Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[The Dog 43784]

 

[The Dog 43784]

Old (Soviet) habits die hard.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4968]

I see Ukrainian rednecks are just as classy as American rednecks.

[Rimbo 25766]

6 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

I will be happier if there are way fewer that make their way back home if you know what I mean.

found Brisket's sock

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

35 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

found Brisket's sock

I beg your pardon sir, please don't confuse me with a lawyer.

[Schulz2.0 28761]

Expanding on the Chinese providing military assistance, Deutsche Welle reported Chinese companies were currently providing hardware like attack helicopter replacement parts.

 

[Bateshorn 9897]

I don’t want to downplay the Russia-Iran thing, but “sophisticated “ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.

[The Dog 43784]

Looong thread on the Bakhmut situation:

 

[Gravy Train 974]

1 hour ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Chineses just chasing Ruble on this but I wish Western media would put their shit on blast and sanction Chinese industry which operates close enough to military industry for the CCP to realise we're watching their shady asses.  Aren't we all watching them closely for action upon Taiwan within the next 2-3 years?

[The Dog 43784]

 

[freyguy 4245]

1 hour ago, The Dog said:

 

There ain't gonna be blood.  Russian pornstars are a solid representative subset of their entire population.  And they're all really good at taking it up the a$$. 

[BamaATL 16592]

1 hour ago, Gravy Train said:

Chineses just chasing Ruble on this but I wish Western media would put their shit on blast and sanction Chinese industry which operates close enough to military industry for the CCP to realise we're watching their shady asses.  Aren't we all watching them closely for action upon Taiwan within the next 2-3 years?

I'm reminded of the scene in There Will Be Blood where Daniel Day-Lewis yells at the religious huckster "I drink your milkshake!".  It certainly doesn't surprise me that China has been sending material support to the russians (we all are well aware of this), or even if they do wind up sending a level of lethal material support.  To me, it would just be them opportunistically selling them stuff (I suspect inferior, and deliberate).  A la the film, on the surface it would appear they are helping them, but in reality their real intention is to bleed them financially in their favor, quite frankly until there is nothing left or the trouble isn't worth it to them.  The "special relationship" between the two isn't what either of them would have anyone believe and in my opinion Xi and his people have to be looking at putin like he's a giant rube they can exploit.  As evidenced by the oil cap, and the Chinese new found ability to buy at a severe discount, truth is China is already are massively exploiting them.  Once the Chinese get the most they think they can, again a la the film, I suspect they will do their own version of beating them to death with a bowling pin.  

Is giving weapons to a country committing a war of terror morally abhorrent?  Certainly.  But since when has China ever shown that morals were something that concerned them? 

*For the record, and just to be clear, I have met plenty of people from China, and my interaction with each of these individuals has been very positive.  So when I am saying negative things about China, it's in relation to their government and Xi, not to Chinese people in general.  

[Gatorubet 30083]

If this was posted before I apologize (recent tweet but 2/13 article), but it is an interesting and informative article that discusses in detail what Russia’s spring offensive seeks to accomplish - - and its chance of success. 

 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

25 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

 

*For the record, and just to be clear, I have met plenty of people from China, and my interaction with each of these individuals has been very positive.  So when I am saying negative things about China, it's in relation to their government and Xi, not to Chinese people in general.  

Bet you don't leave your cokes unattended around them.

[JesusSweatDuck 17780]

5 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

Bet you don't leave your cokes unattended around them.

Yeah, they'll replace it with fentanyl 

[KYHorn 16833]

 

[KYHorn 16833]

More context for this video that was posted a few days ago. I also wonder if it was the same situation as that other drone video (also below) where the Russian vehicle was hit from the Ukrainian trench just a few dozen yards away. Could be different, but this is impressive regardless. It seems that the other guy was in shock and was only able to help keep him supplied.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by KYHorn

[Schulz2.0 28761]

 

[SmokeyTheBear 5562]

The simulation decided to really ramp up the idea of 2023 being the year of the balloons. 

[KYHorn 16833]

Calls for additional support coming in from a variety of sources and political leanings. 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by KYHorn

[SimonBolivar 10910]

On the Ukrainian not firing in that video but rather keeping the other one supplied...

