quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Not sure which would be better for the Ukrainian people, early surrender and subservience with lives saved or fight to the death. I know which I'd choose even at the odds Ukraine faces. We beat Great Britain against all odds, maybe they do too. The only question is at what cost.

Patrick Henry had something to say about that.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

The only real roads to peace are for Russians to seize Ukraine or return to their side of the 2010 borders.

I just don't see that happening. The Ukrainians will not be completely subdued, nor will the Russians leave without being able to claim some sort of victory.

But that's why that's the only way out. Unless the will to fight of one side or the other is completely exhausted, this does not end and there will be more killing on a grand scale.

To say there is now broad bitter hostility to Putin and Russia in Ukraine would seem to me to grossly understate the case. Because that hostility and the concomitant will to fight are not limited to just the Azov Batallion or a few others in Donesk or Luhansk, Putin has to beat the entire country. To accept (for reasons that I believe may actually be pretty sophistic) that Putin is using an army to do surgery is absurd. All he can do by trying that is to exhaust what resources he thinks he can put into taking Ukraine because he has to fight the entire country to do it.

Hell, given the less than surgical way he's attacking now, Putin can still see a day when he won't have the resources to sustain the effort he's making in Ukraine. He does, after all, have other military commitments to honor.

If Putin exhausts Russia's will to fight over Ukraine, then why wouldn't the Ukrainians grab back everything the Russians took from them including Crimea? And, if they do that, then why wouldn't they be accepted into NATO and allowed to shelter under the nuclear umbrella? After all, from NATO's perspective, that would be a sure way to end the large-scale fighting that threatened to spill over into NATO countries.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
any way you slice it -- Russia badly miscalculated and crafting a suitable endgame is getting more and more problematic.

It has been my opinion in the last few weeks that this mess will not end with both Putin and Zelensky alive. One or the other getting killed is a convenient excuse to wind things down. Short of that, I’m not sure where the excuse for Russia to stop comes from. I’m sure there are other ways to find an excuse to stop, but I’m not sure what they would be.

- Bret

Kissinger is still alive, although he is 98. He always has an opinion. There are creative solutions to settling this conflict.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
It seems to me there are going to a lot of shocked people when they wake up one day and find that Ukraine doesn't exist anymore.

Why do you keep saying that?


If that was going to happen, it would have happened in the first 24-48 hours.

Instead we have Russia shipping in old trucks from Siberia, their ships are on fire and the conscripts are deserting.

If you ask me, I think Putin has another week or two before one of his capos gets tired of all this and wacks his ass.

Jimmy: Who's this?

Viktor: This is Viktor.

Jimmy: Viktor, what happened?

Viktor: Well we-...

Jimmy: You get it straightened out?

Viktor: Nyet, we had a problem... and uh, we tried to do everything we could.

Jimmy: What d'you mean?

Viktor: Well, you know what I mean. He's gone, and we couldn't do nothing about it.

[pause]

Viktor: That's it.

Jimmy: What d'you mean? What d'you mean? Uh...

Viktor: He's gone. Uh, he's gone.

[pause]

Viktor: And that's it.

"Oh Nyet"

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:

It has been my opinion in the last few weeks that this mess will not end with both Putin and Zelensky alive. One or the other getting killed is a convenient excuse to wind things down. ...snip...

- Bret

I think there's a big difference here though. If Putin is killed, someone has taken down a tyrant, most breathe a sigh of relief, and Russia has a chance to back down (though they may not take it). If Zelinsky is killed, it's quite possible that someone will have created a martyr around whom Ukrainians can continue to rally and the fight goes on indefinitely.

Oh absolutely. Killing Zelensky wouldn’t end Ukrainian resistance. What it would do is give Russia an excuse to stop hostilities. They can sell it to their people as a ‘mission accomplished’ moment by claiming whomever replaces him isn’t corrupt and a nazi lover or whatever. It wouldn’t convince Ukraine to back down an inch, but Russia could use it as a ‘win’ to save face and call it a job well done to the poor deluded folks back home in Moscow.

