will train more (and better) conscripts, receive more (and better) weapons, train their soldiers in the use of said weaponry, resupply cities and defenders under siege and evacuate civilians. Russia on the other hand apparently can't conscript more people, they only have outdated and badly maintained weapons available, they can't produce anything due to sanctions and the only thing keeping their economy alive is a) short term measurements to counter the sanctions which will soon become ineffective and b) gas deals which the EU is planning to abandon completely.
So I don't know what the experts in here are thinking, but if Russia really believes that a "red herring" ceasefire will improve their situation, I'd expect that this is just another strategic misjudgment on their part.
I don't think that fellow has a head.
Twitter has tons of similar pics on the various sites that follow Russian KIA/WIA. An unnecessary war that's been a tragedy for both sides.
I think the overall casualties are going to dwindle rapidly now since neither soldiers want to be Canon fodder.
Same here.
Same here, much appreciated
All good but just beware that this thread is heavily loaded with tweets from pro-Kiev sources and ‘analysts’ telling like-minded followers what they want to hear. Some of it is accurate, much of it probably not.
Ukraine forces prepare for possible attack on Belarusian border:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...pare-for-possible-attack-on-belarusian-border
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...pare-for-possible-attack-on-belarusian-border
Ukrainians are apparently losing an average of 100 men a day.
He said 50-100 I think, but it seems to have been upped to 100 by the press. Can’t quite work out whether this is a lot. Looks like Russia is losing 300/day but it’s obviously difficult to compare
Oh I'm aware we're getting Ukraine's version of events.
Death penalty is too good for these cnuts…
I'm actually worried that this second phase of the war is going relatively well for the Russians. They have managed to create the land-bridge between Crimea and the Donbas and freed their forces from Mariupol. They are seemingly holding Kherson with relative ease from what I'm reading. They are retreating from north Karkhiv, yet they are slowly but gradually moving forward in the East and pushing the Ukrainians back. If Severodonetsk falls (and it's currently 3/4s surrounded) that's Luhansk oblast under complete Russian control. Then it only leaves half of Donetsk oblast for the Donbas to be under their control.
Yes their tactics are fraught with strategic mistakes, yes they are taking very high attritional losses as they advance and yes their troops have low morale because of it. But the leadership simply doesn't seem to care about any of that, they're happy to throw people in the meat grinder so long as they achieve their target by the end of it. And when they concentrate their forces in one target area in the east, they still seem to have too much for the Ukrainians who can only retreat and pick some stray BMPs or tanks off.
If they manage to secure the Donbas then I'm fairly certain they will entrench themselves, declare the operation a success and they will become very difficult for the Ukrainians to dislodge any time soon. And the fact they seem happy to perform ethnic cleansing either by killing civilians or sending them off to Russia and replacing them with ethnic Russians, does not bode well for any future ground resistance. These practices will only escalate once their military objectives are met.
Yes their tactics are fraught with strategic mistakes, yes they are taking very high attritional losses as they advance and yes their troops have low morale because of it. But the leadership simply doesn't seem to care about any of that, they're happy to throw people in the meat grinder so long as they achieve their target by the end of it. And when they concentrate their forces in one target area in the east, they still seem to have too much for the Ukrainians who can only retreat and pick some stray BMPs or tanks off.
If they manage to secure the Donbas then I'm fairly certain they will entrench themselves, declare the operation a success and they will become very difficult for the Ukrainians to dislodge any time soon. And the fact they seem happy to perform ethnic cleansing either by killing civilians or sending them off to Russia and replacing them with ethnic Russians, does not bode well for any future ground resistance. These practices will only escalate once their military objectives are met.
I am not surprised, it definitely sounds similar to what some of their brother serbs did to our people here. Majority of serbs on social media are also showing massive support for Russians, probably enjoying hearing stuff like this.
They deserve to be beaten, flogged, tied and dragged behind horses, emasculated, flayed, and finally crucified.
Sad, but reluctantly agree with much of what you say.
It's what people warned for. The Russians may not exactly be the world's best military but they were always going to have some successes.
The Russians are advancing (slowly) because the Ukrainian's are still in the defensive phase, trying to wear the offensive down, and have yet to move to the counter-attack phase.
I appreciate that Ukraine need time to prepare manpower and logistics for a full blown counterattack but man, they are taking their sweet time about it. Giving Russia this much time to entrench cannot be a good thing in general.
My only comfort is that Zelensky does not seem too panicked, and that the US is surely giving advice on strategy and timing to the Ukrainian army.
I appreciate that Ukraine need time to prepare manpower and logistics for a full blown counterattack but man, they are taking their sweet time about it. Giving Russia this much time to entrench cannot be a good thing in general.
My only comfort is that Zelensky does not seem too panicked, and that the US is surely giving advice on strategy and timing to the Ukrainian army.
These aren''t exactly wins though. Mariupol is little more than a pile of rubble and the concept of a land bridge is barely relevant at this point given how depleted the Russians are in troops, morale, and weapons.
