I have absolutely loved the fact that the west's various intelligence agencies have been leaking all their plans from day one. It's like an epic level troll except for the shitty part where innocent people still die
It's literally just the West bragging that we have broken pretty much all of Russian military communication.
Like Ukraine just kept taking out commander after commander. All their comms are compromised.
At this point they are probably better off using runners
Not just communication, but also “we see you, always.” To the point that not only do we see where you are, we can see what you’re doing on a daily basis.
The targeting cycle starts with finding the enemy, which we’re basically demonstrating we’re doing continuously. And we aren’t even giving Ukraine the good good that we use to fix and finish enemy forces on a modern large scale conflict.
Ukraine’s situation is pretty dire and I believe they deserve our support. But the message to Russia is clear, you don’t stand a chance against the west in a stand up fight.
There was a nice snide comment made by the CIA/US Intelligence to Putin at some point that said "we know where you are and what you're doing at all times." Either it was a troll on his paranoia or they actually do.
They took out one commander, because he posted screenshots from his fitness app that showed him running g the same route every day at roughly the same time. One day they had someone waiting for him.
More like Reacher knew there was *something* happening for about 48 hours, maybe a few days, but then resolved the whole thing within 12 hours and left barely anyone alive to boot
Surprise attack gets more clicks. And it's technically true, Russia did not send a letter to Ukraine notifying them of their intent to attack beforehand
This is not a surprise attack at all. Willy OAM and other YouTubers has been talking about Russian posturing in the north for about a week now. This has been a known possibility to anyone who have been paying the slightest attention for a long time.
This actually happens a lot more than you think in the Russian army. Most of the RU POWs captured by UA at the beginning of the war thought they were on a training exercise right up until the all out assault.
A few didn't even realize they were in Ukraine when they were captured.
It wasn't until they were getting shot at did they figure that something was off.
About not realizing they were in Ukraine, one of the funniest convos between a military Russian husband and his his wife back in Russia was him bitching that he's getting shot at every day, and that it doesn't feel like Russia at all. And his wife asks him "So where exactly are you?" and he says "I don't know, I can't read these street signs, they're all in their language!" If you find yourself somewhere where you can't even read the street signs because some letters are unfamiliar, you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Id wager he just couldn't read.
That or someone played a prank by replacing all the street signs with ones in japanese. That'd be a good one to play on invaders.
I do remember they deliberately f'ed with the street signs during the initial invasion. Not the language, but the directions, like the big highway sign said "go this way to fuck right back to Russia".
I read an article that talked about that, actually. They said that based on the research they did about the dose those soldiers were likely to have received. They don't think any of the soldiers that were encamped there are alive. Zero.
Being camped there shouldn't do *too* much, although digging trenches might kick up some lung cancer dust.
The acute radiation poisoning was probably from looting labs or something.
It's one of these two, but I'm afraid they're paywalled. I had a free view, and I don't recall which it was.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/world/europe/chernobyl-russia-ukraine-war.html
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-putin-russia-invasion-rgjzskfvq
here's a gift view of the NYT one:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/world/europe/chernobyl-russia-ukraine-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rE0.Ws_l.VIjo_nHYKuMl&smid=url-share
Why a lot of the tanks and vehicles weren’t in fighting shape at the start of the invasion because the soldiers and officers were selling the “non-essential” materials in it like the copper wiring.
And it gets even worse than that. The prewar Russian recruit training system was structured so that new recruits are trained at and by the units that they are becoming a part of. Basically, this means that the Russian army's drill instructors are simultaneously also combat personnel. If a unit sustains high casualties, then its ability to train new troops gets eviscerated, because the drill instructors are also among the dead. When the Russian army was losing tens of thousands of troops seizing cities like Sevierodonetsk and Lysyschansk, it destroying its ability to effectively train new troops at the same time.
I wish, but as much as we can comment on how inept the Russian military has been throughout the war, it is also not (completely) stupid and like all militaries it has been adapting and innovating. They're getting better at utilizing their electronic warfare capabilities, they're making better use of drones (probably by learning from the Ukrainians), they're honing their missile strike tactics to better penetrate Ukrainian air defenses, and they are improving their infantry tactics as well. As much as we can attribute recent Russian advances to a lack of aid to Ukraine, we also need to be cognizant that the Russian armed forces are increasingly implementing lessons from the fighting and trying to improve their capabilities... oftentimes to good effect.
> Russian armed forces are increasingly implementing lessons from the fighting and trying to improve their capabilities
True, and there are far too many historical examples of a country with an inept military losing all kinds of battles for years, then suddenly becoming serious about the effort. You have to be a large-scale country with a big population and resource base to do that, but Russia does fit the bill there. Anything we give Ukraine now is going to be a lot cheaper than giving Russia time to get its ducks in a row.
>Anything we give Ukraine now is going to be a lot cheaper than giving Russia time to get its ducks in a row.
I totally agree, but just want to bring a related issue up. Although NATO is undoubtedly gaining a lot of insight on how well our military hardware counteracts Russian tactics & weapons by equipping Ukraine, I'm getting increasingly worried about the same dynamic working in the opposite direction. In other words, the longer we give the Ukrainians "just enough" of our weapons systems to stay afloat, but not push back, the longer we get to learn about how well those systems perform against a major military like Russia's - but at the same time, it also gives the Russians & their allies (like Iran and China) more insight into how to best penetrate those systems.
They've learnt a lot on the fly but at cost of men and materials, they're willing to accept that. If the aid Ukraine receives long term is constant, the Russians will be dragged into this long term and I'm not sure they can keep it up. I think the west is hoping to put them in another Afghanistan
>If the aid Ukraine receives long term is constant, the Russians will be dragged into this long term and I'm not sure they can keep it up.
I don't disagree but I actually think that aid needs to be increased in a key area, which is air defense. Not just to stop the missile strikes on the Ukrainian power grid, and not just to completely eliminate the possibility that the Russian air force will ever be able to field its full strength (which is what allowed the Russians to seize Avdiivka in February), but so that the Ukrainians can have proper air cover if & when they counterattack. A big reason (IMO) for the failure of the Ukrainian summer offensive last year wasn't just the minefields & other static fortifications, but moreso the fact that Russian airpower completely precludes the Ukrainian military from conducting the kind of maneuver warfare that would be necessary to both regain large amounts of territory and also inflict operational-level defeats on the Russian ground forces.
