I'm pretty sure that by now, the defenders are well hunkered down in protected positions, and will stay there until the barrage stops. They are well used to it, horrifying though it is. But they urgently need ways to defend themselves against this kind of attack.
I take your point, but there is an accepted distinction between "jus ad bellum" and "jus in bello". Troops are not normally responsible for why they are fighting, but are responsible for how they fight. Those who don't follow the laws of war are deserving of a different assessment from those who do.
The whole country is a Pythonesque black comedy.
The Russians are rebuilding Mariupol.
Looks fake to me. Maybe true, I don't know. Uploaded by pro-russian, comments off. No geolocation just yet.
I have seen a couple of videos of same, but no verification as to where it was filmed.
looks like a wooden structure to me. Wiring looks top-notch too.
Another potemkin village
Who would dare stand on those balconies??
Also are those acrow props in the windows holding the floor above up.
Looks very sunny and warm
Makes a change from what they usually do...
I have a feeling they don't even give a tuppenny damn about any of their fellow Russian citizens. Putin could be bombing Yekaterinburg or Rostov-on-Don daily and they would be quite relaxed about it.
An actual evidence based study on Russian casualties.
9,300 Russians confirmed dead based on death notices. However they believe that number is under-reported by about 40-60%, so the number of actual dead is more like 20k. The total casualty numbers (dead+wounded+missing+captured) they have is "at least 83,800 people".
So roughly 73 Russians are dying each day in this war, with another 232 either wounded/missing/captured. Absolutely apalling numbers.
Only 9000 dead ,🤣🤣🤣
Couldnt keep a straight face reading that.
🤦
Russians huddled together dying from hypothermia laying in holes in the ground.
Meanwhile the Ukrainans soldiers are enjoying the craic in the snow ❄️❄️❄️
easy to close the airspace when everyone else around you did that before you. Cheap decission to make, cheap pr stunt.
Russians increasing the pace of their offensive in Donetsk oblast according to ISW.
Does anyone believe that the hardened paratroopers that couldn't defend Kherson will be more successful attacking in Donetsk?
What hardened Paratroops. They lost pretty much all of them early on in the fight for an airfield. They would not need conscription if they had anything left than destroyed regiments with all experience lost.
Means they probably won’t get far based on previous combat performance.
Like me, I'd say that he is laughing at Francie's post, rather than the 9'300 dead. Francie's figure of 9'300 Russian dead is laughable. it's based on the Nrs actually returned and buried in Russia, so therefore verified and the figures are from Russian sources. They do admit that there may be 40'60% more dead, so that would give a total of 14'700 dead at the higher figure of 60%. for the whole 9 mths of war.
Now consider the US figures hereunder: -
Russia's total irretrievable losses (i.e., the number of those out of action due to injury, death, or missing) could be at least 83,800. This figure is based on the observations of the Center for Naval Analysis of the United States, according to which for every dead Russian soldier during the war in Ukraine, there are about 3.5 wounded. ( since Nov 10, the US figures have increased to 100'000+ dead and wounded.
Ukraine figures are even higher for Russian deaths and injury's, but I don't have them at the moment.
Now 17-pdr, whats your take on these figures of Francies? Are they believable, or laughable? Up to you. Personally, I think that they are a joke, and thats not laughing at the dead, its laughing at the figures.
You have it all wrong.
Firstly they are not my figures, they are the BBC's based real death notices.
Also it's not 40-60% fewer of 9,300. The 9,300 reported death notices are only 40-60% of what's actually happening. If we take the mid-point of 50%, then there are another 9,300 dead. So 20k Russian dead.
All these numbers provided in the BBC report are in the ball park of the estimates provided by US/UK intelligence.
Ah come one now. The sheer volume of actual video evidence alone should put that number far higher.
Personally i think warfare to be an extremely grim business, even if its necessary sometimes, hence my lack of a sense of humour around all aspects of it. I may be mistaken of that posters intentions so thats a fair enough point you make. As regards Francies observations, is he claiming 9300 dead as further down in his post he mentions a figure of 20k???? If he thinks it is 9,300 then i agree thats too low by far.
We will only know after this is concluded and the mass graves/burnings are found of russian personnel. I wager it's on an industrial scale Considering children are state property according to some General IIRC
They'll never be found.
Well many of them won't. It was reported very early in the War that Russia had deployed truck borne crematoriums and were incinerating the remains of combatants on both sides as well as civilians.
It will take many years of research to see what men of fighting age were sent from all over Russia and never seen or heard of again. And that'll be even harder if the successor to the Putin administration is every bit as bad.
True but you will hear stories from locals of these being used day and night it's not like they hide what they do probably psychological warfare too.
I suppose you have to look at Russia as a country that has been conditioned for generations to never challenge the state.
Even with the few decades of being nominally a what looked at least on the surface of it like a somewhat normal and open society, it seems to be defaulting back into some modern flavour of Soviet authoritarianism.
They're also seemingly getting off on some kind of hardship and wartime nostalgia. They have a long history of fairly grim living conditions, having been accepted for some notion of a greater purpose, which they don’t seem to question and beyond the major cities a lot of those hardship conditions never really went away.
I would also wonder if you’re seeing an element of the huge social divides and uneven development coming to the fore. Putin may have had financial wealth from the oligarchs and the wealthy cities, but I wonder if their losing those opulent lifestyles might be seen as some kind of return to flat egalitarianism by ordinary Russians - a levelling down - tall poppy syndrome etc.
They seem to be just falling back into some version of militarism with strong echoes of the Soviet era, just in a far less defined ideology. It’s nothing to do with communism and everything to do with something more like 19th century imperialism. Their lives may be miserable, but they seem to set that aside with some notion of flags and being part of what they perceive as being a big and powerful country.
It’s very much like the way impoverished people in Europe before WWII got behind well presented tyrannical regimes, dangerous destructive ideologies and oligarchies, even when it was clearly quite contrary to their own best interests. Patriotic warmongering almost destroyed this continent several times over, and it seems it’s still an ideology that’s alive and well in modern Russia and they’re clearly mostly willing to live in a fantasy of their own propaganda, even if it means ignoring reality.
How that’s ultimately going to unwind is anyone’s guess.
I think you have it right. It's like the local barons surfs supporting them to the hilt knowing probably worse off under the next one over. I think it's also Militaristic thinking drilled in your surrounded by wolves who only desire your destruction. Add on top again the pride in ones flag and to be seen as powerful. The poppy one is spot on everyone lot will be the same a rebalance.
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