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  601. @Samurai 7 LOL, so far we only have videos (many) of Ukrainians refusing to fight. Junior officers are also dying and in large numbers (certainly more then average soldiers). Also where general was killed a battalion commander was killed as well (junior colonel). If troops refused to fight you would not see them doing such spectacular gains and win such hard battles where these generals were at. This is western propaganda saying - but it defies logic. If you look at Ukrainian side, where troops refused to fight, instead of sending a general to them they disarmed battalion. In one case battalion refused to attack, MPs were sent, and they fired on MPs and refused to be disarmed - there is no video proof of this, but there is video proof of disarming. Again, you can see this with say current battles where Ukraine is sending their special forces and foreign legion - regular troops refused orders and are pooling out. Finally, when you watch movies made in the west, one of the main themes present of a "Great General" is one that is close to the front line troops. So how it can be that west thinks its gallant and desirable for general level officer to be at the front, yet then when Russians do it its b/c of stupidity? Even in Polish WWII books, a great general is one that does not back off from front lines - at least on book level - I still remember Polish counter attack at Bzura - the largest counter to Nazi Germany till 1943, when leader of two Polish armies, was on his horse and observed the first day of the attack, where dismounted cavalry troops of both brigades were assaulting a village across a river. Finally the general did not have to be that close - artillery kills a lot of pp - all he had to do is be relatively close to the front line. Brigade general is commander of a small formation, at most 6000 troops. I can only say positive things about the disposition of Russian officers, I wish for every army to have such officers as Russia demonstrated. I would not hesitate to serve under such officers.
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  1123.  @denzelsmashsymptom4264  You do not understand that it is not a company but brigade size unit. You also fail to understand that it does not matter Marocco has 200k or 2 million troops. They cannot use more then about a battalion at once due to narrow entry. So numbers are at parity. Mainland Spain is very close - well within artillery support range - check the map again. There certain would be air support and given larger Spanish airforce they would hold the air. I am not Spanish You do not know how artillery works - its not a nuke. Area of Ceuta is quite large & you would not be able to saturate bombard it - not even close. It would be targeted hits. But you enemy can do the same with their artillery and air assets. You do know that if your artillery can hit them - they can hit you as well, no? There were no fortifications both in Hel and Westerplatte. Air defensies of Morocco are not great. Plus air force could simply use stand off weapons. Since Spain has much, much better air defenses Moroccan air force could not touch Ceuta. You also need to read about places like Stalingrad etc. You bomb and they do not retreat - now what? Given that all Moroccan assets are within range except Chinese artillery I fail to see how they would not see losses. Bottom line is without air support and without ruling the sea there is no way it can be taken. Also Spain would simply replenish their troops - remove wounded etc. B/c Morocco would not control air nor sea to stop them. With larger Spanish economy, with larger military production I actually think Spain would do amphibious attack on Morocco and slowly take over whole peninsula and force Morocco to not only give up current possessions but even more. I.e. within say a year or two all area around Ceuta would be in Spanish hands. There is interesting idea about Singapore and its defenses. Its similar but more round and has a small ditch from mainland. If these guys think they can win - without any "mainland" support and with all their country in artillery range - Ceuta is fine. Simply they have enough assets to destroy enemy artillery through attrition.
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  1165.  @TheTrueAdept  The Serbs were totally overwhelmed by a factor of 100 to 1 and had outdated tech. So your idea of similar combat is a joke. The Soviet plan was of deep thrusts with heavy armor very quickly. How are you going to attack these columns? Most of your aircraft in nearby bases are gone. What remains has to fight against enemy airforce that is still left and AA systems. There will be very little time to play some kind of a game of SEAD - your A-10s will attack enemy armor formations that are smaller and bigger will get nuked. Losses from air defense will be huge but you have zero time to play with HARMS etc - you will throw what remaining air force you have to attack enemy tank formations. Survival rate for US Hawk systems was minimal as well - Soviets would be the ones using HARM missiles more as there would be less tanks to deal with for them. Overall situation after 3 weeks would be dozens of millions dead, about 70% of Soviet forces and allies killed and around 95% of US and allies killed. At this point most of central Europe would be a pile of rubble and main problem for Soviets would be logistics of getting anything to their troops on French frontier. The bridges over Odra river in Poland were not to be taken out by US air force but by nukes. There were stubs placed to have at least 3 replacement bridges setup for each "regular" bridge around a mile away. US planned to use around 300 nukes and Soviets around 150. Tactical grade up to 100kn. No one in the US army had any illusions they can stop the Soviet armor with conventional forces and no plans were made to that account - you can ask anyone from the US army and they will confirm that - certainly you think you are better then US command.
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  1417.  Alfred Churchill  He is allowing openly Nazi units to operate. The west ignorance of the Nazi, same as 1930s are putting whole west on the wrong side of history. There cannot be any support for any Nazism in any form. Of course knowing history the west will simply brush over the Nazi thing and make it appear like it came out of nowhere, without any support or enablement. Same as before WWII. So what Zielinski is Jewish (Ukraine has also PM that is Jewish)? What does that change with the Nazi calculus? Do you even know what being Nazi means? Do you know that during WWII Germany supported Japan - despite Japanese being seen as inferior not by Germans but by... Americans! Germans simply modified Nazi ideology to accept Japan, as it was an ally. Same thing can happen today - no difference. We can have a Nazi state grow anywhere, even in Africa. We can have Israel turn into a Nazi state. Nazi is basically racial superiority stance - you say your race is superior. that race can be anything. If you are such a proud son of democracy, why do you deny it to some people - so far none of these "democracy zelots" have responded to simple question, maybe you be the first one. Why democracy for some people, not for all people. WHY? If Z was elected on principles of so called "freedom, democracy and anti corruption" why Ukraine has not budged in corruption rankings and why there are no minority rights and why people are not allowed to choose where and how they are supposed to live. Also, why there seems to be so many arrests of opposition politicians.
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  1506.  @attackmaster519  In welfare you play as much as the enemy allows you to play. Iraq did not have a vast air defense system - it had a system build by the French capable of stopping limited Iranian intrusion - which it did very well - even better then specified - remember it took down over 50 aircraft. It was never intended to take on enemy as large as US & it was not operated by trained staff. Even older system in Serbia & many times smaller was not destroyed despite expending few times more Harm missiles. Armies in ME are basically welfare institutions. Society is tribal. The allegiance of the armed forces to ruler in Baghdad is based only on limited scope tribal loyalty. This is why they are called checkpoint armies. Also note that after billions spent on their training a small rag tag group called ISIS won battle of Mosul - despite defenders outnumbering them 20 to 1. But who were ISIS - many were Iraqis! Iraq did not have any "decent" armor - they had around 200 export versions of T-72, aka T-72M / T72M1 (probably) some local copies without much quality to them (downgrade) and mostly grossly outdated T-55 clones. They also had 1970s export Soviet ammo. Crews had no training with them missing shots at US tanks from just 500m (!!!) Iraq did not have any navy to speak off - few speed boats do not really count. Similar for Iran except they have few subs. Airforce as both Israel and Iran have shown was not that great. They had next to no training. It was also not that "new" - they had few new planes but mostly similar situation to tanks. Iraqi command could not command a unit larger then brigade.... But it all came down to WILL. As you can see US as everyone before it took over Afghanistan rather quickly. But after 20 years US finally lost its WILL and thus lost the war. Afghans did not loose their WILL. They have defeated the Soviets whom actually went into the bush after them - defeating US was just matter of time given their "fortify at base" idea. US also lost last war in Iraq - for "undisputed" leader of conventional welfare US is loosing all conventional wars - with few exceptions. Finally.... US lost in Vietnam and spend 1T in todays $$$ US lost in Afghanistan and spend also... same... $$$ - about 1T. This pales in comparison to Iraq - well over 2T (!!!) for another loss. So what do you think a loss in Iran would run US like? It is more then 2x Iraqi population with geography of Afghanistan. 4T? 6T? Imagine the party in Beijing! And Moscow!
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  1732. ​ @johnathanhughes9881  You do not understand that Russia is not doing the most fighting there. Most fighting and most dying is done by people of Donbass fighting for their freedom. There are also Chechens there, Wagner group etc. And then there are Russians. I do not dispute the 60k casualties figures. Nor 80k. Usually for each dead there are 3 wounded so the 80k would suggest 20k dead and 60k wounded. Which does seem very plausible. BUT this is for Donbass + Russia + Wagner etc. Brunt of fighting is by Donbass Ukrainian militia against Kiev regime. So they have taken most KIA and casualties. So my numbers are actually, quite high - i.e. the top estimate of 9k is more then US estimates suggest! Thus I am not "optimistic" at all. As for liberation of Donbass - see above whom is dying - I feel they are not dying to be salves ;) Azov battalion is actually a regiment and there are many regiments. At least 10% of UA forces are Nazi - similar to SS in Nazi Germany. There are pure Nazi - i.e. they believe in racial superiority of Ukrainians over Russians (and anyone else). Standard Nazi stuff. No Russians are no Nazi - they are RED ;) Russia is very multi ethnic, racial superiority crap would never work there ;) Regarding demilitarization, you must be joking about better military - they are sending people with few weeks of training that are turned into mince meat and then sending more. Ukrainian losses are epic high. Some front lines have many "volksturm" brigades just slowly getting creamed. Regarding these two joining NATO - this is actually not a big deal at all - you do not see any epic levels of anger in Moscow at all. Both countries have been somewhat unofficially in NATO since 1991 and they both threatened to join NATO if Russia invades Ukraine. Both are non issues. Neither of them will station (at least they never had such plans before) offensive weapons on their border with Russia - so non threat - non issue. Thus I stand by stopping NATO expansion - expansion to Ukraine. Full success. No NATO in Ukraine. Ever. Well, as for getting Russians out of Ukraine - how about Ukraine leaves Donbass alone? Why are they there occupying? Why they don't leave these people alone in peace? No one there wants to be under Kiev boot. This is why they are being liberated. They are fighting, every man, and many women, for their freedom. Just like US did against UK in their war of independence. Lugansk is already free of Kiev occupational force and soon Donetks will be as well. How can you support oppression? How can you deny people their God given right to determine their future? US won its independence. I think Donbass also has the same right. Kiev regime troops should pack up and leave and then war will end.