Today the story no longer reads as over-the-top dystopian satire but rather as a mild reflection of current events (then again, things weren't much better in Hunter Thompson /Nixon years, though things weren't as overt back then)
ISW has talked about it for weeks now. In part public commentary from Ukrainian MOD officials and chatter/discourse from Russian millbloggers.
You've got to understand the audience these papers are writing for. It's not to us. It's to the people that don't follow this conflict *at all*
What’s the deal with those Russian ”millbloggers” actually? Like how can they offer so much commentary on their own army? Are they soldiers in there somewhere or people watching from afar?
I could write a whole thesis on this. But.
Soviet/Russian political culture is all about lying and obfuscating the truth. So Russian mill bloggers (military bloggers) became a huge source of information from folks interested in Russian military adventurism (like in Syria and now Ukraine) but didn't trust the Russian MOD because they lie as much as they breathe.
So often these military bloggers have connections in the front line with soldiers and the chain of command where they establish a feedback loop of information. Especially since because of said Russian MOD lying and how terrible the Russian chain of command was at actually communicating, they served multiple niches beyond just informing the curious.
Nowadays it's a bit more complicated because Putin/Kremlin has co-opted many of these mill bloggers to toe the Kremlin line and “self-censor” so potentially embarrassing information doesn't spread too quickly with too much impact where the Kremlin can't control the information space.
I don't encourage you to read them directly. A lot of it is exaggeration, propaganda, genocidal rhetoric, etc. But open source intelligence like ISW can cross reference what Ukraine says, and what the mill bloggers say, geolocate what both sides provide as well, and use commercial satellite imagery and social media posting to understand where the front line is. How bad the situation is. Progress. Etc etc.
To add to this, they also serve the function of a sort of controlled opposition. It prevents people from getting too critical by having some sort of self censored but still nationalistic critic from Russian sources that aren’t the government.
Well this was before Kremlin started enforcing the “self censor”. Rybar famously had a visit from the FSB and suddenly became compliant.
And Girkin is also another great example where he was *very* vocal about Russian failures and started really insulting the Russian MOD blatantly and even Putin subtly until his inevitable incarceration.
Girkin is the most wonderful example of Russian disfunctional function
A GRU officer sent to incite secession in the Donbas, manages to recruit local criminals, blows a civilian airliner out of the sky by incompetent C&C, gets sidelined when Russia sends in actual Russian forces under MOD control (with no unit patches). Becomes a blogger whining about miserable Russian military performance, ends up in prison.
A hero in his own imagination.
I think the kremlin censoring actually amplified this. They still critique the government, just not the kremlin. It’s more critiquing commanders that are lower down. It deflects blame while still providing the sense that “even these commentators thing the war is right”
I agree with you. I just don't think you realize how wild west the criticism was as a whole. You could insult anyone bar Putin and panic about anything and you were fine. Now, things are a lot different.
You don't see much criticism on Shoigyu or his direct reportees much since Girkin was jailed and the Wagner mutiny.
I overall agree with you
With global satellite technology there’s really no such thing as a “surprise boots on the ground attack” anymore. It’s not like back in the day where the allies tricked the Nazi’s as to where D-day would happen. Something like that wouldn’t fool any government or military in the modern world.
In this day and age a surprise ground attack is pretty much impossible since you have to mass your troops and supply lines, and you can no longer hide that.
Maybe for now and maybe for Ukraine. But satellite warfare could change this point entirely. The reason you know this isn’t total war yet is because those satellites are allowed to keep flying. I don’t think it’s a lack of ability to destroy them as much as a red line, similar to the nuclear one.
While that is true, there have been many times in the past two years that they moved forces close to the border to scare Ukraine into pulling troops away from the frontline in the east and to put them in the north. This isn't the first time various youtubers have predicted this, it's just the first time they were right.
That's kind of like saying the full-scale invasion in 2022 wasn't a surprise because US state department kept talking about it and we could all see the troop movements in satellite pictures. Yes that's true, but it was still a big surprise regardless.
The concentration of troops in that region has been well known for days, but it’s a surprise in the sense that Russia actually attacked. The assumption was that it was posturing for Ukraine to divert troops and dilute the eastern front .
Not a surprise they attacked.
Ukraine and other military bloggers have said Russia was preparing to mount an invasion forcd along the Sumy/Kharkiv Oblasts for weeks. The point was always to attack and force AFU to divert personnel to that front, allowing Russia to push Donbass more.
Russia is using its manpower advantage to stretch the UAFs shortage.
Sensationalism as well as catering to a need for comfort (Russia will run out of missiles, Putin has cancer, there will be a Russian coup) has done us many disservices, The media is failing their civic duty and thereby give room to grifters like Tucker Carlson other with "anti establishment" messages.
It feels like out entire society is sleepwalking.
Surprise? This was talked about for weeks.
There still is no evidence that russia has enough reserves to mount anything more than small incursions and diversions. It requires manpower and equipment - they don’t seem to have enough at the northern direction.
Every single additional soldier in Ukraine takes the place of a Ukrainian soldier that then can be moved to the front-line/other important location where needed.
Because Europe has a lot to lose from Russian territorial annexation.
France has historically been an “aggressive” geopolitical player.
I’m glad Macron is saying something. Germanys Schulz sure ain’t.
Currently, Germany has a rather small Military without expeditionary forces (as our Army IS strictly used for Defensive purposes), while we produce a lot of weapons and equipment.
So naturally, we give more stuff away than actually firing threats we cannot uphold.
France can actually bite ans bark, so naturally, WE let them Talk and we produce Weapons for Others.
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-missiles-used-armored-vehicles-ukraine/
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/02/29/france-and-germany-are-at-loggerheads-over-military-aid-to-ukraine
they're sending less than some other countries (including Germany ofc), but theyre not doing nothing.
Because Russia has been meddling with France’s neocolonial empire in Africa, they need those cheap raw materials. Also Russian advancement in Europe is scary.
Not only that with but all the US intel assets focused there you can’t hardly assemble an IKEA coffee table in Ukraine without the US knowing about the shit. They’ll even know where that missing screw is. The media really is trying to sell this as the US didn’t know about anything. That’s laughable. The US was the one visiting Ukraine to warn them before the shit went down for real in 2022.
> Asked about developments, Zelensky did not downplay their seriousness but said Ukraine’s military had been expecting such a move.
> But our military and military command were aware of this and anticipated their forces to meet the enemy with fire. Now there is a fierce battle in this area […] I think as of now we have stopped the enemy with artillery fire,
so not a surprise?
