Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Rroff said:
A lot of it seems to be training and/or just used to finish off already damaged and abandoned equipment, or they cut off the video immediately when they fire, etc. or the odd instance of supposedly using them to take out drones which you can't confirm what happened.



Slightly Dowie like take on it but: "Not sent their best"<>"has now ordered the Russian troops, his best and most experianced to be deployed from Syria" :p

Part of the point I was making though is that they've ended up throwing their best forces at it piecemeal, almost good money after bad style rather than kicking the invasion off utilising them at their best.

I'm not sure why people are having such a problem with the some vs all vs some other granular level of quantity aspect of it, etc.

Despite people denying it Putin has in a paranoid like fashion tried to do this invasion with minimal depletion from their active forces, which hasn't worked out, he seems to fear the country might be invaded by the West and trying to keep forces back for that and it has hamstrung the efforts in Ukraine - which you even acknowledge in the last half of your post.

It does seem pretty likely Russia is going to have to make a hard decision soon though.
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He clearly believed it would be a walk over even without sending in his best. Without the help of the west it would have been too. Reports suggested the plane shot down on its way to Kyiv had some of his elite in it. At this point trickling in his elite troops/equipment is a waste of time. Either do it at the start and gain ground or don’t bother.
 
Russia used their best in day 1, they threw their spetnaz special forces at Kyiv and Hostomel and they got slaughtered. They took the airport, managed to hold it for a couple days and then got demolished by a counter attack. They attempted 3 times to storm the presidential buildings where Zelensky was held up and they got repelled each time.

^^ and yes one of the planes went to drop off more special forces units in Kyiv was shot down.

Saying that Russia hasn't used to their best would be like saying the British SAS are just a bunch of fresh conscripts
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
He clearly believed it would be a walk over even without sending in his best. Without the help of the west it would have been too. Reports suggested the plane shot down on its way to Kyiv had some of his elite in it. At this point trickling in his elite troops/equipment is a waste of time. Either do it at the start and gain ground or don’t bother.
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The whole configuration of the build up seems to have been based around the notion that:

-They could "headshot"* the government and military leadership of Ukraine and destroy enough infrastructure in the opening hours to break any ability for Ukraine to organise against them, aided by special forces and sabotage elements loyal to Russia within Ukraine, etc.
-Large enough pro-Russian population they'd mostly be welcomed with open arms and have plenty of inside help to establish control.
-Most Ukrainians would lay down their weapons when confronted by force.
-Could easily cut off Ukraine, especially Kyiv, from the West.

The expectation being most of the combat would be besieging and pummelling into submission isolated groups of hold out forces and/or individual cities.

Some say a lot of this was a feint to push out and take the Donbas and some of the regions around that - but IMO they wouldn't have bothered with some of the hardware sent in from Belarus and the scale of some of the convoys trying to reinforce that if it was simply meant as a distraction.



* I'm still not sure what the whole deal with those Turkish transport planes which landed as things kicked off - some claim they were loaded with Russian SoF intended to take the president but that seems unlikely - there was however Russian SoF who'd worked into that area who seemed to be part of some kind of attempt to coerce Zelensky into taking a deal to use those planes to flee the country to Turkey and instead they got slaughtered.
 
Rroff said:
The whole configuration of the build up seems to have been based around the notion that:
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Added to that, it seems that Russia made an attempt to deploy masses of bribes to get Ukrainian leaders to simply roll over their cities. However, most of them pocketed the money and carried on regardless, only in Kherson did this tactic succeed. No-one who understood Ukraine could have believed this was a viable strategy. Few people will betray their nation for a little coin, especially when you've paid them up front.
 
I fear Putin reaching the point of thinking 'If I can't have Ukraine then no-one can...' and 'accidentally' firing a missile at one of the nuclear power stations in Eastern Ukraine. A radioactive wasteland would form an acceptable border if he can't actually occupy it and the West would likely not go full nuclear on Russia due to it being simply an accident. In effect a nuclear strike on Ukriane by proxy. The cost of cleaning that mess up would be astronomical. Difficult to read into the mind of such a man as Putin but I think there are no good intentions towards any of the rest of the world, and with his age and poor health he's feeling his mortality.
 
Mr Jack said:
Added to that, it seems that Russia made an attempt to deploy masses of bribes to get Ukrainian leaders to simply roll over their cities. However, most of them pocketed the money and carried on regardless, only in Kherson did this tactic succeed. No-one who understood Ukraine could have believed this was a viable strategy. Few people will betray their nation for a little coin, especially when you've paid them up front.
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Kherson is an interesting one - it really should have been one of the easier bits to hold aside from the proximity to Russian air assets as the Russian forces were limited to a fairly narrow bottleneck relying heavily on bridges which somehow were never blown.