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  1914.  @Ben-ek1fz  LOL, where did you get 150k??? That is total Russian force, they have 170 BTGs, not more ;) I assure you they did not deploy their whole army ;)) The most they had in Ukraine or around Ukraine is 120 BTGs, today they have 92+20 BTGs. 1. Why Russia did not take Mykolaiv, Sumy, Cherniv - that one is easy. Mykolaiv is about the same size as Mariupol. To take a city even if you are Russian, you need at least 3x the force, preferably at least 5x and if you are American then 10x. If Mykolaiv was defended by same # of troops as Mariupol that would mean using at the very minimum 3x (2000 - 3000 + 1 marine brigade) which depends on what you believe is at least 15k troops up to over 21k troops. At lower bound that is far more then troops deployed right now on the whole kherson side. Sumy / Chernichiev - similar to above but even more loop sided. The entire right hand side of Kiev was at most 20k troops. the sheer superb figthing that was needed to surround Chernichiev with such tiny force AND go to Browary is ... astounding. 2. it does not take a genius to figure this out - at the very most you have 100k troops - basic unit placements are provided on numerous maps. All your militia forces start in Donbass. So it does not take a genius to figure out what was max troop level where. Its not that hard - you can do it as well. Regarding Ukrainian army, it started re-calling reserves before the war. It started the war with 250k troops. Reservists recalled increased that number by 50k. At this point Ukraine finished 3rd round of mobilization. Ukraine had tiny airforce and even smaller navy, thus most of these 250k are army troops. So what that you say Ukraine only had say 50k in Donbass at the start - that is still more then Russia plus allies at that front line! Similar situation is now - Ukraine out numbers Russians and allies at least two to one as I am sure they deployed most of their forces to the front. Even if we account for tons of troops not in the war zone its still 2 to 1. There is just no other way to slice and dice the numbers. After less then 1 month of war we get "Ukrainian army mobilized both its first and second echelons of reserve forces, together totaling 150,000 troops. Kyiv is doubling its army." So 150k troops per month. After over 2 months lets say only 300k. That is still a lot of troops! Of course west could be lying and there are far fewer Ukrainian troops.
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  2036.  @Tugela60  They did not get any Austrian forges. Why would Austria even have some super forges in the first place? Modern artillery range is greater than WWII not due to use of "magic" which you suggest but through use of much longer barrels. The forging process makes the barrels stronger so they can be lighter. Nothing more. Also a longer barrel naval guns in WWII did NOT have less range than modern guns by any considerable amount! Take as example 15 cm TbtsK C/36 naval gun - which is like 149mm gun and only 36... with range at 36 degrees of 22km. This is German WWII naval gun on cruisers. Or Canon de 152 mm Modèle 1930 - French... 1930. 26km at 45 degrees. Bofors 15,2 cm kanon m/42 ... 26km. Now lets look at modern stuff, firing modern ammo which is standard i.e. no rocket assist etc. Lets look at Panzerhaubitze 2000 - Rheinmetall 155 mm L52 so 52 calibers and 155mm - notice that some WWII guns for naval use were longer - at 60 vs. 52 (!) So no one had issues in 1940s making longs guns. "The maximum range of the gun is 30–36 km with the standard DM121 Boattail round" I.e. the range increase of around 10%.... since WWII. When comparing apples to apples - i.e. same length. Is this the revolution you are talking about?! 10%? Did Germany in 1940 or France in 1930 also got these magical Austrian forges? Russia was always heavy into artillery and since WWII they had the most on earth. How did they somehow "miss" the latest in artillery in 1980s is beyond me. In 1980s there was no "Panzerhaubitze 2000"... If you do not like my example of modern gun - here is another - 155 GH 52 APU - Finland. Also made in 1998 same as the German self propelled gun. Lets also dispel the myth that Russia somehow has "lesser artillery then the west currently" - "2S33 Msta-SM2 howitzer is fitted with a new 2A79 152 mm/L60" ... "Maximum range of fire with standard HE-FRAG shells is 30 km " i.e. same as western artillery systems... I guess they used these Austrian forges ;)
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  2037.  @Tugela60  naval guns were used in field artillery before, say WW2. See 130mm Soviet naval gun use. The point of naval guns was that during WW2 there was no problem making 52 or 60 caliber guns. So there is no problem making them today. The main difference between barrel made today and in 1930 is metal composition. That is it. No other difference. Again, there is zero problems to make current barrels using machinery from WWII if it were not worn out and material was provided. None. Forgin of smaller pieces of metal has not changed in 1000 plus years. So a knowledgeable black Smith from year 1000 given power hammer some lift equipment and basic know how of the alloy given would do excellent job. I know, shocking but true. As far as machine tools are concerned the top of manual lathes was in 1960s. After that we moved to CNC which is simply faster but not more precise. As far scandals go, the only problem Soviets had in 1980s was with precision of making propellers for nuclear subs. Not precisely make propellers are noisy. And I think your scandal refers to machinery acquired for that purpose. I even heard about such scandal. But not for artillery. Also modern western guns such as German self propelled gun, the weight is not low, at 60t. The system is very, very heavy still despite using modern alloys. The long range artillery is relatively new push, before 1990s, I.e. Well after Soviets acquire the special forge neither them nor US field long range artillery. It is closer to year 2000 that such things appear. The reason is both related to electronics that control the gun now exists as well as better counter battery systems. During WWII most artillery were howitzer not field guns. Incidentally Soviets had long range field gun record on earth till 1970s.
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  2294.  @Ofasia777  The pulled from storage numbers - I watched a video - show missing at most few hundred tanks. Yes, there is a guy that counts all Russian tanks in storage - and he did count before and after the war - recent one - and only few hundred were missing. Hundreds of components. Yet they all seem to be made in Russia. Someone is clearly lying. Ukraine uses massive force not small mobile units. They attack with overwhelming force - like they sent two full BTGs against a single Russian company in Kherson few days ago. Or when they did Kharkiv operation with around 8 times numerical advantage. Most of equipment is old Soviet stuff and they have not gotten any modern NATO equipment. The quality of equipment is very heavy on Russian side - i.e. Russia has far and wide more modern stuff than Ukraine has. All they need is troop numbers - i.e. it is hard to stop masses of Ukrainian meat even if you have heavy tech edge. Now with mobilization numbers will equalize and Russia can use its tech advantage. There is no way Ukraine can win a war with Russia that is five times bigger, has huge modern military - industrial complex and has 1000s of nukes. Come on. This may have been OK if war was optional for Russia - like say Vietnam for US, but its not. Eventually Ukraine will run out of people or equipment well before Russia does. Also your 1500 tanks are not exactly confirmed by anyone - like I said - the guy that counts tanks sees only few hundred missing from storage. There are no reliable sources for losses and all losses are just a guess - but I assume Ukraine is taking far and wide heavier losses than Russian side.
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  2667. ​ @HistoryHustle  We cannot approve Stalin's crimes as Stalin's crimes were with full support of the state. There is a huge difference between state committed crimes and crimes committed by citizens of a country X that country X sees as crimes. Also there is huge difference between someone executed for a crime they did not commit by error while in good faith and someone executed for imaginary crime with full knowledge of the executing/ judging personnel (Stalin). You do need to research the fact that for example there were no executions of Germans and all 600 Germans natives captured were let go. That is right. You lied about executions. The incident is very well known in Poland among general public and a lot of research was put into it. None of it found any fault of Polish state & all actions are today deemed legal and nothing to be ashamed of. Accounts are in detail in https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krwawa_niedziela_(Bydgoszcz) as well as multiple books written about the topic. Losses of saboteurs in combat were around 120, Polish army 40. There are unconfirmed reports of people being shot execution style - nothing is firm on this and is pure speculation. Your atrocity is not based on any historical fact. You may want to read more about the actual events in a book Güntera Schuberta „Bydgoska krwawa niedziela. Śmierć legendy”, where you find out most armed Germans were indeed not even Polish citizens but German citizens & acting out of uniform. Book is written by German historian.
    2
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  3136.  @My_initials_are_O.G.cuz_I_am  "The 16th century chronicler Alexander Guagnini's book Sarmatiae Europeae descriptio wrote that Rus' was divided in three parts. The first part, under the rule of the Muscovite Grand Duke, was called White Russia. The second one, under the rule of Polish king, was called Black Russia. And the rest was Red Ruthenia. He also said Moscow was the center of White Russia and the Russian metropolitanate, and that the Grand Duke of Moscow was called the White Czar, especially by his subjects." So not really - no White Ruthenia is certainly not Belarus ;) "Only by the late 19th century, the name was associated with the area of present Belarus. " "the close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language.[55][56] Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly nativized, adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing a scholarly consensus (at least outside of nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs".[40]" Essentially Poles got their rear end kicked by Vikings and became Rus. Russia is as much descendant of Kievian Rus as is everyone else in the region. I.e. accounts that Ukrainians are descendants more than Russians or vice versa are just nationalism.
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  3266.  @lepetitroquet9410  1) Georgia has invaded regions of Abhazia and South Ossetia - democracy and freedom prevailed and Georgians were pushed back. How can anyone in 21st century suggest that people have no right over their own land! Soviets liberated Africa from western colonialism. These countries owe their freedom to Soviets - it was Soviet help for freedom fighters in these countries that now sees them as free. Again, its 21st century - slavery is over, sorry. Syria is still occupied by US - their oil is taken from them - maybe you should look into that? As for Afghanistan - wait, take a look at pictures from 1970s - they had girls in mini skirts, let me know who again supported the Taliban? Was it... the all "good" US? Who build schools there and whom paid the Taliban to blow them up? WHO! Oh, so you are totally fine with nukes in Cuba and Venezuela then, are you? Oh wait, so why so panicked and saying US will go to war - after all, nukes from subs can reach Washington DC in mere minutes! So what is the big deal? Well? Why so afraid? Sweden and Finland joined NATO for unknown reasons. This is why their joining of NATO was seen in Moscow as meh. They more or less were NATO for 30 years, making it formal is ... meh. What now? Putin will bleed Ukraine idiots till they either realize they are idiots or till they are all dead. Either way Ukraine - or what is left of it - will not join NATO. "The war in Ukraine has become a matter of life and death for the west as it exists now." -- really??? And why is that? Why west suddenly cares - after all - you said that it does not matter where the nukes are - so what is the big deal here? One thought, why west cannot allow Ukraine to be neutral and have no nukes? Why such fixation here? I mean you said it does not matter - so why push so hard for stuff that does not matter? Or maybe it does!
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  3280.  @thomaslunde5014  Sure. There was no mention of Ukraine in the context of a country or people before around 1898 or so - I forgot exact date - this was first mention. So thus there is no history before that. Present day Ukraine usually borrows stuff from history of Poland or Russia or mentions stuff that occurred on lands present day Ukraine has. Around Russian revolution, Ukraine as a concept was become more mainstream - as separate people. Multiple "Ukraine" were created and fought each other, Poles, Russians etc. The concept was not even close to today - most people did not view themselves as Ukrainians - as one nation. After Soviet Union and Polish - Soviet war, lands of present day Ukraine were part of Poland and Russia. Ethnically Polish part had minority of Ukrainians on all lands that were in Poland. In Soviet Union many sections were majority Ukrainian. What is interesting is that SU actively promoted Ukrainian language (!) and for example many signs were in Ukrainian. SU was multicultural and it added new Ukrainian idea nicely. In Poland, super progressive for the time, Ukrainian became regional language - in 1930s kids learned both Polish and Ukrainian at school (!) About half of leaders of SU were ethnic Ukrainians for about half of its existence (!) So saying Ukrainians were abused by SU is wrong - especially given that SU was ... run by Ukrainians. Contrast this with present day nationalist Ukraine - imagine them treating Russians same way Ukrainians were treated in Soviet Union! I not only see removal of Russian language but also of culture etc. Clearly Ukraine is a country today one does not want to support just on humanitarian basis.