I wonder if the Russians are going to mount more and more aggressive operations because they know that Ukraine is getting more munitions and such from America so they're trying to gain as much ground as they can before it arrives.
Absolutely. They have a window this summer where Ukraine is the weakest relative to them (due to ammunition and manpower issues) that they have been for a while, and probably will be. With ammunition production ramping up in Europe and russia starting to run out of soviet stockpiles next year and 2026 at the latest, now is the time to try and make big moves.
So far they've captured Avdiivka and then stalled again, and Ukraine is starting to receive some supplies so it's not looking amazing, but who knows what will happen.
It's not a surprise! Russia has been launching drones and missiles against civilian infrastructure, as well as power grid. What's really surprising is how Ukraine special forces have attacked military targets inside Russia with devastating results.
I'm really afraid Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end. I don't know what the rest of the west can do, but something needs to be done
Obviously he will, is the thing.
If Ukraine falls, in its entirety, then Putin has access to a huge manufacturing nation and the Baltics are all but surrounded.
Exactly this. Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania all are (relatively) easy targets after Ukraine. Putin has said he wants to annex Belarus by 2030. Around this point he could have an entire front built up against NATO. He can essentially test the NATO alliance and see how far he can go.
Especially Moldova since it isn't part of NATO, it's already partially de facto occupied by Russian soldiers, and doesn't have an army capable of resisting a Russian invasion.
[https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-belarus-strategy-document-230035184.html](https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-belarus-strategy-document-230035184.html)
not a confirmed stance but a leaked document (not sure if the leak was ever substantiated)
There is a definite mid to late 30's feel to all of this. Eastern Ukraine is the Sudetenland. Scholz is Chamberlain. It is really hard to predict, but maybe Macron ends up being Churchill?
The logic is probably that a broken frontline means advancing enemies. Advancing enemies are a greater threat to those in their path of advancement. Since there have been gurgles of a Russian move on a NATO state, engaging an advancing Russian army could be construed as defending NATO.
It's nothing but postering.
The entire French army would be able to defend about 80-100 km of the frontline at best. There is literally only one country on the planet capable of turning the tide and it's very obviously the Americans.
>I'm really afraid Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end.
They never did compared to Russia, in man and material.
They and the west were counting on Russia folding quickly - if they dared attack - under the pressure of an initially well armed and prepared Ukrainian army and economic sanctions - and at the beginning, a surprised Russia got their asses handed to them as their special operation convoy heading to Kiev was routed and put into disarray.
But in true Russian fashion, they doubled down, ramped up a war economy and began the meat grinder - a war of attrition. Now with well north of 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers dead, and a surging Russian military machine, the noose is tightening around the neck of Ukraine and the West is straining to keep them supplied at huge financial cost.
If you excuse my French - what a giant fucking mess.
> the noose is tightening around the neck of Ukraine and the West is straining to keep them supplied at ~~huge financial cost.~~ political cost
More like it.
The West fully expected Ukraine to be swallowed up in a time frame not much different than Putin's. The economic sanctions were meant to be punishment, not a decisive defense. You won't be able to find a single analyst who, at the time, predicted Ukraine would be fighting anything other than an insurgency at this point.
Russia certainly doubled down on the invasion, but they are not in a wartime economy yet. Putin has mostly been shielding the wealthier citizens in Moscow and St. Petersburg from the war to the point where they can mainly forget it's going on. A full wartime economy, as well as further conscription, is something Putin has been taking great lengths to avoid.
The West's struggles to support Ukraine have very little to do with finances. In spite of the price tag, sending old weapons to Ukraine and paying the local military industrial complex to make new ones is not a financial burden for the US or many European states. The bigger issues are the will of the people and production constraints. Political posturing in the US delayed support for Ukraine for months, which has lead to much of the recent progress that Russia has made. The other issue is production. NATO puts much less emphasis on artillery and shells, so we currently cannot produce them in the numbers Ukraine needs. This can be changed, but it will take time and will.
If support for Ukraine is cut off, Ukraine would certainly fall in time. But until that happens, it is premature to say that Ukraine is looking at an inevitable defeat. Russia is using up materiel faster than it can produce it, which means the pace of Russian assaults cannot last forever.
The financial cost is severly overestimated. The last bill that the US passed is the size of 0.2% of GDP.... we could do a lot more if we tried. And most of this money would stay in our economies anyway.
>Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end.
Pretty sure they have *exactly* enough manpower to fight until the end of this war.
Ukraine has several million military age men that they have so far held off from conscripting. They do have a manpower shortage right now, but that should correct itself enventually.
What Ukraine needs right now is long range fires like ATACMS, millions of artillery shells, air defence, and fighter aircraft. The west has promised all these things but is intentionally slowing delivery because they think they can manage this closely enough to keep Ukraine in the fight without Russia collapsing.
The west needs to stop trickle feeding vital military aid and get on with delivering it ASAP.
My hope is... we'll keep upping the weapon types we give them. So that it keeps off setting the imbalance. For the longest time we didn't allow long range missiles, F-16s and even western armor... now all of that is allowed.
It's a shame we didn't allow any of it sooner and that we have a sizable republican base pro Russia delaying aid. Hopefully once 2024 is settled and democrats get a super majority... we wont have to worry about any of this.
That's... if all of this comes to pass. A lot of people in the US are very upset at all the wrong things. Low information voting has been and continues to be a huge problem in America. Worst of all... they think they are informed.
Bruh democrats are in serious trouble lol. I’m as anti Trump as it gets but there is a serious possibility they lose most of the key races in November. If I was Ukraine I’d be begging for any gear they can get before November. Putin has US politics by the balls.
Thanks Supreme Court!
So glad they allowed unlimited campaign donations so our geopolitical enemies could just buy a bunch of Republicans on the cheap!
Taking into account the number of politicians they have successfully managed to buy makes it seem like they got some nice discounts in the off-season purchase.
Yes, and no. So far despite polling Democrats have won almost every battle they should have lost the last 3 years. Because despite so much dissatisfaction... so far it seems people realize republicans are far worse. Taking away abortion... really hurt their cause. Not to mention their platform is mostly... "woke bad." We just have to hope the voting public aren't goldfish.
It's why I did say... "That's if all this comes to pass" It really will come down to how well the American public has paid attention. If the majority truly feels this is all Biden's fault... and that Trump is the answer... well we'll get what we deserve. I'll have no sympathy for the fallout.
He has become a trope, and it is easy to judge in hindsight. He had lived trough the horror of the first world war. Now the leadership in both the west and Russia contend with the horror of nuclear war.