 

Studies show that your Upham/Blythe characters that are depicted as one offs are incredibly common in battle and have been in every war studied since the US Civil War. He's actually helping out and I won't talk shit without knowing how I'd react in the same situation.

Edited February 19, 2023 by SimonBolivar

[The Dog 43784]

 

[BamaATL 16592]

 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

On 2/17/2023 at 10:31 PM, KYHorn said:

The guy above Putin's left shoulder was killed in Ukraine.

 

Top Russian spy colonel for Vladimir Putin and celebrated paratrooper killed in Ukraine

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-spy-putin-killed-b2284688.html

I wouldn’t have guessed Putin from looking at that pic. That guy looks like if Putin had an illegitimate love child with David Gergen.

[Schulz2.0 28761]

1 minute ago, BamaATL said:

 

 

I believe that account mainly repeats Russian propaganda.

[SquishMitten 10397]

On 2/16/2023 at 7:19 PM, atomheartbevo said:

 

Putin should have already blown a gasket multiple times over.  He is either a complete mess already, or a shitload of people below him have somehow kept him in the dark, which is possible -

I had not considered that. It would explain quite a bit though

[BamaATL 16592]

3 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I believe that account mainly repeats Russian propaganda.

Even so, I suspect Putin will use this as a pretext for full scale war, which is only to meet his end of declaring marshal law and full mobilization.  He's due to speak on the 22nd, 1 year anniversary, and this is the sort of thing he will point to for justification. 

[BamaATL 16592]

11 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I believe that account mainly repeats Russian propaganda.

Even so, it set this stage for him to declare full war on the 22nd and full mobilization, which has been his plan for some time now.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

Just now, BamaATL said:

Even so, it set this stage for him to declare full war on the 22nd and full mobilization, which has been his plan for some time now.

So they've been holding back until now?

[atomheartbevo 89391]

5 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

I had not considered that. It would explain quite a bit though

Supposedly he does not use the internet/email, because he's worried about being hacked/having stuff read by people he doesn't trust.  I can actually believe this given that he started in the KGB and is clearly suspicious of a lot of people (witness the multiple photo ops at different locations that just had the same actors/security personnel in different outfits) and that a lot of the technology he would be relying on would be based on Western or Chinese software and hardware.  If he communicates through physical means (insert boomer joke here), in some ways that's far more secure than internet stuff.  

Anyways, if he's limiting himself to physical means (mail) and things like phone calls to communicate with his underlings, and he's not on the internet, he could easily have a very filtered view of the war if nobody passes the bad news up the chain, because that kind of shit gets Russian officers in trouble.  And it's doubtful he would be looking at Western media for the truth, because again, he's ex-KGB, he's not going to trust it if it has a Ukrainian slant.

Of course, his 3-day war is entering its second year, so....he should have some kind of clue that things have gone wrong.

[BamaATL 16592]

1 minute ago, Grade of D as in David said:

So they've been holding back until now?

I wouldn't say that, but he's been looking for a reason to justify escalation internally for a while, and this will at least be part of it.  Russians have a history of dates and numbers being important to them, so him waiting for the 1 year anniversary isn't all that surprising.  It will be interesting what sort of language he uses on the 22nd.  Dictators have a tendency to refer to their subjects as children until they are in trouble, and then suddenly they are brothers and sisters.  

[Schulz2.0 28761]

 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

1 minute ago, BamaATL said:

I wouldn't say that, but he's been looking for a reason to justify escalation internally for a while, and this will at least be part of it.  Russians have a history of dates and numbers being important to them, so him waiting for the 1 year anniversary isn't all that surprising.  It will be interesting what sort of language he uses on the 22nd.  Dictators have a tendency to refer to their subjects as children until they are in trouble, and then suddenly they are brothers and sisters.  

I agree that he's going to escalate and fully mobilize to what extent he can/hasn't already. I also agree that the one year anniversary makes sense. My point is he's had ammo dumps blow up inside of Russia and other things that he could have used as a way to declare war and hasn't.

Also, I don't think Putin is going to let a technicality like actually declaring war stop him from doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to win.

[BamaATL 16592]

2 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

I agree that he's going to escalate and fully mobilize to what extent he can/hasn't already. I also agree that the one year anniversary makes sense. My point is he's had ammo dumps blow up inside of Russia and other things that he could have used as a way to declare war and hasn't.

