Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Unless they start production of new stuff like the Almaty tank of legend, they are mostly digging into old Soviet stores for pretty much everything.

All of the tanks, jets, hand weapons, and especially munitions, are all from a time when the Red Army was being armed for a likely World War against NATO. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lot of the gear that was built for this potential war was put into poorly maintained storage while what was left of the new Russian Federation’s military was run rampant with corruption at its highest levels. Even when Russia started to get on its feet financially and could afford an upgraded military, that corruption funnelled plenty of funding away from actual maintenance or development of their forces. I suspect this is part of why Wagner Group became a thing. Half decent soldiers who actually wanted to make a good living needed to go into private armed security. Staying in the Russian Army would otherwise get you very little, discouraging conscripts from choosing to become a career soldier.

As time goes on, the Russians are going to be digging deeper and deeper into the rusted and mould ridden remains of the stocks the Soviets made for a war that they thought would happen 50 years ago. All the while facing an enemy who are getting better maintained sets of what they have and upgraded NATO tech that has meticulously been taken care of. To top it all off, Ukraine keep hitting their ammo stores to deplete their useful stocks even further.

The best the Russians can hope for now is to exchange their gas & oil for sub-par Chinese produced clones of Soviet tech in the hope that this will keep them going. I suspect that it won’t.

But apart from all of that, I feel that the worse case for the Russians soon won’t be the HIMAR strikes but nature itself. In addition to the brutal cold of Winter, the poorly stocked Russian soldiers face the real chance of being killed by a whole host of infections and diseases. Many of the will lack the field discipline to save themselves from that kind fate, and those 300+ thousand might learn how some armies in history were killed more by this than from enemy fire. It will not be a pleasant end for many of them.

Not sure how many extra votes it'll get but OK....

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, defines the current Russia stategy in a nutshell:

They lose on the battlefield & take revenge on civilians.

That's an odd proposal. I'd imagine that there might be more countries willing to vote to condemn it if they knew there's be no potential reprisals or consequences, so it may be a move that would actually backfire on them rather than being to their advantage.

In addition, if they are willing to support it in private, they should come out and be public about it.

No use hiding allegiances anymore

What's concerning to me is the massive and sustained attempts at character assassination against Paul Ronzheimer, the Bild journalist who investigated that story at the hands of Ukrainian journalists and activists. Now, to be clear, I'm not a fan of Bild, a German tabloid, by any chance. It's basically the German counterpart to the Daily Mail. However, Ronzheimer has been in Ukraine since almost the start of the conflict and has run stories where other western journalists often failed to show up, more often than not championing the Ukrainian cause, and I can't help but respect that. However, certain elements of Ukrainian society seem to want nothing but obedience and are willing to go after their backers and allies if they so much as cough at the wrong time.

Yeah that's him ,I forget I may have mentioned him before,he only lived 10 mins from Rory Mason who was killed in the same area ,but neither ever met each other

Indeed, but you must understand that these are people who are being invaded. Their mindset is very different from ours. Psychologically some will latch onto certain information, vigorously defend it, even if it turns out to be false. Zelensky effectively fired one official because she was propagating too much questionable propaganda, the Ukrainians are aware and making an effort, but it's something that's unavoidable.

The Russian military are systematically brutal in Ukraine, so when something is discovered, and a false assumption is made, it doesn't automatically mean there was deliberate deception involved. It is going to happen. Unfortunately cranks and pro-war types use these isolated incidents to discredit the very real horrors that have happened in occupied areas, e.g. Bucha.

Who knows that 'dentist' could be a Russian propaganda actor.

Some interesting things happening just under the surface in Russia:

I’m about to go down a rabbit hole. I clicked on the thread with the video. Remember yesterday and the Russians with the very old guns, mental health issues, etc video? Well, that Twitter thread believes it was staged and was to discredit Shoigu.

My mistake.

The thing is, I'm originally from a country that was "liberated" and "denazified" then occupied and subverted by them before, and my grandparents told me stories in which the actually did exactly that. And they were simple people, they didn't even know what propaganda means. So maybe you can understand now why I had no issue believing it. And while many decades had past since then, they seem to be the same.

That's a very good question !

Oh, for sure. both you and @Wes M. are certainly right about the initial looks and the current mindset in Ukraine. I won't deny that there's something weird about the dentist just keeping those extracted teeth. I'd have expected a medical professional to know how to dispose of these things.

However, what gets me is the sheer vitriol and vociferousness of these attacks. A journalist who has consistently been pushing for the west, and in particular Germany, to step up its support for Ukraine has suddenly become the target of attacks that are similar in nature to the ongoing attacks on Elon Musk. I get that Ukraine is fighting for survival and that certain peacetime subtleties are left by the wayside as a consequence, but this rabid monopolization of the narrative might very well come back to bite Ukraine further down the line.

EDIT: Oh, and just to clarify, Elon Musk deserves those attacks. He's been a loose cannon and a risk for some years now and needs to be reined in!