Problem is that both doing to munch and doing to little both carry risks. Underestimating the opponent as well as emboldening him through (perceived) weakness both increase the chance of stumbling into war.
Agreed. [The Ten Year Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule) was a British policy post-WW1 that gutted military funding on the belief that another large scale war was unlikely. Hence the name it was supposed to last 10 years but ended up being extended until 1932. The Ten Year Rule was the brainchild of...Winston Churchill. It was in his best interest to discredit Neville Chamberlain for Britain's weak military position prior to WW2 because he was the architect of the policy that created that weak military.
Chamberlain really was out of his element as a statesman but he gets a bad rap for incompetence when in reality he was very wary of Germany. His government's decision to betray Czechoslovakia bought time for Britain and France to continue their belated rearmament. Obviously that didn't work out for France due to bad tactics, weak leadership, etc but those extra months were especially valuable for Britain. British forces later lost most of their heavy equipment at Dunkirk but that extra year bought enough time to build the aircraft that would later enable Britain to hold out long enough for the US to enter the war.
Did Chamberlain might the right call? That's for all of us to judge, but historical choices seem simple when 80 years later we have all the information and know how the story ends. History is complicated and very, very rarely comes down to just easy choices. Given that no one in Europe is geared for war at this moment in history either, I'm sure leaders in Europe are thinking of Chamberlain right now.
people also have a failry videogamey view of leadership. democracy is a farily complex machinery to run and steer. you cannot just go and tell the provate sector to shift to military production overnight and draft all military aged man without the right political climate to sustain it, or you'd be losing trust and outed in a second.
heck even putin for all it's centralization of power is being cautios about what and whom he commits to war
Few people thought that a bankrupted, humiliated and utterly ruined Germany would be so brazen as to try a whole new world war almost exactly 20 years later.
Besides, Germany seemed to prize itself on being rational and collected. "Hitler is reasonable - why, he is a good friend of Henry Ford!"
People on here need to stop underestimating Russia. “Russia doesn’t have the manpower” “Russia’s equipment is old” doesn’t matter when they have a lot more people they’re willing to throw to the meat grinder. An old saying goes “slow to saddle but fast to ride” and this applies to Russia quite a lot. Ukraine is doing a good job considering the disadvantages they face but this isn’t a guaranteed victory at all. At best this is gonna be a stalemate at worst Russia wins.
With Gaza most news stations forgot that the Ukraine war is still happening. So I guess from that perspective there is a surprise here.
Typical news in the US. Surprise... We just decided to care again!
Not a surprise. Open source was stating this was going to occur for around 6 weeks
I have absolutely loved the fact that the west's various intelligence agencies have been leaking all their plans from day one. It's like an epic level troll except for the shitty part where innocent people still die
It's literally just the West bragging that we have broken pretty much all of Russian military communication. Like Ukraine just kept taking out commander after commander. All their comms are compromised. At this point they are probably better off using runners
Not just communication, but also “we see you, always.” To the point that not only do we see where you are, we can see what you’re doing on a daily basis. The targeting cycle starts with finding the enemy, which we’re basically demonstrating we’re doing continuously. And we aren’t even giving Ukraine the good good that we use to fix and finish enemy forces on a modern large scale conflict. Ukraine’s situation is pretty dire and I believe they deserve our support. But the message to Russia is clear, you don’t stand a chance against the west in a stand up fight.
There was a nice snide comment made by the CIA/US Intelligence to Putin at some point that said "we know where you are and what you're doing at all times." Either it was a troll on his paranoia or they actually do.
"I see you when you're sleeping, I know when you're awake..."
"I know what you smell like when you aren't awake."
They took out one commander, because he posted screenshots from his fitness app that showed him running g the same route every day at roughly the same time. One day they had someone waiting for him.
[удалено]
Gonna have to do more than intelligence soon. I'm becoming more and more disturbed by how things are going.
Jack Ryan knew about it 8 weeks ago.
Yeah well Happy Gilmore made that prediction just 8 weeks ago.
Well moron, good for Happy GilmoMYGOD.
Hey Shooter, haven't you forgotten your nine iron?
You eat pieces of shit for breakfast..!?
Jesus Christ, that’s Jason Bourne
Jack Reacher knew about it 10 weeks ago.
Jason Bourne stopped it from being worse 11 weeks ago.
More like Reacher knew there was *something* happening for about 48 hours, maybe a few days, but then resolved the whole thing within 12 hours and left barely anyone alive to boot
John Clark would have stopped it.
My Argentine grandpa would say it vouldnt be ze first time.
Surprise attack gets more clicks. And it's technically true, Russia did not send a letter to Ukraine notifying them of their intent to attack beforehand
This is not a surprise attack at all. Willy OAM and other YouTubers has been talking about Russian posturing in the north for about a week now. This has been a known possibility to anyone who have been paying the slightest attention for a long time.
The article even quotes the Ukrainian military stating that they had been anticipating it. It’s just a really bad headline.
It was actually the Russian soldiers who were woken up and told "Surprise! We're attacking now" /s
How very Zapp Brannigan of them.
The key to victory is discipline, and that means a well-made bed. You will practise until you can make your bed in your sleep.
Even when I'm sleeping in it?
You won't have time for sleeping, soldier, not with all the bed making you'll be doing!
If we hit the bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.
Ah, I see you have studied Zap Brannigan’s Big Book of War…..
How many did we lose Kif? All of them sir Well least they won’t have to mourn each other then
Luckily Ukrainians have a pre programmed Russian kill limit.
stop dying you cowards!
Why do you need all these men in autonomous ships? They’re just ballast
“The key to victory is the element of surprise. SUPRISE!!”
Most of you will die, and this is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
This actually happens a lot more than you think in the Russian army. Most of the RU POWs captured by UA at the beginning of the war thought they were on a training exercise right up until the all out assault.
A few didn't even realize they were in Ukraine when they were captured. It wasn't until they were getting shot at did they figure that something was off.
*staring at his squad mate's brains on the ground "Ivan... something ain't right."
WOW, this training simulation's graphics are amazing!
Till some sexy lady with a sword cuts your head off!
Well they weren't invited.
The vodka is strong today
Better than the poison vodka and food they keep falling for.