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  3615.  @ulikemyname6744  So wait, nothing in military world is advertised, yet you somehow know stuff? No one knows, its all top secret except you? How would US know or Ukraine of failure rates & why would they tell the truth? The same thing was used in WWII - where you intentionally mislead the enemy. When V1s were hitting London center, UK said that they were missing. Come on, some historical context here. In the 1970s dogfights we have a very good performance by MiG-21 vs. F-4. In Vietnam US lost (with SV) over 10000 aircraft including helicopters. How is that dominance of the US? Israel always owned Arabs in every shape and form - why do you think its even there? Arabs performed poorly when using US supplied weapons as well - so what? Yugoslavia where super old S-125 managed to down US 117? In Iraq where they lost 60 M1 tanks to some ISIS pickup trucks during battle of Mosul? There is zero data for true ability of Tomahawk or Kalibr. All we have is what is disclosed publicly by both sides, and here we see Kalibr is better. Claims by US or Ukraine are meaningless - same as claims by Russia of poor performance of Tomahawk over Syria. If we trust both sources we see both missiles are just terrible, As to US killing of massive number of civilians there are plenty of sources that add up to over a million. US had no qualms about attacking weddings, school children or even hospitals. All these were documented. As to when the missiles became available, it has multiple variants. Some variants entered service before others. If you look at Kalibr whole family, some of these variants were already available for export in 1997. You are referring to the latest ground attack variant first combat use in 2015. This would be like talking about latest version of Tomahawk and saying its a new system.
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  3636.  @lp9280  Who cares about what internal politics US has - what is its external policies? How many wars did US start? How many millions of pp did it kill? Internal policies of Russia are a business of Russians, same as internal stuff of US - its business of Americans. The US is by far the most militaristic nation on Earth, the most aggressive and the one that loves to change borders or dictate terms. Russian culture is mostly that of Asian origin, so I doubt they "destroyed" much there on that part. Their origins are same as that of Ukraine which was broken off from Russian culture around 100 years ago. Lithuania and Baltics overall are about as democratic and free as Stalinist Soviet Union - i.e. in many respects they are not far from North Korea. Belarus is mostly part taken away from Poland, as is Kalingrad as is western Ukraine. Thanks to western polices in 1945 Poland did not get any of that land back - west was not interested in pressuring Stalin so Stalin did not give stuff back. This is why Poland actually lost a lot of land after WWII as one of "victors". Heck, wonderful US did not step in there to help - one has to remember that wonderful US was the one that heavily supported Nazi Germany in 1930s. It does ring a bell with current unconditional support of Ukrainian Nazi. Finally, if US was so fair in their polices they would insist on self determination of nations - i.e. why is it that there were no referendums after fall of Soviet Union as they were after WWI. Even today, a lot could be avoided if US did not play hypocrite in their politics - I mean one cannot have a base 1000 miles from US or WAR, but God forbid Russia wants the same! Or when US created Kosovo based on ethnic division, but God forbid same was to be extended to Crimea or Donbass.
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  3637. ​ @lp9280  Where on earth did you get this "It is just a historic fact that democracies go to wars much less often than dictatorships, and even less often against other democracies." Either it is totally false or US is NOT a democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_lengths_of_United_States_participation_in_wars Compared to US Russia is a peace loving country. Gendercide against Poles was done by Ukrainians not by Soviets or Russians. There was no gendercide against any ethnics group under Soviet rule - i.e. holdomir was a result of failed policies that did not specifically targeted anyone. The sheer "targeting" of an ethnic group in Soviet Union would be a big no no and would get you death or a long time in Siberia. Since WWII US is the biggest killer of foreign peoples. Prove me wrong on that one. Whom killed more? WHO! "Ruthenia" or Rus is common word that denounces all people to the east of Poland. "Grand Duchy of Lithuania" is a construct that was in union with Poland (same country) from around 500 years ago. I think you going a bit deep there. "So if we talking about "historic fairness" the Poland didn't lose shit, they were just shifted westwards." false - Poland lost vast territories - as per land area. "When union between Poland and Lithuania was created, the Lithuania was the bigger and more populous country. " False. Maybe you need to read more about this ---> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania at time of union with Poland they did not even have 2m people! While Poland (with all fiefs) was 7.5m+ " The ruzzian federation actually traces its existence to the Novgorod Republic, which was province of Kievan Rus, but gained independence once Kievan Rus was occupied by Mongols and later Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth... followed by none other but ruzzian empire. Which makes it very stupid to say that Ukraine "broken off from Russian culture", NO it is a Russian culture, the ruzzian federation is the one which broke off like 800 years ago when Novgorod Republic became it's own entity." LOL. All lands of European "Russia" "Ukraine" "Belarus" etc. were lands occupied by Polish tribes. Then the people from the north came in through the rivers and invaded these tribes and they were the RUS. There was no "Ukraine" or "Ukrainian" people till after around WWI or maybe before that a bit. There are no written documents etc. where there is "Ukraine" mentioned. None. Prove me wrong. Only around 100 years ago did "Ukraine" become a concept. Thus I stand by my assertion to say that Ukraine broken off from Russian culture - they are actually very similar to this day and are quite distinct from Poles (especially the sheer brutality). "So you clearly lacking historic knowledge, don't understand the cultural differences and lack depth in your commentary. " I think the same of you. "I don't know what you mean about "referendum" after soviet Union collapse, all countries that appeared after the collapse already had strong national movements and they elected their democratic national governments.. what are you talking about?" So what - borders were an issue. They should be ethnically divided. There now been many, many wars over this. "Poles or Lithuanians independent from ruzzia" - actually it is Russia that celebrates its independence from Poland ;) " Likewise ruzzian immigrants can't demand Crimea or Donbass to become part of ruzzia. " Umm, depends - remember that in Kosovo a lot of population is quite recent. Also ... Crimea never was Polish, thus it never was Ukrainian, and was seat of Golden Horde. Thus after Russia (Cathrine) won the wars with Turkey it passed on to Russian empire. Thus any Ukrainian population there is immigrants (recent). Why do you not move out from US to your preferred country you came from and let natives alone then if you are so anti immigration? People of Donbass been there before any concept of Ukrainian state. They have God given right to live how they like. I support their right to freedom. Their right to liberty - same as I supported US right to rebel against King. " their national country by the way is already biggest in the world" ah right of freedom cut off by "you too big already" I consider right of pp to be above all else. Freedom shall prevail. Crimea is Russia if people want it to be Russia. Donbass is Russia if people want it to be Russia. If Scots vote to leave UK and join EU that is their free will. If Kosovo becomes part of Albania - so be it. I will never infringe, as you do, on will of the people.
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  3638.  @lp9280  Ah, so apart from US is they keyword. So you fully agree that US is a huge risk to the planet and it is the main risk. Yet you also say they are democracy. So there exists a democracy that is a huge risk to the planet. US is far and wide bigger risk than Russia or China. Then you give examples of "barely democratic" which is a very loose term - is US barely democratic then? If Ukraine was not pushed by US we would not have this war. Your definition of "democracy" is also very well turned to make sure at least nominally US qualifies. To bad Soviets and most communist countries also qualify ;) -- at least two parties - check -- assembly and executive - check -- 50% voting - check -- fairness of elections is established by transfer of power that is peaceful - sure ALL transfers of power in Soviet Union were quite peaceful ;) Note there were transfers as no one lives forever. and they were elected as well, usually every 5 years. "Same say for Lithuanian-Polish war, Poland at the time was good example of anocracy, Lithuania just became independent a year before." another example of a mini war that would have been easily solved if there was a referendum based on ethnicity. For some reason rules were applied (loosely) between Poland and German but not here. Poland took over territories that were ethnically Polish for 100s of years and never hand any Baltic country population in majority (throughout history). Incidentally Poland took over control of land to the east only where it had absolute majority - i.e. no greed at all. Later on Soviets stole all that land from Poland and incorporated it into different republics. Without any western pressure borders stayed as they are to this day. This is why Ukraine today is much, much, much bigger then ethnic lands of Rus population that later claimed to be Ukrainians. I.e. thanks to Soviets Ukraine is so big & their need to steal. Now Russians are taking back their own land.
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  3709. But was Vichy France axis power? They "collaborated" in same way neutral countries did - they supplied resources and materials. They did far more as far as Jews and others are concerned BUT was it really Nazi German "heavy influence" or simply anti Jewish views that exploded in Europe in late 1930s? Imagine that anti-Semitism even exploded in Poland, most friendly to Jews nation. BUT they did not send military force, same as Hungary and Italy for example. Sure they had volunteers - quite many, but not as much per capita as others, such as Baltic nations or territory that was claimed as "Ukraine". Their refusal to join "free French" only underscores their neutrality - which of course was "questionable" - but so was neutrality of say USA. Sure, they were dependent on Germany and a puppet - but nothing more. In historical retrospect the decision was 100% correct - fighting to bitter end and heavily resisting like the Poles did cost millions of lives and huge destruction for no benefit at all then maybe "bragging rights". The French with their luck of resistance and passive acceptance may not be seen today as warriors (at least by older generation) BUT they did save their capital and they suffered light civilian losses. Also today they can, through use of propaganda, rehabilitate themselves. As to the British, they did as US does today - only care for themselves. They used their allies not to these allies advantage but only to their own. So sinking of the French fleet was good idea only for the British. As history shows it was a bad move as no French ships did in fact join German navy - i.e. British worries were proven false. Did Americans wanted the Jews??? Well, gee, I remember that certain ships heading for NA before WWII started with Jews were not allowed... Once Germans walked into Vichy France it was government in name only.
