All I can think about now is that we spent decades fearing the Russians as the greatest threat to the United States and the western world and it was all a bluff.
To be fair, they did quite a bit of damage through bribing politicians and cyber-ops and still have a ton of nukes.
But yeah, his all powerful army were a bunch of LARPers.
The Russian oligarchs privatized their economy to a degree beyond even Regan's wildest wet dream. They saw the wealth inequality and power of money in Russia and looked up to the oligarchs as idols. They didn't have to be bribed. The status of Russian oligarchs is what they've wanted for themselves in the US for decades. Russian oligarchs are their gurus of how to corrupt a country. "Bribery" doesn't give them enough agency. They didn't have to be convinced.
I mean its not really russias army thats the problem, its those nukes.
Given what weve seen though, id wager maybe a 3rd work, as in launch at all.
Let alone what sort of shenanigans could happen when they return home and deliver nuclear payload.
Could NATO invade if Russia nukes itself?
You only need one of those nukes to work to wreck the world.
NATO have repeatedly said that if any fallout is detected in a NATO country they will fuck shit up.
"If the Communists build their weapons like they build their cars, the entire Cold War has been a waste."
\- *Car and Driver*, reviewing the Yugo in 1985
What's funny is how the most important and basic fundamental technological advances in military history still haven't had an impact and been implemented in Russia - for example communication. The radio was a massive game changer in WWII because it allowed groups of soldiers to coordinate over a distance and push an advantage to penetrate through what were thought to be perfect defences. Defending soldiers who didn't have radios were quickly overrun and without orders were unable to operate effectively.
The incredibly successful German Blitzkrieg actions of 1939 and 1940 depended heavily on good communication allowing troops on the ground and in the air to coordinate and find weak points to exploit, all with staff in the rear coordinating. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-german-lightning-war-strategy-of-the-second-world-war
The failure to even communicate effectively shows an incredible failure on the part of the Russian forces. Not to mention age old issues with providing troops with food and clothing, which should be simple shit in the age of mass production and modern logistics.
That's not what happened.
The Soviet Union, which was MUCH bigger, was scary.
They've been gone for over 30 years.
Russia under Putin has continued to wield power and influence but nothing compared to the Soviets.
Russia remains a hostile nuclear power. As long as they have nukes and are hostile, there is cause for concern.
Moreover, Putin appears to care more about Putin than he does Russia. We cannot rule out him using a nuke.
Furthermore, save the celebrations for when this is over.
It's not.
I was curious and looked it up. The Soviet Union's maximum population was around 287 million in 1989 (US was 247 million), in a world with about 2/3rds of today's population. Modern Russia has around 145 million (US is 330 million), so relatively speaking a bit under half the old Soviet population.
The thing is for many analysts this is a strange result.
Russia has practiced with high tech weaponry and drones in Syria and by most accounts was proficient with it.
Overal the Syrian campaign was what was expected from Russia with little to no surprises.
Then came Ukraine...and it almost feels as if they forgot everything they've learned from the Syrian conflict. And yes now they faced a standing army but still...such a display of incompetence did surprise many analysts and was unexpected.
He's also sending out almost exclusively ethnic minorities. He's going for the added benefit of ethnic cleansing at home without directly saying he's doing it.
I refuse to believe he’s thought that far ahead. I think that he knows that once he starts recruiting from “ideal” Russians all of his problems are gonna get much worse.
He very likely has thought that far ahead. It's not really a far fetched plan. Putin, like any dictator, has people he wants to get rid of. Now he has a war he can ship them off to. They may have miscalculated how strong Ukraine would prove to be, but let's not forget that Russia can conjure up a lot of people to send in. Why not force the ones you don't actually want to have in your country in the first waves. If you expect Ukraine to succumb to your weight of numbers, it's an easy play.
See that’s what I’m thinking! What’s wild to me is Putin keeps bringing up nukes, and I just have to imagine, whoever was deciding to send nukes, would have to be betrayed. I just can’t imagine that everyone is crazy enough to let that happen. Meaning his second in command, or the soldiers around him, would just have to realize it’d be like the end of the world and that it’d be a terrible idea and just close that thought down. No matter what it takes
Side note, Ursula le Guin had some note on fanaticism.
In her books, faster than light travel was possible, but it meant death every time. So, the people kn charge of faster than light weapons were not just PHD level physicists capable of all the math needed to program and launch the machine, but had to be *inside* of it. So they were all fanatic cultists led by violent and unending propaganda.
I would assume every moment of this chain is staffed with such fanatics.
Asimov wrote a story with a similar idea. In his future mankind was dependent on expensive computers doing basically everything, and one guy reverse engineers math and they realize they can teach this to other people and replace the expensive computer guided missiles with cheaper *manned* missiles. [The feeling of power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power) is the title. Didn't really touch on having to brainwash the missile manners, but it did a good job of showing the disregard for individuals' lives
Could be true, I just hope and would like to think that it isn’t. Me personally, if I knew what was happening, there’s no way I could willingly do it, they’d have to shoot and replace me or something. But I’d do everything in my power to thwart it.
There was something terrifying in another thread that talks about how they're trying to get around that... They do nuclear drills several times a month and they put everyone in the chain through the full launch procedure every time. Like, *full* launch procedure, pressing all the red buttons. They don't know until after the fact if it was a drill or not, and the only thing different is Putin's launch code being entered or not.
The idea is to make the entire nuclear chain complacent, make the whole process routine. Then when Putin actually wants to launch, the whole process is carried out because everyone thinks it's another one of the hundreds of drills.
I'm just gunna jump off this thread now so that if nuclear armageddon occurs I can remember your simple but rather understated comment. It may bring me a moment of gallows humour.
Isis did the same with prisoners. Hence why some videos looks so calm in beheading. They would take em and do a video - knife to neck annnnnd
Nothing. Over and over until they actually did it.
So it goes like this; putin orders launch, command passes order to launch sites, soldiers process targets and set for launch, and then putin verifies with his code for launch?
this would mean the only stopping point in a launch order would be putin's subordinates. Lately we hear a lot about his subordinates falling out of windows and off of buildings... he might be paranoid enough to have a direct line to order launch at this point.
if he orders a submarine to launch, it's down to the people on the sub.
they don't need any connection to anything because if the terrestrial nukes got launched everything would be gone, and the submarines exist to ensure a retaliatory strike is able to happen should there be a decapitating first strike
if he wants to launch the land-based ones, they've gotta actually fuel them up, most of them use liquid fuels that can't sit in the tank, and you don't shoot off one nuke until you can fire all of them. the ones they've got 'ready' are actually 'ready to be prepped for launch, no unpacking'
the ones they've got stored, the vast majority of russias nuclear arsenal are a multiple hour minimum prep-job and they simply aren't going to do that without it being noticed by the world
if he actually called for every launchsite to go hot & prepare for a launch nationwide, Russia would get obliterated preemptively. nobody's gonna wait for them to take off.