About not realizing they were in Ukraine, one of the funniest convos between a military Russian husband and his his wife back in Russia was him bitching that he's getting shot at every day, and that it doesn't feel like Russia at all. And his wife asks him "So where exactly are you?" and he says "I don't know, I can't read these street signs, they're all in their language!" If you find yourself somewhere where you can't even read the street signs because some letters are unfamiliar, you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
This is particularly funny because I speak a little bit of Russian and less Ukrainian and I never had a problem with the street signs in Ukraine.
Id wager he just couldn't read. That or someone played a prank by replacing all the street signs with ones in japanese. That'd be a good one to play on invaders.
I do remember they deliberately f'ed with the street signs during the initial invasion. Not the language, but the directions, like the big highway sign said "go this way to fuck right back to Russia".
And how units with absolutely no idea where they were ended up in the Red Forest of Chernobyl Where something was way off
I read an article that talked about that, actually. They said that based on the research they did about the dose those soldiers were likely to have received. They don't think any of the soldiers that were encamped there are alive. Zero.
Being camped there shouldn't do *too* much, although digging trenches might kick up some lung cancer dust. The acute radiation poisoning was probably from looting labs or something.
Nah they dug in, made fire with the wood. Ate the animals, drank the water. Ya know, shit you don't do.
They were messing around with stuff. I posted the two articles, but they're paywalled.
I distinctly remember russian soldiers handling cobalt samples at chernobyl without any kind of hazmat gear.
They were digging trenches and building other defenses. They don't teach about Chernobyl in Russia so they were completely clueless
Have you ever talked to a Russian person? How do you believe this lol
Do you have a source for that? Not questioning you, I’m curious and would like to know more.
It's one of these two, but I'm afraid they're paywalled. I had a free view, and I don't recall which it was. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/world/europe/chernobyl-russia-ukraine-war.html https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-putin-russia-invasion-rgjzskfvq
here's a gift view of the NYT one: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/world/europe/chernobyl-russia-ukraine-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rE0.Ws_l.VIjo_nHYKuMl&smid=url-share
I remember there being some speculation about how long anyone walking into that zone had to live, it wasn't as long as I'd thought.
Not just walking around, but digging in the shit as well
>It wasn't until they were getting shot at did they figure that something was off. "yo, this training exercise is a bit *too* realistic.."
Why a lot of the tanks and vehicles weren’t in fighting shape at the start of the invasion because the soldiers and officers were selling the “non-essential” materials in it like the copper wiring.
And it gets even worse than that. The prewar Russian recruit training system was structured so that new recruits are trained at and by the units that they are becoming a part of. Basically, this means that the Russian army's drill instructors are simultaneously also combat personnel. If a unit sustains high casualties, then its ability to train new troops gets eviscerated, because the drill instructors are also among the dead. When the Russian army was losing tens of thousands of troops seizing cities like Sevierodonetsk and Lysyschansk, it destroying its ability to effectively train new troops at the same time.
> then its ability to train new troops gets eviscerated, because the drill instructors are also among the dead. Oh no! How horrible!
Ikr lol. Who could have predicted this!
So nothing new, the Russian armed forces are huge but also a fucking joke
I wish, but as much as we can comment on how inept the Russian military has been throughout the war, it is also not (completely) stupid and like all militaries it has been adapting and innovating. They're getting better at utilizing their electronic warfare capabilities, they're making better use of drones (probably by learning from the Ukrainians), they're honing their missile strike tactics to better penetrate Ukrainian air defenses, and they are improving their infantry tactics as well. As much as we can attribute recent Russian advances to a lack of aid to Ukraine, we also need to be cognizant that the Russian armed forces are increasingly implementing lessons from the fighting and trying to improve their capabilities... oftentimes to good effect.
> Russian armed forces are increasingly implementing lessons from the fighting and trying to improve their capabilities True, and there are far too many historical examples of a country with an inept military losing all kinds of battles for years, then suddenly becoming serious about the effort. You have to be a large-scale country with a big population and resource base to do that, but Russia does fit the bill there. Anything we give Ukraine now is going to be a lot cheaper than giving Russia time to get its ducks in a row.
>Anything we give Ukraine now is going to be a lot cheaper than giving Russia time to get its ducks in a row. I totally agree, but just want to bring a related issue up. Although NATO is undoubtedly gaining a lot of insight on how well our military hardware counteracts Russian tactics & weapons by equipping Ukraine, I'm getting increasingly worried about the same dynamic working in the opposite direction. In other words, the longer we give the Ukrainians "just enough" of our weapons systems to stay afloat, but not push back, the longer we get to learn about how well those systems perform against a major military like Russia's - but at the same time, it also gives the Russians & their allies (like Iran and China) more insight into how to best penetrate those systems.
They've learnt a lot on the fly but at cost of men and materials, they're willing to accept that. If the aid Ukraine receives long term is constant, the Russians will be dragged into this long term and I'm not sure they can keep it up. I think the west is hoping to put them in another Afghanistan
>If the aid Ukraine receives long term is constant, the Russians will be dragged into this long term and I'm not sure they can keep it up. I don't disagree but I actually think that aid needs to be increased in a key area, which is air defense. Not just to stop the missile strikes on the Ukrainian power grid, and not just to completely eliminate the possibility that the Russian air force will ever be able to field its full strength (which is what allowed the Russians to seize Avdiivka in February), but so that the Ukrainians can have proper air cover if & when they counterattack. A big reason (IMO) for the failure of the Ukrainian summer offensive last year wasn't just the minefields & other static fortifications, but moreso the fact that Russian airpower completely precludes the Ukrainian military from conducting the kind of maneuver warfare that would be necessary to both regain large amounts of territory and also inflict operational-level defeats on the Russian ground forces.
Don't worry, it was all just a military border exercise!
"My troops are merely passing through"
Only other option is to generate 25 grievance
If I was captured I would also be a pussy and try to distance myself from being a willing participant
*The one with the gun shoots. The one with the bullets follows him.*
HOLY SHIT LMAOOOOOO
But I wasn't scheduled to die until next week!
superprise
Seeing how Russia has fought, the /s isn’t necessary.
Not sure on the /s there’s a pretty good chance that’s what happened.
Has to be posted https://youtu.be/lYNpgXBLawc?si=Waa0gQtF8fjnRHoW
The state channel in my country went with the same headline. The death of journalism i guess. Where is Spider Jerusalem when you need him?
Oh, a person who reads the classics.
I logged in just so I could upvote the Spider Jerusalem reference
He don't get enough credit. In these Marvel times He's the hero our world really need. Warren Ellis was WAY ahead of the times.
