Russia - threadbanned users in OP

And not just the paint either...Those tyres are definitely not standard issue, unless it was a special issue off roader for the ESB, Forestry etc.

Nice touch!!! A lot of well meaning people donate (amongst other things) vehicles, and for sure, vehicles of all shapes and sizes are badly needed in Ukraine, but 4 x 4's fitted with wider wheels and rough terrain tyres are especially welcome. I wish it a long and safe life. Well done!

Report that Ukraine continues to progress its liberation of the east bank of the Dnipro river:

Have you a link to what kind of vehicles they would take?

Someone from Wales came over and picked up mine on a trailer and drove their donated 4wd and trailer to Ukraine.

They're looking for 4wds and it's better again if you can drive it over in the convoys to Ukraine. But they'll take a 4wd without driver.

Further down on that thread on Twitter, the same scenes are shown again, but with English subtitles. It seems that the two guys getting hammered had given drugs to other members of their unit and another one, and most of the other unit were subsequently killed in a fight. This was their punishment. The guys digging the pit had used drugs, and were being taught a lesson. They had also invited the survivors of the other unit to come and take part.

They tried to get India to part fund the original Sukhoi Su57 programme until the Indians realised that there older Sukhoi aircraft could detect the Russian Su 57s even though they are supposed to be a 5th gen stealth aircraft

Where the Americans have been producing and flying new design Stealth aircraft since the 70s each one individual and unique to the next the Russians went with lets cheat a little and took an su27 fighter and modified it's airframe and and pancaked fuselage and blended it's wings into a single shape and decided it was a 5th generation stealth fighter, with the radar cross section 1000 times larger the the F35 , meanwhile the US are flying the 3rd generation stealth bomber and at least 2 other unidentified new stealth aircraft,

1330.

Is this a new daily record?

Seems Finland has closed the border with Russia.

Putin couldn't help himself. The Kremlin were flying in refugees from Africa and Middle East and sending them towards the border on bicycles.

The losses of equipment and men must be very apparent to Russian troops on the ground. Word would get around and infiltrate all ranks which has to be having effect on morale. Maybe they are told that the Ukrainian forces are taking even greater losses? We don't hear a lot about mutiny and soldiers abandoning their units/ surrendering etc but this must be an ongoing factor for the Russians. Maybe this is why they conduct their operations as they do, with less room for individuals adapting on the ground, they can't trust their own. If so, puts a high price on the Russian officer class, take them out and their forces are a rabble.

We've been hearing for quite some time that there aren't many experienced officers left in the Russian armed forces. It would certainly explain the extraordinary casualty rates they've been experiencing of late. Seems their only real input at this stage is to shoot their own troops who try to retreat / refuse to advance.

While watching video footage of recent strikes on Russian forces, I found myself asking "... but why would they do this/react like that? Are they not trained to ... ? " and then I remembered that no, they're not trained because (a) there wasn't any time for training after mobilisation; and (b) the soldiers with real-world experience were killed a long time ago.

I would imagine that word doesn't get around, as the groups with the worst losses are comprehensively wiped out, and it appears that a good number of those who survive are off their heads on drink and drugs, so would anyone pay heed to them - if they can even remember what happened?

The thing is that the qualities that you need in a good combat officer, initiative, flexibility, a good grasp of logistics and basic leadership skills, are generally seen as undesirable in a strictly autocratic system. Even worse, they're seen as dangerous. If a lieutenant in charge of an infantry company moves his unit out of position to exploit a weakness in the flanks of an enemy position, instead of sticking to the plan and executing a frontal assault, how can you be sure that that same officer will stay loyal and in his place? While even western militaries tend to prefer the "parade ground officers" over the "rat catchers" during peace time, just look at the US Strategic Air Command in the 1970s, the Royal Navy prior to WW1, or the Bundeswehr prior to its deployments to Kosovo and Afghanistan for examples, from what I can gather, command courses at least try to instill independent thinking and initiative in officers and NCOs.

That never happened in Russia. The Russian military has never placed a lot of emphasis on NCOs, going back to tsarist times, and especially during the Putin years, looking menacing in the annual victory day parade on Red Square was seen as vastly more important than being able to outflank an enemy on a battlefield. And if we're honest, while the Chechen wars were absolutely brutal, there was not a lot of strategic or tactical finesse that was required in those fights. So Russia's officer & NCO corps was already at a major disadvantage at the start of the conflict, and things have only gotten worse since.

What's worse is that Russia HAD great officers in the past. While Russia's efforts in WW2 are often portrayed in public as pure human wave attacks, Zhukov, Bagramyan, Timoshenko and other Red Army officers did actually show quite a bit of creative thinking in their offensives, and all were acutely aware of the massive logistics pipeline they needed to keep their fronts moving. All of this institutional knowledge seems to have been completely lost.