Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-25

[existentialist]

I was just trying to understand what existentialist was on about, he seems to think that Russia is bluffing, pretending to be crap whilst all the good war machines & proper hard soldiers are waiting in the wings.

No, not on that scale.

Every military does it - practice whatever deception they can, eg, allowing the media/public/spies to see one thing to create one impression, while doing something different somewhere else. A key part of old-fashioned Soviet military doctrine was to draw the enemy into a "firesack" with a feinting force, and then have a big fat knockout blow ready to attack them in the flank.

I mean, yes, there's the strategic maskirovka, Putin saying "we will not attack Ukraine" while making sure he's ready to do exactly that, but it's turtles all the way down, and at each level, the military will be doing its best to confuse and misdirect the enemy.

OTOH, it may simply be that Russia was/is so confident of its supremacy that it doesn't give a shit who knows where its tanks are going, because they won't be able to stop enough of them for it to really matter.

 

[Ax^]

Hardly likely really if he wants to stay out of hospital.

Do we know where he is? Is he back in the Motherland?

think someone mentioned it early in the thread a plane owned by him flown to russia for Putins meeting with oligarths

 

[RileyOBlimey]

It is somewhat concerning that airports are capable of having cyber attacks on their systems.

Any computing system can be attacked, even if it’s not connected to the Internet and heavily guarded and monitored. If you don’t believe me google “stuxnet”.

…but don’t encourage elbows they’ve gone done a rabbit hole led by rumours created by numpties. If we go full Cyber Phwoar it’ll be credibly reported.

 

[Sprocket.]

deleted.

 

[platinumsage]

Maybe start a new thread for BA's IT failures, unless someone has any evidence whatsoever it's linked to this topic other than idle speculation.

 

[bimble]

It would be naive to expect the senior leadership to always flee. There are examples where they do and examples where they dont, its not something plans should be hinged around.

sure. I'd be surprised though if the recent spectacle of the president getting out of Afghanistan superquick with suitcases of cash wasn't fresh in the memory in moscow.
ETA oh I see youve edited to add an Afghan bit. Which I agree with.

 

[Sprocket.]

Maybe start a new thread for BA's IT failures, unless someone has any evidence whatsoever it's linked to this topic other than idle speculation.

Good point.

 

[elbows]

Well we dont know if it was such an attack, I jut keep that possibility open because of the timing and because cover stories are a thing. Plus attacks on IT infrastructure arent necessarily cyber attacks as such, they may involve physical or direct human sabotage of equipment and network infrastructure.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Any computing system can be attacked, even if it’s not connected to the Internet and heavily guarded and monitored. If you don’t believe me google “stuxnet”.

A computer system is only as well guarded as its most incompetent user let's it be.

 

[RileyOBlimey]

Well we dont know if it was such an attack, I jut keep that possibility open because of the timing and because cover stories are a thing. Plus attacks on IT infrastructure arent necessarily cyber attacks as such, they may involve physical or direct human sabotage of equipment and network infrastructure.

Take this to another thread.

 

[gosub]

yeah - that is pretty headscratching - again - did the russian military not want to waste their best troops on something they felt was a massive mistake?

Old timer who helped sort out snatch land rovers has it as classic tactics. He was saying that prior to him being proved massively wrong about Putin invading but got that bit right from the look of it. Why you try soviet tactics on an ex soviet adversary I don't know

 

[Ax^]

Well we dont know if it was such an attack, I jut keep that possibility open because of the timing and because cover stories are a thing. Plus attacks on IT infrastructure arent necessarily cyber attacks as such, they may involve physical or direct human sabotage of equipment and network infrastructure.

as someone who has dealing with Ba quite a bit

i can say they quite shite without the Russians causing problems


British Airways passengers stranded after IT failures

 

[friedaweed]

Try rubbing it.

Fuck that I've just been chopping chilli peppers.

 

[brogdale]

Some photo.

 

[elbows]

as someone who has dealing with Ba quite a bit

i can say they quite shite without the Russians causing problems


British Airways passengers stranded after IT failures

As I've said before thats why I keep an open mind, I leap to none of the possible conclusions. I simply dont rule things out when there is a lack of clear information about the nature of the failures. So far there has been a denial that its a cyber attack and a few words about how it was a hardware failure, and very few updates, although I'm just looking for those right now.

