re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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What if Russia loses and does so? What if Russia does so now? Ukraine winning doesn't necessarily preclude this nor does Ukraine losing necessarily mean that conflict with a NATO state is likely. This Hitler 1939 stuff is silly.

He's clearly trying to put the US in the same boat as Ukraine and saying if we go down you're eventually going down (relatively) with us. He's bargaining for both his personal future, his role as leader and that of his country, so I'm willing to tolerate a lot of annoying rhetoric. But you can't expect this messaging not to rub Americans the wrong way, many of whom believe (fairly) that this is not our problem to begin with and have watched us meddle our way into conflicts repeatedly in our lifetimes.

And this is all in the context of confirming we're going to add a NATO nation that will be yet another leech on the US (Ukraine), assessing we'll have to demilitarize Crimea, etc.

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Ukraine is at least a decade away from NATO membership. What scares the bejesus out of Putin is Ukraine joining the EU.

Russia actually had already lost but Ukraine has yet to win. We don't want to see Russia fall apart but several oligarchs already have private armies. As horrible as Putin is, the rest of the cast in position to take over could be worse.

Russia always tries to expand, its in their Mongol influenced thinking just like corruption was rampant among the mongols so is the mindset of Russians from everyday Joe to the leadership and has been that way for centuries.

It couldn't take all of Georgia so a few years later invaded Ukraine (2014) which had zero to do with Nazis, biolabs, or NATO. Putin finally admitted in his speech on Feb 24th that Ukraine was historical Russian territory. That is declared independence has never sat well with him at all. In fact this is the primary reason the USSR collapsed, then other Soviet states declared their own independence from RUSSIA.

Russian armored vehicle losses in its insane attacks against Vuhledar in the last month have now reached 101.

LINK

It's like watching a man attacking a brick wall by banging his head against it.

Russia loses major tank battle for Vuhledar due to ambushes – NYT
Tetiana Lozovenko — Wednesday, 1 March 2023, 16:55

Russia has lost a large-scale tank battle for Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast, getting ambushed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine — just as it did during the attack when using tank convoys at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Source: The New York Time

Quote: "In the extended battle, both sides sent tanks into the fray, rumbling over dirt roads and manoeuvring around tree lines, with the Russians thrusting forward in columns and the Ukrainians manoeuvring defensively, firing from a distance or from hideouts as Russian convoys came into their sights.

When it was over, not only had Russia failed to capture Vuhledar, but it also had made the same mistake that cost Moscow hundreds of tanks earlier in the war: convoys advancing into ambushes."

Details: According to NYT, the charred hulks of Russian armoured vehicles now litter farm fields all about Vuhledar, according to Ukrainian military drone footage – blown up on mines, hit with artillery or obliterated by anti-tank missiles.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had lost at least 130 tanks and armoured personnel carriers in the battle.

Ukrainska Pravda

Go Ukraine! Kill that NBC a-hole

I can get behind this!

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It is definitely being misconstrued

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1. He's obviously fearmongering US citizens to get more support for Ukraine.

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No...that was the purpose. Nothing misinterpreted there.

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2. If Russia touched a NATO country, their shite would be pushed in so quickly that there would be minimal US troops losses.

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And this is very true as well.

Is this the longest thread in TD history??

I support Ukraine in this war, but I'm not going to pretend that there haven't been a lot of problems with a Ukrainian military growing 5 times bigger in the last year.

@DefMon3 highlighted a depressing blog post from yesterday by a Danylo Butenko, who was recently mobilized in Kyiv, and who is being sent to Bakhmut five days later.

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Hello everyone! My name is Danylo Butenko, and I am a geek. Exactly. It turns out that there are chmobikes not only behind the counter, but also in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 5 days of training - and to Bakhmut for zero as part of the assault infantry company. As recently as 2 weeks ago, I thought it was impossible, but during this time I have dispelled any illusions about it.

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February 2. I arrived at the TCC, they clarified my data, passed the medical examination, received a mobilization summons for February 8. To the clarifying question "Whether education and professional experience will be taken into account during the allocation to military specialties," I received the answer: "Don't worry, there will be representatives of the military unit, they will conduct an interview and take everything into account." My higher education is in theoretical physics. After the university, he was engaged in scientific activity for 6 years, after which he switched to IT. Recently, he was engaged in the development of machine learning models.So, I naively believed that I would be able to apply my knowledge and skills to the benefit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

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The following is a chronicle of how I ended up as a member of the 101st separate guard brigade of the General Staff, and what sad things are happening here.

January 30. I received a call from the TCC of the Dnipro district of Kyiv and asked to come on February 2 to "clarify the data". Of course, I understood what was going on, but I decided long ago not to avoid the draft: if the summons comes, I will go.