Also, I don't think Putin is going to let a technicality like actually declaring war stop him from doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to win.

I think this speaks more the fact that he is going to escalate the terror on his own people, not that it will have much in the way of immediate bearing in the current theater of combat.  There have long been rumors that his intention was to eventually mobilize about 5 million people.  He may well be setting the stage to do exactly that.  

[Captainant 27396]

34 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

 

 

Lmao Russian propaganda is silly. I'm not quite sure what would functionally change if russia were to declare war anyways lol

Edit: just saw your post above mine. That makes more sense

Edited February 19, 2023 by Captainant

[atomheartbevo 89391]

3 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I wouldn't say that, but he's been looking for a reason to justify escalation internally for a while, and this will at least be part of it.  Russians have a history of dates and numbers being important to them, so him waiting for the 1 year anniversary isn't all that surprising.  It will be interesting what sort of language he uses on the 22nd.  Dictators have a tendency to refer to their subjects as children until they are in trouble, and then suddenly they are brothers and sisters.  

The problem is that he's picked all of the low-hanging fruit (mobilized), he's lost 700,000 (left the country) from the pool of would-be mobilized, and he's relying on Iran and North Korea for weapons and ammo. Shit, Belarus is going to start making SU-25s, a 40 year-old aircraft, and you know they won't have those in production for  quite a while.  Russia clearly can't mobilize enough armored vehicles, tanks or otherwise, to help the troops in the field, and you can't easily restart factories to supply decades-old weapons systems, either the entire systems, or at least spare parts to get stuff in storage up and running.

I think his moves at this point will be about making sure he keeps power if/when Russia is forced out of Crimea, so I expect him to announce harsher measures on dissidents/protestors.  Could move into execution territory, which would help him truly purge anybody that presents a threat to his power.  Bye bye Alexei Navalny. We are already seeing the beginnings of this, with the new measures to track Russians on the internet who are posting things the Russian government doesn't like.

He could also try and truly put the economy on a wartime footing, which means Russian factories pumping out parts for T-72s and the like, and pumping out desperately needed trucks and troop transports. 

[Schulz2.0 28761]

 

[atomheartbevo 89391]

17 hours ago, Augustus said:

On 11/26/2018 at 4:27 PM, atomheartbevo said:

We and the EU can cripple the Russian economy to the point where Putin has to back down or decide how to handle millions of pissed off Russians.  

What's your perception of how well this is going?

(asking sincerely, not being smart alec)

In terms of the economy, they lost their biggest trading partner in terms of energy (the EU, who weened themselves off off Russian energy faster than anybody expected).  That's being replaced by other means and won't be coming back to Russia for a long time. Almost all Western companies pulled out of Russia, which has upended a lot of Russian businesses (empty real estate, Russians not being able to buy Western goods easily, taxes/tariffs, various Russian companies unable to function without Western parts/systems, etc.).. Their airline/travel industry is a hot mess.  They can't do something as simple as put airbags in their shitty cars due to a lack of chips.  They are getting supplies from Iran and North Korea, they have price caps on their oil & gas with a big chunk of the world (China and India are taking advantage of those caps).  Their cruise missiles are rolling off the assembly line and going straight into Ukraine, which means their stockpiles are depleted and/or they are having manufacturing issues preventing them from producing enough to build up a supply. They are relying on Belarus to help repair a lot of their Army equipment.

In terms of protests, Putin did something very unexpected to alleviate the potential for mass protests that I would not have believed he would do back when I said that - he allowed around 700,000 Russians in their prime to flee the country. I've seen figures much higher, over a million, but the 700,000 seems solid when adding up what countries have said they took in from Russia (I know plenty slipped out through "unofficial" ways).  Letting them leave let a lot of steam out of the pressure cooker.

 I think that 700,000 or so, had they been prevented from fleeing, would have been the core of protests in the streets, because those were all in the pool of potential draftees, and they clearly did not agree with the war - they were giving literally everything up to flee.  They left Russia knowing that any assets they had left in the country would be confiscated (which the Russian government said they would do) and that they might not be allowed to come back (or couldn't come back for fear of being jailed or mobilized).