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  3724.  @Marcus_Sylvester  OK, I now understand who you are so I explain in more basic terms. English is also not my native language but I grew up in Canada. Usually people in Canada say things such as "we now do not make anything in this country, everything is made in China". Implication is that we did something in this country in the past. This is indeed true, we did make a lot of things in Canada. But my anvil example from Berlin, Ontario (renamed to Kitchener - WWI issue) is (among other things) of that when we did things in Canada we did not exactly do them well. Usually old stuff was super expensive at the time so it was made to last. But not Canadian things - they were usually made cheap and of poor quality. This was a bit of a shock, but many old timers (i.e. old people) confirmed that this has been the case in their youth. The point is we do not have manufacturing tradition in Canada to lean on - we always were a colonial style economy of resources and only closeness to US made us "make things" of decent quality in cooperation with the US. Our small growing fighter jet industry got killed off with the "Arrow" that was a good jet, but not "great" or "wonderful". This is not uncommon for satellite country to be treated like this. My home country of Poland had great aircraft (fighter) industry before WWII - they even won awards and records in early 1930s. After WWII our "owner" Soviet Union did not want "competition" so Poland was tasked with... agricultural planes. Even after fall of communism in 1990s there were plans for good jets, mockups were made & even non flying prototypes - but it was crashed again - this time not by Soviets but the west that did not want competition. The point is that sometimes your "friends" may "hinder" your plans to have certain industries. Even today US is pushing the 12000 USD rebate for only US made in union plant electric cars - such thing would ruin Canadian auto industry which is more or less the "top" of Canadian industry. Canadian aerospace is ... in Quebec and thus subject to dirty internal politics. Bombardier survives only b/c it is in Quebec. So to even have fighter industry with a chance it would have to be in Quebec & given that we "forgot" anything from the arrow program and would have to start from scratch a better financial idea would be to buy plans for something to get us going - like Gripen - even that would be a huge challenge given that we "forgot" how to build such aircraft. On the plus side we are better off by far then say Australia - they have no US close buy and our industry, as small as it is, dwarfs theirs - they have almost none.
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  3892.  @johnconner4695  Oryx website has proof of no more then 120 or so tanks. I did not check in a while. Not too many of so called "captured" tanks have been shown "working". On the other side I have seen at least 60 captured Ukrainian tanks being operated. Its no longer sep v4 its M1A3. Ukraine started the war with at least 6000 modern missiles of their own production. They had at least 10x as many missiles they made themselves then the # they received. All modern stuff made in the last 8 years! Proven wrong? Where? 1000s of missiles. and what is the net result? How many tanks did these missiles take out? few dozen? Remember a lot of tanks were taken out by artillery and by other tanks. Even few by aircraft, helicopters and drones. Again, Ukraine had at least 6000 modern stuff made by them - not some old stuff. 15 year old ATGM is considered modern BTW. TOW-2 is over 20 years old. Manpads in Afghanistan did some damage against Soviets but not much - if you wants to see damage then you should see what SA-2 did to US in Vietnam. 10,000+ destroyed / captured. What did Russians loose, few hundred of all types? If you were right and I am wrong, why is everyone still investing into tanks? Why active protection is not #1 priority for tanks? Do you know Soviets were the first ones to develop active protection system. It was called Drozd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drozd It was developed in late 1970s (!!!) Few hundred of these systems were fielded. Next one (non dazzler) was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(countermeasure) and was almost installed in K2 Black Panther - this is late 1990s. Here is list of main systems - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_protection_system As you can see there are tons of systems. Yet no one went ahead and invested heavily into these systems!? Why is that? They are not super expensive - few hundred thousand USD, roughly same price for all systems.
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  3975.  @HistoryHustle  I do not really consider things such as searches for weapons in houses after a police station was blown up as "oppression". An actual example of "oppression" was introduction of law and order. Ukrainian complained he was no longer free to go and take neighbors stuff when he needed it (!) or go to the forest and get some wood he need (!) his "freedoms" were curtailed. Ukrainians, when they want to, are indistinguishable from Poles - same thing is in today's Poland where there is up to around a million of them coming to work. It is difficult to be oppressive against these that look exactly like you. None of the complaints to league of nations regarding "oppression" were validated. Poles oppressed Jews in the last few years before WWII - a part of a wave of anti-semitizm, but nothing like that occurred to Ukrainians. I know it is hard to imagine how something like this could have occurred without a clear defined trigger. However, there are known cases of Ukrainian neighbors coming to their Polish neighbors telling them they are safe and not to move out as they were always good to their Ukrainian friends. So why would anything be done to them? Few nights later they were killed. We are talking here about cases when you let them use your horse or farm equipment free of charge, helping out and later same people coming in to kill you and your family. The actual trigger was simple yet hard to believe for anyone from the west as they simply don't understand the mentality of these people - it was theft. They simply were jealous that their neighbor had more. Not more through privilege but hard work. This is why they even stopped evacuation trains and killed people running away with their belongings.
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  3983.  @JakubWojciechowski933  Why US is using M1 still? Why Germany takes decades to develop Leo 3? Why such high expectation of Russia yet so low of the west? How many Leo 2PL were made in Poland? Well? Years passed.... how many did they upgrade? What about that patrol ship - I mean failed corvette - how long did it take to put hull together - 10 years? But if it took Russia 6 months you would complain they are slow and total loosers. This refers to T-14. They made a short run. Realized tank may need more upgrades, more refinement and its cost above 8m USD is high. So its in short rate production. I mean they can upgrade 4 T-72s for price of one T-14. At least. Sanctions as you can see do nothing much - Russia has around 86% of the planet that did not sanction them. So I doubt that 14% you talk about is such a big deal. We no longer live in western dominated world. They tried quick capture, they did capture a lot, but nothing of huge value. So they moved back. Now they are trying grinder and it works. Since it works they continue with it. War of attrition is fine for the Russians - they love it. It was not Russians looting - at least not on any video I saw, it was DPR / LPR and I also hear about some Chechen looting. If your low morale was true, no magic, low numbers, then either a) morale on Ukrainian side is uber low b) Ukraine has no equipment left c) your assumption is false. Pick one or any combination of the 3. Ukraine already stated they will continue the fight after loosing Donbass - so they admit they will loose it.
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  4042.  @MrHodoAstartes  Older guns need to inspect barrels for 152mm after 1500 shells at full charge, and if OK its good for max another 500. So three weeks between barrel changes is max. AFAIK field exchange. If they can bring in 100 shells per day (around artillery unit) no issue with trucks bringing in new barrel. So whole barrel thing is a non issue. The fact that Ukraine has not been able to stop peace time army of Russia - and not even whole army at that shows how powerful Russians are. By current advance speed they will end the operation sometime in August. I.e. finally the end is in clear sight. In short end of the operation is in sight and Ukraine lost the war. After the end of operation Russia will propose peace terms to Ukraine. Also sometime around end of August / September time frame Luhansk will surely join RF. Most likely Donetsk by October. It is quite likely Ukraine will reject Russian peace terms in which case Russia will most likely declare a war in which case they can actually bring in conscripts. In this case the objective at minimum will be to take out whole right bank Ukraine. I would not be shocked if the objective would be to occupy and eliminate western leaning Ukrainian state. I.e. go all the way to Polish border. Face it, Ukraine lost the war. They can now loose more or less. I assume Kiev leadership will continue loosing war till they are removed from their posts by force of arms. Deep strike capability Ukraine has is very limited and only helps Russia to justify any future hostilities.
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  4043.  @zacharypereira1450  Russia taking Donbass before September is the plan. Seems realistic. Once taken Russia will make a peace offer to Ukraine. The rumor is that Ukraine will reject it. This will put the onus on Russia to deal with rest of Ukraine or have never ending conflict. If Russia decides to deal with Ukraine it will now have clear cause - and easy to explain story for internal consumption. Territory of Donbass may at that time vote to join Russia and any continued attacks on it will be attacks on Russia. thus rumor is that Russia would declare full war - for a cause. Once mobilized, Russia will have more then enough fire power to take either half or all of Ukraine. If it takes all it will change the regime to a puppet and annex enough land to make any Ukrainian state non viable. Even if puppet falls it would be too weak to be any threat to Russia - besides - puppet will be made up of destroyed land with very few pp living there. Russia over a month ago or maybe even more - totally divorced from the west. As in Russia has no interest in any relations with the west of any kind. I.e. Russia has no interest in selling on buy or any trade with the west. Thus sanctions are of no meaning to Russia. This has been very well planned by Russia - they knew the sanctions well in advanced. Sanctions were spelled out to them - even listed well before the war. Russia is about to achieve its military objectives by end of August. In short, this has been a total disaster for the west. Total. it shows totally failed policies of both Europe and US. - Russia turning away from the west towards the east is a huge loss for the west. Its by wide margin the largest country on Earth - its a continent. You don't just abandon that. - Ukraine will be dismembered or will even exist for some time as larger version of Belarus. - heavy crisis on the whole world - economies failing left, right and center. You may be fine with Russia becoming "Chinese" or Asian colony but the west should treat this as major disaster - it is listed as #1 point - the main disaster of far greater consequence then any Ukraine situation.
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  4044.  @zacharypereira1450  Well, so what do you propose. Russia takes Donbass. Ukraine does not stop the war. Russia offers peace but its rejected. Now what? Endless war? West is spineless - they cannot even force Ukraine so I seriously doubt they could even touch Russia - thus your intervention theory is a joke. No one swept during WWII across Ukraine - it took Soviets around a year. Even if NATO / US / EU increase weapon transfers there is no way Ukraine can resist mobilized Russia - they will be crushed. Russia has a LOT of what west needs. Who cares about oil and natural gas - its all other resources. Russia has everything you ever need to run a production, from all metals to endless food supply. Why do you think Hitler invaded Soviet Union? As far as Ukrainian population - well, they are fully supporting Russia in Donbass, don't they - in fact these pp are fighting for their freedom as I write it - from Kiev regime. Ukraine has been - as a whole -part of Soviet Union - no issues as a member. There are no issues in occupied territories. This is not Afghanistan or Vietnam and Russia does not need all of Ukraine - just parts that are Russian. They do not need to import Russians - they are already there in Ukraine and they do not need to export Ukrainians as they already left - come on, Ukraine now has maybe 28m under Kiev control - maybe less. When war started, it was like 37m (as per Kiev). If Russia goes further I expect millions to leave. "Ukrainian population will never support a Russian backed Regime" - lol throughout Ukraine existence they had just that 1/2 of the time ;) I say indications are great for Russia - they did not start this war to loose and they knew perfectly what would happen - they knew the sanctions - they were told exactly that. They knew that if Ukraine resists it will be a long war. They knew that if Z does not stop they will need end game. Its not like anyone is surprised. Since they knew it all - why would they start a war if things were "bleak" for 5 - 20 years! They are on a path to victory in Donbass and if needed to total removal of Ukraine regime with pivot to Asia. They do not need EU or west for anything. They knew this will happen and calculated great prospects - which they do have. When Soviets won WWII they flourished - same will happen now.