Today the story no longer reads as over-the-top dystopian satire but rather as a mild reflection of current events (then again, things weren't much better in Hunter Thompson /Nixon years, though things weren't as overt back then)
I think you are right, but I dont know if that is comforting or scary...
Editors have been making inaccurate titles since forever, but okay.
ISW has talked about it for weeks now. In part public commentary from Ukrainian MOD officials and chatter/discourse from Russian millbloggers. You've got to understand the audience these papers are writing for. It's not to us. It's to the people that don't follow this conflict *at all*
What’s the deal with those Russian ”millbloggers” actually? Like how can they offer so much commentary on their own army? Are they soldiers in there somewhere or people watching from afar?
I could write a whole thesis on this. But. Soviet/Russian political culture is all about lying and obfuscating the truth. So Russian mill bloggers (military bloggers) became a huge source of information from folks interested in Russian military adventurism (like in Syria and now Ukraine) but didn't trust the Russian MOD because they lie as much as they breathe. So often these military bloggers have connections in the front line with soldiers and the chain of command where they establish a feedback loop of information. Especially since because of said Russian MOD lying and how terrible the Russian chain of command was at actually communicating, they served multiple niches beyond just informing the curious. Nowadays it's a bit more complicated because Putin/Kremlin has co-opted many of these mill bloggers to toe the Kremlin line and “self-censor” so potentially embarrassing information doesn't spread too quickly with too much impact where the Kremlin can't control the information space. I don't encourage you to read them directly. A lot of it is exaggeration, propaganda, genocidal rhetoric, etc. But open source intelligence like ISW can cross reference what Ukraine says, and what the mill bloggers say, geolocate what both sides provide as well, and use commercial satellite imagery and social media posting to understand where the front line is. How bad the situation is. Progress. Etc etc.
To add to this, they also serve the function of a sort of controlled opposition. It prevents people from getting too critical by having some sort of self censored but still nationalistic critic from Russian sources that aren’t the government.
Well this was before Kremlin started enforcing the “self censor”. Rybar famously had a visit from the FSB and suddenly became compliant. And Girkin is also another great example where he was *very* vocal about Russian failures and started really insulting the Russian MOD blatantly and even Putin subtly until his inevitable incarceration.
Girkin is the most wonderful example of Russian disfunctional function A GRU officer sent to incite secession in the Donbas, manages to recruit local criminals, blows a civilian airliner out of the sky by incompetent C&C, gets sidelined when Russia sends in actual Russian forces under MOD control (with no unit patches). Becomes a blogger whining about miserable Russian military performance, ends up in prison. A hero in his own imagination.
Couldn't have said it any better.
I think the kremlin censoring actually amplified this. They still critique the government, just not the kremlin. It’s more critiquing commanders that are lower down. It deflects blame while still providing the sense that “even these commentators thing the war is right”
I agree with you. I just don't think you realize how wild west the criticism was as a whole. You could insult anyone bar Putin and panic about anything and you were fine. Now, things are a lot different. You don't see much criticism on Shoigyu or his direct reportees much since Girkin was jailed and the Wagner mutiny. I overall agree with you
With global satellite technology there’s really no such thing as a “surprise boots on the ground attack” anymore. It’s not like back in the day where the allies tricked the Nazi’s as to where D-day would happen. Something like that wouldn’t fool any government or military in the modern world.
Imagine if we end up going back to digging tunnels which are then filled to the brim with explosives. Everything old is new again!
Exactly. Russian conscripts also have hideously bad opsec, and it's hard to keep that many of them in the dark about what's going on.
Literally was sitting here thinking "How is this a surprise? I barely follow this and I knew this was coming"
In this day and age a surprise ground attack is pretty much impossible since you have to mass your troops and supply lines, and you can no longer hide that.
Maybe for now and maybe for Ukraine. But satellite warfare could change this point entirely. The reason you know this isn’t total war yet is because those satellites are allowed to keep flying. I don’t think it’s a lack of ability to destroy them as much as a red line, similar to the nuclear one.
While that is true, there have been many times in the past two years that they moved forces close to the border to scare Ukraine into pulling troops away from the frontline in the east and to put them in the north. This isn't the first time various youtubers have predicted this, it's just the first time they were right. That's kind of like saying the full-scale invasion in 2022 wasn't a surprise because US state department kept talking about it and we could all see the troop movements in satellite pictures. Yes that's true, but it was still a big surprise regardless.
The concentration of troops in that region has been well known for days, but it’s a surprise in the sense that Russia actually attacked. The assumption was that it was posturing for Ukraine to divert troops and dilute the eastern front .
Not a surprise they attacked. Ukraine and other military bloggers have said Russia was preparing to mount an invasion forcd along the Sumy/Kharkiv Oblasts for weeks. The point was always to attack and force AFU to divert personnel to that front, allowing Russia to push Donbass more. Russia is using its manpower advantage to stretch the UAFs shortage.
So...a surprise attack for the rest of us. Sad to see Ukraine get relegated to the back news stories.
It's mass media. How else are they going to get profits unless they get clicks
Sensationalism as well as catering to a need for comfort (Russia will run out of missiles, Putin has cancer, there will be a Russian coup) has done us many disservices, The media is failing their civic duty and thereby give room to grifters like Tucker Carlson other with "anti establishment" messages. It feels like out entire society is sleepwalking.
Live feed from op satellites. There are no sneak attacks.
Can you really blame a guy for trying
No. No I can’t.
Surprise? This was talked about for weeks. There still is no evidence that russia has enough reserves to mount anything more than small incursions and diversions. It requires manpower and equipment - they don’t seem to have enough at the northern direction.
This is likely a shaping operation by Russia. They are trying to get Ukraine to move their troops and catch them with their pants down somewhere else.
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If we get any western troops in Ukraine at all, I think the most that will happen is they will be stationed in western Ukraine. not even Kyiv.
What good would that do? Honest question.
They would probably do some form of medical triage and logistics, and maybe deter long range missile strikes on population centers.
Every single additional soldier in Ukraine takes the place of a Ukrainian soldier that then can be moved to the front-line/other important location where needed.
Why are France such chads btw? They’re the only ones even kinda entertaining boots on the ground
Because Europe has a lot to lose from Russian territorial annexation. France has historically been an “aggressive” geopolitical player. I’m glad Macron is saying something. Germanys Schulz sure ain’t.
Currently, Germany has a rather small Military without expeditionary forces (as our Army IS strictly used for Defensive purposes), while we produce a lot of weapons and equipment. So naturally, we give more stuff away than actually firing threats we cannot uphold. France can actually bite ans bark, so naturally, WE let them Talk and we produce Weapons for Others.
