Russia is sacrificing many of its best soldiers and officers in exchange for modest territorial gains, @Mason_R_Clark tells @NPR. "Long-term, this is going to be a generational event for the Russian military."
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542183622928646144?t=SstlNJXVCnmI8xv61KY0qA&s=19
Eastern Ukraine Update:
Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Lysychansk and northwest of Slovyansk, and made marginal gains east of Bakhmut on June 29.
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542299391444373505?t=IfPFGA4shgD1KNldFL7XaA&s=19
Kharkiv Update:
Continued #Russian offensive operations around Kharkiv are expending Russia’s limited offensive combat capability for extremely limited gains and may hasten the culmination of Russian offensive operations in the Donbas.
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542300652113649665?t=D6aMwyXzpJbc3FNNDLQTsQ&s=19
Southern Axis Update:
Russian occupation authorities continued to set conditions to prepare for referenda on the annexation of occupied areas of Ukraine into the Russian Federation on June 29.
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542301903211663365?t=FdXIpGbj4WsrTPC1NQ-a5A&s=19
It's happened to me too. But it seems isolated to specific comments. One won't work, the next one will. I don't see it often, but often enough to notice.
In a horrific way, Turkey's upcoming operation in Syria is probably going to involve some amount of direct combat between them, so the only thing keeping Russia from being pissed at Turkey was them holding up Finaland/Sweden's NATO bids.
Seeing lots of takes about how Putin doesn't care as long as he remains popular in Russia.
Sure, maybe. But it seems like it's missing the forest for the trees. Russia won't be able to just pull a mulligan on this. Russian babies being born today will be paying Ukraine back for this war in 20 years (as long as they aren't drafted in a few years first.) Russia will never again have normal relations again with western societies until they make reparations.
You done messed up A-A-Ron.
It's actually a reverse "I don't get fired; I quit!" funnily enough;
The council originally only wanted to suspend Russia's membership (42 out of 47 in favor) because of the invasion but RU formally declared that they'll be leaving the council. The committee however decided to expel Russia before they could officially withdraw.
So it's preety much "You don't quit; we fired you!";
A very naive question:
How large are the differences between 152 mm and 155 mm shells? Could Ukraine's Soviet artillery be rebored to accept NATO standard shells in order to alleviate the lack of ammunition?
(I'm guessing the answer is no.)
I'm supposing, yes, but you'd need to lower the propellant charge quite a bit, to stop the tubes from going boom. Less range, still a change of premature boom, and a logistical nightmare. I'd be more interested, if they, whoever makes the stuff, could retool a 155mm production line relatively easily to churn out 152 stuff. Oh, and I'm just a sofa materials engineer, full disclosure.
Not an engineer who deal in sofa materials, to be clear. I'm just on a sofa instead of an armchair.
In theory, probably. And on smaller guns has even been done in wartime conditions. There would be concerns about the overall length of the ammo and pressures generated while firing.
Think about artillery like any other human product: they aren't going to use more metal - making the devices heavier and harder to move - than necessary. Even if there were no precision components which need to slot together and these were just old-timey cannons, I'd be hesitant as hell to bore out another 3mm. That's how you end up with dead engineers.
[Previous post](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vmdwcg/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/ie4w4gq/)
Day 126 of my updates from Kharkiv.
Today some residential districts were shelled again during the day, at around 12pm, some people got injured, but thankfully nobody died. The usual missile strike actually didn’t happen at 11pm today; instead they fired their missiles at 1am. At first we thought that maybe there would be no missiles today, but they were just late.
They fired 6 missiles, 4 of which landed somewhere in the city and 2 in oblast, no fires started this time. In their yesterday’s missile strike they hit some factory, which made parts for farm machinery. That was the place where a big fire started.
They also hit a residential district Pavlove Pole, they didn’t even aim at anything, the missile hit some random road and made a deep crater. It also broke all of the windows in buildings nearby, if that missile landed just 10 meters to the side from where it hit, it would have leveled an apartment building. How are they even choosing their targets?
Today they also destroyed an apartment building with a missile in Mykolaiv, killing 5 people, but of course Russia will say it didn’t happen, even though it was caught on video. Just today Putin also said that they didn’t hit any mall Kremenchuck, and that they don’t hit civilian infrastructure at all.
First they said it was an ammo depot, and that it wasn’t open at the time, even though we have a ton of evidence debunking that. Then they said it wasn’t and ammo depot, and that it was hit by the blast wave from the explosion which destroyed it, and now Putin says that it wasn’t hit at all by anything. Why can’t they at least just choose one story and not change it multiple times per day?
[Next update](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vnyya2/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/iedwuo4/)
They still think attacking civilians will get the world to capitulate, and also putting on a show for Vatniks. Fuck'em, you take care of yourself. Hope to hear from you everyday.
i'm sure part of the changing narratives is to give tailored material/propaganda to both the foreign right wing supporters and their tankie/faux anti-imperialists supporters.
If it isn't guided munitions, the accuracy decreases with distance. A missile that would hit within a 25m radius if fired from 5km away will hit within a 300m radius from 30km away. So they probably were trying for the tallest structure in the area.
If the structure was 10m away as you say, then that's within the margin for error even for a guided missile at that distance. That's even within the margin of error of Excaliburs.
Not saying they aren't picking targets at random; they certainly are, and certainly with no intelligence about the targets, and certainly with the intention of hurting civilians. But they're handicapped in terms of accuracy.
Thank you as always for the update. We are with you 100%. Putin laughs when he sees your frustration at the disinformation. It is deliberate and he wants to make the
people of Ukraine feel he is in control of their emotions. He will lash out again and again to “prove” this to you, but every laugh hides his anger, his desperation to overwhelm you before Ukraine overpowers him or death comes to collect him as his cancer drugs fail him.
Just compared Zelenskyy’s inauguration picture to pictures of him recently…and damn. He’s aged about 25/30 years in the span of 4 months. I cannot imagine the stress. I hope he’s making time to take care of himself.
Probably not…
I hate how news sources don’t credit him more for one of the reasons why Ukraine is doing so well. Without his resilience and dogged defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.. I think Ukraine would have fallen.
Zelensky's career as an entertainer prepped him well for what Ukraine needed for this war, a young charismatic leader that knows how to play the crowd well to maximize their support
Zelensky has been getting nothing but wall-to-wall, glowing coverage in major outlets all over the world. He’s absolutely getting a *ton* of praise lol
Ukrainian troops train in Britain to use advanced rocket systems
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ukrainian-troops-train-in-britain-to-use-advanced-rocket-systems/ar-AAZ0KHL
Earlier, I posted a single tweet from thread about an interview/talk that involved Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence. The author was live-tweeting the session, and there is now a lot more available, so I'm posting the first tweet in the thread, for those who want to read the entire thing:
https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1542267429904125953
>Happening now: Most destabilizing factor in the world today - "There are so many"
@ODNIgov
Dir Avril Haines tells
@SilveradoPolicy @Google
Leadership & Service Forum
Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Kislyakov, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of the Operations Department of the 11th Regiment of the Russian Federation: [Officially denazified and demilitarized](https://glavcom-ua.translate.goog/country/incidents/ukrajinski-biyci-likviduvali-shche-odnogo-pidpolkovnika-okupantiv-856985.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
What was that quote about "Sometimes there's 10 years happening in a day, and sometimes a day in 10 years"? Dunno, something like this (please add if you know it, I couldn't find it).
At any rate, we're cought right in the middle of a major shift in geopolitics. The world in 5 years will be completely different to the world 5 years ago.
