Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Cope cage is the steel cage they built on top of tanks or other vehicles to help protect themselves from Rockets or missles .

In this case they are Hoping a bucket carrying burning material will confuse a heat seeking missle and stop it hitting the tank

Any recommendations for English language Telegram channels to follow? (Preferably ones without gore and executions or anything like that)

I’d say that western smart ammunition would be able to tell the difference in the heat signature of a bucket of burning oil and the tank barrel.

You do realise that only roughly about 20% of Russia's military has been involved in this conflict, right? And apparently, if reports are accurate, it's mostly militia and mercenaries doing the fighting right now - such as the wagner group and the Chechens etc. Much of the regular Russian army has returned across the border. (it's not entirely certain why, but they seem to be planning for future operations)

The Russians have been substantially outnumbered pretty much since day one of this thing. A fraction of the Russian armed forces, is fighting a country of 40+ million people - who are heavily backed by the deep pockets of the west. This financial and military support is not insignificant. We've really never seen anything on this sort of scale before, in terms of military aid to a country in such a relatively short time-frame. And Ukraine's armed forces had been seriously beefed up already since the annexation of Crimea, so they were never going to be a push over anyway.

And then when you also factor in, that Russia cannot just go in and level cities to rubble with their air force like you might have done in ww2 against a true enemy like Germany etc... so most of Russia's key military advantages haven't been used, because this is a limited military operation. Not a war to completely destroy Ukraine. But they have always had the capability to do this. Just look at how they took out up to 40% of Ukraine's power grid and other key infrastructure, and also possibly as much as 80% of their air defences in roughly a 48 hour period. If they truly went in heavy, with zero care for human life or crucial infrastructure in these cities, there would be nothing left and the war would be over very rapidly. Most neutral military analysts recognise this. (but that's no good for propaganda)

But Russians are hearing some of the ridicule about their military capabilities, and there are increasing calls for them to stop being so careful as they are not just fighting Ukraine anymore. They are fighting the NATO alliance of 30 combined nations. So I would say western propaganda might very well have unintended consequences, in respect to how this conflict could play out. They may feel they have no option at some point, other than to meet fire with fire and start using more ruthless conventional military tactics. Or even a nuclear weapon, to end the war quickly and save lives - just like the rationale the US used against Japan. (lets hope not)

And the USA is not getting any real positives out of this. Outside of the western propaganda bubble, the US is yet again being painted in a very bad light regarding their interference and desire to dominate global geopolitics. They are viewed basically as an aggressive imperialistically bully, that has zero respect or regard for regional powers or their individual security concerns. And as a result, you can now see an even more rapid push to decouple from the US petro-dollar, because this is the main tool used to wield economic warfare through punitive sanctions. There is huge anger around the world with these sanctions, because they are harming nations that have nothing to do with this conflict. Even the Saudis seem like they've finally had enough of the yanks, and are playing their part in weakening them.

And don't be fooled about the economic cost of this to the USA or the collective west. I have many American friends, and people are suffering quite badly over in the US with inflation and cost of living - it's getting very worrying for millions of ordinary Americans. You've got quite a lot of dual income households, who are on government assistance and still can't make ends meet. I know several Americans, who are fully employed, and they're rationing food and being very careful with how much they drive their cars etc. There are massive issues around income inequality - and only getting worse over time. They're something like 31 trillion in debt, and you can't keep that up for long - it's completely unsustainable in the long term. Particularly if there is a hit to the petro-dollar, and people stop buying their debt - which is a very real possibility over the next few years. Over reliance on fractional reserve banking and quantitative easing - which is effectively just the US fed running their very own legal money printing counter fitting operation - won't keep the wolf from the door forever. Nor will draining the strategic oil reserves. The magic money tree won't be an option for very much longer. It's the road to financial ruin, and the Biden administration is going all in with this strategy. You're going to see in the mid-terms, just how unhappy the US taxpayer is with the state of things - as they're the ones picking up the tab from these loony govt policies.

Oh, and apparently they're now starting to run out of diesel fuel - less than a month left. Guess which country isn't running out of energy or food or at risk of freezing this winter? Yep, you guessed correct: RUSSIA!

Sorry, I know Tucker is persona non grata around these parts. But he is America's favourite news source, informing millions of US citizens each and everyday.