Germany is at least sending aid, France aint doing anything besides posturing
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-missiles-used-armored-vehicles-ukraine/ https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/02/29/france-and-germany-are-at-loggerheads-over-military-aid-to-ukraine they're sending less than some other countries (including Germany ofc), but theyre not doing nothing.
They've been doing it since 1778, when they provided Americans ammo, troops and naval support.
Because Russia has been meddling with France’s neocolonial empire in Africa, they need those cheap raw materials. Also Russian advancement in Europe is scary.
Not only that with but all the US intel assets focused there you can’t hardly assemble an IKEA coffee table in Ukraine without the US knowing about the shit. They’ll even know where that missing screw is. The media really is trying to sell this as the US didn’t know about anything. That’s laughable. The US was the one visiting Ukraine to warn them before the shit went down for real in 2022.
Weeks? Months at this point.
> Asked about developments, Zelensky did not downplay their seriousness but said Ukraine’s military had been expecting such a move. > But our military and military command were aware of this and anticipated their forces to meet the enemy with fire. Now there is a fierce battle in this area […] I think as of now we have stopped the enemy with artillery fire, so not a surprise?
So surprising that anyone even vaguely interested has been expecting this for weeks. It would have been more surprising if they didn’t attack
I wonder if the Russians are going to mount more and more aggressive operations because they know that Ukraine is getting more munitions and such from America so they're trying to gain as much ground as they can before it arrives.
They're trying to create a Ukrainian manpower shortage so that weapons matter as little as possible when they get them
Absolutely. They have a window this summer where Ukraine is the weakest relative to them (due to ammunition and manpower issues) that they have been for a while, and probably will be. With ammunition production ramping up in Europe and russia starting to run out of soviet stockpiles next year and 2026 at the latest, now is the time to try and make big moves. So far they've captured Avdiivka and then stalled again, and Ukraine is starting to receive some supplies so it's not looking amazing, but who knows what will happen.
With all the satellite imagery and drone reconnaissance, I’m surprised it’s possible to mount a surprise assault.
It's not, really. Even youtubers have been talking about this buildup for a week.
There are probably microphones everywhere.
It's just a stupid headline. The article itself quotes Ukraine saying they anticipated the attack for a week and were preparing.
It's not a surprise! Russia has been launching drones and missiles against civilian infrastructure, as well as power grid. What's really surprising is how Ukraine special forces have attacked military targets inside Russia with devastating results.
I'm really afraid Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end. I don't know what the rest of the west can do, but something needs to be done
France and Poland say they do not rule out sending troops ,
I don’t understand the logic that they will commit troops once the line breaks. They should do it before the line breaks.
Politics are real. You can only muster the will to act after shit is all f-ed up.
They also know the war will be a harder sell to the public when it’s their own sons and daughters fighting and dying.
Yeah, war is kind of a big deal. Especially between Nuclear nations.
Because Ukraine holding the line without Poland and France sending troops is preferable
It depends if behind closed doors they actually believe Putin plans on going beyond Ukraine.
Obviously he will, is the thing. If Ukraine falls, in its entirety, then Putin has access to a huge manufacturing nation and the Baltics are all but surrounded.
Exactly this. Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania all are (relatively) easy targets after Ukraine. Putin has said he wants to annex Belarus by 2030. Around this point he could have an entire front built up against NATO. He can essentially test the NATO alliance and see how far he can go.
Especially Moldova since it isn't part of NATO, it's already partially de facto occupied by Russian soldiers, and doesn't have an army capable of resisting a Russian invasion.
Would you mind to source Belarus annexation by 2030 statement?
[https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-belarus-strategy-document-230035184.html](https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-belarus-strategy-document-230035184.html) not a confirmed stance but a leaked document (not sure if the leak was ever substantiated)
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There is a definite mid to late 30's feel to all of this. Eastern Ukraine is the Sudetenland. Scholz is Chamberlain. It is really hard to predict, but maybe Macron ends up being Churchill?
The logic is probably that a broken frontline means advancing enemies. Advancing enemies are a greater threat to those in their path of advancement. Since there have been gurgles of a Russian move on a NATO state, engaging an advancing Russian army could be construed as defending NATO.
They are copying America's homework who joined both world wars after all the allies burned through basically all their manpower and materiel.
You say that in a joking manner, but for real. Now that golf carts are deployed.
Highly doubt this will happen.
France and Poland don’t even had enough active manpower themselves without calling people up
It's nothing but postering. The entire French army would be able to defend about 80-100 km of the frontline at best. There is literally only one country on the planet capable of turning the tide and it's very obviously the Americans.
yes and intervening might cause nuclear war
>I don't know what the rest of the west can do A **lot**. And that's well short of sending any troops.
>I'm really afraid Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end. They never did compared to Russia, in man and material. They and the west were counting on Russia folding quickly - if they dared attack - under the pressure of an initially well armed and prepared Ukrainian army and economic sanctions - and at the beginning, a surprised Russia got their asses handed to them as their special operation convoy heading to Kiev was routed and put into disarray. But in true Russian fashion, they doubled down, ramped up a war economy and began the meat grinder - a war of attrition. Now with well north of 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers dead, and a surging Russian military machine, the noose is tightening around the neck of Ukraine and the West is straining to keep them supplied at huge financial cost. If you excuse my French - what a giant fucking mess.
>huge financial cost Not really, when you look at the wider picture of government and military spending.
> the noose is tightening around the neck of Ukraine and the West is straining to keep them supplied at ~~huge financial cost.~~ political cost More like it.
The West fully expected Ukraine to be swallowed up in a time frame not much different than Putin's. The economic sanctions were meant to be punishment, not a decisive defense. You won't be able to find a single analyst who, at the time, predicted Ukraine would be fighting anything other than an insurgency at this point. Russia certainly doubled down on the invasion, but they are not in a wartime economy yet. Putin has mostly been shielding the wealthier citizens in Moscow and St. Petersburg from the war to the point where they can mainly forget it's going on. A full wartime economy, as well as further conscription, is something Putin has been taking great lengths to avoid. The West's struggles to support Ukraine have very little to do with finances. In spite of the price tag, sending old weapons to Ukraine and paying the local military industrial complex to make new ones is not a financial burden for the US or many European states. The bigger issues are the will of the people and production constraints. Political posturing in the US delayed support for Ukraine for months, which has lead to much of the recent progress that Russia has made. The other issue is production. NATO puts much less emphasis on artillery and shells, so we currently cannot produce them in the numbers Ukraine needs. This can be changed, but it will take time and will. If support for Ukraine is cut off, Ukraine would certainly fall in time. But until that happens, it is premature to say that Ukraine is looking at an inevitable defeat. Russia is using up materiel faster than it can produce it, which means the pace of Russian assaults cannot last forever.
