Russia - threadbanned users in OP

@farmerval

If Putin saw the US retreating from Afghanistan as a green light to pursue his own military goals, then he is an even worse strategist than people are currently suspecting. He should know, first of all, that no conventional military force on Earth can cope with an insurgency if that insurgency can be maintained for long enough, so to see the US pull out of Afghanistan is not necessarily a sign that they're a declining military power. In a conventional ground war, they still crush Russia without trying too hard.

Secondly, it's almost unbelievable that Putin thought he could start a war in 21st century Europe and face anything but a vociferous response from virtually every Western nation. How could it turn into anything other than a massive proxy war? He possibly could have pursued a lightning invasion of Ukraine in 2014, back before the country had received large amounts of Western military aid and training, but for some reason decided to wait until after Ukraine had got all that and continues to get it. To paraphrase Darth Putin - he remains a master strategist.

@TheValeyard

His generals aren't much use, it seems, so maybe he thinks a bit of training for them can only be of benefit. In Putin's mind, he may hope that each general returns knowing Sun Tzu by heart, that the Iranian drones prove effective and those NK conscripts will lay down their lives for the giddy dream of one hot meal per day.

Putin wouldn’t have the justification to use a WMD unless Ukraine actually invaded Russian soil.

As for chemical attacks I think the eyes of the world are too firmly on him so he couldn’t get away easily with it.

But Putin doesn’t think like a normal human

His options are:

nuke

draft

defeat/withdrawal of troops.

Seems like a draft is most likely option, though that might led to domestic unrest ? But seems to me he has the russian population very much under control.

Saw this picture at the beginning of the War. Would love a high-quality print of it for the wall.

What will he draft. This is not WW1 where after 3-4 weeks basic training you can shove a lad into a trench. This war is all about technology. He is running out of everything tanks, aircraft, artillery, munitions etc.

I said it before it's the Zulus against the British army

I think.your given Putin credit for too much intelligence and regard for his Canon fodder

The pictures showing the amount of abandoned Russian kit coming out now is incredible.

The Ukrainians should donate it to the Moldovans and Georgians to allow them sort out their "Separatist" problems and open up new fronts against the Russians.

The last one I heard of was in Syria where a Russian position was about to be over run by isis and the forward air controller called in a strike on his own position killed dozens of isis fighters while protecting his comrades,it was mentioned in multiple Threads at the time ,

Then the Americans came out and said it never happened, what actually happened was the forward air controller accidentally called an airstrike on himself, killing himself and no isis fighters....

There's stories from Vietnam to Americans in Afghanistan calling in danger close strikes, including Into their own positions to prevent an overrun of forces.

it's not limited to one country or anothers military

Sunday is normally a quiet day for NATO operations, however today is an exception.

Currently, we have 2 x KC-135 at 23,000ft and 22,000ft respectively on refueling operations over Romania. There is an RC-135 Rivet Joint on SIGNIT operations.

We have an Ares ii on the coast near Moldova, also on SIGNIT operations and finally, we have our usual UAV Global Hawk flying near Yalta in Crimea, the furthest North that I have seen it so far.

Right now, as I write this, The Ukranian commanders are recieving a vast amount of realtime data in support of their offensive, with NATO showing their real power over the Russians - multiple assets of varying capabilities able to coordinate and share data with each other instantaneously, giving Ukraine a "top-down" view of the operations.

Also, someone mentioned that Russia may be pulling their troops back in the North in order to protect them from a possible WMD strike. I think this is unlikely as the prevailing winds are always TOWARDS Russia. Two things might signal a possible chance of such an attack. 1. The winds change direction to a southerly or south-westerly heading, and 2. Russia kills some of the US or NATO satellites currently being used in the data link between NATO assets and Ukraine.

Russia has the ability to cripple satellites in Low Earth Orbit and, if this does happen some day, then I would expect a huge escalation and change of tactics with the possible use of a WMD. Russia has the capability of "blinding" NATO at any time by using an anti-satt. missile fired from an aircraft at high altitude. There are a number of these Mig-25's currently stationed at Kaliningrad. The US can do the same using an F-15 and actually demonstrated this capability a number of years ago during a live firing. Such an attack would have another knock-on effect in that the debris cloud created in LEO would jeprodise all other space assets within the orbital plane of the attack. It might be an interesting excercise to pinpoint the altitude and orbital inclination of known military satellites ( there are a number of OSINT guys already doing so) and to see what other assets share the same inclination.

Here are screenshots of the current air operations.

There was a translated russian telegram post at the start of the counteroffensive in kherson which was soaked in sarcasm.

It was talking about 1000 Ukrainian troops killed and 100 tanks destroyed, again it was sarcasm. It went on to mention Russian soldiers retreating and what are they supposed to do, a group of 50 stay and get surrounded and call in an airstrike on their position to becomes heroes etc.... All sarcasm.

It was that single post that people read and assumed the kherson offensive was a disaster within hours of it starting.

All quiet on Telegram today, but that is usually the case on a Sunday when fighting seems to hit a lull.

никакой паники - no panic.