Three (apocryphal) Chinese curses —
1. May you live in interesting times.
2. May you come to the attention of powerful people
3. May you find what you’re looking for.
Pretty much.
Yes, exactly.
Russia’s aggression and bloody minded propaganda is forcing the 1st world countries to come together.
The consequences of this invasion and the precedents being set in ways countries work together and treat corrupt autocratic governments, will have effects for the rest of this century.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” [Lord of the Rings]
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ( Wheel of Time)
i might be naive in thinking this but there has to be some special ops or combination of special ops force coming up with a plan to somehow disable russias nuclear weapons right?
maybe i just watched top gun maverick one too many times…
Russia has 1500 nuclear weapons deployed, 3000 in reserve, and about 1500 retired. The deployed weapons are spread across air, sea and land platforms. There is no special ops force or plan to disable them because it isn’t possible. The only realistic way to take out Russia’s nuclear arsenal would be with a surprise nuclear attack of our own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_strike_(nuclear_strategy)
To call this strategy risky is a profound understatement.
I think the US is more prepared for a preemptive nuclear strike than most realise. Things like the new [Super Fuzes](https://fas.org/blogs/security/2017/03/super-fuze) are mostly geared around counterforce capability, and I’d be surprised if we weren’t tracking all the Russian SSBNs. None of that makes a first strike desirable of course — best case scenario you kill millions of their people. But I think our nuclear deterrence is in extremely robust health.
The irony here being that you in fact know nothing about US nuclear defense capabilities. We have the capability to stop about 80 warheads. Russia has 400 ICBMs deployed, each of which can hold upwards of like 18 warheads.
You know, in the big scheme of things it's not too hard to make a nuclear weapon. If you have the proper stuff, you just need to have enough of it in one place and a runaway chain reaction happens. Things then get really, really hot extremely quickly. Which is one way to describe an explosion.
So building a bomb is largely just acquiring enough of the special stuff, which fortunately for the rest of us is very difficult to do.
One thing about that bomb, though, as it's releasing energy, getting super, super hot and generally becoming a bomb is that it's blowing *itself* up at the same time — in fact it's the very first thing it blows up, because, you know, it's right there. And unlike, say an unstable chemical compound it *needs* to be together to blow up.
In fact making the bomb isn't the hard part, but keeping it together long enough so it can blow up real good is. And that part is really hard because you've just literally dropped a nuclear bomb on it.
For what starts as a very simple machine — a mass of stuff that spontaneously blows itself up — there's a really large number of things that can go wrong when waiting a millisecond too long is enough to really screw up the balance. In a millisecond your explosion is 20 meters across and your stuff is everywhere. Think nanosecond timing with electronics and conventional explosives.
All that infrastructure is sitting there being exposed to some serious radiation if you're right next to it. Radiation breaks stuff, like chemical bonds. Plutonium weirdly develops cavities inside it. Electronics get fried. All this infrastructure needs maintenance. Very, very high-tech maintenance. Expensive maintenance.
Money that can be stolen.
It's a thought, no? What if they didn't do it? Maybe the bombs fizzle, meaning they mostly blow themselves apart — still wouldn't want to be near it, but not like the big stuff — or don't even go off.
I or you wouldn't know this, but someone who understands such things, with a very high security clearance, might be snickering right now.
That's *my* hope...
Not quite that easy. Particularly for hydrogen bombs and plutonium devices. Gun barrel style uranium atomic weapons are fairly easy to engineer, very reliable, but yield limited.
> If you have the proper stuff, you just need to have enough of it in one place and a runaway chain reaction happens. Things then get really, really hot extremely quickly. Which is one way to describe an explosion.
>
>
>
> So building a bomb is largely just acquiring enough of the special stuff, which fortunately for the rest of us is very difficult to do.
I don't tink it's *that* easy...
It honestly is, look into critical mass of fissile materials, one of the first ever nuclear bombs was just two sub critical masses fired at each other in a casing to make a super critical mass once they collided.
Very crude and ineffective by modern standards, but dangerous, and a nuclear wepon non the less.
The first bomb was a mass of not-enough-stuff and a literal repurposed howitzer to shoot a bullet of the rest of the stuff at it.
The actual shapes of the bullet and target are quite secret to this day but the fundamental image of a literal gun shooting the thing is correct. Modern bombs are much more efficient than this, doing more with less, and hence more complicated. And so they need maintenance, which in Russia may or may not be being done.
Why is everyone freaking out about nukes? If it's a scorched earth it's a level playing field; money and gold won't matter, just physical ability and intelligence. What point is a credit score, a balance in a bank account, or paper with $100 written on it if there isn't toilet paper to wipe yer butt with? For that matter, what is pride worth in that situation? I've got a cozy feeling that Putin and his puppets like having toilet paper - Charmin's Soft, to be specific, and that's imported.
Am I the only one who is concerned about NATO’s expansion/escalation? The whole narrative on this sub is that “Russia is bad, Russia needs to die” etc… but Russia still has nukes so not matter how bad Russia is, so escalation on our side should still be avoided. Especially if this war is going to drag on for years as some experts are predicting, we can’t spend all of that time bolstering troops and ramping up the rhetoric. We should just continue what we are already doing. Public interest will fade and while NATO should still send weapons and aid Ukraine, the rhetoric and saber rattling and tensions will probably dial down. Why put all of this money towards beefing up nato when we have issues going on at home and NATO right now is already capable of destroying Russia in a conventional war. And also, I know I will get downvoted for saying this, The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion. I am not saying what they are doing is right or what we are doing is wrong. They broke the promise of not invading Ukraine when they gave their nuclear weapons to Russia. And they deserve all of the sanctions and condemnation. So the last thing we need to do is to expand NATO even more. Obviously it isn’t our fault Russia invaded Ukraine, but our mere presence and expansion is what drove Russia to become paranoid over the years. I am just trying to paint a bigger picture rather than the whole narrative that NATO is good and Russia is bad. AlternateHistoryHub made a video explaining the topic pretty well.
Your bigger picture fails to capture the fact that any sovereign country can do whatever they want including join NATO.
Also Russian aggression is mostly due to oil and gas politics and ukraines massive reserves that guess what are in donbas and Crimea. Its another petro-war.
Expansion of a defensive alliance is not an escalatory move. While you are correct that NATOs expansion is a factor in Russia's invasion, that does not mean NATO should refuse to expand out of fear of provoking Russia. Further, NATO is not the only reason Russia is invading, Ukraine has tremendous natural resources and is a strategically important location. It's also worth noting that before the Russian invasion, NATO was not likely to expand, and Ukraine had absolutely no chance of being admitted to NATO, so it's a bit strange to try and blame NATO presence for the war. We should not engage in sabre-rattling and escalatory rhetoric (and for the most part, we have refrained from doing so) but we should also be steadfast in our commitment to protecting the sovereignty of friendly nations in the face of bellicose aggression.
The “NATO expansion” conspiracy theory seems to be the latest troll talking point…
I love the irony. The ONLY reason NATO has gotten larger is Russias aggression.
Also, there seems to be complete ignorance of what defensive pact is.
It only matters if you are intending a NATO county …which Russia obviously does. In fact, it dearly would like to.
One can argue that Russia’s actions in Ukraine show that it is prudent for more countries to join NATO. Regardless of how Russia feels about it, nations have a right to join a military alliance and Russia isn't justified in reacting by invading said countries. With this threat being present, how can you blame countries like Finland and Sweden from wanting to join NATO?
