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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

Spymaster said:
To let the Russians know what's coming probably, and to bolster the Ukranians. This is another low-level weapon though whilst they really need something to take out high level aircraft and cruise missiles.

How does the shooter guide the warhead onto the target kebabking ? Is it like a video game where it's done on a screen within the unit?
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Yeah. Beam riding so it can't be spoofed by jamming, chaff or flares, but not fire and forget and it needs the Gunner to be able to see the target the whole time.

Swings and roundabouts. Nothing is perfect.
 
kebabking said:
And in more 'honestly boys - dead easy, 20 minutes in and out. Quick adventure and then back for beers...' news from the cranks, but important Putin supporters' on Russian TV....



It does rather chime with the idea that Ukraine is just one part of a wider objective - and that if Ukraine turns to shit, just bin it and go to the next one. I'm sure that invading 2 NATO countries - 3 really, because they'll want to go through Estonia to get to Lithuania - will be easier than invading Ukraine.....
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A sound plan with no discernable drawbacks or flaws!
 
cupid_stunt said:
Judging by interviews with Ukrainians who have Russian relatives that will just not believe what they are saying, but instead quote back what they are being told by Russian media, certainly some are falling for it, but what percentage is impossible to know.

I find those interviews hard reading, fancy just dismissing what your family members are experiencing. :(
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You don't need to look further than the divisions in "the west" over covid and vaccines to see how entirely possible this is... It's psychotic, but also the end result of a steady drip-feed campaign of negativity that's been going on for years in a supposedly pluralistic free-press society. I'd imagine it's even easier to prime and indoctrinate people when you have near total control of the media landscape...
 
emanymton said:
While those stories are hard reading, it is worth remembering we don't really know how common it is. We are not likely to hear of the cases we're people phone their relatives in Russia and don't have those reactions as that is not going to get reported.
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Bit of anecdata. I've a Russian friend who's been in the UK for about 25 years. She was talking to her cousin who lives in Russia and who I've met -- she's early 30s, speaks excellent English, works as a translator and has spent a reasonable amount of time here/Western Europe.

The cousin thinks there's equal fault/blame on the Ukrainian/Russian sides. So she may not completely believe the Russian 'liberating Ukraine from the fascists' line but she does think Ukraine brought much of it on themselves. Her mother (who I'm guessing is 60s maybe?) and who also lives in Russian completely believes the Russian line.
 
cupid_stunt said:
Sky showed a brief clip of the Russian Foreign Minster, the presenter said, 'if you are playing Ukrainian bingo, you would have got a few hits there - neo-Nazis, cancel counter, invasion of Donbass, the west good at playing with words - typically foolish words from the minister'. :D

ETA - from the Guardian live updates.
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Rationally. I don't see how Russia can look to anything before 17th Feb without coming across as the biligerant lying wankers they are....
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...-ridicule-western-media-on-day-of-no-invasion
 
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dilute micro said:
It's about understanding things in their measure. The military commanders who said things aren't going well for Russia aren't stupid or mistaken. To say the Russians failed in their planning, for instance to supply fuel and ammo for "just in case the Ukrainians don't fold" doesn't mean that the Russians can't resupply to make up for it. Still, according to sound strategy, it was a failure. The public want conclusion type answers but that's not how things actually are.
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I have nowhere said things are going well for the Russians. I have said that we're hearing much of the imminent failure of their army as which doesn't seem to me wholly borne out by events on the ground. Being as all the experts were plucky little Ukraine will be crushed I'm inclined not to give their opinions undue weight atm
 
Meanwhile, from the FT
Anatoly Chubais has quit his post as Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special climate envoy, making him the highest-ranking official to leave the Kremlin since the war in Ukraine began a month ago.
www.ft.com

Top Kremlin official Anatoly Chubais quits as Putin’s climate envoy

Adviser is highest-ranking government figure to resign since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
www.ft.com www.ft.com
 
kebabking said:
Yeah. Beam riding so it can't be spoofed by jamming, chaff or flares, but not fire and forget and it needs the Gunner to be able to see the target the whole time.

Swings and roundabouts. Nothing is perfect.
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They reach Mach 3.5. Not entirely sure what I was expecting, but seeing the anti-tank ones blasting off, from being fired to the tank being toast is very much the blink of an eye, no time for John Mcclane to crawl away to safety...
 
Pickman's model said:
I have nowhere said things are going well for the Russians. I have said that we're hearing much of the imminent failure of their army as which doesn't seem to me wholly borne out by events on the ground. Being as all the experts were plucky little Ukraine will be crushed I'm inclined not to give their opinions undue weight atm
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Propaganda has been stepped up a notch in that regard in recent days, probably because Russia isnt achieving much in the north and so there is a real opportunity to amplify that message at the moment. Since I dont confuse my hopes with reality, I am left with nothing much new to say at all at the moment. I do watch the situation with interest, Russia could be in the shit, but its a question of quite how far to run with these ideas.

I suppose in the meantime I could comment on how obvious the BBC made it that so far they dont want to actually report anything Wallace said in that hoax call. Other UK media entities are much happier to report most but not all of the detail. The MoD is trying to exert pressure on youtube to remove the clips.