I wonder if that is partly why the amphibious landing capabilities were mostly unused if they'd managed to bribe enough people when it came to it they weren't required in that specific assault.
 
ChrisLX200 said:
I fear Putin reaching the point of thinking 'If I can't have Ukraine then no-one can...' and 'accidentally' firing a missile at one of the nuclear power stations in Eastern Ukraine. A radioactive wasteland would form an acceptable border if he can't actually occupy it and the West would likely not go full nuclear on Russia due to it being simply an accident. In effect a nuclear strike on Ukriane by proxy. The cost of cleaning that mess up would be astronomical. Difficult to read into the mind of such a man as Putin but I think there are no good intentions towards any of the rest of the world, and with his age and poor health he's feeling his mortality.
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Yes because the wind never blows in the direction of Russia, solid plan.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Yes because the wind never blows in the direction of Russia, solid plan.
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He'll weigh that up - how far it's likely to spread. Chernoble had a fairly local effect for the most part. Ukraine's economy would be finished - who wants to buy radioactive grain? Also, no-one can accuse Putin of thinking things through clearly.. (I also should have said Western Ukraine not Eastern...#)
 
Firestar_3x said:
Yes because the wind never blows in the direction of Russia, solid plan.
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Was going to comment on that - a lot of the time the prevailing winds at several of the plants tend to be towards Russia or Russian occupied territory.

It is somewhat concerning though that Russian doctrine in a fall back/retreat of this kind of nature tends to get increasingly brutal and increasingly towards weapons of mass destruction. Putin also seems to be of the mentality of "If I can't have it neither can anyone else".

ChrisLX200 said:
Also, no-one can accuse Putin of thinking things through clearly..
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This is one of the concerning things - traditionally Putin has been pretty shrewd - the question is whether he is now operating with an altered rationale or with his old thinking and we aren't seeing part of the picture - neither of those are good. He doesn't seem to have gone completely bat **** crazy.
 
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Bluecube said:
Has anyone noted the article in today’s Times that says there’s a recording floating about where some oligarch says that Putin has blood cancer?
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Problem is there are so many rumours no one knows what to believe.

If some of them are true then Putin should be under the knive by now as it was rumoured he would be after the Victory day parade on the 9th.
 
Was mentioned a couple of weeks back or so - been a whole bunch of rumours like that mostly seem to stem out of some memo which was sent around Russian's security services that Putin definitely 100% didn't have any kind of health issues - which then seems to have been taken by them as meaning he definitely does.
 
potatolord said:
Dunno if it's been mentioned here, but India has announced a ban on wheat exports.

This is not good, at all.
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IIRC people were saying India had a good harvest and could make up a lot of the global shortage temporarily or something.

EDIT: Latest news is saying heatwaves are reducing the output.
 
Sankari said:
Looks like Ukraine has won in Kharkiv. Russian forces are withdrawing to focus on safeguarding supply routes.
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I am amazed Kharkiv hasn't fallen - they've faced off against elements of some of Russia's elite guards divisions, have long supply lines while Russian forces are close to their own logistics with big military bases not far off in Russia, etc. also relatively safe for Russia to be able to operate air asset and pull them back into Russia if needed, etc.

Though a good part of that seems to be very liberal application of the RPG by Kharkiv's defenders.
 
Grim5 said:
Russia used their best in day 1, they threw their spetnaz special forces at Kyiv and Hostomel and they got slaughtered. They took the airport, managed to hold it for a couple days and then got demolished by a counter attack. They attempted 3 times to storm the presidential buildings where Zelensky was held up and they got repelled each time.

^^ and yes one of the planes went to drop off more special forces units in Kyiv was shot down.

Saying that Russia hasn't used to their best would be like saying the British SAS are just a bunch of fresh conscripts
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Indeed, in fact in this update today Ukraine claims Russia has exhausted its best units (presumably a mix of high casualties, lack of cohesion in some BTG) and is in fact looking to conduct a covert mobilisation.


Overtly or officially declaring a mobilisation would be bad politically for Putin (as is using conscripts, contrary to the odd claim earlier that he might want conscripts to die for some PR reasons). It all runs counter to the “special military operation” narrative thus having to reduce forces in the East, bring in regular contract soldiers* and mercenaries from
Syrian and the Congo etc.. and the attempts to get other former Soviet countries to send troops.

*interestingly unlike in the West, Russia does have some funny rules here, without a war being officially declared not only can’t they use conscripts (legally) but also the regular soldiers (contract soldiers) are apparently able to quit/decide they don’t fancy it (at least in theory, like the conscripts experiences might vary.
 
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