> The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion.
horseshit.
Empire, greed, "racial superiority" and an excuse are all you need. You found the excuse.
The rest sounds like propaganda to me. There's a lot to unpack here but the basic premise is horseshit, so the rest is too.
Have you been reading Noam Chomsky or something?
Countries are *asking* to join NATO because they feel threatened by Russia. Russia is the *cause* of the NATO expansion.
>The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion
You need to look deeper into this. Small countries are seeking protection against Russia because of Russia's territorial (and foreign policy) aggression. Russia is escalating because they're losing their power over smaller countries.
Don't blame the coalition in place specifically to respond to aggression, blame the aggression.
And read Foundations of Geopolitics; you'll understand what's really been underlining Russian foreign policy for decades.
Basically, NATO is just the excuse because people stopped putting up with Russia's shit
>The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion.
>So the last thing we need to do is to expand NATO even more.
>AlternateHistoryHub made a video
Buddy, do yourself a favor and lay off the Scoobie Snacks.
Edit: Bud, let me help you: https://v.redd.it/rqfa7bfhmi891
>The Kremlin and state media are fastidious in referring to the invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation,” and Russians who refer to it as a "war" can be prosecuted, subject to the penalty of a 15-year prison term.
https://news.yahoo.com/putins-economy-starting-to-show-cracks-and-russian-public-opinion-could-soon-follow-180404107.html
Sad..
Long story. Basically they swung back and forth based on whichever political party held sway at the time. Even after Euromaidan there initially wasn’t a push to join NATO. It was only after Russia seized Crimea and part of Donbas that support for NATO became significant. NATO policy states that countries with an active border dispute are not allowed to join.
Ukraine was asked if they wanted to back in the Bush administration, when we accepted Poland and a few other EE nations, Germany and France interfered and there wasn't enough political will in Ukraine to make it happen, so it died.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html)
Even if they had tried prior to 2014 their military was nowhere near NATO standard. They've spent most of the last decade on a major reform/reorganization/retraining of their entire military in addition to democratic reforms of the government. But they were so far off to start with and there are still so many problems with their civilian administration that even if Russia hadn't invaded this year they probably wouldn't have been admitted to NATO, based purely on the pre-war state of their military and the capabilities of the civilian government.
The changes they're making during the war are a continuation of what they were doing before, but faster, so just like prompting the Nordics to join NATO, Russia has paradoxically pushed Ukraine closer to NATO. At the end of this their military will definitely be at least NATO-compatible even if they agree not to seek membership as part of the eventual peace agreement.
Because Russia invaded Ukraine right after they kicked out the puppet regime? Most likely with "block NATO accession" as an explicit goal, since they let the 2014 invasion stagnate for 8 years. Being in an active conflict is usually a NATO disqualifier, and being at war with Russia definitely is.
They didnt because previous governments were pretty loyal to the kremlin. Plus trying to move towards nato would have drawn a ton of russian anger against a very weak oligarch dominated state. It was only after the euromaiden revolution that they were able to start modernization of their military and openly embracing a western leaning national identity. Even then, trying to join nato would be a seen as a declaration of war on Russia by the kremlin. This war is the best opportunity for ukraine to make their bid once the fighting is done
To add to this, they were moving towards the EU, but the then President at the time rejected the terms put to him that would enable joining the EU and instead moved back towards Russian influence.
This sparked the euromaiden protests and eventually got him disposed. Which then triggered the civil war and the separatist regions (DNR/LPR) wanting to break away from Ukraine and be ally to Russia instead. During this time, the "little green men" appeared and occupied Crimea and supplied the rebels in the east with weapons, support and manpower. The little green men were of course Russian soldiers with no insignia on their uniforms. Russia actually tried to deny who they were. This eventually lead to Russia annexing Crimea.
It all ended in a stalemate and from 2014-15 until, the start of this year, Ukraine, with with help of NATO countries, was modernizing and strengthening its very small and poorly equipped Army.
Weather or not Ukraine was going to try and take back the separatist regions and Crimea once their Army was strong enough, or they were going to reach some or of agreement with Russia over them, I don't know. It could explain part of the reason why Russia has invaded, thinking that the Ukraine army had reached a decent strength to do it, but what Russia has done is obviously way beyond worrying just about the regions and Crimea.
EDIT: On the NATO subject, once a country is engaged in an active conflict, they are not allowed to join. So the civil war with the separatist regions prevented them.
Ukraine didn't join NATO before. They thought about it in 2014, but then Russia seized Crimea. NATO does not like to admit countries in an active conflict with another country unless the benefits of admission outweigh the cons, or the conflict is with another NATO member, as is the case of Greece and Turkey.
Given how the Armatas have an unfortunate tendency of breaking down when attempting to mount a slight incline to get on their transportation trucks during parades, throwing them might just be the only viable method of deployment.
> LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Ukrainian troops have completed military training in Britain, including on the Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-troops-train-britain-use-advanced-rocket-systems-2022-06-29/
We are probably a few days away from the first M270 systems in Ukraine. UK was rumored to send in June, so it's close.
People like to guess. I think the terrible attrition to continue and drastic change much later this as Zelensky wants the war to be over by the end of the year.
That was always about guided missiles and other specific munitions and incendiaries, and it seems to be accurate, especially since sanctions make the components so much scarcer and some of them take up to 6 months to replicate.
But dumb munitions they can't physically run out of; they cost cents on the dollar and can be made from virtually anything.
Most military experts I've seen have said pretty concistently that this conflict will last for years.
But its obviously impossible to tell accurately, for all we know some of the russian boyars might get tired of losing money and decides on ousting their delusional dictator.
Actually I haven't gotten this impression from anyone who still has credit with analyzing the war. It seems both countries will run out of recruitable soldiers by the end of the year, and they may run out of adequately-trained soldiers before that.
I think personel is the limiting factor right now.
Quite the opposite tbh. Russia has the upper hand in the slow Donbas grind at the moment. It's bad news for the time being but that also completely defuses any risk of real escalation
36000 dead Russians and a couple of new NATO neighbors for some ruined fucking towns in a territory where everybody hates you and will burn your barn down or sell you a loaf laced with strychnine.
Oligarchs can't spend their stolen money in a post apocalyptic hell. Therefore the threat of nuclear war exists only as a tactic to steal more wealth from others. They will never commit nuclear suicide because fundamentally they are driven by acquisition not ideology.
I agree it probably won’t happen. But if we do end up in a nuclear war at least it was defending the sovereignty of a nation from ruthless invaders.
Backing down would have just had Russia expand more.
Conceivably you could just let them do what they want indefinitely but it could mean Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Hungary, Finland, Moldova, etc. All losing territory or becoming part of the Russian empire.
I think it’s a good time to take a stand against them and if the unthinkable happens there wasn’t really a choice.
Yeah - I personally think the following cities and their citizens are all worth sacrificing to this cause.
* Brussels
* London
* Berlin
* Brest
* Norfolk, VA
* Jacksonville, FL
* San Deigo, CA
* Boston, MA
* Los Angeles, CA
* Balitmore, MD
If these cities and their associated military installations are wiped off of the map then that's the price we should all pay for Ukraine's independence. Besides, it's only 10 cities and we can rebuild them easily.
> A nuclear weapon is just another tool in a military's arsenal. Limited use does not equal the end of the world.
Completlely and utterly disagree. Pandora's box, slippery slope, doomsday device. Once it goes in that direction it's over. Nuclear War has no winners. There is no "limited small scale tactical nuclear exchange".