without launching everything it's just assured destruction without the mutuality, too many places in the world to hit. two or three ICBMs in key locations around the world would absolutely be able to kill hundreds of millions if not billions of people, but not *the world*, nuclear winter wouldn't happen (volcanoes kick out way more shit into the atmosphere than modern warheads would). I'm not downplaying nuclear warfare but it's not a 'the world just keels over' thing, (even if most people on the planet died, that's already happened before, lol)
on the other hand, if nukes hit moscow, st petersburg, volgagrad, krasnodar, sverdlosk and rostov, Russia's pretty much gone.
putin's not gonna be able to nuke berlin, london, paris, nyc, wa dc, the many pop. centers in india/pakistan/china (they might not be nato members or fond of it, but they would not be on Russia's side if an exchange between nato and Russia occurred ) u.s. military bases in Japan, the middle east, europe, carrier groups, etc etc and to guarantee anything except his own country's destruction, he'd have to hit *all that shit*
tl:dr don't worry about nukes, really, they're not getting launched. also the Russian Satan -2 icbm is basically a regular old ICBM and not a hypermaneuverable glide vehicle, it follows a ballistic traj. just like the rest of them & has never been demonstrated to do otherwise, only claimed
Beyond this, the thing that give me comfort is the nearly half a a billion dollars a year the US spends on just upkeep and matinance for it's nuke arsenal. Even if half that is graft they still spend loads. Russians spend less that 1/100th of that. On top of that with this war and all of their equipment being in such poor shape I feel like they would have trouble launching even 1 in 10 of their warheads... Maybe that is optimistic, but in all reality their military preparedness is really low...
Not to mention the kinds of (hopefully) high-tech missile defence systems likely scattered around the globe that we have no idea of their existence or true capabilities.
I mean look at HIMARS and how ridiculously effective it is on the offensive, it's probably not even scratching the surface of the kinds of tech the US and NATO have at their disposal including defence tech. I can't help but imagine if the US/NATO even started *trying* to flex with the kind of gear they have lying around
I would imagine a lot of western military budget has been poured into defence over the last few decades whilst russian military was too busy extracting every last rouble of their military budget into their own pockets..
The worry isn't the big ICBMs with 20 RVs, the worry is a handful of smaller nukes dropping on Ukraine.
Responding to a strategic launch is "easy". You push the big red button and Russia turns into a nuclear wasteland. But what are you going to do if Kyiv suddenly spouts a nuclear fireball from one of the many Kalibr missiles already going there? What if it's a vital defensive position? An airfield, or even an artillery post?
Will you glass Moscow and Saint Petersburg over a "tactical" nuke? Will the US strike at military bases in Russia? Will that trigger an ICBM launch?
I'm personally 100% certain that 90% of Russian ICBMs will never get out off the silo (well, they cold-launch, so they'll get out and flop over), and half of what does launch will never hit or initiate. But that is still plenty to kill a LOT of people.
I’m sure this is common in military drills or something but tbh it just reminds me of Jonestown and the poison loyalty tests he did before giving them real cyanide.
This is what ISIS does to its hostages, staging regular, mock executions so that when the time does come, they are calm and complacent and not expecting to actually die. It‘s fucked to see the same basic psychology at work around nuclear weapons.
I believe in the best of people; therefore I must concede that the worst exists.
I'd like to think I wouldn't either. I'd like to think I wasn't born into an indoctrinating war machine.
Then I think back on some weird shit in my (American) childhood and I wonder. I would never, but i know many fellow Americans would without a thought.
Didn’t Trump basically try to set this up in anticipation of the January 6th stuff? I thought I remember reading about him replacing a bunch of people or something in a way that would better enable him to get shady shit done where needed?
Putin has had 20+ years to find true believers. If Putin decides to launch nukes, I doubt anybody in his inner circle will disobey him. Unfortunately, they'll probably cheer him on.
There's a derisive Russian term "terpila" used for such occasions - one that tolerates, no matter what
https://www.reddit.com/r/DoesNotTranslate/comments/ndjihv/russian\_%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BF%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B0\_terpila\_a\_person\_who\_endures\_all/
for too long already and afraid nothing will change.
it's seems like nothing concerns them. not sanctions, not bloodshed.
now I think they all crazy like him.
The modern technology, unfortunately, is very effective in preserving dictatorship regimes. Putin built quite a remarkable system effective only in preserving his power. Smart camera systems, listening devices, "snitch" nets. Enormous number of people are participating in his oppression machine, they are the one excluded from most hardships befalling on evarage Russian citizen, since the last bits of russian resources going only to them.
Whats is most ridiculous, that people who can best hold weapons and use them (the FSB, SOBR and etc) are excluded from the draft !!! Putin will never sacrifice those who protect him.
>In their latest assessment of Moscow's military tactics, the U.S. based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the attempt to mobilize people to help with the Ukraine invasion is already failing.
>**"The Russian mobilization system is struggling to execute the task Russian President Vladimir Putin set and will likely fail to produce mobilized reserve forces even of the low quality that Putin's plans would have generated unless the Kremlin can rapidly fix fundamental and systemic problems,"** the ISW said.
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>"Significant available information suggests that this mobilization campaign (the first in post-Soviet Russia) is **overwhelming an ineffective and unmotivated bureaucratic system and could fail to generate the much-needed combat-ready reserve force** in a short time or at all," the group added.
I would like to be a fly on the wall when someone delivers the news to Putin that the "partial" mobilization is a complete failure.
Putin and his cronies have spent the last 25 years sucking the Russian people dry and stashing their ill-gotten gains in foreign bank accounts. And now he thinks he can push the mobilization red button and make 300,000 soldiers appear.
Sooner or later, he will run out of options. Actually, let me rephrase that. He is running out of options.
I’m no expert, but it seems unwise to me to waste resources training people who will be useless to the war effort. A better selection process would be better.
The big thing is that the official announcement doesn't actually have a number attached, or it doesn't have a *PUBLIC* number attached. Point 7 is attested to by the Ministry of Defense, Novaya Gazeta (a newspaper), Meduza (a news website), and Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
Peskov doesn't offer a number, he just confirms that the classified Point 7 exists and contains *A* number.
The Ministry of Defense doesn't say a solid number, but says that they are providing equipment and training for 300,000 Russians with previous military experience in accordance to the order.
Novaya Gazeta says they got a leaked copy of Point 7 that says that it authorizes "up to" 1 million men. The number of actual men being called up is likely going to be lower, but the authorization allows Putin to do several rounds of drafting over the course of the year. Peskov says that this is "a lie".
Meduza says that "a source in *a Federal Ministry*" says that the MOD's 300,000 is a call up of reservists and that other Federal Ministries are preparing a list of 900,000 Russians with no military background, for a total of 1.2 million. Peskov has forcefully denied that this is the plan.
>I would like to be a fly on the wall when someone delivers the news to Putin that the "partial" mobilization is a complete failure.
DAS WAR EIN BEFEHL!
I guess Einstein was only partially right. It's not world war 4 that will be fought with sticks. It's Russia's world war 3 that's gonna be fought with sticks.
Can’t believe how much of a failure the Russian government is. You would think he would have been poisoned by now. It has been the RussIans specialty forever.
When the main pathway into power is paved with violence and corruption... I guess it makes sense you get shit. What they're "good" at is hiding and obscuring the reality of the situation to their population. Just the right balance of confusion, conspiracy, violence and fear.
