Russia - threadbanned users in OP

After a short sabbatical, a USAF Global Hawk is back over the Black Sea paying particular attention to the coast around Odessa and the Moldovan border.

I think we may be looking at the poster formally known as Burgerface....

"Fly, my pretties!"

:D

If, as a very rough estimate, you average 10 troops per vehicle that's 730 dead/injured.

Russian embassies and cities need to burn for what they have inflicted on the people of Ukraine .

yes but I'm talking about an average, including engineers, etc.

I remember when people were saying Russia only had enough money to prosecute the war until the end of week two or whatever it was, some time in early March. Point is that predictions seem to be all over the place with this. I have said that I can't see how Russia can mount a sustained war effort given the losses they appear to have been taking, and, indeed, the increasing sanctions the country is coming under (the oil/gas embargo from the EU sounds like it ought to be a significant hit to Russian finances), but experts are also saying that they expect the war to now last well into the Summer. The opinion now seems to be forming that the most likely outcome over the coming months is one of protracted stalemate and what looks to me like a much bloodier version of the Donbass conflict that had been festering for the last nearly a decade.

Can the Ukrainians make breakthroughs and recapture territory that's been sitting under brutal Russian occupation? I absolutely hope they can, but I don't think they'll be as bloody-minded about doing so as the Russians. If the Russians find that they're running out of the weapons and will to launch effective offense, I would expect they'll switch to a defensive mindset and try to pick off Ukrainian forces as they attempt to push further into the Donbass or maybe even Crimea. If Putin's not willing to simply walk away from this war but cannot gather the necessary resources to subjugate Ukraine, it would make sense for him to try and bleed Ukraine white, just as Ukraine has been doing to Russia.

It's this awful tit for tat that I worry about the most where you hear on the news about offensives being waged by Ukraine and tows/villages liberated, but little ever seems to really change on the conflict map. Both countries need something extra to really take control of the course of this conflict, but what's it going to be?

It does not help when the turrets are just resting on roller /ball bearings on top of the main frame . They depend on sheer weight to keep them in place. And maybe some of the ammunition is stored in them as well. They are turned by a relatively small but powerful electric motor which engages in a much larger ring gear set within the turret itself, it works the very same as the ring gear on a car flywheel, when turned by the starter motor, but thats the only contact the turret has with the main body.

Let's address this.

Firstly, are you suggesting the russia have it's nuclear weapons removed, it's conventional forces lessened and be told that if they do anything to change that, they'd be nuked as "containment". Is that what you're actually saying? Because no-one has threatened to nuke Iran or north korea. Know why? Because threatening to nuke a country is insane. Actually nuking them is worse.

Germany had great minds. And yet the nazi's still came to power. Many of those great minds were in the nazi party. And they believed germany was humiliated. And I have honestly, no idea why you're mentioning it.

Germany received massive investment, and yet still felt humiliated because other countries were dictating what it could and could not do. So no idea why you're mentioning that.

"* Germany right up to ww2 had massive trade flows, Russias already collapsing". I have absolutely no idea why you're doing this. Germany had huge trade flows until the war started. They disappeared after the war started. Russia had trade flows too, before the war. They disappeared too.

And none of what you said addresses the point that dictating stuff like no nuclear weapons. limiting conventional forces, dictating who can be in power are ways to humiliate countries. When you look at countries this has happened to in the past, it always works out bad. It breeds hatred and resentment. It can even cause an unpopular leader to become popular simply because they fight against it. It might actually make the countries fight harder to avoid domination by a foreign power. And that includes using nuclear weapons.

If we want a peaceful and friendly russia, then we have to wait for regime change from inside. Forcing it from outside simply reinforces the narrative that the other countries are enemies. And when you look at rogue nations like north korea and Iran, they still find ways, not just to keep weapons, but actually develop them from scratch, whilst having huge sanctions and keeping their population down.

So I have no problem believing that forcing russia to give up its nuclear weapons through sanctions is anything except a deluded pipedream.

Neither of those things are going to bring back ordinary Ukrainians senselessly slaughtered by the Russian military, and the occurrence of either or both will likely only pressure Putin to try and react with greater force, thus making the situation worse not better, as the conflict gets locked into a vicious cycle of escalating reprisal. Who needs to burn are the Russian soldiers themselves carrying out such deeds, and the Ukrainian military are making a pretty good go of that so far, and hopefully that can continue until there's no more fight left in the Russians and they F off back across the internationally-recognised borders, where they belong.