The BBC article from yesterday that said as little as possible beyond a vague reference to the nuclear stuff mentioned in the first clip:

www.bbc.co.uk

Video clip of hoax call with UK minister Ben Wallace published

The UK blames Russia for the call targeted at Ben Wallace during a visit to Poland last week.
www.bbc.co.uk

The Guardian werent exactly keen to report on exactly what was said about the nuclear stuff in that clip either:

www.theguardian.com

Video released showing Russian hoax call with UK defence secretary

‘Russian state actors’ blamed for prank call made to Ben Wallace
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

The nuclear stuff wasnt terribly exciting so I'm only drawing attention to it because of the omissions in reporting, which tend to happen for a reason. Most articles invite us to instead focus on the idea it was doctored and the bit the MoD said was missing about how we couldnt support such things because of nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and dont seem terribly keen to mention the line "the principal is, we will support Ukraine as our friend in the choices you make".

The Guardian were much more forthcoming when it came to reporting the details of the 2nd published clip:

www.theguardian.com

UK running low on anti-tank weapons, defence secretary tells Russian hoaxers

Impostors posing as Ukrainian PM post new YouTube clip with Ben Wallace’s response to claim that arms have failed
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

In a clip posted to YouTube, Wallace looks bewildered as the hoaxer says the NLAWs (next generation light anti-tank weapons) that the UK has supplied to Ukraine have failed. Wallace said he was in touch daily with Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov.

“I don’t think ours have failed. I’ve got the details of ours. We’ve given you over 4,000. We’ve got more coming,” he said. “We’re running out of our own. I speak to Reznikov and text him every day.”
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Bahnhof Strasse said:
They reach Mach 3.5. Not entirely sure what I was expecting, but seeing the anti-tank ones blasting off, from being fired to the tank being toast is very much the blink of an eye, no time for John Mcclane to crawl away to safety...
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Starstreak has a useful anti-armour secondary capability as well - it won't rip a tank apart like Javelin, but it will make a mess of stuff on the outside like the gun, optics, wheels/tracks etc..

I wonder if the Russians will run out of Generals before we run out of missiles...
 
This interview with Timothy Snyder, historian, is worth a watch. A shortened version of it was on C4 News yesterday Ukraine is ‘defending all of us’ from Putin – Timothy Snyder Interview He says Putin is basically an imperialist who will invade Poland if he succeeds in Ukraine. I think Western leaders accept this now, and they'll equip Ukraine with heavy weapons. It's already WW3 but without nukes and Ukraine as a proxy for Nato. No use pretending any different.
 
David Clapson said:
This interview with Timothy Snyder, historian, is worth a watch. A shortened version of it was on C4 News yesterday Ukraine is ‘defending all of us’ from Putin – Timothy Snyder Interview He says Putin is basically an imperialist who will invade Poland if he succeeds in Ukraine. I think Western leaders accept this now, and they'll equip Ukraine with heavy weapons. It's already WW3 but without nukes and Ukraine as a proxy for Nato. No use pretending any different.
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The idea that WW3 has already started, but we haven't turned up yet, has significant traction in eastern and northern Europe. I rather believe it, and only time will tell whether Russia is Germany, or whether Russia is Italy, with China being Germany....
 
About the generals problem, was reading something along the lines of Russia has a blame culture, when something goes wrong someone must be blamed, hence we see house arrests and sackings over Ukraine and so on. The result of this is that people do nothing, cos you can't fuck up doing nothing. This in turn forces the big cheeses on to the floor to micro-manage the situations and Russian big cheeses are clearly identifiable as such and as a result are easy pickings for the snipers.
 
kebabking said:
The idea that WW3 has already started, but we haven't turned up yet, has significant traction in eastern and northern Europe. I rather believe it, and only time will tell whether Russia is Germany, or whether Russia is Italy, with China being Germany....
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We have turned up, by supplying weapons, and presumably intel. The next step is heavy weapons. The next step after that is 'advisers' in Ukraine. But we'll deny that.
 
kebabking said:
The idea that WW3 has already started, but we haven't turned up yet, has significant traction in eastern and northern Europe. I rather believe it
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Why do you believe it, is it basically because of what you reckon is likely to go on in the brain of Putin, so that he may be unable to resist provoking it (by doing something that unavoidably will result in escalation)?
 
bimble said:
Why do you believe it, is it basically because of what you reckon is likely to go on in the brain of Putin, so that he may be unable to resist provoking it (by doing something that unequivocally will result in escalation)?
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I think he's got - and the wider Russian political class have got - a vision of 'historic Russia' both in terms of geography and in terms of political influence, and that it doesn't stop at Ukraine.

I think the evidence for WW3 having already started is convincing, but I accept that others take the view that so far what we've seen is 'just' the friction of strategic competition, and I can see the validity of that view.
 
bimble said:
Why do you believe it, is it basically because of what you reckon is likely to go on in the brain of Putin, so that he may be unable to resist provoking it (by doing something that unavoidably will result in escalation)?
Click to expand...

I spent a bit of time last day or so watching some clips of Russian media (media heads themselves and representatives of the Russian State speaking) and some of the language and underlying politics that gets used is quite a shocking reality check.

I think it's clear that it's not just Putin at all, and that there is some ideological drive towards a 'not just Ukraine' kind of position among the Russian ruling elite, with Poland particularly getting mentioned frequently as 'next'. And this is alongside the use of nuclear weapons being mentioned quite freely, and also a quite stunning level of absolute bullshit being peddled as 'news'.

I'm not sure about the WW3 in it's early days thing, but it doesn't strike me as a wild position at all. I guess the question is 'is it possible or likely to be right' and if so how does that impact how we see the fighting in Ukraine and what we do about it?
 
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