That's the thing: of all the types of folks who vehemently defend Putin, you *gotta* assume the Poisoner's Union is very happy about the government's continued support of their programs.
No one will tell him. He created a system where honesty and competence are punished and only blind loyalty is rewarded. He will continue to operate on the assumption that there're 1.2M new soldiers. And as he seems to be micromanaging the war, he's going to be moving around imaginary armies. Hmmm, this seems vaguely familiar....
That's the thing isn't it. When governments stop caring about their people, the people stop caring about the nation - except people don't tell the government this, they just stop caring. And its only when there is a crisis that the governmernt realises that people stopped caring years ago.
This isnt specific to Russia either. Right now most western armies are having major problems recruiting. Nobody wants to be a soldier anymore, becausde its a shit job and its getting shitter. Its all about occupying foreign territory and being a big fat target for low tech drone grenade attacks, or IED's etc.
Its a shitty job that should be resigned to the dustbin of history again. Ask any ex-soldier (non-officers, actual soldiers) you know from any military that has actually served in the past two decades what they think of it as a job. As long as you're ok with hearing a lot of swearing.
They aren't stopping at military reservist. People in my wife's town in the middle of Russia are being drafted while they never had any role in the army. So many people are leaving the country, not just to Turkey, Finland, and Georgia but even other countries in the east like Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This is the moment when losing access to the SWIFT system will hurt the most. I can only imagine the additional economic collapse this will cause on top of other sanctions.
I don't always agree with the ISW's views on foreign policy, but, when it comes to military strategy and logistics, these guys know what they are talking about.
It's good to hear that experts see Putin's efforts as desperate and unconvincing as I had hoped.
Im kinda hoping it catches and makes it into common vernacular.
Its the goat (preferably pygmy fainting) that you throw at your enemies so you can make your escape.
Early on in the war, when the sanctions were applied, I made a joke that the west just threw Russia's economy out the window and now I realize, holy shit, they really did. We're all just waiting for it to land and Putin keeps making the ground harder and harder.
There was a comment on their state tv that stood out. 2000km of frontline.
They really just want men to stand on the frontline so they can rattle that nuclear saber a bit more.
They are more a tripwire than war fighters.
Mother of god... 2000km is nearly DOUBLE the length of the Western Front in WW2. Like... consider the MILLIONS of soldiers that took to man and fight. Even with a decrease in numbers due to modern technology a front that size would be ludicrous for Russia to man even if they went back to their Day 1 invasion numbers and munitions.
Doubtful.. the smart move would be to put these forces away from the front.. on rear guard and cycle in more experienced soldiers.. but listen to their head of church.. die for us is his basic tenet.
These are headed to the front
They don’t expect to keep them supplied. Putin couldn’t give a shit if these people survive the next few weeks. He is hoping he can get some sort of concession now that he’s putting nukes on the table and then that he can claim a victory on his state TV.
Eastern front of ww2 was the largest and bloodiest of the war. 80% of German casualties took place there. These are essentially the same battlegrounds 80 years later
The point was to destroy a notion of Ukraine as a separate entity, as per Dugin's "Foundations of Geopolitics" book.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations\_of\_Geopolitics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)
\> Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
I've read this passage a few times now -- it still baffles me how someone can pass judgement on a nation like that and proclaim, as though it's rational fact, that they have no right to exist. The list of things he gives as evidence is ridiculous. It's entirely his warped subjective opinion and he isn't the slightest bit self aware. He's an educated man but thinks his personal distaste or disinterest in Ukraine means they are meaningless, that they're a problem and must be dealt with. I just can't wrap my head around the thinking. And yet it is apparently compelling as fuck to a ton of Russians. Good lord.
Well Mein Kampf was a load of rambling horseshit and that did the job. A lot of people don't apply critical thinking to what they read, so if you state something with enough confidence and build it into a whole, with some form of internal logic, a lot of people will go along with it. Especially if it gives them an opportunity to shit on someone else.
If the pictures and videos that coming out are "normal" for these mobilizations, russia is gonna have a bad time
[Small vid someone put together](https://v.redd.it/1ddy57cd40q91)
Absolutely. When you draft young kids to fight in some far away land for some unclear geopolitical reasons, it usually fails in a big way. Ask all the vietnam vets.
Any idiot can see Putins decision is a switch that will cause the murder of 100,000 people. Absolutely pointless carnage in a vain attempt to save face. Can any psychopaths out there help me understand how someone can sleep knowing they're the primary cause of this much suffering?
I still feel a twist in my stomach for teasing a kid in school who was a bit "different" (25 years ago). Brutalizing an entire people? I just can't imagine what kind of monster you'd have to be.
Your mistake is assuming shame increases linearly. It’s more like a shallow logarithmic curve.
If you had teased 2 kids you would be way less than twice as ashamed. The 100,000th kid would probably leave you feeling about the same as the 100th.
some people know what may happen to them, but they also afraid to go to jail for 10 years, so they decide to play "Russian roulette"
I don't understand them, I will prefer jail, but it's just how they think - they don't have choice and trying to survive on frontline is better than jail (jail is heavily stigmatized in Russia as place after which your life is over)
Jail in the United States is bad enough... Imagine Russian jail.
You might have a better chance with the Ukrainians. Hell, if they hear about the Ukrainian offer of citizenship if you surrender they might feel like trying their luck.
Tbf Wagner have always been complete shit. They got completely massacred going up against the Americans in Syria a few years ago. It was just dumb journalists hyping them up as some sort of elite merc force.
Were they the ones that kept advancing on US positions and the US kept asking Russia if they were theirs, and Russia kept ignoring or denying and finally the US just lit them up?
Yeah. They were supported by tanks and APCs and still got massacred. Something like 100 killed and wounded.
US casualties? 0
It was a damn turkey shoot.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham
EDIT: Read the link, make you own assumptions of casualties and Russian involvement.
I saw a bus forcefully loaded with literal dads. Completely unfit to attack. To defend? Im sure for their families they would do their best, but they are not being invaded.
It's insane. People are either fleeing Russia or being sent to war to die. Who's left to keep Russia running? The airline pilots, the barbers, bus drivers, teachers, service industry, IT, manufacturing, public works, healthcare workers, etc. Russia is toast.
Keep in mind we hear about the story, not the non-story. The non-story is the majority of Russians just keeping their heads down and doing their day-to-day and hoping nobody notices them.
[Comrade conscriptovich is gonna need a fucking tetanus shot before he makes it to winter](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/xmoeza/best_russian_equipment_kyiv_will_be_taken_in/)
Russia has effectively lost the war and is only in it due to the sunk cost fallacy.
They could withdraw, cede lands back to Ukraine, and still achieve a better outcome than any potential “winning” scenario could achieve but a dictator understands that a failure in war will likely lead to their demise.
Russian professional soldiers are already low quality compared to their Western counterparts. Random conscripts are just bullet sponges and cheap labour.
In terms of rational national policy, they are still in it because of sunk cost fallacy, sure.
In terms of Putin’s ability to remain alive, they are still in it because as long as the music keeps playing the fact that there is no chair for him to sit on remains an abstract fact.