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  4109.  @fredbyoutubing  What hate? What propaganda? So you still have no arguments? And what about NATO - it never blamed itself for anything and NATO is US. How many wars did NATO fight? How many millions of people it killed in the last 20 years? Of course solution is for Ukraine to capitulate as there is no point of fighting a war it has lost. Germany did it in 1918. When the war started the Russian proposal was quite fair, Crimea + Donbass i.e. predominantly Russia areas. I am sure to it one could add making Bandera from Hero of Ukraine to Enemy of Ukraine and disbanding all these Nazi units. Ukraine can have its western ties - say EU membership, but being part of NATO or hosting NATO or any dealings with NATO is a no go. I do not see this as outrageous - it is fair. I do not find it amusing that no one can have military base within 1000 miles of US or they get smashed while much more modest Russian need is seen as evil. No one again is talking about absorbing democratic countries or even Ukraine (which I do not consider a democracy) into the fold of Russia. His ambitions are nothing but clear. Imperialism is shown to be that of the west. This is why the reds always said they fighting imperial pigs. You get a grip on reality. Its no longer 1960s. Asia is FREE! They can clearly see the west for who they are. You can no longer tell black or brown or yellow or any other colored people to jump. They refuse to and will resist western ambitions with force of arms, and soon their economic might. The time of western imperialism is over - Asia is coming online as world leader. Also for all this talk about democracy, why you are soooooo against letting people decide their future! Allergic to elections you can loose?
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  4157.  larshildebrandt3835  LOL, stop drinking cool aid. You are watching too many super pro Ukraine channels and not thinking critically. Let me just look at some points: "25% of the Great Black Sea Fleet is now GONE! And this from a nation that no longer has a navy! Why is this important? Because a LARGE number of the missiles fired into Ukraine originally came from these very ships that YOU say are of no consequence! " -- only a single corvette that fires kalibr missiles was damaged - and not too much -- I am unsure if the damaged sub was kalibr carrier or not -- I am also unsure whatever Moskwa cruiser - the biggest success of Ukraine - was kalibr carrier - its main role was air defense Most missiles fired are not kalibr and the actual platforms to fire them were only super mildly affected. Ukraine does not have any navy as Russia destroyed 100% of Ukraine navy. "You never spoke about the recently downed SU-34's. " There is like precisely zero proof of this - there is just one video of a single retrival of possibly downed pilot. Both sides make claims to take out each other's aircraft - without proof this is meaningless. "Yet you FAIL to mention that OVER 3 Million young, educated and skilled Russians left Russia because of the war Putin started. " - again there is zero proof of this. There is talk about a million leaving Russia. So what - many have returned to Russia - Russian men are free to leave Russia at any time. There are millions of Americans leaving outside of US - so what? "You NEVER mention Russian losses." We have them from BBC - they are low. " Can Russia keep up with the losses in weapons/ammunition? And if so why does it going to North Korea and Iran for help?" - and what did US do, go to Pakistan for help? Seriously we are talking about it? In war you always can have more. "What of the huge losses of Russian tanks, Armoured Personal Carriers, trucks etc etc? You NEVER mention these." Russia is not running out of equipment - Ukraine is. Ukraine is running out of people - not Russia. Russia has, per west, 5x advantage in artillery and drones. Not to mention air power. "what Russia did wrong during 2023" - it is not obvious if Russia did anything wrong in 2023 - Russian general staff said the main goal of 2023 was to end Ukraine counter offensive and grind UA forces on the front lines - they seem to have had a good year if these claims are true. "What of the under-clothed and weaponized Russian conscripts?" LOL, too much pro Ukraine channels here ;)) I may have believed in this if Russia mobilized over 10 million troops, not 300k + another 400k or so volunteers. Come on dude, they have like 10 million rifles in storage. Maybe 20. And even in WWII Russia had plenty of cold weather clothing. How can anyone be so ... delusional. "Aka, what are Ukrainians doing right?" - I do not think they are doing anything major right - if they started talks with Russia it would be the right step. Equivalent question would be, what was Germany doing right in 1944? Answer would be nothing.
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  4168.  @gingerlicious3500  And did they give Ukraine tanks???? Nope. NATO knows that if it pushes very hard China will get involved into a war of attrition and a proxy. They know they cannot win that. Who is saying all this BS about bad Russian economy when they are doing like 100x better than NATO predicted??? Russia may not be a great country - may be a shithole country - but at least its a country - Ukraine right now is not. Russian economy recovered already - as per world bank. Russian military does not need to recover from anything - they have not collapsed at all. Losses in say air power are ... a whopping 1 year production ;)))) I.e. since the war lasts now over a year Russians recovered all losses ;) Losses from tank combat may take longer - few years - but it also means Russia will have better tanks. Once Russia wins the war do you really think the victor will suffer? How can anyone sane think Ukraine, in a war that is crucial to Russia's survival can win is beyond me. Its like a grown man fighting a 10 year old an pp betting on the 10 year old - in a fight to the death. Less than 300 tanks committed for year 2 of the war. Almost no new artillery systems. Chronic luck of artillery shells, with no new major numbers coming in. Epic level losses of military personnel. Tiny air force. Soon running out (as per west) of air defense missiles. And yet there are pp that think... Ukraine can win. Russia did not even mobilize too hard. Please, enlighten me as to why Ukraine would win? Other than a miracle please. Win is defined regaining all land prior to 2014.
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  4169.  @agffans5725  Exactly - almost nothing is sent anymore. May I remaind you that west sent something in line of over 600 artillery systems during first year of the war, and there are no pledges for more than 100 for 2nd year. In order to fire 5000 rounds of ammo per day you need around 1.7 million rounds per year. No do your math and see that artillery shells are NOT coming. 8000 rounds for 19 howitzers is not much at all ;))) Usually these fire around 50 rounds per day. So supply sent is for... OMG - a whopping 8 days. Maybe 10 days if they stretch it out ;)))) Yes, Ukraine will get all ex. Polish and ex. Slovakian fighters - I do expect that the west eventually will donate few dozen F-16s. The donations do not fully cover Ukraine losses which are much more. Ukraine lost over 70 aircraft (quite confirmed - not some Russian source) with almost half of these MiG-29s. If you want to know exact types, just use wikipedia. This is pro western source - so real number can be much higher. Essentially Ukraine is toast. They are not getting a lot of tanks, artillery or even IFV. They are not getting air defense systems. Sending more "wonder weapons" will be of similar help as the one in Germany in 1945 ;) Sending weapons only prolongs the war. Russia is clearly winning and sending more to keep war going is certainly not making the end of the war in sight. 1000s more will have to die. Why not simply start negotiations? Ukraine does not enter NATO and transfers all land with majority RU population to Russia - Russia transfers all land with majority UA back to Ukraine. Simple. Why does Ukraine fight to be in NATO???
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  4177.  @ericmyrs  Scenario is 1:1 - they would not walk in the forest - they would simply deploy mostly via air small groups of special forces or airborne - like a company size max. They have 60k so its not a big deal. Now these especial forces job is to simply have some boots on the ground. Main push would be through use of modern tech, such as drone tech or smart ammo. Note if there are only 3 roads there is not much people living there - its not like there will be 1000s of troops to oppose. Besides, how would the opposing force get there - they have to fly as well! Yes it is not really a geo political goal for Russia and political price is too much for some forest - besides Soviets already got all they wanted during WWII. Even at the end of WWII Finland was not added to the Soyuz so they are safe as they simply do not matter enough. But if there was a need it would not be that hard mostly b/c Finnish preparations are way out of date - Fins are ready for repeat of WWII. Not for WWIII. Repeat of WWII with modern weapons could be Helsinki push that is rather easy to see. Here it all depends how well Fins are prepared but I doubt they would hold out. Russia may not be Soviet Union but it still has a punch and remember Fauda Gap in Germany was only defensible with Nukes against Soviet invasion - here we have 50km front. Russia is half of Soviet Union but so is the gap. On the other hand Finland is not half of NATO. We also should consider how would Scandinavians fight if after first week Finland is out of the war (more or less). Would they mostly go into defensive mode or try to meet Russians on the road in Finland? Knowing modern Sweden they may not fight too long due to internal weakness of the country, especially if Russian claim is they just want to "teach fins a lesson for winter war". I expect same performance from other 2 in the alliance.
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  4346.  @Tugela60  you do not understand what a forge is and what the process is. And what cutting on a lathe is. I do due to the fact I can so these. Forging is a heavy industry process aimed at aligning the grains of steel and increasing its strength. Counties such as Russia or Soviets were world leader in this as heavy industry was a very big deal in them. VS. Light industry. Today almost all heavy industry is in China and very little in the west. So I guess you should say that Germany cannot make and barrels as they do not have much know how. Russia would not need to buy any forges etc. Unless very cheap from say Austria due to bankruptcy in said Austria. This whole forge argument is same joke as problems buying chips and needing to take them from fridges. It is a joke. I actually tried to buy chips which stupid Ukrainians gave models for using VPN pretending to be from Russia and had zero problems. Same idiocrasy with forging which is an ancient process. Much harder is later on cutting this on a Lathe. But overall not a big deal given the artillery here is not for ships. For 405mm etc artillery of WWII you need ultra large lathes, Japan bough a special super large lathes in 1930s to do that and I admit it would be hard for say Russia to do such barrel. But not 152mm. Why people believe in such BS? Also if for some reason there was some magical problem with making barrels you could use sleaves. Or if forging was somehow a problem you could make them thicker. Forging is to prevent barrels from exploding. Cut on a Lathe is for precision. But cut on a Lathe does not need to be super precise as with today's equipment we have like 52 cal guns and sag is the main issue.
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  4347.  @Tugela60  These guns were not accurate b/c they had not been upgraded with sensors. These "inaccurate" guns were so good many were used until recently in the west ;) When upgraded they were quite decent - their main fault was with change in tactics. No one really needs now 155mm or 152mm slow firing guns. Otherwise they were totally fine. Very accurate. Soviet guns of WWII - same as their tanks were so crappy that the west AKA Nazi Germany not only used captured equipment, but also produced spare parts for it as well as frequently copied the equipment or the idea. Again, modern barrels and 100 year old barrels are the same as far as production goes - really. Honest. The main change in them is with alloy element. Hones. That is it. I know, shocking but true. You obviously do not have a clue as to how Russia or Soviets operated in their military doctrine. For example, as far as barrels go - Russia will run out of ammo, long, long time before they run out of barrels. Same with tank engines. They will not run out of these either. Same with US, they run out of bombs before they run out of planes. Of much, much more significant issue is barrel wear on limited number of western systems for which Ukraine has ammo. Also no one is talking about barrel life till re-certification - i.e. once barrel reaches its life it can be re-certified after inspection. Given that Russia has like 10x more artillery but fires only 5x as much ammo - why no one talks about Ukraine barrel life is beyond me. Finally, we have range issue - or so called full charges. If you do not fire full charges, you barrel lives longer. Even if Russia did not make any barrels and with standard life of a barrel at "average charge" of just 2000 rounds, we have Russia ruining 10 per day. At that rate they would only have trashed their most common towed artillery by now. But we all know, they have spare barrels a plenty - same as they have at least 3x as many tank engines as tanks. As a parting gift: "As an example, when the bore diameter of the M199 Cannon increases from 155mm to 157.480mm, the Barrel must be replaced. " From "Wear and Erosion in Large Caliber Gun Barrels " PDF - as you can see these are not very precise ... a variation of over 2mm is allowed (!!!!) So much for precision.