- Bret

Putin isn’t giving up Ukraine if Zelensky is killed. At this point he’s all in on making the country fully a part of Russia again. Every days losses in manpower and hardware make it increasingly difficult to simply walk away after one man is removed. At minimum, I suspect he might accept pulling out the majority or war fighting apparatus but leaving a “peacekeeping” force in place who will be killed at every turn. Ukraine will be a mess for a very long time regardless of the plan in Moscow.

good Q+A with a Ukrainian soldier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKQAqVHq_Zc

interesting to hear his unscripted perspective

-- he likes his AK74

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^^ If Ukraine manages to win somehow, the kits will be plentiful.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
good Q+A with a Ukrainian soldier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKQAqVHq_Zc

interesting to hear his unscripted perspective

-- he likes his AK74

------------------------------

That was interesting
Great point - "We don't think much about our enemy on the field. We just shoot them and make sure they are dead."

Way it ought to be

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
The problem with these is they're (of course) ex-East German stocks, so at least 33 years old at this point. They were actually used for training purposes by the army of united Germany in lieu of Stinger warshots until the remainder were deadlined in 2012 over microfractures in the propellant charges leading to corrosion/oxidation. On another board someone commented that their warranty lifetime is 20 years which can be extended twice by five years each after appropriate inspection.

I'm not sure whether the entire remaining stock failed such an inspection ten years ago already, or the whole lot was declared unsafe over a substantial share that was found faulty, and the 500 were deemed still more dangerous for the target than the user upon recent examination, considering the national emergency faced by Ukraine. At any rate news from today is that additional Strelas will be sent; maybe it's just typical German overmeticulousness in checking them, maybe Ukraine said "screw user safety, we'll take our chances", maybe the German government got fed up with the constant nagging for more deliveries and went "here you got them, but don't blame us when you blow yourself up with them".

Yeah, another 1,500 Strelas now delivered (the last 700 were apparently found completely unusable from age). Plus 100 MG 3 with five million rounds of ammunition, which is highly ironic in view of that machinegun's lineage from the WW II MG 42. Also three million rounds of 5.56 mm, which indicates Ukraine has a use for those. Various Western rifles have of course been pictured in the hands of its troops and volunteers; including 5,000 FNCs donated by Belgium, as well as a domestically produced AR-15 type and some SIG MCX for their special forces.

Other than direct military aid from army stocks, Ukraine has reportedly also purchased 2,650 RGW 90 (MATADOR) anti-tank weapons from Dynamit Nobel. Which is interesting because these days the company is a subsidiary of Israeli state enterprise Rafael with which MATADOR was co-developed on the basis of the older German-Singaporean Armbrust, and Israel has so far denied arms deliveries to Ukraine in view of its own delicate relationship with Russia over Russian troops next door in Syria.

I don't think this is a sign of the German Army being over meticulous.

Unfortunately, the Germans let their military go to rot.

Whatever their troop, aircraft and ship numbers are on paper, very little of that is deployable due to spare parts and maintenance issues.

Germany has, as it's always had, a ton of military potential but the said fact is it's ability to help militarily in the short term is pretty limited.

quote:

Originally posted by StarTraveler:
If Putin is killed, someone has taken down a tyrant,

This brings back to my mind something I've wondered for a while now: if Putin is removed (by whatever means), what worm steps in to take his place, and how much worse are that person's intents?

Medvedev is a possibility. Putin got his job by sucking up to Yeltsin and promising he would not be prosecuted for his corruption. There are always members of the military. Remember though, that Putin is basically a ruthless spy.

.

Ukraine's pre-invasion arms stockpile estimate:


Direct Link: www.YouTube.com/watch?v=_bbke_w_-C0

I've not had much luck locating a map of the current Russian positions with sufficient detail to compare to the map at the start of the video showing the approximate location of the weapon storage mine.

If anyone can figure out if the mine is already in Russian hands, please post...I'm guessing the Russians have it, maybe???

.

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quote:

Originally posted by sleepla8er:
I've not had much luck locating a map of the current Russian positions with sufficient detail to compare to the map at the start of the video showing the approximate location of the weapon storage mine.

If anyone can figure out if the mine is already in Russian hands, please post...I'm guessing the Russians have it, maybe???

Nope, that Artemivsk/Bakhmut area is still in Ukrainian hands.

The salt mine referenced in the video is located roughly around the area of the H and A in the word "Luhansk" on the eastern (right hand) side of this map. The red areas are current Russian-occupied territory.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
...Nope, that Artemivsk/Bakhmut area is still in Ukrainian hands.

The salt mine referenced in the video is located roughly around the area of the H and A in the word "Luhansk" on the eastern (right hand) side of this map. The red areas are current Russian-occupied territory...

Thanks RogueJSK!!!

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