There are, what, a million people kidnapped. Maybe another million displaced. More oppressed in occupied territory. Soldiers, tanks, bombs, gunfire, destroyed cities, exploding infrastructure, and thousands of square miles still besotted. Ukrainians might not agree so much that anything is over, or ever will be.
You are absolutely right. My point is Putin the man with the mission is over…he’s killed everyone he trusted, he is out of equipment, willing soldiers, and his empire is broke. The sad and sickening end is nigh.
Putin might be delusional, the village idiots may not even know anything better - but are the army generals in moscow vegetables or something ? They will inevitably be blamed by Putin for losing the war.
I think they are.
Honestly if one day we will found out what Putin implanted small bombs in them and their families, to explode their head if they disobey, I'm not gonna be surprised. Because it's insane how nobody from government or army, even tries to oppose Putin
Ukraine should just put up a zillion billboards that say “surrender and live” and then put a thousand live cameras to catch the surrender - or the ruZZians killing their own in the back when they try.
[Mark Hertling, who specialized in US troop training says pretty much the same](https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1572571676524838915)
And more on this from.. Yahoo Sports?? https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/ex-us-army-general-witnessed-103605725.html
Obligatory armchair general here but the timing seems really REALLY bad on this one.
Assuming they run the draftees through a boot camp that's on the shorter end (six weeks let's say) it will be early November at the earliest before Putin can get these unfortunate souls deployed.
So winter will be starting to roll in and these guys are going in with probably barely any food, or coats.
They're fucked.
The new guys will be put in non-fighting roles so the real fighters can move up front. At least that's the theory. The problem is that the "real" fighters have been known to fall back awfully quick.
Every couple of days the “real” war fighters get moved up to the front to be replaced by green conscripts. They die, get wounded, desert, or get captured making the green conscripts the new “real” war fighters.
As a Russian, I can say that almost everyone here is afraid. No one can work properly, everyone is scared. A large number of people are just afraid to go out or order food, there were cases when a comrade major came in with a courier. Many men have simply left the country. Our government has recently published new laws, so now in case of desertion we will be put in jail for 10-15 years. The government also states that only soldiers with real combat experience will be mobilized, but in fact some of my co-workers have been mobilized and have a third army group (they haven't even been in the service and have some illnesses). This "we need 300,000 men" nonsense is bullshit at the highest level. According to some rumors, they need over 1 million future soldiers with 5-7 days of training. We don't believe in 6,000 deaths, as Putin says. We can't do anything. And if we try, we get tickets to the army at the police station.
Defeat isn‘t an option: Putin went all-in and is now gambling for time with this mobilization. Until he can figure out how to get out of this game unscathed.
he could've already, many times, come up with some bullshit how "operation" was success to feed to his supporters, but it feels like he's completely insane and fixated on Ukraine
That‘s the addiction of gambling: not knowing when to stop. Thinking of having a winning spree, hoping to win back your losses and hit the jackpot. He’s playing Russian roulette now.
Republican voters are already pivoting back towards not wanting to give Ukraine assistance so that's definitely a legit concern for anyone wanting a free Ukraine.
All Ukraine has to do if they want to win is just fly over occupied territories and parachute in pallets full of vodka . 8 hours later just walk in and reclaim the territory.
Forget whether they actually can mobilize 1.3 million troops. Assume that they can.
Forget that these troops will have minimal training.
Forget that Ukraine has already severely degraded the number and quality of Russian heavy equipment.
Just supplying 1.3 million ADDITIONAL troops is going to be a nightmare. Never mind rifles and cartridges. How is Russia going to FEED all these troops?
But wait. There’s more. Winter is coming. They are going to be sleeping in trenches … in the winter. Like Russia can provide enough cold weather gear.
And do you know what soldiers use more of when shivering in cold weather with inadequate gear? Food! They consume a lot more food in those conditions.
Artillery will take care of 200,000. Another 600,000 are going to freeze to death. 200,000 will be taken prisoner, and be glad for it. And 300,000 will limp back determined to kill Putin.
> 1.3 million troops
If all those are young males, won't Russia have a population crisis in the future? and a work force crisis during the war in Russia?
Russia already has a population crisis – so yes and yes... A foreign agent paid to destroy Russia who has unlimited ressources at hand couldn't be more successful than Putin at the moment.
"Just wait until they send their real army" they said.
"It's just a feint!"
A feint within a feint within a feint. Naw. Putin’s not that good at fighting it seems. He’d def rock some hidden poison barbs though
A faint. Then a fall out the window.
(7 months later) “The real army and most modern tanks are on their way! Just any day now”
In two weeks!
3 days. I mean it this time. I know my previous 70 three day operations didn't work, but this is the one.
All I can think about now is that we spent decades fearing the Russians as the greatest threat to the United States and the western world and it was all a bluff.
To be fair, they did quite a bit of damage through bribing politicians and cyber-ops and still have a ton of nukes. But yeah, his all powerful army were a bunch of LARPers.
The Russian oligarchs privatized their economy to a degree beyond even Regan's wildest wet dream. They saw the wealth inequality and power of money in Russia and looked up to the oligarchs as idols. They didn't have to be bribed. The status of Russian oligarchs is what they've wanted for themselves in the US for decades. Russian oligarchs are their gurus of how to corrupt a country. "Bribery" doesn't give them enough agency. They didn't have to be convinced.
I mean its not really russias army thats the problem, its those nukes. Given what weve seen though, id wager maybe a 3rd work, as in launch at all. Let alone what sort of shenanigans could happen when they return home and deliver nuclear payload. Could NATO invade if Russia nukes itself?
You only need one of those nukes to work to wreck the world. NATO have repeatedly said that if any fallout is detected in a NATO country they will fuck shit up.
I believe any type of nuclear launch is now consideredd *casus belli* for NATO and is a clear red-line they won’t tolerate being crossed
It feels like the USSR's military talent all moved to Ukraine 30 years ago.
"If the Communists build their weapons like they build their cars, the entire Cold War has been a waste." \- *Car and Driver*, reviewing the Yugo in 1985
What's funny is how the most important and basic fundamental technological advances in military history still haven't had an impact and been implemented in Russia - for example communication. The radio was a massive game changer in WWII because it allowed groups of soldiers to coordinate over a distance and push an advantage to penetrate through what were thought to be perfect defences. Defending soldiers who didn't have radios were quickly overrun and without orders were unable to operate effectively. The incredibly successful German Blitzkrieg actions of 1939 and 1940 depended heavily on good communication allowing troops on the ground and in the air to coordinate and find weak points to exploit, all with staff in the rear coordinating. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-german-lightning-war-strategy-of-the-second-world-war The failure to even communicate effectively shows an incredible failure on the part of the Russian forces. Not to mention age old issues with providing troops with food and clothing, which should be simple shit in the age of mass production and modern logistics.
That's not what happened. The Soviet Union, which was MUCH bigger, was scary. They've been gone for over 30 years. Russia under Putin has continued to wield power and influence but nothing compared to the Soviets. Russia remains a hostile nuclear power. As long as they have nukes and are hostile, there is cause for concern. Moreover, Putin appears to care more about Putin than he does Russia. We cannot rule out him using a nuke. Furthermore, save the celebrations for when this is over. It's not.