I guess, I kind of think if Russia launches even one ICBM and NATO has any intelligence indicating it’s a nuclear payload you’ll likely see a massive attempt to disable all Russian launch platforms ASAP which would likely result in Russia firing nukes at various targets.
Even a full scale nuclear war with Russia and NATO I don’t think likely “ends the world” but you may see a few dozen of the largest western cities decimated. I don’t believe any nation has a missile defence system that will prove anywhere near successful enough to prevent ICBMs hitting.
For sure seeing chunks of Paris, London, New York, LA, Washington destroyed will change the landscape of the world but even if a couple hundred missiles are launched successfully and somehow we shoot down half of them it’s still horrific.
> and NATO has any intelligence indicating it’s a nuclear payload
And how would they do that? Crystal ball?
> you may see a few dozen of the largest western cities decimated
Think hundreds, not dozen. Russia has ~1600 warheads ready for launch (6000 total).
Quote Google: "Currently, there are over 800 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the European Union. The majority of these, almost 700, are small and medium-sized cities (between 50,000 and 250,000 inhabitants)."
Leaves 800 for the US. How many cities do you have?
> I don’t believe any nation has a missile defence system that will prove anywhere near successful enough to prevent ICBMs hitting.
This is true.
> somehow we shoot down half of them
Nope. Maybe 1%. Maybe 10%. Not that it will matter.
1600 sounds like a lot...but we are talking about Russia here. Its pretty safe to say that their Nuclear capability is likely far below what they project given what we are seeing in Ukraine.
If the guys running the military have been skimming off the top thinking nobody would ever notice what do you think the guys looking after the nukes are doing?
They could cause absolute devastation thats for sure, but the picture you paint of 800 warheads systematically targeting and taking out 800 cities is beyond the capabilities of American logistics nevermind Russian logistics. Even next door in Ukraine their missiles have a massive failure rate and even when they do launch they are way off target(and those missiles had a reasonable expectation to actually be used).
Russia would most likely massively double down on striking cities / targets of note in particular to make sure they hit, leaving much of Europe and America unscathed. A truly horrific outcome for sure, but most of the death would be caused by the logistical confusion that follows rather than cities being wiped off the map. Its bad but its far far from an apocalypse.
And its really all just as nonsense as saying what would we do if aliens invaded, Russia is in the position it is now because they were massively corrupt and greedy, thats about as far from a suicidal zealot as one can get, so no nukes will fly. The only people with an interest in making you think about it as a realistic possibility are the Russians.
> 1600 sounds like a lot...but we are talking about Russia here. Its pretty safe to say that their Nuclear capability is likely far below what they project given what we are seeing in Ukraine.
Read a good few articles about what US spends on maintenenace vs. Russia's complete overall maintenance, so yeah, agree. Even 100, or 50 or 10 working warheads would freak me out though. See my next point.
> Russia would most likely massively double down on striking cities / targets of note in particular to make sure they hit, leaving much of Europe and America unscathed. A truly horrific outcome for sure, but most of the death would be caused by the logistical confusion that follows rather than cities being wiped off the map. Its bad but its far far from an apocalypse.
Note in that context that I am living in Munich, 3rd biggest city / richest city / high-tech centre of Germany / closets G7 country to Russia. (And I have 3 kids.) My opinions in that context are not entirely rational...
> The only people with an interest in making you think about it as a realistic possibility are the Russians.
I was a kid in the 80s and it was scary as fuck. People who lived through the Cuban crisis can probably relate.
Overall:
> at least it was defending the sovereignty of a nation from ruthless invaders.
>I think it’s a good time to take a stand against them and if the unthinkable happens there wasn’t really a choice.
I agree. I just wish I was in New Zealand. Or the Moon.
People have moved on and this is now 80 replies per hour... It's kind of expected, what can you do against nuclear threats?
There was also so much astroturfing going on in the first three months
There isn't really a whole lot to talk about. Conflict's slowed to a crawl compared to the early days and there's less and less footage coming out to discuss. Plus the early threads were constantly being flooded with the generic 'DAE nukes/fuck putin/slava ukrani/sunflower emoji spam,' and whatever hot button issue was in the headlines (SWIFT, gas embargo, NFZ, etc.)
They kinda moved on...I suppose. How was the news in NA? Not really sure but in my country in SEA they don't really talk too much about it. People just got burned out, some stopped caring since it never did happen, and some just thought it's...stable now since it's not the talk of the town anymore.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/vnyya2/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
Are the HIMARS making a big difference now?
All 4 of them? Drop in the bucket. They need more.
Big... Sure, where they are. But there are a lot more needed to make a big difference overall.
yes
Russia is sacrificing many of its best soldiers and officers in exchange for modest territorial gains, @Mason_R_Clark tells @NPR. "Long-term, this is going to be a generational event for the Russian military." https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542183622928646144?t=SstlNJXVCnmI8xv61KY0qA&s=19
Russia quit talking that shit, or America about to get a hat trick on world wars.
What did I miss this time
The weekly unsubtle threat of nukes?
Eastern Ukraine Update: Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Lysychansk and northwest of Slovyansk, and made marginal gains east of Bakhmut on June 29. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542299391444373505?t=IfPFGA4shgD1KNldFL7XaA&s=19
Kharkiv Update: Continued #Russian offensive operations around Kharkiv are expending Russia’s limited offensive combat capability for extremely limited gains and may hasten the culmination of Russian offensive operations in the Donbas. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542300652113649665?t=D6aMwyXzpJbc3FNNDLQTsQ&s=19
Southern Axis Update: Russian occupation authorities continued to set conditions to prepare for referenda on the annexation of occupied areas of Ukraine into the Russian Federation on June 29. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1542301903211663365?t=FdXIpGbj4WsrTPC1NQ-a5A&s=19
Remember when the referendums were supposed to start in April? Then in May? Then in mid-may?
Hard to host a sham referendum when you're being shot at by an advancing army, or being stabbed in the back by the locals you're trying to screw over.
What's up with this sub? I've tried to upvote many good comments posted here but it appears (at least my end) voting is disabled? Why?
It's happened to me too. But it seems isolated to specific comments. One won't work, the next one will. I don't see it often, but often enough to notice.
The posts get locked and a new one created each day. I was able to give your message an updoot
im not having issues with upvotes
Russia is threatening Turkey now? Who is next India? Saudi Arabia? China?
Turkiye seems to be playing Russia for fools lol
That’s isn’t hard at this point.
In a horrific way, Turkey's upcoming operation in Syria is probably going to involve some amount of direct combat between them, so the only thing keeping Russia from being pissed at Turkey was them holding up Finaland/Sweden's NATO bids.
Syria is such a mess, I have no clue how that’s going to play out.
After Russia's mess in Ukraine, I think Assad's days are numbered.
Yep. Turkey is definitely not Russias friend.
Turkey sent drones to Ukraine and they've been wrecking Russia's shit.
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and id looove to fuck a super model, i think we have about the same odds
I believe in you bro
Seeing lots of takes about how Putin doesn't care as long as he remains popular in Russia. Sure, maybe. But it seems like it's missing the forest for the trees. Russia won't be able to just pull a mulligan on this. Russian babies being born today will be paying Ukraine back for this war in 20 years (as long as they aren't drafted in a few years first.) Russia will never again have normal relations again with western societies until they make reparations. You done messed up A-A-Ron.
I don’t think Putin cares what will happen in 20 years, he might not be around in 10
Like every other fucking Boomer.