And even if I say nothing about it at all, other people will still be tempted to put 2 and 2 together and mention it here because of the timing. We arent going to eliminate speculation about all manner of things on a thread like this during a war.

 

[CyberRose]

2,500 people have been arrested for protesting against the war in 50 cities across Russia

(Source: RT, so could be a conservative estimate)

 

[Ax^]

As I've said before thats why I keep an open mind, I leap to none of the possible conclusions. I simply dont rule things out when there is a lack of clear information about the nature of the failures. So far there has been a denial that its a cyber attack and a few words about how it was a hardware failure, and very few updates, although I'm just looking for those right now.

And even if I say nothing about it at all, other people will still be tempted to put 2 and 2 together and mention it here because of the timing. We arent going to eliminate speculation about all manner of things on a thread like this during a war.

hey its cool just i work in an airline related industry and you have no idea how shite ba can be at times

i get notifications of stuff being offloaded and i just reply "opertional reason" to the ba team

had an epic failure in one job about 8 years ago of a missing AOG part that disappeared for a few days
turned out some of the warehouse staff were using it as a table

 

[RileyOBlimey]

As I've said before thats why I keep an open mind, I leap to none of the possible conclusions. I simply dont rule things out when there is a lack of clear information about the nature of the failures. So far there has been a denial that its a cyber attack and a few words about how it was a hardware failure, and very few updates, although I'm just looking for those right now.

And even if I say nothing about it at all, other people will still be tempted to put 2 and 2 together and mention it here because of the timing. We arent going to eliminate speculation about all manner of things on a thread like this during a war.

Here’s a thread for ill-informed, fact free speculation: Ukraine: Unsubstantiated rumours and speculation

Please do inject further FUD to this thread.

 

[Cid]

No, not on that scale.

Every military does it - practice whatever deception they can, eg, allowing the media/public/spies to see one thing to create one impression, while doing something different somewhere else. A key part of old-fashioned Soviet military doctrine was to draw the enemy into a "firesack" with a feinting force, and then have a big fat knockout blow ready to attack them in the flank.

I mean, yes, there's the strategic maskirovka, Putin saying "we will not attack Ukraine" while making sure he's ready to do exactly that, but it's turtles all the way down, and at each level, the military will be doing its best to confuse and misdirect the enemy.

OTOH, it may simply be that Russia was/is so confident of its supremacy that it doesn't give a shit who knows where its tanks are going, because they won't be able to stop enough of them for it to really matter.

Yeah, but the world has changed. You can't hide a major deployment now... at least not a moving one, especially after the war has started. And there's probably a degree of inflexibility here... a lot of pre-planned movements and actions requiring wide coordination. Lot of voices from different elements of the military etc. Not experienced commanders making tactical decisions in their particular theatre of operations. Of course we've now all gone from armchair epidemiologists to armchair generals, could be hopelessly wrong.

 

[Aladdin]

How many do you seriously think would take that option, which would involve leaving their families behind to be punished by Putin's lot?

If its seen as desertion it wont have been the first time Russians deserted.

Russia offered amnesty to deserters after ww2 and they were treated well believe it or not.

 

[Dogsauce]

hopefully without trying to sound like a contrarian arse in asking this question, how confident are people on here that things are actually going badly for Russia? How much of their setbacks are representative of general incompetence/poor planning vs isolated incidents or fake news significantly amplified by wishful thinking?

I’d love Putin to be falling on his arse here but I’m just not confident this is actually happening or that the information I’m seeing is representative. Maybe this is just because I have such low expectations of the world. Ukraine could just fall in 24 hours and it’ll all seem futile, like those general elections when you were sure the Tories were going to fuck up because labour had a good ground game getting the vote out and everyone was optimistically sharing pictures of young people queuing at polling stations, only for the bad guys to triumph as usual. Am I right to be this pessimistic? I mean good on all these citizens resisting invasion, but they have a hell of a fight on their hands.

 

[cupid_stunt]

If its seen as desertion it wont have been the first time Russians deserted.

Russia offered amnesty to deserters after ww2 and they were treated well believe it or not.

And, the key point there is AFTER the war, during the war the order was that superiors had to shoot deserters on the spot, and their family members were subjected to arrest.

 

[tommers]

hopefully without trying to sound like a contrarian arse in asking this question, how confident are people on here that things are actually going badly for Russia? How much of their setbacks are representative of general incompetence/poor planning vs isolated incidents or fake news significantly amplified by wishful thinking?