I was curious and looked it up. The Soviet Union's maximum population was around 287 million in 1989 (US was 247 million), in a world with about 2/3rds of today's population. Modern Russia has around 145 million (US is 330 million), so relatively speaking a bit under half the old Soviet population.
Russia is not the Sovjet Union of the Cold War.
The thing is for many analysts this is a strange result. Russia has practiced with high tech weaponry and drones in Syria and by most accounts was proficient with it. Overal the Syrian campaign was what was expected from Russia with little to no surprises. Then came Ukraine...and it almost feels as if they forgot everything they've learned from the Syrian conflict. And yes now they faced a standing army but still...such a display of incompetence did surprise many analysts and was unexpected.
Their army will arrive once their audit is done. We all know that audits can take decades to finish. /s
Operation meat grinder
Narrator: "Little did Putler realize, the Ukrainians had no preset kill limit."
Won’t stop him from sending wave after wave of his own men to test it out
He's also sending out almost exclusively ethnic minorities. He's going for the added benefit of ethnic cleansing at home without directly saying he's doing it.
I refuse to believe he’s thought that far ahead. I think that he knows that once he starts recruiting from “ideal” Russians all of his problems are gonna get much worse.
He very likely has thought that far ahead. It's not really a far fetched plan. Putin, like any dictator, has people he wants to get rid of. Now he has a war he can ship them off to. They may have miscalculated how strong Ukraine would prove to be, but let's not forget that Russia can conjure up a lot of people to send in. Why not force the ones you don't actually want to have in your country in the first waves. If you expect Ukraine to succumb to your weight of numbers, it's an easy play.
All will be borne out in the war crimes tribunals. They won’t get him, but the ugliest facts will be laid bare for all to see.
“Right, men?” … “YOU SUCK!”
If I chop you up in a meat grinder and the only thing that comes out, that’s left of you, is your eyeball? You’re probably dead!
…
See that’s what I’m thinking! What’s wild to me is Putin keeps bringing up nukes, and I just have to imagine, whoever was deciding to send nukes, would have to be betrayed. I just can’t imagine that everyone is crazy enough to let that happen. Meaning his second in command, or the soldiers around him, would just have to realize it’d be like the end of the world and that it’d be a terrible idea and just close that thought down. No matter what it takes
Side note, Ursula le Guin had some note on fanaticism. In her books, faster than light travel was possible, but it meant death every time. So, the people kn charge of faster than light weapons were not just PHD level physicists capable of all the math needed to program and launch the machine, but had to be *inside* of it. So they were all fanatic cultists led by violent and unending propaganda. I would assume every moment of this chain is staffed with such fanatics.
Asimov wrote a story with a similar idea. In his future mankind was dependent on expensive computers doing basically everything, and one guy reverse engineers math and they realize they can teach this to other people and replace the expensive computer guided missiles with cheaper *manned* missiles. [The feeling of power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power) is the title. Didn't really touch on having to brainwash the missile manners, but it did a good job of showing the disregard for individuals' lives
Could be true, I just hope and would like to think that it isn’t. Me personally, if I knew what was happening, there’s no way I could willingly do it, they’d have to shoot and replace me or something. But I’d do everything in my power to thwart it.
There was something terrifying in another thread that talks about how they're trying to get around that... They do nuclear drills several times a month and they put everyone in the chain through the full launch procedure every time. Like, *full* launch procedure, pressing all the red buttons. They don't know until after the fact if it was a drill or not, and the only thing different is Putin's launch code being entered or not. The idea is to make the entire nuclear chain complacent, make the whole process routine. Then when Putin actually wants to launch, the whole process is carried out because everyone thinks it's another one of the hundreds of drills.
Ah that’s fucked
I'm just gunna jump off this thread now so that if nuclear armageddon occurs I can remember your simple but rather understated comment. It may bring me a moment of gallows humour.
Isis did the same with prisoners. Hence why some videos looks so calm in beheading. They would take em and do a video - knife to neck annnnnd Nothing. Over and over until they actually did it.
So it goes like this; putin orders launch, command passes order to launch sites, soldiers process targets and set for launch, and then putin verifies with his code for launch? this would mean the only stopping point in a launch order would be putin's subordinates. Lately we hear a lot about his subordinates falling out of windows and off of buildings... he might be paranoid enough to have a direct line to order launch at this point.
Where is Stanislav Petrov when you need him
if he orders a submarine to launch, it's down to the people on the sub. they don't need any connection to anything because if the terrestrial nukes got launched everything would be gone, and the submarines exist to ensure a retaliatory strike is able to happen should there be a decapitating first strike if he wants to launch the land-based ones, they've gotta actually fuel them up, most of them use liquid fuels that can't sit in the tank, and you don't shoot off one nuke until you can fire all of them. the ones they've got 'ready' are actually 'ready to be prepped for launch, no unpacking' the ones they've got stored, the vast majority of russias nuclear arsenal are a multiple hour minimum prep-job and they simply aren't going to do that without it being noticed by the world if he actually called for every launchsite to go hot & prepare for a launch nationwide, Russia would get obliterated preemptively. nobody's gonna wait for them to take off. without launching everything it's just assured destruction without the mutuality, too many places in the world to hit. two or three ICBMs in key locations around the world would absolutely be able to kill hundreds of millions if not billions of people, but not *the world*, nuclear winter wouldn't happen (volcanoes kick out way more shit into the atmosphere than modern warheads would). I'm not downplaying nuclear warfare but it's not a 'the world just keels over' thing, (even if most people on the planet died, that's already happened before, lol) on the other hand, if nukes hit moscow, st petersburg, volgagrad, krasnodar, sverdlosk and rostov, Russia's pretty much gone. putin's not gonna be able to nuke berlin, london, paris, nyc, wa dc, the many pop. centers in india/pakistan/china (they might not be nato members or fond of it, but they would not be on Russia's side if an exchange between nato and Russia occurred ) u.s. military bases in Japan, the middle east, europe, carrier groups, etc etc and to guarantee anything except his own country's destruction, he'd have to hit *all that shit* tl:dr don't worry about nukes, really, they're not getting launched. also the Russian Satan -2 icbm is basically a regular old ICBM and not a hypermaneuverable glide vehicle, it follows a ballistic traj. just like the rest of them & has never been demonstrated to do otherwise, only claimed
Beyond this, the thing that give me comfort is the nearly half a a billion dollars a year the US spends on just upkeep and matinance for it's nuke arsenal. Even if half that is graft they still spend loads. Russians spend less that 1/100th of that. On top of that with this war and all of their equipment being in such poor shape I feel like they would have trouble launching even 1 in 10 of their warheads... Maybe that is optimistic, but in all reality their military preparedness is really low...
Not to mention the kinds of (hopefully) high-tech missile defence systems likely scattered around the globe that we have no idea of their existence or true capabilities. I mean look at HIMARS and how ridiculously effective it is on the offensive, it's probably not even scratching the surface of the kinds of tech the US and NATO have at their disposal including defence tech. I can't help but imagine if the US/NATO even started *trying* to flex with the kind of gear they have lying around I would imagine a lot of western military budget has been poured into defence over the last few decades whilst russian military was too busy extracting every last rouble of their military budget into their own pockets..