February 2. I arrived at the TCC, they clarified my data, passed the medical examination, received a mobilization summons for February 8. To the clarifying question "Whether education and professional experience will be taken into account during the allocation to military specialties," I received the answer: "Don't worry, there will be representatives of the military unit, they will conduct an interview and take everything into account." My higher education is in theoretical physics. After the university, he was engaged in scientific activity for 6 years, after which he switched to IT. Recently, he was engaged in the development of machine learning models. So, I naively believed that I would be able to apply my knowledge and skills to the benefit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

February 8. Arrived at TCC. The representatives of the military unit could not arrive. I stood in lines for half a day to submit documents for a military ID. I received a new summons for February 15 with clarification that to come only if they call in advance. OK.

February 16. They called and told to appear the next day at the TCC at 7 in the morning. Take a standard tourist kit with you: sleeping bag, sleeping bag, clothes, dishes, dry food for 1 day. I asked if it was known to which unit I would be sent. They said - 101 brigade. Googled it, General Staff security. I thought it was pretty good. Wikipedia says: "elite unit". Now it seems like a first-class cynical joke.

February 17. Arrived at TCC. There are 4 more people with me. We were taken to the military unit where the 101st brigade is located. There we were met by the deputy commander of the 12th company for moral and psychological support (zampolit in the old way). He immediately began to prepare us for the fact that we will have to go to the front, because the situation is difficult (it was clear and yes, someone has to fight, and how much better am I than others to sit in the rear) . But to the question "How long will the preparation last?" answered evasively: "Well, depending on the specialty and the situation at the front. And in general, they will tell you everything." We waited almost the whole day for things to be given to us.When they received them, they were even delighted, because they knew that the provision of soldiers depends mainly on volunteers, and here there is a bulletproof vest, a helmet, a backpack, and even tactical glasses. The truth turned out that most of what was issued was of dubious quality, and a lot of things still need to be bought. But it was not exactly a surprise. A surprise awaited ahead... After arriving at the training camp (Kyiv region) on the very first smoke break, I learned that the entire battalion (including the newbies) was going to Bakhmut in a few weeks to ground zero! (If this information is known to every soldier, then it is definitely not a secret for enemy intelligence. Therefore, I do not disclose any secret information).

At first I didn't believe it. I thought that maybe only those who had been training for several months and/or had previous military experience would go, and the newcomers would be left in training and sent to the combat zone in the next rotation. I was wrong. Doubts finally disappeared after talking with the company commander, who said that everyone was going, nothing could be changed because there was an order.

All our training (newcomers) consisted of 5 training days: familiarization with weapons (basic safety techniques, incomplete assembly/disassembly), 3 classes in tactical medicine, 3 classes in infantry tactics, shooting (1 time). From the point of view of the command of the unit, this is quite enough to maintain the defense at the hottest point of the front.

At the same time, we spent a lot more time in formations (I counted from 4 to 7 formations per day), went to dresses and did household chores. And we also ran with documents to the company's KSP (happened 5 times a day), although we submitted all the necessary documents to the TCC. In general, I got the impression that for the command, paperwork is more important than the lives of the people they command (I am not sure at all whether they consider the personnel to be people).

There are still a lot of inappropriate situations that I could tell you about (and this is in less than 2 weeks), but one of my brothers aptly conveyed the essence: "I'm just tired of being surprised here."

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I have several thoughts:

1) We have no idea if this guy's experience is typical, but it far from the first time that I have read about Ukrainian guys getting sent to the front with almost no training.

2) It indicates that the reinforcements being sent to Bakhmut are not the experienced troops that would otherwise be used to launch the Ukrainian spring offensive. Rather, it's guys that Ukraine just took off the street. As we have seen with Russia's mobilization, though, to attack requires significantly more training than to defend.

3) It's kinda ridiculous and depressing that Ukraine is not making proper use of the talents of an IT specialist with a background in theoretical physics.

4) All the training happening in the UK and in other NATO countries is critical and should be accelerated and increased. Sometimes, I read stuff like "The Ukrainians are awesome and should be teaching us!" and I resist the urge to explain that, yes, a percentage of Ukrainian soldiers are now truly elite, but a great many are absolutely not.

Wrong

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Wrong

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not 100% sure, but from my memory lake charles was part of the Sabine Outlaw lands, and wasnt part of territory sold by france to the US. And at the time of the purchase (1803) the florida parishes were still part of the spanish Florida territory at the time of the purchase.

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How do we even know this is legit?

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It's posted on the Ukrainian website The Censor. As I understand it, they are, at times, somewhat critical of Zelensky and the government, but I doubt that they would publish something like that unless they could verify a few basic details of the story.