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  4621.  @steeltalon2317  M1 armor is about 100mm RHA inferior to T-72A on the front turret cheeks. M1A1 armor is superior to T-72A (or else why would they bother) - and lets say its similar to T-72B without ERA. I assure you T-72B was penetrated by inferior rounds in this war already - so clearly with better rounds it will not be a big deal to deal with M1A1 especially with much better round. Sure, we could do a test - as it is not simple to translate armor to RHA that is made of composites - i.e. rounds has to be designed to defeat certain composite or its penetration will be weaker. However, here we are dealing with a wide margin of error - thus it is quite safe to say that vacuum 2 will have no issues with M1A1. We are talking here about direct hit, not a glancing hit - by same account you could do a glancing hit on T-55 and also just damage it - direct hit, onto turret cheek where there is a warm human behind it - not more armor. Russian tanks do not have main gun ammunition surrounding the crew in most instances - the ammo is in the carousel in the floor of the tank. Some extra ammo can be stored in blow out panel compartment - this is for T-90 / Leopard 2 style tanks. For many T-72s - as in the case of M1, some extra ammo is usually not carried. Thus in the case of penetration it is very rare to have any major explosion right away - if crew survives the initial penetration it leaves to fight another day. Tank is on fire and eventually ammo cooks of in the turret and makes it go boom. Sure it is better to have blow out panels vs. not, but their importance is way over rated. Also depleted uranium armor in M1 - same as with its main gun using depleted uranium is not some kind of super technology - its mostly a crouch used by the US. The main gun is obsolete - it cannot produce maximum penetration at high speeds required of tungsten - so it uses uranium - b/c uranium does not need such high speeds. The uranium turret plates were added when it was found out that M1 armor plainly sucked - I mean brand new tank and it was already inferior to your enemy's tank somewhat dated armor. So US again had to "fix" the issue and did so with some uranium plates. If both these uranium solutions were do great everyone would be using them - Russia does have DU rounds for their T-72s - they could be used when needed for older tanks.
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  4693.  @speakingwithoutnet  There was very little reason for anyone to speak Ukrainian - until recently even president of Ukraine did not speak Ukrainian often. For Belarus, the same thing - Lukaszenko spoke it like for the first time ever officially this year (!) So yes, almost no Russian on the border of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian. There never was a reason for them to speak it. On the other side, Polish - Ukraine - when large parts of present day Ukraine in Poland, any spoken Ukrainian was mixed and matched with Polish frequently. Or speakers would switch back and forth. etc. Its like speaking English vs. speaking British. Your question is more like "so no one in UK speaks American? Well I guess some do, but its not really *needed*" Given the size of the region that around 65-70% of troops from both sides are concentrated and given that fight for some villages has been ongoing since beginning of the war (Adiivka) I say taking like 9 villages in a day is a major rout. You are incorrect in your assessment of propaganda. It needs to stick at least till its no longer needed. Like only crazy pp now believe reports of Ukrainian Ministry of defense. How do you know they are lying - their lips are moving. why is that? Why they have like no credibility of any kind? Well, how many Ghosts of Kiev can pp take? 1, 2, 3? 10? 20? How many fake offensives did Ukraine now have, dozens? Maybe more? However, same cannot be said of Russian side - this is common in war, generally side that is winning will lie less or create far less fakes as they simply do not need them. Russia does not need to invent success - they have it. Russia does not need fake POWs - they have real ones. Russia does not need to say they routed Ukraine - they make videos and we all can see they did indeed taken the town - as it is difficult to ... well, have Russian troops in UA held city film things around them ... at least without getting shot at. Sure Russians lie, like I do not trust all the downed UA aircraft stats - they seem to be made up. I do not trust at all Russian claims of how many pp missiles killed (they seem to be over the top --- but hey, some were indeed confirmed by Ukraine!) I certainly do not trust Russian sources on how many vehicles they destroyed. But I do generally trust Russians like 10 -100x more then UA as far as taking land is concerned. It was now repeated way more then 100 times that UA has plainly lied. Like till yesterday Ukraine contested claim by Russia that they have taken village of Vrublivka near Zalote cauldron. Then magically everyone forgot about that stupid claim. Heck magically western map shown whole terrain magically taken by the Russians, including that village, and heck the cauldron was cleared faster then Russians claim it was!
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  4845.  @shaneb315  Bandera has 100s of monuments in Ukraine, is official (by act of parliament) hero of Ukraine. This is equivalent to having Hitler official hero of Germany. So not only neo Nazi consider him a her as he is hero for all of Ukraine by act of her government. Support for Bandera in the west Ukraine was over 2/3 - hence all the monuments. So I guess you just proven that around 2/3 of western Ukraine is neo Nazi ("only neo Nazi types consider him a hero - not the entire nation ") This is certainly true - not entire nation, only 2/3 ;) "During World War 2 , western Ukrainian anti communists fought against the Soviets " there was very little of that during WWII - most of the fighting by OUN was against Poles and Jews. Any fights against Soviets were mostly accidental. " Ukrainian anti communists linked up with them to fight a common foe - those Ukrainian's were not Nazis ." and that common enemy were Poles and Jews???? Really???? You do know they killed a healthy number of Czechs as well? And anyone else non Ukrainian! Just to educate you on OUN -B the rules were much more strict then German rules - you had to show all 4 grandparents. If you were of mixed marriage, say your wife was Polish, your duty was to kill her and all your kids to purify blood line. You were given an ax and you were to do it. If you did not, they did it for you. These factions were pure Nazi. Its part of history. Like I said, my grandfather fought against German Nazi and Ukrainian Nazi. The Ukrainian Nazi were far and wide worse. Ukrainians attacked villages at night, killed everyone and then they destroyed every house. Everything, even the church. This way there was no chance of anyone ever coming back there. they took out 4500 Polish towns and villages that way. None of these pp ever got a funeral. Just to show you whom you are supporting, Ukrainians after killing the parents found a young girl. They decided to have some fun with her. They gouged her eyes out so she dies slowly. Account was written down by an aunt that found her, girl died later on. "The fact is President Zelensky is a Jew , members of his family were exterminated in Nazi death camps - do you think he has much time for Nazis" and Jews (all of them) are some kind of "special people" that have three arms and 10 legs? They are normal people. Jews can be Nazi as well. Do you know how many capos were Jews in concentration camps? All of them! There are plenty of bad Jews - just as any other pp. A Jewish lawyer successfully defended a WWII camp guard ... in Israel! And you think Zelensky cannot be this or that just b/c he is Jewish? Really? He went up with same guy that supported Azov battalion. His "friends" have OUN-B insignia. All are Nazi but Zelensky is somehow not? Nazi types do exist everywhere but usually they are not as engrained in a country as in Ukraine and Baltic states. You can see it not just in monuments, not just in politicians, but also policy. Long live democratic Ukraine - if it wants to be with Russia so be it - people have choice and if they want to be part of Russia so be it. You do not believe in democracy as you claim - since choice means a NO choice is a valid response. Donbass and Crimea do not want to be with Kiev Nazi Regime. And I support their free choice.
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  4846.  @shaneb315  And then he was made hero again - in what, 2018 if I remember correctly. If Ukraine is not a Nazi nation why it has Bandera monuments, 10% of its military is like German SS, it has clearly racial laws enacted. What are you waiting for, concentration camps with gas chambers????? So what 2.5% was official Nazi party - who got the Jew into power - the neo Nazi billionaire. This can be verified as well. If Putin is a dictator then Z is even bigger dictator - there is no opposition in Ukraine - this can also be verified. Not even fake one. As for Odessa and others - look at peace terms offered - there was no Odessa to be taken - it was going to Ukraine, whole Kherson to Ukraine etc. What do you expect Russia to do - move back without peace terms signed? Taking Odessa would weaken Ukraine. Ukraine will never get Russian homes. Even if Putin is gone, these that come after him will defend homeland. Above is clearly seen by the planet. The US may have dreams of world domination but its no longer 1960s. Brown people are no longer inferior slaves. The world now is free. And that world will not allow US to dictate it terms. I fail to understand why pp in the west, many, cannot see that US gained its independence from UK through rebellion and lands of Americans made US b/c Americans lived there. Same idea is all over the planet, people live in X its the land of X. French live in France and French make France. Why this is somehow different in Ukraine - Russia relations?! Why Taiwan has somehow right to freedom but Donbass or Crimea do not?! Everyone outside of tiny west sees that.
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  4869.  untrainedassassin807  Yes I do have actual experience personally and I do have experience from talking to people that were just doing such rescue say less than 1km away. The death zone is just something created mostly by the media before people regularly went over 8000m. Far more important is where on the mountain is the accident, how easy it is to get someone into a tent, how easy it is to then get the person from that tent to a helicopter. This implies technical aspects - say how difficult is the route relative to the team experience. How strong is the team? Is the team tired? For over 8000m next would be oxygen - how much is available? Oh, almost forgot - how big is the victim - there is a difference between 50kg woman and a large 100kg man. For example, I was shocked when a single Sherpa saved a climber on Everest this year - by caring the climber on his back - I would never think this was possible. The main part of the answer above 8000m or below 8000m does not change - only difference I can see is oxygen. I feel like if all other things equal, it would be easier to save someone from say 8000m than 7000m if there was lots of oxygen available. So, yes, one man team - its possible. I would guess with "lesser" people such us myself we would wrap the injured in a sleeping mat and maybe if available sleeping bag over his clothes and then pull them down + if needed lower them. Two people pulling one directing at the back. It would be nice to have a change, so 3 more. On steep terrain with ropes present lowering is actually not that bad at all - you clip into an anchor and you just lower the victim like a sack of potatoes down. Seen it done few meters from me. Again nice to have more people to help/ change you etc.
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  4945.  @recoil53  Not really - there are no huge orders or huge expansion in the plans. Sure maybe Nordic countries are standardizing rifles but US just changed the caliber from 5.56 to 6.8. Also it will take years before US artillery production has any meaningful increase. Germany can order 10x more - but does not change the fact that production numbers per month are not increasing by much. You cannot increase production without major investment. US did not open old tank factory. I.e. there is nothing indicating major artillery production is coming to the west. Even if by some magic west doubled artillery production in a year - the war is going so bad for Ukraine that in a year - even this year they need to capitulate or the fight will be to the last Ukrainian. Lets say UA wants to implode and will fight to the last one and west doubles production in a year (this doubling is a dream - nothing indicates this - but lets take best case UA scenario) so what? Russia will still have 3 : 1 advantage and Ukraine will be running out of people. Even if the west doubles production again (magic) in a year and matches Russian artillery - who will operate it after 4 years of war on UA side? The only solution for Ukrainian victory is for NATO to join the war & convince Russia it cannot go for the tie (i.e. defend with nukes). This seems less likely than magical artillery production numbers. I fail to see the dream unrealistic world where Ukraine has a chance of defeating Russia - nothing at all indicates such scenario. No sane person looking and hard core data sees this. Especially with idiots in Ukraine defining victory as total defeat of Russia. I think Russia should continue in their current strategy and if Ukraine wants to fight to the last man and woman, sadly, let the idiots do it. If they are so stupid as to throw their nation away, maybe they do not deserve it in the first place.