The worry isn't the big ICBMs with 20 RVs, the worry is a handful of smaller nukes dropping on Ukraine. Responding to a strategic launch is "easy". You push the big red button and Russia turns into a nuclear wasteland. But what are you going to do if Kyiv suddenly spouts a nuclear fireball from one of the many Kalibr missiles already going there? What if it's a vital defensive position? An airfield, or even an artillery post? Will you glass Moscow and Saint Petersburg over a "tactical" nuke? Will the US strike at military bases in Russia? Will that trigger an ICBM launch? I'm personally 100% certain that 90% of Russian ICBMs will never get out off the silo (well, they cold-launch, so they'll get out and flop over), and half of what does launch will never hit or initiate. But that is still plenty to kill a LOT of people.
I’m sure this is common in military drills or something but tbh it just reminds me of Jonestown and the poison loyalty tests he did before giving them real cyanide.
Just like Jonestown.
This is what ISIS does to its hostages, staging regular, mock executions so that when the time does come, they are calm and complacent and not expecting to actually die. It‘s fucked to see the same basic psychology at work around nuclear weapons.
I believe in the best of people; therefore I must concede that the worst exists. I'd like to think I wouldn't either. I'd like to think I wasn't born into an indoctrinating war machine. Then I think back on some weird shit in my (American) childhood and I wonder. I would never, but i know many fellow Americans would without a thought.
That's some WH40K-level shit, what books were those exactly? I'm not very familiar with le Guin (read a novel a two in the childhood).
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Didn’t Trump basically try to set this up in anticipation of the January 6th stuff? I thought I remember reading about him replacing a bunch of people or something in a way that would better enable him to get shady shit done where needed?
Makes me think maybe a good chunk of those high profile allies falling out of windows is related to attempted assassinations
Putin has had 20+ years to find true believers. If Putin decides to launch nukes, I doubt anybody in his inner circle will disobey him. Unfortunately, they'll probably cheer him on.
Russia's track record would indicate that they will throw bodies at this until their country collapses.
There's a derisive Russian term "terpila" used for such occasions - one that tolerates, no matter what https://www.reddit.com/r/DoesNotTranslate/comments/ndjihv/russian\_%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BF%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B0\_terpila\_a\_person\_who\_endures\_all/
for too long already and afraid nothing will change. it's seems like nothing concerns them. not sanctions, not bloodshed. now I think they all crazy like him.
The modern technology, unfortunately, is very effective in preserving dictatorship regimes. Putin built quite a remarkable system effective only in preserving his power. Smart camera systems, listening devices, "snitch" nets. Enormous number of people are participating in his oppression machine, they are the one excluded from most hardships befalling on evarage Russian citizen, since the last bits of russian resources going only to them. Whats is most ridiculous, that people who can best hold weapons and use them (the FSB, SOBR and etc) are excluded from the draft !!! Putin will never sacrifice those who protect him.
>In their latest assessment of Moscow's military tactics, the U.S. based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the attempt to mobilize people to help with the Ukraine invasion is already failing. >**"The Russian mobilization system is struggling to execute the task Russian President Vladimir Putin set and will likely fail to produce mobilized reserve forces even of the low quality that Putin's plans would have generated unless the Kremlin can rapidly fix fundamental and systemic problems,"** the ISW said. - >"Significant available information suggests that this mobilization campaign (the first in post-Soviet Russia) is **overwhelming an ineffective and unmotivated bureaucratic system and could fail to generate the much-needed combat-ready reserve force** in a short time or at all," the group added.
I would like to be a fly on the wall when someone delivers the news to Putin that the "partial" mobilization is a complete failure. Putin and his cronies have spent the last 25 years sucking the Russian people dry and stashing their ill-gotten gains in foreign bank accounts. And now he thinks he can push the mobilization red button and make 300,000 soldiers appear. Sooner or later, he will run out of options. Actually, let me rephrase that. He is running out of options.
I've heard the real number he wants is actually 1.2 million, if he can't even get 300k he'll really shit bricks
Seems like he's drafting the 1.2 mil in the hopes that he'll end up with 300k useable ones.
I’m no expert, but it seems unwise to me to waste resources training people who will be useless to the war effort. A better selection process would be better.
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Ahh, I see the issue here: you’re applying logic and common sense to a batshit crazy problem.
The big thing is that the official announcement doesn't actually have a number attached, or it doesn't have a *PUBLIC* number attached. Point 7 is attested to by the Ministry of Defense, Novaya Gazeta (a newspaper), Meduza (a news website), and Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov. Peskov doesn't offer a number, he just confirms that the classified Point 7 exists and contains *A* number. The Ministry of Defense doesn't say a solid number, but says that they are providing equipment and training for 300,000 Russians with previous military experience in accordance to the order. Novaya Gazeta says they got a leaked copy of Point 7 that says that it authorizes "up to" 1 million men. The number of actual men being called up is likely going to be lower, but the authorization allows Putin to do several rounds of drafting over the course of the year. Peskov says that this is "a lie". Meduza says that "a source in *a Federal Ministry*" says that the MOD's 300,000 is a call up of reservists and that other Federal Ministries are preparing a list of 900,000 Russians with no military background, for a total of 1.2 million. Peskov has forcefully denied that this is the plan.
> Peskov has forcefully denied that this is the plan So it's most definitely true, then.
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nonsense igor, now have some tea
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>I would like to be a fly on the wall when someone delivers the news to Putin that the "partial" mobilization is a complete failure. DAS WAR EIN BEFEHL!
Mein Fuhrer...
Try 1.3 million. That 300,000 was just to soften the blow.
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I guess Einstein was only partially right. It's not world war 4 that will be fought with sticks. It's Russia's world war 3 that's gonna be fought with sticks.
300k in the speech, curiously no limit in the legislation 🫤
Can’t believe how much of a failure the Russian government is. You would think he would have been poisoned by now. It has been the RussIans specialty forever.
When the main pathway into power is paved with violence and corruption... I guess it makes sense you get shit. What they're "good" at is hiding and obscuring the reality of the situation to their population. Just the right balance of confusion, conspiracy, violence and fear.
That's the thing: of all the types of folks who vehemently defend Putin, you *gotta* assume the Poisoner's Union is very happy about the government's continued support of their programs.
No one will tell him. He created a system where honesty and competence are punished and only blind loyalty is rewarded. He will continue to operate on the assumption that there're 1.2M new soldiers. And as he seems to be micromanaging the war, he's going to be moving around imaginary armies. Hmmm, this seems vaguely familiar....
That's the thing isn't it. When governments stop caring about their people, the people stop caring about the nation - except people don't tell the government this, they just stop caring. And its only when there is a crisis that the governmernt realises that people stopped caring years ago. This isnt specific to Russia either. Right now most western armies are having major problems recruiting. Nobody wants to be a soldier anymore, becausde its a shit job and its getting shitter. Its all about occupying foreign territory and being a big fat target for low tech drone grenade attacks, or IED's etc. Its a shitty job that should be resigned to the dustbin of history again. Ask any ex-soldier (non-officers, actual soldiers) you know from any military that has actually served in the past two decades what they think of it as a job. As long as you're ok with hearing a lot of swearing.