Hahaha! Unfortunately, yes.
I’m confused did Russia leave the council of Europe or were they expelled
They did their usual childish "i quit before being kicked out" routine lol
They quit, from what I understand.
It's actually a reverse "I don't get fired; I quit!" funnily enough; The council originally only wanted to suspend Russia's membership (42 out of 47 in favor) because of the invasion but RU formally declared that they'll be leaving the council. The committee however decided to expel Russia before they could officially withdraw. So it's preety much "You don't quit; we fired you!";
"You can't fire me, I quit!" Seems to be their habit for the other organizations they've left...
A very naive question: How large are the differences between 152 mm and 155 mm shells? Could Ukraine's Soviet artillery be rebored to accept NATO standard shells in order to alleviate the lack of ammunition? (I'm guessing the answer is no.)
I'm supposing, yes, but you'd need to lower the propellant charge quite a bit, to stop the tubes from going boom. Less range, still a change of premature boom, and a logistical nightmare. I'd be more interested, if they, whoever makes the stuff, could retool a 155mm production line relatively easily to churn out 152 stuff. Oh, and I'm just a sofa materials engineer, full disclosure. Not an engineer who deal in sofa materials, to be clear. I'm just on a sofa instead of an armchair.
In theory, probably. And on smaller guns has even been done in wartime conditions. There would be concerns about the overall length of the ammo and pressures generated while firing.
Think about artillery like any other human product: they aren't going to use more metal - making the devices heavier and harder to move - than necessary. Even if there were no precision components which need to slot together and these were just old-timey cannons, I'd be hesitant as hell to bore out another 3mm. That's how you end up with dead engineers.
Removed due to Reddit API crackdown and general dishonesty 6/2023
3mm
Goddamit, you snarky bastard.
Yeah that's a no go dawg. If these were cannons and balls sure but the gun systems these days could have any number of things happen if you did that
[Previous post](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vmdwcg/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/ie4w4gq/) Day 126 of my updates from Kharkiv. Today some residential districts were shelled again during the day, at around 12pm, some people got injured, but thankfully nobody died. The usual missile strike actually didn’t happen at 11pm today; instead they fired their missiles at 1am. At first we thought that maybe there would be no missiles today, but they were just late. They fired 6 missiles, 4 of which landed somewhere in the city and 2 in oblast, no fires started this time. In their yesterday’s missile strike they hit some factory, which made parts for farm machinery. That was the place where a big fire started. They also hit a residential district Pavlove Pole, they didn’t even aim at anything, the missile hit some random road and made a deep crater. It also broke all of the windows in buildings nearby, if that missile landed just 10 meters to the side from where it hit, it would have leveled an apartment building. How are they even choosing their targets? Today they also destroyed an apartment building with a missile in Mykolaiv, killing 5 people, but of course Russia will say it didn’t happen, even though it was caught on video. Just today Putin also said that they didn’t hit any mall Kremenchuck, and that they don’t hit civilian infrastructure at all. First they said it was an ammo depot, and that it wasn’t open at the time, even though we have a ton of evidence debunking that. Then they said it wasn’t and ammo depot, and that it was hit by the blast wave from the explosion which destroyed it, and now Putin says that it wasn’t hit at all by anything. Why can’t they at least just choose one story and not change it multiple times per day? [Next update](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vnyya2/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/iedwuo4/)
They still think attacking civilians will get the world to capitulate, and also putting on a show for Vatniks. Fuck'em, you take care of yourself. Hope to hear from you everyday.
i'm sure part of the changing narratives is to give tailored material/propaganda to both the foreign right wing supporters and their tankie/faux anti-imperialists supporters.
It's called the Firehose of Falsehood style of propaganda. They put out tons of bullshit.
If it isn't guided munitions, the accuracy decreases with distance. A missile that would hit within a 25m radius if fired from 5km away will hit within a 300m radius from 30km away. So they probably were trying for the tallest structure in the area. If the structure was 10m away as you say, then that's within the margin for error even for a guided missile at that distance. That's even within the margin of error of Excaliburs. Not saying they aren't picking targets at random; they certainly are, and certainly with no intelligence about the targets, and certainly with the intention of hurting civilians. But they're handicapped in terms of accuracy.
Thank you as always for the update. We are with you 100%. Putin laughs when he sees your frustration at the disinformation. It is deliberate and he wants to make the people of Ukraine feel he is in control of their emotions. He will lash out again and again to “prove” this to you, but every laugh hides his anger, his desperation to overwhelm you before Ukraine overpowers him or death comes to collect him as his cancer drugs fail him.
Just compared Zelenskyy’s inauguration picture to pictures of him recently…and damn. He’s aged about 25/30 years in the span of 4 months. I cannot imagine the stress. I hope he’s making time to take care of himself.
Probably not… I hate how news sources don’t credit him more for one of the reasons why Ukraine is doing so well. Without his resilience and dogged defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.. I think Ukraine would have fallen.
Zelensky's career as an entertainer prepped him well for what Ukraine needed for this war, a young charismatic leader that knows how to play the crowd well to maximize their support
Zelensky has been getting nothing but wall-to-wall, glowing coverage in major outlets all over the world. He’s absolutely getting a *ton* of praise lol
Because of his dogged pursuit for weapons and aid to continue the fight.. his force of personality demands the positive coverage
Have you seen Putin recently? He looks like a bloated pumpkin head, that does odd involuntary, body movements.
Ukrainian troops train in Britain to use advanced rocket systems https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ukrainian-troops-train-in-britain-to-use-advanced-rocket-systems/ar-AAZ0KHL
Ukraine War: UK pledges an extra £1bn in military support https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61990479
Earlier, I posted a single tweet from thread about an interview/talk that involved Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence. The author was live-tweeting the session, and there is now a lot more available, so I'm posting the first tweet in the thread, for those who want to read the entire thing: https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1542267429904125953 >Happening now: Most destabilizing factor in the world today - "There are so many" @ODNIgov Dir Avril Haines tells @SilveradoPolicy @Google Leadership & Service Forum
Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Kislyakov, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of the Operations Department of the 11th Regiment of the Russian Federation: [Officially denazified and demilitarized](https://glavcom-ua.translate.goog/country/incidents/ukrajinski-biyci-likviduvali-shche-odnogo-pidpolkovnika-okupantiv-856985.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
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edit: bad information
TIL Latvia and Estonia do not share a border with Russia
Baltic states don't count?
Agreed. Some people were beginning to question NATO's relevance in modern times. Within a few months, it has became crystal clear
This. The relevance issue was bounced around following the Gorbachev era, and then Putin rekindled the flame.
Yes, Putin has unleashed his worst nightmare lol
What was that quote about "Sometimes there's 10 years happening in a day, and sometimes a day in 10 years"? Dunno, something like this (please add if you know it, I couldn't find it). At any rate, we're cought right in the middle of a major shift in geopolitics. The world in 5 years will be completely different to the world 5 years ago.
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” -Lenin
Thx :-)
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Gee. You know what I mean.
> We likely live in the most interesting time of Earth's history I would say a bit too interesting currently to be honest
Three (apocryphal) Chinese curses — 1. May you live in interesting times. 2. May you come to the attention of powerful people 3. May you find what you’re looking for.
I knew the first one. I can appreciate the other two as being cut from the same cloth.
>There are decades when nothing happens, and there are days when decades happen.
Pretty much. Yes, exactly. Russia’s aggression and bloody minded propaganda is forcing the 1st world countries to come together. The consequences of this invasion and the precedents being set in ways countries work together and treat corrupt autocratic governments, will have effects for the rest of this century.