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  4995.  @fromagefrizzbizz9377  Lets see. Canadian Debt to GDP ratio is around 150% factoring this year. Take France. In 2020 it was 115. Lets say its 130 by end of 2021. France is in G7. France Debt to GDP is better then Canada. So Canadian GDP to Debt ratio is not the best in G7. Looking at US spending on just federal level, from memory, its like 2 trillion, Canada is like 450B CAD. US is roughly 10x bigger then Canada so it would need to spend 4.5 T CAD, but spent only 2.6 T CAD... so certainly less. The cookie people are not paying it back as they played by the rules. Some "cookie" pp were a bit too griddy and got too close to the limit . If you played safe and claimed say 6k in cookies you are fine. No need to pay back. Even if you wanted it back how are you ever planning to get it back - we are talking about pp that do not ever plan to work. Why on earth would you loose a home in rising market? If for unknown reason you could not pay mortgage payments just refinance - with housing going up its easy. In the very worst case you can sell your house and get a hefty $ over what you paid for it even a year earlier. There does not seem to be any "epidemic" of pp loosing - its impossible. If our unemployment and economy were so great we would not be lagging heavily behind US for few years now. Look at our GDP growth numbers and US, before pandemic, during pandemic and now. Normally if unemployment is lower then other country we should be doing better economically - but we are not at all doing better. So what gives? Maybe the unemployment numbers hide some ugly truth? Regarding 2008 recession - if we did so great since then... why are we lagging so far behind? Usually when you do better ... you lead. Again, MacD example shows there was little interest in supposedly jobless restaurant employees to get a job. Even when they went to 18/h. Why? 2000 why. People were paying cash under the table in order NOT to work. People were trying to get as little shift work as possible... maybe that explains low unemployment numbers? Everyone was employed but hardly working. God forbid you went over 1000. Paid manager 200 in cash for a promise not to work. So they hired more people... LOL! I think I rather easily shown that a lot of things you said are plain false or misleading at best.
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  5027. ​ @LondonSteveLee  Well, Russia was also not defeated in Ukraine - their costs to benefits ratio was such that they decided its better idea to move out. Still everyone in the west says they were defeated. As per Soviet occupation in Afghanistan it was run under the premise of we will wipe Taliban from every corner - including the mountains. This was totally different to US strategy of "we hold fire bases and patrol only very close to them". With US strategy 98% of Afghanistan was left to the Taliban to run around aimlessly - BUT they would never be removed. So eventual defeat of US was quite certain especially in view of US imposed administration that was universally hated. US tried to "buy" Afghans out but that also failed - despite spending like over a trillion USD. So there was no other choice but to move out. And as soon as they moved out the whole house fell in just three weeks - why - see the 98% I said above - it fell as fast as you can ride on local shitty roads. Now Russians / Soviets used a totally different strategy - they used their troops composed from people that were very close ethnically to Afghans to go after them - into every valley, every hill, everywhere. The plus was that Afghans did not control a lot of Afghanistan but Soviet losses were very high in close face to face combat. After Soviets left the local government started out in far better position and lasted for around 2 years. Notice the difference here, 3 weeks vs. 2 years. Soviets were quite closer to victory than Americans.
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  5263.  @davidchang5265  The war is not about land its about NATO. None of these regions were to even be part of Russia - they are just payment for the war effort, but war is not fought for them at all. Russia no longer has any EU costumers. The war is about NATO. And that is nation ending - or at least loosing sovereign right. How about we trade - Russia will be able to place hypersonic missiles in Cuba and China will do the same in Venezuela. Its not US ending move - not at all - after all US will still exist, no? US would never allow any bases within 1000 miles of US and they officially stated that any such attempt would mean war - within last 12 months. Thus, if you think it is OK for Cuba to have nukes then I guess its OK for Russia to accept Ukraine in NATO. Heck, maybe we see some Chinese bases in Canada. The war is simple - US paid off / convinced / whatever Ukraine that being in NATO is important enough to fight a war with Russia. If Russia were to allow this they may as well give up their security council seat. Since Putin sort of likes his country he does not want it to be erased - this is not humiliation this is existence as a nation. This is why any sane Russian knows they have to fight as they did during WWII. Any means need to be used. And for what is Ukraine fighting? For US interest! This is why Zielinski is about as much Ukrainian as Putin ;) No sane leader that loves his country would do this - even Fidel Castro did not do this - he was far more Cuban loving than Zielinski is pro Ukraine. To the last Ukrainian, to weaken Russia, in a war it must fight to stay free. A war to stop expansion of ... peace loving alliance ;) Finally, fight for Donbass is a good fight - these people don't want to be under Kiev boot with zero rights treated about as well as Jews by Nazi Germans. More power to them. I support their struggle for freedom. I cannot understand why anyone in the west does not understand fight for freedom. They are like Scots that fought the English! Why its so hard to see this - why people are saying Scots should leave Scotland and go back to Scandinavia where their Viking roots are? This is insane.
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  5342.  @toddabbott781  There are no millions and millions of 3D printing files. Not on this site or any other site that I know of - there were few things I found of moderate use but most things in 1000s are ... toys. I did go to Cults3D. Toys and more toys. No tools. First of all a printer prints i.e. it deposits metal to create a new object. If you are cutting something out of raw aluminum you are milling the part. A small CNC machine for hobby use will run you around 10k or so - check out Tormach - they are one of the older established brands. LOL, about "lathe attachment" - to do rifling you need long drills, custom made bushings and ability to insert or remove these - you need a 14x40 lathe that weights around 1500 lbs or so, or you are making a toy gun ;) Also you need high pressure oil pump, the drill bits are very expensive as they are made to special size and have holes in the middle to push oil through. Oil is under like 300 PSI. Check out "rifling machine". To make brass casing you would need a press and a special form. If this was so easy to do all 1 million plus people reloading their guns would have done it LONG time ago. But instead they buy their brass. 3D printing brass to specs would be very difficult, I assume maybe doable with a 250k machine, maybe - this would be very hard. Your description is of automated production line - if this could be done cheap like few large arms manufacturers would be all over it. The current process is quite automated. If you can put what you say for 7500 I buy it immediately. I trade machinery as a hobby. I am actually building my first CNC milling machine. Realistic pricing would be around 10,000 for CNC machine at minimum. Than a lathe, say 6000, and you need to make your own rifling adapter for say 1000. 3D printer is cheap, say 300. Hydraulic press would need to be somewhat automated if you want to actually make your own casing, but a pneumatic model should be had for 2000 without much automation. Dies would be expensive - if there is a set to buy I assume it would be up to 1000. Other stuff say 2000 to 3000 - measuring stuff, vices, basic tooling. So I say for well over 20000 you could have an nice setup to make ghost guns. Oh and I have friends who do what I say above, so I know how much effort and learning curve it is to do proper rifling. For experienced machinist we are talking about 5 to 10 tries, with initial tries taking up to a day. After that you can make barrels like two per day that are more accurate than what you can buy at a store. Oh, and stainless costs 2x as much as regular.
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  5424.  @mwtrolle  I disagree with almost everything you said. It is simply not true. One has to point out that T-72BM3 is much, much, much newer tank design that Leopard 1 A5. Since it is a much newer upgrade it has much newer design choices - some of these are just few years old. Even late WWII era tanks are able to punch through sides of modern MBT or rear. This is non issue. Stabilization and sensors are way better on T-72 BM3 than Leo 1 A5 - come on, they are decades newer ;) Most of the crews are alive and well - where do you have BS info that most T-72 crews area dead? from what? Covid? Ukraine lost far more crews procentage wise than Russia. Leo 1 A5 was made obsolete by T-72 by Germany. So not that great tool anymore. Why do you think T-72s that fight for a year are in bad maintenance state???? WHY? Do you think no one touched a tank in a year of fighting? LOL! 1A5 is going to shoot at targets and is at disadvantage here vs. any more modern MBT due to its smaller main gun. Please let me know in which way Leopard 1 A5 is better than Leopard 2 A4 - the only thing I can think of is lighter weight and thus ability to not get stuck with ease. 1A5 numbers are low. They do not have more than 200 available. Its a joke. If you said they can deliver 2000 quickly that would be impressive. Yes, that would be a problem for Russia. But 200 old tanks is a non issue. I am not sure why you are such a fan of Leo 1 A5 - the tank design was of a glass canon that was though of as a good idea at the time of construction. It was a bad idea. Others did not repeat the mistake of Germany and their older tanks were relevant longer. Leo 1 was a mistake.
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  5427.  @mwtrolle  Once again, Leopard 1 is Germany first post WWII tank. Its design started in 1956. The tank idea - of a glass cannon made sense in 1950 - 1960 time frame but was a road to nowhere. I.e. tank quickly became obsolete. Any T-72B and above is light years ahead of Leo 1 A5. Upgraded T-72As are also much better tanks than Leo 1 A5. I.e. we are talking about real tanks vs. glass canons. You do not understand that the design principle of Leo 1 was that at the time it was though that a lot of armor is useless given modern Heat ammo. So Leo 1 was instead build with speed and minimal armor. This proven to be a mistake. Also Leo 1 cannot pack a bigger gun. Its a nice old tank but no match for much more modern T-72. T-72 design started in 1967 - it is a whopping 11 years newer tank - when tanks tech was still moving relatively fast. The reason Leo 1 was not upgraded more is that it reached its max in 1990s or so - when it was seen as obsolete with arrival of newer versions of T-72. Germany did a test where L7 of Leo could not penetrate front of T-72. A round for T-72 on the other hand when through one Leo and through another one behind it. As for Russia and their tech - I wonder how these bastards got into space first - did they reverse engineer western tech? Or how did they build T-64A - worlds first tank with composite armor, smooth bore gun, laser range finder etc. I am sure these Soviets must have found some laser pointer somewhere ;)))) I wonder why it took these primitive British tankers a whole decade to find a laser pointer ;))) Soviet Union and now Russia is on the vanguard of technological development of tanks - i.e. they are best of the best.