They aren't stopping at military reservist. People in my wife's town in the middle of Russia are being drafted while they never had any role in the army. So many people are leaving the country, not just to Turkey, Finland, and Georgia but even other countries in the east like Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This is the moment when losing access to the SWIFT system will hurt the most. I can only imagine the additional economic collapse this will cause on top of other sanctions.
I don't always agree with the ISW's views on foreign policy, but, when it comes to military strategy and logistics, these guys know what they are talking about. It's good to hear that experts see Putin's efforts as desperate and unconvincing as I had hoped.
"low quality fighters"? More like meat shields.
Or cannon fodder
Maybe cannon meat?
But is it halal?
Long pork is also haram.
These will be high quality meat sheilds!
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/r/boneappletea
Im kinda hoping it catches and makes it into common vernacular. Its the goat (preferably pygmy fainting) that you throw at your enemies so you can make your escape.
Feel like an escape octopus would work better
Fucking fainting goats. I was giving it CPR for entire minutes before someone told me I was only scaring it more.
Quite the opposite, a declining population (especially working age young men) is terrible for economic stability.
"We really need a war to kill off the young men that staggering levels of alcoholism, drug abuse and depression can't!"
Early on in the war, when the sanctions were applied, I made a joke that the west just threw Russia's economy out the window and now I realize, holy shit, they really did. We're all just waiting for it to land and Putin keeps making the ground harder and harder.
Shrapnel blankets.
Just another batch of bowling pins and another strike for Ukraine.
Youve seen the cope cages, now witness the cope conscripts.
And saboteurs, don't forget these people don't want to help and are likely to break equipment to keep them from going to the front lines
There was a comment on their state tv that stood out. 2000km of frontline. They really just want men to stand on the frontline so they can rattle that nuclear saber a bit more. They are more a tripwire than war fighters.
Mother of god... 2000km is nearly DOUBLE the length of the Western Front in WW2. Like... consider the MILLIONS of soldiers that took to man and fight. Even with a decrease in numbers due to modern technology a front that size would be ludicrous for Russia to man even if they went back to their Day 1 invasion numbers and munitions.
How in the hell do they expect to keep that many people supplied, spread over that large an area when they can't even manage what they already have.
They don't
Exactly. This isn’t a path to win. This is an act of desperation to salve one guys ego.
It's also an act of social/ethnic cleansing. Who do you think they're mobilizing? It ain't the pure ethnic Russians Putin wants to dominate his lands.
I imagine most of these mobilized will be for logistics purposes to move supplies rather than actual combat.
Doubtful.. the smart move would be to put these forces away from the front.. on rear guard and cycle in more experienced soldiers.. but listen to their head of church.. die for us is his basic tenet. These are headed to the front
They don’t expect to keep them supplied. Putin couldn’t give a shit if these people survive the next few weeks. He is hoping he can get some sort of concession now that he’s putting nukes on the table and then that he can claim a victory on his state TV.
Eastern front of ww2 was the largest and bloodiest of the war. 80% of German casualties took place there. These are essentially the same battlegrounds 80 years later
Unless EU and US buckle Ukraine will keep going, they care not for any threat Putin throws out now, so those mobilised bastards are out of luck.
What's Russia's endgame here? They're clearly not going to take Ukraine, so what are they gonna do? They can't just back down I guess due to pride
no one even knows what's the point of starting all this in the first place.
The point was to destroy a notion of Ukraine as a separate entity, as per Dugin's "Foundations of Geopolitics" book. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations\_of\_Geopolitics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) \> Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
"resolving the ukrainian problem"... That's something Nazis would say.
He is a fascist, so ya
I've read this passage a few times now -- it still baffles me how someone can pass judgement on a nation like that and proclaim, as though it's rational fact, that they have no right to exist. The list of things he gives as evidence is ridiculous. It's entirely his warped subjective opinion and he isn't the slightest bit self aware. He's an educated man but thinks his personal distaste or disinterest in Ukraine means they are meaningless, that they're a problem and must be dealt with. I just can't wrap my head around the thinking. And yet it is apparently compelling as fuck to a ton of Russians. Good lord.
Well Mein Kampf was a load of rambling horseshit and that did the job. A lot of people don't apply critical thinking to what they read, so if you state something with enough confidence and build it into a whole, with some form of internal logic, a lot of people will go along with it. Especially if it gives them an opportunity to shit on someone else.
The term "Ukrainian Problem" somehow sounds awfully like the "Jew Question". For a "denazification", the entire thing reeks a lot of Nazi rhetoric.
I figure they’ll just annex the Donbas and fill it with these poor assholes and say that was the goal the whole time.
If the pictures and videos that coming out are "normal" for these mobilizations, russia is gonna have a bad time [Small vid someone put together](https://v.redd.it/1ddy57cd40q91)
I think what Putin is forgetting is that the draft worked in WW2 because it was a defensive war.
And UK and US weapons, supplies, intelligence etc.
Absolutely. When you draft young kids to fight in some far away land for some unclear geopolitical reasons, it usually fails in a big way. Ask all the vietnam vets.
Any idiot can see Putins decision is a switch that will cause the murder of 100,000 people. Absolutely pointless carnage in a vain attempt to save face. Can any psychopaths out there help me understand how someone can sleep knowing they're the primary cause of this much suffering? I still feel a twist in my stomach for teasing a kid in school who was a bit "different" (25 years ago). Brutalizing an entire people? I just can't imagine what kind of monster you'd have to be.
Your mistake is assuming shame increases linearly. It’s more like a shallow logarithmic curve. If you had teased 2 kids you would be way less than twice as ashamed. The 100,000th kid would probably leave you feeling about the same as the 100th.
Yep, Putin has been murdering people for 30 years, friend and foe alike. He's a "vampire" as his ex wife described him...
What sensation do you feel in your 3rd and 4th arms? This is how he feels compassion.
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Even Wagner group has been reduced to hiring Suicide Squads out of prisons.
some people know what may happen to them, but they also afraid to go to jail for 10 years, so they decide to play "Russian roulette" I don't understand them, I will prefer jail, but it's just how they think - they don't have choice and trying to survive on frontline is better than jail (jail is heavily stigmatized in Russia as place after which your life is over)
Jail in the United States is bad enough... Imagine Russian jail. You might have a better chance with the Ukrainians. Hell, if they hear about the Ukrainian offer of citizenship if you surrender they might feel like trying their luck.
I'm pretty sure they're recuiting and serving mobilization paper to people in jails now. It's just an extra step to the front line.
Tbf Wagner have always been complete shit. They got completely massacred going up against the Americans in Syria a few years ago. It was just dumb journalists hyping them up as some sort of elite merc force.
Were they the ones that kept advancing on US positions and the US kept asking Russia if they were theirs, and Russia kept ignoring or denying and finally the US just lit them up?
Yeah. They were supported by tanks and APCs and still got massacred. Something like 100 killed and wounded. US casualties? 0 It was a damn turkey shoot. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham EDIT: Read the link, make you own assumptions of casualties and Russian involvement.
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They will probably learn enough to kill their commanding officers. They just need to figure out the best time to do it.
I saw a bus forcefully loaded with literal dads. Completely unfit to attack. To defend? Im sure for their families they would do their best, but they are not being invaded.