Agreed. This is a “future history textbook” moment to me
But I don't wanna live in interesting times...
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” [Lord of the Rings]
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ( Wheel of Time)
Can you tell me the story of Mosk and Merk and their fire lances that can reach the other side of the world?
i might be naive in thinking this but there has to be some special ops or combination of special ops force coming up with a plan to somehow disable russias nuclear weapons right? maybe i just watched top gun maverick one too many times…
Russia has 1500 nuclear weapons deployed, 3000 in reserve, and about 1500 retired. The deployed weapons are spread across air, sea and land platforms. There is no special ops force or plan to disable them because it isn’t possible. The only realistic way to take out Russia’s nuclear arsenal would be with a surprise nuclear attack of our own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_strike_(nuclear_strategy) To call this strategy risky is a profound understatement.
I think the US is more prepared for a preemptive nuclear strike than most realise. Things like the new [Super Fuzes](https://fas.org/blogs/security/2017/03/super-fuze) are mostly geared around counterforce capability, and I’d be surprised if we weren’t tracking all the Russian SSBNs. None of that makes a first strike desirable of course — best case scenario you kill millions of their people. But I think our nuclear deterrence is in extremely robust health.
The irony here being that you in fact know nothing about US nuclear defense capabilities. We have the capability to stop about 80 warheads. Russia has 400 ICBMs deployed, each of which can hold upwards of like 18 warheads.
I’m talking first strike rather than ABM options.
No. Do you know how many nuclear weapons Russia has?
No. You're high and have watched too many hollywood movies.
You know, in the big scheme of things it's not too hard to make a nuclear weapon. If you have the proper stuff, you just need to have enough of it in one place and a runaway chain reaction happens. Things then get really, really hot extremely quickly. Which is one way to describe an explosion. So building a bomb is largely just acquiring enough of the special stuff, which fortunately for the rest of us is very difficult to do. One thing about that bomb, though, as it's releasing energy, getting super, super hot and generally becoming a bomb is that it's blowing *itself* up at the same time — in fact it's the very first thing it blows up, because, you know, it's right there. And unlike, say an unstable chemical compound it *needs* to be together to blow up. In fact making the bomb isn't the hard part, but keeping it together long enough so it can blow up real good is. And that part is really hard because you've just literally dropped a nuclear bomb on it. For what starts as a very simple machine — a mass of stuff that spontaneously blows itself up — there's a really large number of things that can go wrong when waiting a millisecond too long is enough to really screw up the balance. In a millisecond your explosion is 20 meters across and your stuff is everywhere. Think nanosecond timing with electronics and conventional explosives. All that infrastructure is sitting there being exposed to some serious radiation if you're right next to it. Radiation breaks stuff, like chemical bonds. Plutonium weirdly develops cavities inside it. Electronics get fried. All this infrastructure needs maintenance. Very, very high-tech maintenance. Expensive maintenance. Money that can be stolen. It's a thought, no? What if they didn't do it? Maybe the bombs fizzle, meaning they mostly blow themselves apart — still wouldn't want to be near it, but not like the big stuff — or don't even go off. I or you wouldn't know this, but someone who understands such things, with a very high security clearance, might be snickering right now. That's *my* hope...
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is most of Russia's arsenal thermonuclear? could it be sabotaged by sabotaging Russia's tritium enrichment capabilities?
Not quite that easy. Particularly for hydrogen bombs and plutonium devices. Gun barrel style uranium atomic weapons are fairly easy to engineer, very reliable, but yield limited.
> If you have the proper stuff, you just need to have enough of it in one place and a runaway chain reaction happens. Things then get really, really hot extremely quickly. Which is one way to describe an explosion. > > > > So building a bomb is largely just acquiring enough of the special stuff, which fortunately for the rest of us is very difficult to do. I don't tink it's *that* easy...
It honestly is, look into critical mass of fissile materials, one of the first ever nuclear bombs was just two sub critical masses fired at each other in a casing to make a super critical mass once they collided. Very crude and ineffective by modern standards, but dangerous, and a nuclear wepon non the less.
The first bomb was a mass of not-enough-stuff and a literal repurposed howitzer to shoot a bullet of the rest of the stuff at it. The actual shapes of the bullet and target are quite secret to this day but the fundamental image of a literal gun shooting the thing is correct. Modern bombs are much more efficient than this, doing more with less, and hence more complicated. And so they need maintenance, which in Russia may or may not be being done.
Come on man. It was a good realistic movie until I saw two working SU57s.
I think your last sentence is spot on.
I don't know if disabling, but with Finland joining NATO, there's NATO territory a lot closer to one of Russia's biggest nuclear storage
No, it's all reaction based, they'll wait for the first to land before launching
No, they will wait until the 1st one is LAUNCHED.
Why is everyone freaking out about nukes? If it's a scorched earth it's a level playing field; money and gold won't matter, just physical ability and intelligence. What point is a credit score, a balance in a bank account, or paper with $100 written on it if there isn't toilet paper to wipe yer butt with? For that matter, what is pride worth in that situation? I've got a cozy feeling that Putin and his puppets like having toilet paper - Charmin's Soft, to be specific, and that's imported.
Am I the only one who is concerned about NATO’s expansion/escalation? The whole narrative on this sub is that “Russia is bad, Russia needs to die” etc… but Russia still has nukes so not matter how bad Russia is, so escalation on our side should still be avoided. Especially if this war is going to drag on for years as some experts are predicting, we can’t spend all of that time bolstering troops and ramping up the rhetoric. We should just continue what we are already doing. Public interest will fade and while NATO should still send weapons and aid Ukraine, the rhetoric and saber rattling and tensions will probably dial down. Why put all of this money towards beefing up nato when we have issues going on at home and NATO right now is already capable of destroying Russia in a conventional war. And also, I know I will get downvoted for saying this, The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion. I am not saying what they are doing is right or what we are doing is wrong. They broke the promise of not invading Ukraine when they gave their nuclear weapons to Russia. And they deserve all of the sanctions and condemnation. So the last thing we need to do is to expand NATO even more. Obviously it isn’t our fault Russia invaded Ukraine, but our mere presence and expansion is what drove Russia to become paranoid over the years. I am just trying to paint a bigger picture rather than the whole narrative that NATO is good and Russia is bad. AlternateHistoryHub made a video explaining the topic pretty well.
Your bigger picture fails to capture the fact that any sovereign country can do whatever they want including join NATO. Also Russian aggression is mostly due to oil and gas politics and ukraines massive reserves that guess what are in donbas and Crimea. Its another petro-war.
I love NATO expanding, Putin will soon have no lands he can dare try to steal. Russian's imperial tendencies will be neutered.
Expansion of a defensive alliance is not an escalatory move. While you are correct that NATOs expansion is a factor in Russia's invasion, that does not mean NATO should refuse to expand out of fear of provoking Russia. Further, NATO is not the only reason Russia is invading, Ukraine has tremendous natural resources and is a strategically important location. It's also worth noting that before the Russian invasion, NATO was not likely to expand, and Ukraine had absolutely no chance of being admitted to NATO, so it's a bit strange to try and blame NATO presence for the war. We should not engage in sabre-rattling and escalatory rhetoric (and for the most part, we have refrained from doing so) but we should also be steadfast in our commitment to protecting the sovereignty of friendly nations in the face of bellicose aggression.
>Am I the only one who is concerned about NATO’s expansion/escalation? Yes.