Is it likely Ukraine will make another big push before Winter?

Western media says the Russians are spent, not combat effective, poorly led, no equipment, low morale and the ranks are held together by unwilling reservists.

Why haven't we seen more massive gains by Ukraine in the past weeks?

It depends really

They are slowly enough moving to Kherson,I'd expect there will be no winter break for fighting as has been suggested in here,the Ukrainans are moving along a huge front over a thousand kms at least it's going to take time to secure everything they need to cut off Kherson and Lugansk

Even hitting the fire bucket would destroy the tank - probably kill its occupants.

Grand

Sure the Russian economy is on the brink of collapse (since March), they have run out of ammo and missiles, over 100k casualties

I'm surprised they managed to sustain the fighting this long given how often they were predicted to only have "2 more weeks" left in them. It's been a long 2 weeks if thats the case

Just imagine if the US Iraq Surge was headlined by the US Gravy Seals and Meal Team Six.

People would be talking about the US falling apart.

They are surviving of the thoughts and prayers from the small percentage of people that are paedophile, murder, rape, and genocide supporters.

Ah the soviet ESP and mind control units are finally being put to good use

Sending thoughts and prayers to the military

'Misinforming' - easy mistake to make, but still...

This is like reading a Boards version of Clare Daly, so much distortion.

The invasion group (Russia) was exponentially stronger than the defending military, which is why almost every analyst predicted that Ukraine would fall within weeks if not sooner. What wasn't predicted was the level of the Ukrainian will to fight and cohesiveness of their leadership, as well as a national determination not to be subjugated by a brutal occupying force. You may not have a clue about Russia and Russian occupation, but they do.

On the flipside, many Russian soldiers thought they were on a training mission, riot police found themselves on the front-line, soldiers were dying in the radioactive Red Forest because their maps were from 1985 (which didn't include the 1986 Chernobyl disaster) - despite have numerical and superior military hardware and tech, they were highly disorganized and had significant leadership and logistical issues.

It's obvious the Russian leadership overestimated the situation, they thought they'd do significantly better, they were booking restaurant tables in Kyiv, picking out which apartments they would claim in the capital, packing parade uniforms with front-line troops. They even wheeled out their puppet Yanukovych to lead the newly conquered Ukraine. They grossly underestimated the Ukrainian military's hit and run tactics, they underestimated the international reaction, they underestimated European cohesion and response, the international flow and volume of defensive arms, they underestimated the sanctions.

This is all symptomatic of dictatorships and autocrat regimes. They are corrupt from the top down, the rot permeates all sectors, the leadership are surrounded by YES men - all of which leads to errors and miscalculations and gross over-estimation of abilities.

The Russians have lost elite units, high numbers of regular troops killed, injured, missing, deserted, the flag ship of their Black Sea Fleet, shiny new T90 tanks, 40 million dollar Sukhoi jets, thousands of their military vehicles have been captured and reconstituted into the Ukrainian military. They have had to resort to scraping the bottom of the barrel to get mercenaries from all parts of the world to fight for them. All that said, they are still very potent, but currently they are unable to make much progress.

"But Russia could really flatten Ukraine if they wanted"

They have already systematically annhilated cities like Mariupol, it doesn't really achieve much for them. In terms of randomly bombing other cities away from the frontline, they've already been doing that. Their pilots are scared to fly because of decent AA defenses, the tiny Ukrainian air force is (miraculously) still somewhat intact. The Russians are running low on cruise missiles. They've resorted to using drones more and more. Putin repeatedly said he wasn't going to be targeting civilian infrastructure. Due to battlefield failures we've seen they have changed tack on this recently.

It's been repeatedly pointed out that you are parroting generic pro-Putin propaganda, always with the same edgy generic narratives that Europe and "the West" are the real villains in all of this, that they control the world's free press, that they manufactured this conflict, all the while being careful to window-dress all your tirades with some fake criticism of Putin. Congratulations.

A totalitarian country is invading Europe, and European countries (and allies) are doing what they can to stop it, because we've been here before. You might want to switch off your Alex Jones club for a moment and actually listen to Putin, to Medvedev, to Russian prime-time television, to what they are saying - the talk of attacking Poland, other European countries, the constant persecution complex, the Russian helicopters with "onwards to Berlin" written on them..