I’d love Putin to be falling on his arse here but I’m just not confident this is actually happening or that the information I’m seeing is representative. Maybe this is just because I have such low expectations of the world. Ukraine could just fall in 24 hours and it’ll all seem futile, like those general elections when you were sure the Tories were going to fuck up because labour had a good ground game getting the vote out and everyone was optimistically sharing pictures of young people queuing at polling stations, only for the bad guys to triumph as usual. Am I right to be this pessimistic? I mean good on all these citizens resisting invasion, but they have a hell of a fight on their hands.

Yeah I have a sneaking suspicion that we are that guy saying there are no Americans near Baghdad with the Abrams in the background.

 

[elbows]

hopefully without trying to sound like a contrarian arse in asking this question, how confident are people on here that things are actually going badly for Russia? How much of their setbacks are representative of general incompetence/poor planning vs isolated incidents or fake news significantly amplified by wishful thinking?

I'm not confident which is why I keep talking about those aspects, especially since I always focus on propaganda. Its too early to tell and as I've said several times, some well placed people in Russia were led to believe the main operation would last about two weeks. So until more shit happens and/or more time passes, its mostly a combination of speculation, little snippets of real info that dont provide the big picture, and propaganda.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I'm not confident which is why I keep talking about those aspects, especially since I always focus on propaganda. Its too early to tell and as I've said several times, some well placed people in Russia were led to believe the main operation would last about two weeks. So until more shit happens and/or more time passes, its mostly a combination of speculation, little snippets of real info that dont provide the big picture, and propaganda.

Yes, you have said it several times that you don't know, now can you stop repeating yourself and boring everyone else?

 

[emanymton]

hopefully without trying to sound like a contrarian arse in asking this question, how confident are people on here that things are actually going badly for Russia? How much of their setbacks are representative of general incompetence/poor planning vs isolated incidents or fake news significantly amplified by wishful thinking?

I’d love Putin to be falling on his arse here but I’m just not confident this is actually happening or that the information I’m seeing is representative. Maybe this is just because I have such low expectations of the world. Ukraine could just fall in 24 hours and it’ll all seem futile, like those general elections when you were sure the Tories were going to fuck up because labour had a good ground game getting the vote out and everyone was optimistically sharing pictures of young people queuing at polling stations, only for the bad guys to triumph as usual. Am I right to be this pessimistic? I mean good on all these citizens resisting invasion, but they have a hell of a fight on their hands.

Yeah I'm worried about this to. There are bound to be things that go wrong or don't go to plan for Russia that is normal and to be be expect and should be accounted for in their planning. I'm worried we are hearing about their failures not their success and ultimate they can outlast the Ukrainian army.

Also we don't know what the Russian expections where. Everyone seems to think they expected Ukraine to fall in couple of days. But do we know that? They might expect it to take a couple of weeks, or more. In which case things are probably on track for them.

 

[weltweit]

Some photo.

View attachment 312018

Hope she isn't going to continue resting her AK with its barrel on the ground, on another type of ground she might block its spout.

eta: brave women though, hope they survive.

 

[CyberRose]

hopefully without trying to sound like a contrarian arse in asking this question, how confident are people on here that things are actually going badly for Russia?

That's the question I think. I don't live in the UK so I'm getting my updates from live news on YouTube - Sky and NBC mainly, but I've also been tuning in to RT and it's eye-opening the difference in reporting. RT is quite obviously biased so I take it with a pinch of salt, but then that makes me think why shouldn't I take the other news sources with a pinch of salt which are, on this topic, equally as biased. I certainly wouldn't trust what people are saying on Twitter (everyone's been talking about the "Ghost of Kyiv", an ace fighter pilot picking the Russians off; when they found out it was fake they said "oh well, it's good propaganda so I'll keep believing it").

What I know from all sources is that private Ukrainian citizens are taking up arms, and Kyiv is not (yet?) in Russian hands. Take from that what you will.

 

[Diamond]

Another IL-76 claimed. Like the others, treat with a pinch of salt, but there's clearly an emergent theme here:

 

[brogdale]

Hope she isn't going to continue resting her AK with its barrel on the ground, on another type of ground she might block its spout.

Yeah, but the point is that her world has just ended and she's embarking on the previously unthinkable...but you knew that, surely?