Edited February 19, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[SquishMitten 10397]

2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

 

 

This is as tired as them threatening to use nukes, except it’s even less of a threat.

ETA: I guess I understand the above posts explaining this in that it lets him secure a little more personal safety, but I stand by it not being a legitimate threat to outsiders.

Edited February 19, 2023 by SquishMitten

[InkaUtexas 25485]

Damn this ballsy. And they did it multiple times? 

 

 

[The Dog 43784]

 

[The Dog 43784]

10 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Damn this ballsy. And they did it multiple times? 

 

 

This is what General Hertling talks about - Ukraine can take personal initiative and cause havoc. Ivan is too centralized to do this.

[MissingInAction 24802]

18 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Damn this ballsy. And they did it multiple times? 

 

 

I wonder if she needs a comfort man....

Never banged a chick I was totally terrified of before. 

Fear boners are real.

[InkaUtexas 25485]

Just need to hope she can get out of there should it fall. Russians hammer her posts so she is known to them. 

[MissingInAction 24802]

I'd let her hammer my post.

[Sawbonz 27389]

I think Putin is afraid to call for a general mobilization because that means press gangs in St Petersburg, Moscow, etc, and likely rationing of food and fuel. Bread lines start up and he’s dead pretty soon after

Edited February 19, 2023 by Sawbonz

[Brisketexan 104534]

Damn this ballsy. And they did it multiple times? 
 
 

It’s official: one Ukrainian gal has bigger balls than any Russian man in the theater of operations.

[Parliament 14121]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

In terms of protests, Putin did something very unexpected to alleviate the potential for mass protests that I would not have believed he would do back when I said that - he allowed around 700,000 Russians in their prime to flee the country. I've seen figures much higher, over a million, but the 700,000 seems solid when adding up what countries have said they took in from Russia (I know plenty slipped out through "unofficial" ways).  Letting them leave let a lot of steam out of the pressure cooker.

 I think that 700,000 or so, had they been prevented from fleeing, would have been the core of protests in the streets, because those were all in the pool of potential draftees, and they clearly did not agree with the war - they were giving literally everything up to flee.  They left Russia knowing that any assets they had left in the country would be confiscated (which the Russian government said they would do) and that they might not be allowed to come back (or couldn't come back for fear of being jailed or mobilized).

Interesting take there.  Just let 700k of your most productive people leave so they can't make trouble.  Kinda hard on, you know, your long-term demographics, but hey....

Edited February 19, 2023 by Parliament

[InkaUtexas 25485]

10 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Interesting take there.  Just let 700k of your most productive people leave so they can't make trouble.  Ballsy.  Stupid, but ballsy.

He learned from Castro. Mariel boat lift. 

[Gatorubet 30083]

2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

I think this speaks more the fact that he is going to escalate the terror on his own people, not that it will have much in the way of immediate bearing in the current theater of combat.  There have long been rumors that his intention was to eventually mobilize about 5 million people.  He may well be setting the stage to do exactly that.  

I was just thinking that it also allows him to hide the economic hardships from sanctions, as a full war time economy includes the concept of patriotic sacrifice during the difficult war against the Nazis.    He can say I’m sorry you can’t find anything in the grocery store, but it’s our war preparations that cause the problem, not the fake news that it is NATO sanctions.

And as we have seen, if it’s war, that allows him to kill anyone who’s even mildly a problem as a traitor. Nothing he couldn’t do before, but when Russia or the Soviet union go to war there are no prohibitions on killing anyone who can be labeled as not helping the war effort. He doesn’t have to bother with the façade anymore. His people know it and know what he is capable of.   I think they will sheep rather than riot.

Also, none of us were raised in a culture that literally raises defense of Russia and the Great Patriotic War to something more akin to religion than even ardent patriotism.  And I forget the name for it, but even now on TV you’ll have these dancers wearing World War II military outfits celebrating the victories in defense of Mother Russia.  To be Russian is to subsume your individual well-being to that of Russia’s interest - with WWII and the tens of millions lost being sold as a good thing.  You are told that your entire life.

I guess the question is: will the people agree to have millions mobilized when they did not demonstrate when it was 100,000 mobilized?  We will see I guess.    i’d put my money on the country going along with him. I can see no battleship Potemkin anywhere in sight.