They are holding Kherson because the Ukrainians aren't contesting them there. Once there is a full on battle, the Russians will be forced to retreat just as they did from the north and Kharkiv.
As mentioned earlier, they are losing the battle of morale, troop readiness, and availability of military hardware. Their only strategy that has worked so far has been to pulverize cities with long distance weapons (artillery and bombs). That only works if the other side doesn't have a response. Now that the Ukrainians are gaining howitzers loads of other sophisticated NATO grade weapons, they will probably start going on the offensive, which will start pushing the Russians back in many of the territories they hold.
I disagree. They are wins because they allow them to leave small garrisons and redeploy the majority of their forces elsewhere. And that is relevant for the war. However depleted the Russians are, they are still advancing in the east.
Also the Russians, as clearly evidenced, do not give a single feck if the cities they take over are turned to rubble in the process. A city that is turned to rubble is also less likely to be a source of insurrection or trouble. It's not like the have plans to do anything with the cities for now. So if something is barely relevant at this moment, it's probably that imo.
Yes on the first part but there won't be a full on battle for Kherson any time soon, because the main bulk of the Ukrainian forces is in the north and east. They don't seem to have enough troops, artillery and air support to redeploy to the south while maintaining those other fronts. Whereas having seen heatmaps of Russian mobile phone activity in Ukraine, the Russians still have considerable forces around Kherson. Majority of invading force from Crimea seems to be between Kherson and Zaporizhzhia
I also think the Russians have given up on Kharkiv now. Yes they are being made to retreat, as opposed to voluntarily retreating, but whether the Russian retreat from Kharkiv will be slower or faster than the retreat of Ukrainians from the Donbas is anyone's guess. I'm not sure the UA advancing force on Karkhiv will manage to reinforce Donbas defences on time, or if the Russian advance in Luhansk will reinforce the retreating forces from Kharkiv. There doesn't seem to be a prospect of encircling Russians in Izyum any time soon though.
They are losing many battles, but if their new objective to the war is to take Donbas secure the land bridge to Crimea and call it a day, then so far they are doing well. Worth noting, taking cities is generally very difficult. And it's especially difficult if you try to not pulverise them in the process, which is something the Russians don't give a feck about but I assume the Ukrainians will want to avoid doing it to their own cities. Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol (and previously Luhansk and Donetsk) have all flipped. It will be very, very difficult for the Ukrainains to flip those back. Yes, they have managed to repel attacks at Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Kyiv, but have not flipped a single city back. It's beyond their means at the moment. And whether they'll get enough weapons and tech to do that before the Russians secure the Donbas and entrench and fortify themselves, it's anyone's guess.
What forces would they deploy bearing in mind the Russians have lost about half of their 180k troops to death or injury and are struggling with morale and equipment problems ? This is not the same number that started the conflict, where troops can be tidily swapped between locations at Putin's leisure. The Russians of today are depleted and demoralized.
Precisely. If anything, gaining control over rubble that is now Mariupol may provide them with a domestic propaganda talking point. That's about all though.
That's obviously not going to happen if the Ukrainians begin gaining the upper hand. They are going to chase the Russians back to pre Feb 24 demarcations. At this point, Putin will be very fortunate if the Ukrainians don't reclaim all of Donbass.
The majority of their troop losses are on the north and east, the southern force mostly marched on and took Kherson and the southern bank of Dnipro unopposed. They can deploy of some of those along with the artillery units that were dedicated to Mariupol. Yes, they are losing many men. But the assertion that their numbers and morale will collapse past a tipping point before achieving Putin's targets and transitioning to a defensive war, is questionable.
I think we're still pretty far from the Ukrainians gaining the upper hand and being in a position to flip back cities. They are currently being pushed back in the east. I'd like to but I can't share that optimism yet. I hope I'm proven wrong.
Putin's target was all of Ukraine, so he's obviously already failed. He's now left clutching at straws to make it appear that winning Mariupol is some sort of victory (it really isn't given the city almost doesn't exist). All of this is happening at a time when his economy is getting decimated from within, so even if he has a few patches of land in the south, that is temporary because he doesn't have the resources to hold any of it.
They won't be able to take the whole Donbas - that's already pretty clear. At best they might be able to take all of the Luhansk oblast - at least for a time.
Nor will they ever be able to "call it a day" because the Ukrainians will continue fighting for as long as it takes to expel Russian forces back to their pre-February 24th positions. So until then the Russians face endless fighting, with constant attrition and the bulk of their entire ground forces tied up in Ukraine.
This may be OK with them for a while, but it's not sustainable long-term if they want to be able to stop uprisings elsewhere in their various "spheres of influence". In short, the Russians are greatly over-stretched in military terms and have suffered huge losses that they won't be able to replace for a long time, if ever.
The Russian Federation is a Moscow-centric "empire" built on lies, illusions and corruption. It will collapse within a few years from now.
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Anyone have a clue what this means?
More like ‘confirms.’
Putin's inner circle losing its power, Russian journalist says:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...-its-power-russian-journalist-says/ar-AAXDgRl
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...-its-power-russian-journalist-says/ar-AAXDgRl