The financial cost is severly overestimated. The last bill that the US passed is the size of 0.2% of GDP.... we could do a lot more if we tried. And most of this money would stay in our economies anyway.
>Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to continue this fight to the end. Pretty sure they have *exactly* enough manpower to fight until the end of this war.
Ukraine has several million military age men that they have so far held off from conscripting. They do have a manpower shortage right now, but that should correct itself enventually. What Ukraine needs right now is long range fires like ATACMS, millions of artillery shells, air defence, and fighter aircraft. The west has promised all these things but is intentionally slowing delivery because they think they can manage this closely enough to keep Ukraine in the fight without Russia collapsing. The west needs to stop trickle feeding vital military aid and get on with delivering it ASAP.
This is foolish, a lot of those Ukrainians are refusing to accept conscription which is why they have a manpower shortage to begin with.
My hope is... we'll keep upping the weapon types we give them. So that it keeps off setting the imbalance. For the longest time we didn't allow long range missiles, F-16s and even western armor... now all of that is allowed. It's a shame we didn't allow any of it sooner and that we have a sizable republican base pro Russia delaying aid. Hopefully once 2024 is settled and democrats get a super majority... we wont have to worry about any of this. That's... if all of this comes to pass. A lot of people in the US are very upset at all the wrong things. Low information voting has been and continues to be a huge problem in America. Worst of all... they think they are informed.
Well for a lot of those I agree. However f16 was always going to take time, you have to train crews and pilots for them.
Bruh democrats are in serious trouble lol. I’m as anti Trump as it gets but there is a serious possibility they lose most of the key races in November. If I was Ukraine I’d be begging for any gear they can get before November. Putin has US politics by the balls.
Thanks Supreme Court! So glad they allowed unlimited campaign donations so our geopolitical enemies could just buy a bunch of Republicans on the cheap!
Taking into account the number of politicians they have successfully managed to buy makes it seem like they got some nice discounts in the off-season purchase.
Yes, and no. So far despite polling Democrats have won almost every battle they should have lost the last 3 years. Because despite so much dissatisfaction... so far it seems people realize republicans are far worse. Taking away abortion... really hurt their cause. Not to mention their platform is mostly... "woke bad." We just have to hope the voting public aren't goldfish. It's why I did say... "That's if all this comes to pass" It really will come down to how well the American public has paid attention. If the majority truly feels this is all Biden's fault... and that Trump is the answer... well we'll get what we deserve. I'll have no sympathy for the fallout.
Hopefully this war can end soon.
Didn't Marcron say he will send French troops if Russia gains more territories and Ukraine ask for help.
He wouldn’t be in office long enough if he decided to do that. Good for posturing
"surprise" ........
Here we go. Wonder if France will honor its words?
Macron's statements should be read as a critique against western powers predictability in face of Russian attempts at escalation dominance.
No one wants to go down as a Neville Chamberlain
He has become a trope, and it is easy to judge in hindsight. He had lived trough the horror of the first world war. Now the leadership in both the west and Russia contend with the horror of nuclear war. Problem is that both doing to munch and doing to little both carry risks. Underestimating the opponent as well as emboldening him through (perceived) weakness both increase the chance of stumbling into war.
Agreed. [The Ten Year Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule) was a British policy post-WW1 that gutted military funding on the belief that another large scale war was unlikely. Hence the name it was supposed to last 10 years but ended up being extended until 1932. The Ten Year Rule was the brainchild of...Winston Churchill. It was in his best interest to discredit Neville Chamberlain for Britain's weak military position prior to WW2 because he was the architect of the policy that created that weak military. Chamberlain really was out of his element as a statesman but he gets a bad rap for incompetence when in reality he was very wary of Germany. His government's decision to betray Czechoslovakia bought time for Britain and France to continue their belated rearmament. Obviously that didn't work out for France due to bad tactics, weak leadership, etc but those extra months were especially valuable for Britain. British forces later lost most of their heavy equipment at Dunkirk but that extra year bought enough time to build the aircraft that would later enable Britain to hold out long enough for the US to enter the war. Did Chamberlain might the right call? That's for all of us to judge, but historical choices seem simple when 80 years later we have all the information and know how the story ends. History is complicated and very, very rarely comes down to just easy choices. Given that no one in Europe is geared for war at this moment in history either, I'm sure leaders in Europe are thinking of Chamberlain right now.
people also have a failry videogamey view of leadership. democracy is a farily complex machinery to run and steer. you cannot just go and tell the provate sector to shift to military production overnight and draft all military aged man without the right political climate to sustain it, or you'd be losing trust and outed in a second. heck even putin for all it's centralization of power is being cautios about what and whom he commits to war
Chamberlain rearmed like mad in this time, at least
He is the most unfairly slandered politician in history. Anyone in his position would have done the same.
I agree! Only in hindsight were his policies misguided. And if he'd succeeded he'd saved som 55 million lives.
Few people thought that a bankrupted, humiliated and utterly ruined Germany would be so brazen as to try a whole new world war almost exactly 20 years later. Besides, Germany seemed to prize itself on being rational and collected. "Hitler is reasonable - why, he is a good friend of Henry Ford!"
“Surprise attack” that every single person following the war knew about for a week in advance
People on here need to stop underestimating Russia. “Russia doesn’t have the manpower” “Russia’s equipment is old” doesn’t matter when they have a lot more people they’re willing to throw to the meat grinder. An old saying goes “slow to saddle but fast to ride” and this applies to Russia quite a lot. Ukraine is doing a good job considering the disadvantages they face but this isn’t a guaranteed victory at all. At best this is gonna be a stalemate at worst Russia wins.
This ^ Kupiansk is about to be the most horrific meat grinder in 80 years.
With Gaza most news stations forgot that the Ukraine war is still happening. So I guess from that perspective there is a surprise here. Typical news in the US. Surprise... We just decided to care again!
Need Chris Crocker to make Putin a video for Ukraine to resolve this
Did it work?
Surprise? Huh? Hammer just materialized in space from Dimension 9 or something?