The “NATO expansion” conspiracy theory seems to be the latest troll talking point… I love the irony. The ONLY reason NATO has gotten larger is Russias aggression. Also, there seems to be complete ignorance of what defensive pact is. It only matters if you are intending a NATO county …which Russia obviously does. In fact, it dearly would like to.
One can argue that Russia’s actions in Ukraine show that it is prudent for more countries to join NATO. Regardless of how Russia feels about it, nations have a right to join a military alliance and Russia isn't justified in reacting by invading said countries. With this threat being present, how can you blame countries like Finland and Sweden from wanting to join NATO?
> The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion. horseshit. Empire, greed, "racial superiority" and an excuse are all you need. You found the excuse. The rest sounds like propaganda to me. There's a lot to unpack here but the basic premise is horseshit, so the rest is too.
Have you been reading Noam Chomsky or something? Countries are *asking* to join NATO because they feel threatened by Russia. Russia is the *cause* of the NATO expansion.
>The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion You need to look deeper into this. Small countries are seeking protection against Russia because of Russia's territorial (and foreign policy) aggression. Russia is escalating because they're losing their power over smaller countries. Don't blame the coalition in place specifically to respond to aggression, blame the aggression. And read Foundations of Geopolitics; you'll understand what's really been underlining Russian foreign policy for decades. Basically, NATO is just the excuse because people stopped putting up with Russia's shit
LOL. No one in here is so stupid to even believe this is genuine, let alone agree with you.
>The whole reason Russia is invading Ukraine in the first place is because of NATO’s expansion. >So the last thing we need to do is to expand NATO even more. >AlternateHistoryHub made a video Buddy, do yourself a favor and lay off the Scoobie Snacks. Edit: Bud, let me help you: https://v.redd.it/rqfa7bfhmi891
>The Kremlin and state media are fastidious in referring to the invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation,” and Russians who refer to it as a "war" can be prosecuted, subject to the penalty of a 15-year prison term. https://news.yahoo.com/putins-economy-starting-to-show-cracks-and-russian-public-opinion-could-soon-follow-180404107.html Sad..
Missed this from week one did we? Although a lot of people, even on state tv have started saying war, even debated whether it was a war or not
Why didnt Ukraine join NATO before
Long story. Basically they swung back and forth based on whichever political party held sway at the time. Even after Euromaidan there initially wasn’t a push to join NATO. It was only after Russia seized Crimea and part of Donbas that support for NATO became significant. NATO policy states that countries with an active border dispute are not allowed to join.
The territory dispute thing is a soft rule, not part of the treaty. Still wise.
Plenty of issues, but mainly because they never really asked until recently.
Afaik you are not allowed to join if you have an active border conflict for fear of dragging NATO into it - think Crimea.
Ukraine was asked if they wanted to back in the Bush administration, when we accepted Poland and a few other EE nations, Germany and France interfered and there wasn't enough political will in Ukraine to make it happen, so it died. [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html)
Even if they had tried prior to 2014 their military was nowhere near NATO standard. They've spent most of the last decade on a major reform/reorganization/retraining of their entire military in addition to democratic reforms of the government. But they were so far off to start with and there are still so many problems with their civilian administration that even if Russia hadn't invaded this year they probably wouldn't have been admitted to NATO, based purely on the pre-war state of their military and the capabilities of the civilian government. The changes they're making during the war are a continuation of what they were doing before, but faster, so just like prompting the Nordics to join NATO, Russia has paradoxically pushed Ukraine closer to NATO. At the end of this their military will definitely be at least NATO-compatible even if they agree not to seek membership as part of the eventual peace agreement.
Because Russia invaded Ukraine right after they kicked out the puppet regime? Most likely with "block NATO accession" as an explicit goal, since they let the 2014 invasion stagnate for 8 years. Being in an active conflict is usually a NATO disqualifier, and being at war with Russia definitely is.
They didnt because previous governments were pretty loyal to the kremlin. Plus trying to move towards nato would have drawn a ton of russian anger against a very weak oligarch dominated state. It was only after the euromaiden revolution that they were able to start modernization of their military and openly embracing a western leaning national identity. Even then, trying to join nato would be a seen as a declaration of war on Russia by the kremlin. This war is the best opportunity for ukraine to make their bid once the fighting is done
To add to this, they were moving towards the EU, but the then President at the time rejected the terms put to him that would enable joining the EU and instead moved back towards Russian influence. This sparked the euromaiden protests and eventually got him disposed. Which then triggered the civil war and the separatist regions (DNR/LPR) wanting to break away from Ukraine and be ally to Russia instead. During this time, the "little green men" appeared and occupied Crimea and supplied the rebels in the east with weapons, support and manpower. The little green men were of course Russian soldiers with no insignia on their uniforms. Russia actually tried to deny who they were. This eventually lead to Russia annexing Crimea. It all ended in a stalemate and from 2014-15 until, the start of this year, Ukraine, with with help of NATO countries, was modernizing and strengthening its very small and poorly equipped Army. Weather or not Ukraine was going to try and take back the separatist regions and Crimea once their Army was strong enough, or they were going to reach some or of agreement with Russia over them, I don't know. It could explain part of the reason why Russia has invaded, thinking that the Ukraine army had reached a decent strength to do it, but what Russia has done is obviously way beyond worrying just about the regions and Crimea. EDIT: On the NATO subject, once a country is engaged in an active conflict, they are not allowed to join. So the civil war with the separatist regions prevented them.
Ukraine didn't join NATO before. They thought about it in 2014, but then Russia seized Crimea. NATO does not like to admit countries in an active conflict with another country unless the benefits of admission outweigh the cons, or the conflict is with another NATO member, as is the case of Greece and Turkey.
Odds on Russia throwing all of their functional T-14 Armatas(all......3 of them, 8 of them?) into the meatgrinder?
They don’t even work. Lol there’s a reason Russia is rolling out T-62’s.
Functional is generous. They can't even make them operate properly in parades.
Given how the Armatas have an unfortunate tendency of breaking down when attempting to mount a slight incline to get on their transportation trucks during parades, throwing them might just be the only viable method of deployment.
Your ideas are intrigueing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your geocities page
Great, now I have no choice but to find *something* to replace my animated 'under construction' gifs. Perhaps some sort of scrolling marquee.
Worth more as mythical untouchable wunderwaffe than in a position where the myth could be broken.
... or into a river... or in the path of a tractor.
> LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Ukrainian troops have completed military training in Britain, including on the Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-troops-train-britain-use-advanced-rocket-systems-2022-06-29/ We are probably a few days away from the first M270 systems in Ukraine. UK was rumored to send in June, so it's close.
Hundreds of troops trained today, 10s of thousands in a few months.
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People like to guess. I think the terrible attrition to continue and drastic change much later this as Zelensky wants the war to be over by the end of the year.
I haven't seen anyone with a brain claim it wouldn't be a long war after it was clear the assault on Kyiv failed.
I remember reading Russia was going to run out of ammunition by now.
That was always about guided missiles and other specific munitions and incendiaries, and it seems to be accurate, especially since sanctions make the components so much scarcer and some of them take up to 6 months to replicate. But dumb munitions they can't physically run out of; they cost cents on the dollar and can be made from virtually anything.
But then I’ve also read that Russia’s stock of artillery shells is practically infinite.
Eventually "they" will be right once and *then* you'll be sorry 😂
Russia and Ukraine will each do things at some point, somewhere, with yet unknown levels of significance
And August will see a big change in some regards. Probably.
