Cynic in me says that seeing as the Russians have 5-15K troops trapped in the area, they are using the fleeing civilians as a shield to preserve their army. Knowing full well the UKR wont shell/Himars them as they retreat
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Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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It's not really hate for Russians but a sad brute fact of war: Ukraine wins this war by killing Russian soldiers. Therefore the death of Russian soldiers is to be celebrated. That's part of what makes war such a tragedy, as another poster said, in other circumstances this could have been a man you'd have had a beer with and probably found you had more in common than things that separate you.
Yea but these guys arnt soldiers, that's what makes it terrible.
Soldato
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They shouldn't be - no-one should be sent to war after a week - but they are still soldiers; they become that the moment they don the uniform and go to fight.
Putin's casual disregard for their lives is disgusting and, I suspect, will ultimately prove tactically stupid too.
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This short video gives you some idea of just how bad it is for Russian foot soldiers at the moment. This prisoner claims his whole platoon of 20 men were killed in the space of 1 minute of fighting.
Apparently the Russians are blaming a malfunction- is any part of the Russian war machine not decrepit?
Soldato
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All it takes is a single miscalculation or error to start a war though
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They’re Russian citizens wearing Russian Army uniforms, inducted into the Russian Army and fighting on behalf of the Russian State. I‘m pretty sure that makes them soldiers under any laws of international conflict.
That they failed to avoid conscription a mere couple for weeks ago and don’t want to be there isn’t Ukraine’s problem.
Tragic. But also surely bad military tactics. You're losing equipment and ground with these people, and racking up a body count that the population will surely grow angry about.
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It would appear they have there categories of Russian military equipment:
1. Really obsolete USSR equipment that might work if it’s been maintained properly.
2. Modern equipment that might work as advertised if it’s been maintained properly.
3. Modern equipment that never worked as advertised due to corruption/incompetenc.
I’m laughing but it’s proven to be true
I'm surprised that so far international incidents like this or worse, have been rare to not happening.
"Released a missle"?
As in "launched a missle"? Or maybe they just jettisoned one and it fell to the ground?
WTF are they talking about "released a missle"?
They make it sound like the missle was a baby seal rescued from an oil spill, rehabilitated, and realeased back into the ocean.
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slightly ironically, the really obsolete stuff (50's era) probably has a reasonable chance of operating with minimal work even if it's never been maintained since going into storage. There is a certain beauty in truly simple engines and hand cranked turrets, as long as you're not facing anyone who has anything slightly more modern that has been maintained. I mean it's a death trap against even third or forth tier equipment in "modern" armies, but it'll possibly/probably start up as mechanically they were so simple and loose on tolerances that they don't care (no plastic parts, few rubber parts etc).
There are videos of WW2 Russian tanks that have been literally pulled out of a ditch, given some fresh fuel and a bit of a hand to turnover and they've got them up and running (at least well enough to move them onto transports), after nearly 80's exposed to the elements.
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Probably released from the pylon but as you say dropped, or not armed and flew off in some random direction.
It's been known to happen to Western fighters, but IIRC after a really nasty incident on an aircraft carrier decades ago the US and UK spent a lot of time and money making sure that it couldn't happen due to a malfunction again (or at the very least it would be much harder for it to happen).
Poor maintenance/poorly fitting/bad design can mean you get things like water ingress or damaged cabling resulting in sparking/shorts that can cause electrical release mechanisms to operate, whilst poor mechanical tolerances or materials can result in the physical connections wearing, as can not fitting it properly in the first place, and that's before you get into issues with a poorly trained pilot maybe accidently touching the weapon release buttons (having not also ensured that any separate safety is set to "safe").
Soldato
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I‘m reminded of the US Admiral’s line from The Hunt For Red October:
”This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.”
So I turn up to your door with 3 others, all armed. I point a machine gun at your wife/child and say "get in the van, you have been chosen to defend the motherland".
During the drive to the training camp, I make it clear that if you fail to conform, your wife and daughter will be sent to a labour camp and raped/starved.
It's not that simple, it really isn't.
Sure there are some lunatic, evangelical followers of Putin who want to simple destroy Ukraine, but that doesn't not mean that *all* Russians are the same.
It's why I hate dehumanising phrases like "orcs" being used. These are all individuals, many of whom are only there under extreme duress.
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