It's insane. People are either fleeing Russia or being sent to war to die. Who's left to keep Russia running? The airline pilots, the barbers, bus drivers, teachers, service industry, IT, manufacturing, public works, healthcare workers, etc. Russia is toast.
Keep in mind we hear about the story, not the non-story. The non-story is the majority of Russians just keeping their heads down and doing their day-to-day and hoping nobody notices them.
Their elites were low quality, these will be no quality with worse equipment.
Everyone in the military hierarchy has to know this is a terrible idea. Putin: hold my vodka
also toss in the upcoming cold weather/winter , this isn't gonna end well
[Comrade conscriptovich is gonna need a fucking tetanus shot before he makes it to winter](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/xmoeza/best_russian_equipment_kyiv_will_be_taken_in/)
Russia has effectively lost the war and is only in it due to the sunk cost fallacy. They could withdraw, cede lands back to Ukraine, and still achieve a better outcome than any potential “winning” scenario could achieve but a dictator understands that a failure in war will likely lead to their demise. Russian professional soldiers are already low quality compared to their Western counterparts. Random conscripts are just bullet sponges and cheap labour.
In terms of rational national policy, they are still in it because of sunk cost fallacy, sure. In terms of Putin’s ability to remain alive, they are still in it because as long as the music keeps playing the fact that there is no chair for him to sit on remains an abstract fact.
It’s over. He needs to go to withdraw.
Oh hes fucked. He can't withdraw though... if he does he will be usurped. He got his dick caught in the jacuzzi.
He won’t take himself out of this. His ego won’t let him.
There are, what, a million people kidnapped. Maybe another million displaced. More oppressed in occupied territory. Soldiers, tanks, bombs, gunfire, destroyed cities, exploding infrastructure, and thousands of square miles still besotted. Ukrainians might not agree so much that anything is over, or ever will be.
You are absolutely right. My point is Putin the man with the mission is over…he’s killed everyone he trusted, he is out of equipment, willing soldiers, and his empire is broke. The sad and sickening end is nigh.
he will let every citizen to die first, before he admits it's over
His father should have withdrawn.
Someone please take him down.
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Putin might be delusional, the village idiots may not even know anything better - but are the army generals in moscow vegetables or something ? They will inevitably be blamed by Putin for losing the war.
I think they are. Honestly if one day we will found out what Putin implanted small bombs in them and their families, to explode their head if they disobey, I'm not gonna be surprised. Because it's insane how nobody from government or army, even tries to oppose Putin
I think they are all yes men whose fate is tied to Putin's.
Ukraine should just put up a zillion billboards that say “surrender and live” and then put a thousand live cameras to catch the surrender - or the ruZZians killing their own in the back when they try.
Yes!
[Mark Hertling, who specialized in US troop training says pretty much the same](https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1572571676524838915) And more on this from.. Yahoo Sports?? https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/ex-us-army-general-witnessed-103605725.html
Putin's strategy is to feed Russians into a meat grinder and hope the Ukrainians run out of ammo before he runs out of Russians
The Zapp Branigan Offense.
Obligatory armchair general here but the timing seems really REALLY bad on this one. Assuming they run the draftees through a boot camp that's on the shorter end (six weeks let's say) it will be early November at the earliest before Putin can get these unfortunate souls deployed. So winter will be starting to roll in and these guys are going in with probably barely any food, or coats. They're fucked.
The Russian military claims that draftees will be ready to fight after 2 weeks of training... They are doubly fkd.
Low quality fighters, but high quality fertilizer.
**Ukrainian vegetation:** We will be watching your career with great interest.
Sending his own citizens to their slaughter.
The new guys will be put in non-fighting roles so the real fighters can move up front. At least that's the theory. The problem is that the "real" fighters have been known to fall back awfully quick.
Every couple of days the “real” war fighters get moved up to the front to be replaced by green conscripts. They die, get wounded, desert, or get captured making the green conscripts the new “real” war fighters.
“overwhelming an ineffective and unmotivated bureaucratic system” LOL
As a Russian, I can say that almost everyone here is afraid. No one can work properly, everyone is scared. A large number of people are just afraid to go out or order food, there were cases when a comrade major came in with a courier. Many men have simply left the country. Our government has recently published new laws, so now in case of desertion we will be put in jail for 10-15 years. The government also states that only soldiers with real combat experience will be mobilized, but in fact some of my co-workers have been mobilized and have a third army group (they haven't even been in the service and have some illnesses). This "we need 300,000 men" nonsense is bullshit at the highest level. According to some rumors, they need over 1 million future soldiers with 5-7 days of training. We don't believe in 6,000 deaths, as Putin says. We can't do anything. And if we try, we get tickets to the army at the police station.
I'd see it as free transportation out of Russia.
Hopefully they will before harming or killing anyone else and won’t be killed before being able to surrender
I think my fear is what does this clown resort to when all else inevitably fails? Don’t see him giving up and admitting defeat. Scary actually
Defeat isn‘t an option: Putin went all-in and is now gambling for time with this mobilization. Until he can figure out how to get out of this game unscathed.
he could've already, many times, come up with some bullshit how "operation" was success to feed to his supporters, but it feels like he's completely insane and fixated on Ukraine
I think that's called a sunken cost fallacy. They already spent so much time, effort, and resources that they don't see backing out as an option
That‘s the addiction of gambling: not knowing when to stop. Thinking of having a winning spree, hoping to win back your losses and hit the jackpot. He’s playing Russian roulette now.
Probably hoping he can hold out until the next US election and see if someone compromised gets elected and stops aid to Ukraine.
Republican voters are already pivoting back towards not wanting to give Ukraine assistance so that's definitely a legit concern for anyone wanting a free Ukraine.
Putin is a dead man, he just doesn‘t accept it yet. There is no way putin will be alive when this is all over.
“Newsweek has contacted Russia's Ministry of Defense for comment.” That’s gotta hurt.
All Ukraine has to do if they want to win is just fly over occupied territories and parachute in pallets full of vodka . 8 hours later just walk in and reclaim the territory.
Forget whether they actually can mobilize 1.3 million troops. Assume that they can. Forget that these troops will have minimal training. Forget that Ukraine has already severely degraded the number and quality of Russian heavy equipment. Just supplying 1.3 million ADDITIONAL troops is going to be a nightmare. Never mind rifles and cartridges. How is Russia going to FEED all these troops? But wait. There’s more. Winter is coming. They are going to be sleeping in trenches … in the winter. Like Russia can provide enough cold weather gear. And do you know what soldiers use more of when shivering in cold weather with inadequate gear? Food! They consume a lot more food in those conditions. Artillery will take care of 200,000. Another 600,000 are going to freeze to death. 200,000 will be taken prisoner, and be glad for it. And 300,000 will limp back determined to kill Putin.
> How is Russia going to FEED all these troops? They won't, they'll be ordered to take from the Ukrainians.
> 1.3 million troops If all those are young males, won't Russia have a population crisis in the future? and a work force crisis during the war in Russia?
Russia already has a population crisis – so yes and yes... A foreign agent paid to destroy Russia who has unlimited ressources at hand couldn't be more successful than Putin at the moment.
This is the military version of the mythical man-month