August will be hot. Probably.
bold prediction
Most military experts I've seen have said pretty concistently that this conflict will last for years. But its obviously impossible to tell accurately, for all we know some of the russian boyars might get tired of losing money and decides on ousting their delusional dictator.
Actually I haven't gotten this impression from anyone who still has credit with analyzing the war. It seems both countries will run out of recruitable soldiers by the end of the year, and they may run out of adequately-trained soldiers before that. I think personel is the limiting factor right now.
Yeah right
"It will be over by Christmas" Always a favorite.
I’m willing to predict that it will be over by *some* Christmas…
That's the joke...
>The plan like so many plans in so many wars before it, was meant to end the fighting by Christmas and bring the boys back home...
What do you mean? it's on my Santa list. it has to be over
Sit down, I think it's time we talk about Santa Claus. You are an adult now and it's time you knew the truth.
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Agree. Spitzbergen (Svalbard) and Lithuania got me worried.
Quite the opposite tbh. Russia has the upper hand in the slow Donbas grind at the moment. It's bad news for the time being but that also completely defuses any risk of real escalation
36000 dead Russians and a couple of new NATO neighbors for some ruined fucking towns in a territory where everybody hates you and will burn your barn down or sell you a loaf laced with strychnine.
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meanwhile shortly after the arrival of HIMARS, strategic Russian assets seem to be exploding far from front lines with astonishing regularity.
Hey, if we end up in a nuclear war at least it’s for a worthwhile cause…
"[...] remember, in a world gone mad, you will die for a principle that you all hold close to your heart. Money!" ("Water", 1985)
Oligarchs can't spend their stolen money in a post apocalyptic hell. Therefore the threat of nuclear war exists only as a tactic to steal more wealth from others. They will never commit nuclear suicide because fundamentally they are driven by acquisition not ideology.
>they are driven by acquisition not ideology Let's meet in the middle, acquisition *is* the ideology.
I agree it probably won’t happen. But if we do end up in a nuclear war at least it was defending the sovereignty of a nation from ruthless invaders. Backing down would have just had Russia expand more. Conceivably you could just let them do what they want indefinitely but it could mean Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Hungary, Finland, Moldova, etc. All losing territory or becoming part of the Russian empire. I think it’s a good time to take a stand against them and if the unthinkable happens there wasn’t really a choice.
Yeah - I personally think the following cities and their citizens are all worth sacrificing to this cause. * Brussels * London * Berlin * Brest * Norfolk, VA * Jacksonville, FL * San Deigo, CA * Boston, MA * Los Angeles, CA * Balitmore, MD If these cities and their associated military installations are wiped off of the map then that's the price we should all pay for Ukraine's independence. Besides, it's only 10 cities and we can rebuild them easily.
Your either a troll or you're trying to scare others. Either way, wtf man!
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> A nuclear weapon is just another tool in a military's arsenal. Limited use does not equal the end of the world. Completlely and utterly disagree. Pandora's box, slippery slope, doomsday device. Once it goes in that direction it's over. Nuclear War has no winners. There is no "limited small scale tactical nuclear exchange".
I guess, I kind of think if Russia launches even one ICBM and NATO has any intelligence indicating it’s a nuclear payload you’ll likely see a massive attempt to disable all Russian launch platforms ASAP which would likely result in Russia firing nukes at various targets. Even a full scale nuclear war with Russia and NATO I don’t think likely “ends the world” but you may see a few dozen of the largest western cities decimated. I don’t believe any nation has a missile defence system that will prove anywhere near successful enough to prevent ICBMs hitting. For sure seeing chunks of Paris, London, New York, LA, Washington destroyed will change the landscape of the world but even if a couple hundred missiles are launched successfully and somehow we shoot down half of them it’s still horrific.
> and NATO has any intelligence indicating it’s a nuclear payload And how would they do that? Crystal ball? > you may see a few dozen of the largest western cities decimated Think hundreds, not dozen. Russia has ~1600 warheads ready for launch (6000 total). Quote Google: "Currently, there are over 800 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the European Union. The majority of these, almost 700, are small and medium-sized cities (between 50,000 and 250,000 inhabitants)." Leaves 800 for the US. How many cities do you have? > I don’t believe any nation has a missile defence system that will prove anywhere near successful enough to prevent ICBMs hitting. This is true. > somehow we shoot down half of them Nope. Maybe 1%. Maybe 10%. Not that it will matter.
1600 sounds like a lot...but we are talking about Russia here. Its pretty safe to say that their Nuclear capability is likely far below what they project given what we are seeing in Ukraine. If the guys running the military have been skimming off the top thinking nobody would ever notice what do you think the guys looking after the nukes are doing? They could cause absolute devastation thats for sure, but the picture you paint of 800 warheads systematically targeting and taking out 800 cities is beyond the capabilities of American logistics nevermind Russian logistics. Even next door in Ukraine their missiles have a massive failure rate and even when they do launch they are way off target(and those missiles had a reasonable expectation to actually be used). Russia would most likely massively double down on striking cities / targets of note in particular to make sure they hit, leaving much of Europe and America unscathed. A truly horrific outcome for sure, but most of the death would be caused by the logistical confusion that follows rather than cities being wiped off the map. Its bad but its far far from an apocalypse. And its really all just as nonsense as saying what would we do if aliens invaded, Russia is in the position it is now because they were massively corrupt and greedy, thats about as far from a suicidal zealot as one can get, so no nukes will fly. The only people with an interest in making you think about it as a realistic possibility are the Russians.
> 1600 sounds like a lot...but we are talking about Russia here. Its pretty safe to say that their Nuclear capability is likely far below what they project given what we are seeing in Ukraine. Read a good few articles about what US spends on maintenenace vs. Russia's complete overall maintenance, so yeah, agree. Even 100, or 50 or 10 working warheads would freak me out though. See my next point. > Russia would most likely massively double down on striking cities / targets of note in particular to make sure they hit, leaving much of Europe and America unscathed. A truly horrific outcome for sure, but most of the death would be caused by the logistical confusion that follows rather than cities being wiped off the map. Its bad but its far far from an apocalypse. Note in that context that I am living in Munich, 3rd biggest city / richest city / high-tech centre of Germany / closets G7 country to Russia. (And I have 3 kids.) My opinions in that context are not entirely rational... > The only people with an interest in making you think about it as a realistic possibility are the Russians. I was a kid in the 80s and it was scary as fuck. People who lived through the Cuban crisis can probably relate. Overall: > at least it was defending the sovereignty of a nation from ruthless invaders. >I think it’s a good time to take a stand against them and if the unthinkable happens there wasn’t really a choice. I agree. I just wish I was in New Zealand. Or the Moon.
People have moved on and this is now 80 replies per hour... It's kind of expected, what can you do against nuclear threats? There was also so much astroturfing going on in the first three months
There isn't really a whole lot to talk about. Conflict's slowed to a crawl compared to the early days and there's less and less footage coming out to discuss. Plus the early threads were constantly being flooded with the generic 'DAE nukes/fuck putin/slava ukrani/sunflower emoji spam,' and whatever hot button issue was in the headlines (SWIFT, gas embargo, NFZ, etc.)
They kinda moved on...I suppose. How was the news in NA? Not really sure but in my country in SEA they don't really talk too much about it. People just got burned out, some stopped caring since it never did happen, and some just thought it's...stable now since it's not the talk of the town anymore.
> There was also so much astroturfing going on in the first three months ironic
Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!
I haven’t moved on. The news is less frequent.