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  5466.  @LazyBastard675  If that was true for everyone - hence I said Neutral - small countries would not sell arms - including lots that Sweden sells. Really? Grippen sales are public. I do not see big sales - it is not even close to anyone from France - supposedly superior aircraft cannot sell even through its cheaper. Its marketing hype only. Once it goes head to head in evaluations it falls short. It is only bought as a budget aircraft. Main strength of grippen is that it is cheap and there is full tech transfer. Look at what they are doing to Canada - I mean they practically offer it for free compared to F-35. No airforce that expects to fight has bought grippen - major customers such as India - which needs a light fighter - avoided it. Even when they were desperate and very low on $$$. India went with French. Supposedly inferior and far more expensive. Again Saab is offering it for next to nothing, sending unsolicitated bids with not just full tech transfer, but also huge offsets and investments. So why Grippen cannot win anything given that it is so good, so cheap, offers huge offsets unmatched by anyone? Even their good buddies Finds chose, inferior, according to you F-18. Now Fins are again aiming to replace F-18 and we have Grippen x2 - would not be shocked if it lost again. Even if you family does not want it, must be not that great. I only look at grippen as a mid capability low cost fighter whose main strength is its price to what you get ratio. For about 1/2 intial price of F-35 you get aircraft that can do 85% of what F-35 can, plus 25 year ownership is like 1/3. So billions saved. It is based on same principle as say MiG-29M - very cheap, mid performance, cheap maintenance.
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  5468.  @LazyBastard675  Sweden uses mostly US tech that is not secret for non NATO country to use in Grippen. It is simply not financially possible for Sweden to develop a lot of stuff on its own. They don't have billions and billions to do so. Thus they use off the shelf stuff. The ones that use marketing a LOT are Swedes which made every troll out there believe that Grippen is great yet it for some reason is hated by people that acutally buy it. Even I am for a grippen - on price alone. For Canada I advocate Grippen - as a less capable but cheaper alternative to latest F-16. Sure its less capable but so what, marginally only and for bombing terrorists its great. Canada will not fight a defensive war on its territory at least not without US support - so Grippen would be escorted by F-35s for bombing runs - which it is great at. US will have F-16s for a long time - so its not like Grippen will be junk in next 20 years. Yet at 1/2 price of F-35 and 1/3 operational cost and tech transfer and offset its real project cost is 1/4 of F-35. Same deal for Poland, except Poland actually believes it will fight Russia - so Grippen is not seen as capable in the air vs. latest Flankers or new Su-57 or upcoming stealthy light fighter. BUT only 32 F-35s without any offset would mean program that can get Poland for same cost 20 years down the line of around 80 grippens. That would give a large sortie ratio for Grippens vs. so few F-35s. No matter how good F-35 is it cannot clone itself. Besides poor air capability of grippen can be somehow managed with sensor synergy on local territory - i.e. Grippens would quickly die over Russia - but for defense only they may be OK. For Poland, more so then India, political factors can be said to play major role. For Canada, there is little pressure as compared to Poland - so one can expect a fair evaluation. If Grippen looses despite 4 times price advantage its not a good opinion.
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  5720.  @gorillaguerillaDK  "If the areas of Ukraine where there's a high percentage of ethnic Russians wanted to succeed, then there's actually legal procedures to be followed!" no there are no legal procedures that do not involve violence. The legal procedure is called war of independence. It is legal under UN. I.e. under UN law people have the right to decide their future. Oh and who founded Azov and friends? Mermaids? Oh and whom burned Russian ethic minority in Odessa - again - angles? Or demons? Here and all be it known that annexation of the land by US of the British crown is determined to be illegal. LOL. Oh so is Kosovo legal or illegal, is Taiwan legal or illegal - you did not answer - I assume you have no answer. This all comes down to freedom. US people fought the British in totally illegal insurrection to gain their freedom. But as with Vietnam, now with Donbass, US says clearly that freedom is only for US people not for anyone else that does not align with US. That is it. Total hypocrisy. Why you deny people of Donbass their freedom? What did they do to you? Why you deny their right to chose? Don't believe in freedom huh? The only country on earth that I know of which seems at least on paper to offer right of separation is Canada. In Canada there are laws governing secession of provinces. Never yet tested, but in theory will of the people should be respected. Even UK is not that free as Scotland wanting 2nd referendum due to UK leaving EU is seen as a NO! You can have a referendum as long as your vote is "correct one". So much for your BS about freedom - freedom is a tree that is nourished with the blood of patriots - there is not peaceful process - you need to fight for your freedom. Interestingly Ukraine could have kept Donbass if they did similar laws as Canada did with Quebec. But they refused!
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  5767.  @MrJdsenior  Clearly ISIS is better at this as they taken Mosul - which is like 2nd largest in Iraq, despite being outnumbered more than 10 to 1 and out gunned around 100 to 1 in just 3 days. US lost to the Taliban and created a country that fell in ... also 3 weeks, despite being larger than Iraq (!) so the Taliban moved faster then US army in Iraq (!) US loss to the Taliban was due to repeat once and again failed strategy of fire bases. US did not learn from the British or Soviets at all and simply repeated their usual way of fighting - which is totally defensive. This lead the Taliban to control all around US fire bases while US took low losses as a result of not engaging. Once US started to roll back fire bases Taliban just took over & thus the 3 week advance. Since Russia mobilized we have not seen even a single Russian withdrawal being announced. Many people expect Ukraine to sue for peace this year. I.e. the war for Ukraine is lost and they need an exit. I expect Ukraine to fight a bit longer - but I doubt they will last till next summer. Russians do not have any WWII tanks left - they have so few T-34s they had to buy them from Asia for parade use. And what about Ukraine - they are out of tanks now. All Russia needs to do is keep going. Ukraine can only pro-long the war but clearly they cannot reach anywhere close to a "win". War is fully controlled by Russia - they can do offensives if they feel like or not - enemy is unable to sustain operations + the rest of the country is disintegrating. There is very real chance of a collapse of Ukraine as a country after the war.
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  5806.  @Energetiker  If Kosovo can get its independence from Serbia so can Crimea and Donbass. International law is open to interpretation there. Same as your example of Africa. Why can people of Kosovo be granted extra rights but not people of Donbass? "Eritrea got granted its independence after a 30 year long civil war. The Kosovo became independent much sooner. Both acts happened under specific approval of the general assembly of the United Nations and both states are now recognized as independent nations before the whole world." Kosovo is only partially recognized, same with Eritrea (I think, did not check). Same mechanism could be used with Donbass and with Crimea. On the contrary to your statement UN DID NOT approve any independence of Kosovo - in reverse such "independence" was heavily questioned - https://www.un.org/press/en/2008/ga10764.doc.htm#:~:text=The%20General%20Assembly%20today%2C%20by,Justice%20on%20the%20legality%20of As well as "United Nations has maintained a position of strict neutrality on the question of Kosovo's status" - i.e. there was no "approval" as you state by UN. None at all! So you cannot have your cake and eat it as well. Either Kosovo and Crimea and Donbass and Taiwan can choose or they cannot. Make your choice. " they can turn these lands full of hostile inhabitants" - are you sure? People in Mariupol openly hate Ukraine. City was taken back by DPR - i.e. by people of Mariupol. And where did the Ukrainians come from? Lwow. Clearly international law is "flexible" when the west is concerned, but rather "firm" as far as Russia is concerned, in your twisted view. Either there is ONE law for all or not. In my personal view, the right of people of a region should supersede the right of states to do anything they wish - i.e. it should be part of any democracy to allow a certain subgroup to secede. This is fully implemented in Canada, where each province has the right to secede. This is what democracy is all about. Finally, going back to Crimea - its transfer to Ukraine, as well as transfer of a lot of other land to Ukraine is on very shaky legal ground. I.e. most of land of Ukraine is land that Soviets stole from other countries. A lot of old treaties were never cancelled or fell out of force. If you want to go by strict legal standard of countries sovereign rights then a lot of "Ukrainian" lands should go back to its previous owners.
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  5807.  @Energetiker  So why don't anyone want say UN recognized referendum? Under UN rules with EU checks and balances, you know 100% legit. If your claims about #s are correct, which they are NOT, why doesn't Ukraine allow for such voting to take place? Well WHY NOT? Are you 100% sure that people living in Ukraine have "rights" - really? One of demands set out by Russia is same rights as minorities have in Europe. So Russia went to war, to get same rights as are in Europe. Strange, you claim Ukraine has these rights - but when discussing these Ukraine refuses! So I think you are wrong here - people have rights say in Canada - Quebec build 300 bombs before it was granted French language rights... In Ukraine the opposite occurred, Russian language was made illegal. This is just tip of the ice berg. Same issues that occurred in Kosovo did occur exactly in Donbass and Crimea + other areas. Ukraine officially made Stephan Bandera a Hero of Ukraine - a know heavy duty Nazi. Open your eyes man - these guys have Azov, ultra Nazi as regular army - people that think they are continuation of SS Glaitzen. Peaceful neighbor that bombarded Donbass for 8 years instead of honoring Minsk agreements it signed? Seriously? You totally ignore lots of evidence. Like if there are no Nazi in Ukraine, why not make them illegal? LOL. Zielinski will not touch big part of his government that is Nazi. 70% support for Bandera in the West Ukraine. You just ignore these facts as they are not in TV. Or you ignore the fact that Ukraine refused to recognize murder of over 1m Poles, mostly Jews, during WWII and refused to even allow any exhumation of these dead people. They refused to acknowledge their WWII crimes. Oh, maybe b/c they teach in their history class "alternative history"? Russia may not be a "good" or have a "good leader" but neither can be said of Ukraine or US. I hope you also have miserable day. Remember, democracy and people need for freedom will always eventually win - as it did in Vietnam and as it does in Donbass today. Maybe such "freedom" in Vietnam and Donbass is abused, true, but its there and cannot be ignored. You cannot ignore freedom, at least not in long run.
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  5855.  @duderdude4831  There was no Ukraine - it was just a province of Soviet Union. I know history very, very, very well. Ukraine was in Soviet times, same as Belarus a set of provinces made up of former Polish lands and to which newly taken Polish lands were added. Crimea itself was never part of Poland as it was land of the Golden Horde that constantly invaded Poland. Poland had the Cossacks that went in after Turkey - or Ottomans as they were known. Catharine the great was a great leader as she, a German princess, not only broken the back of Ottomans but also of Poland that was weaken by democracy and liberum veto. She was the one that after multiple wars with Ottomans conquered Crimea - for the first time in history for her Russia. When looking at Ukraine in prismat of history we see that they never actually had a country and are a loose set of tribes that did not join together with tribes that formed Poland. There was an uprising of what some call "Ukrainians" few hundred years ago but their lands were tiny, about 1/6 of todays huge enormous Ukraine. Bottom line is Ukraine is as big today thanks to Soviets whom made it so big. As to Khrushchev it was administrative transfer - he did it as he was Ukrainian himself. It was one big Soviet Union - I would not really read too much into it. After dissolution of Soviet Union there were so many little wars as similar transfers have created ethnic problems. The whole thing should have been solved with simple referendums - as at the end of WWI - each region voted where they wanted to be, say in German or in Poland.
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  5912.  @seanniemeyer5437  Minsk agreement was before a lot of what has occurred more recently. Now there is no choice. Now Ukraine has to accept that LPR and DPR will get all of their lands liberated from their occupation. Lets face it, once you taste freedom it would be hard to go back to dictatorship - even if the freedom is limited. Once you have basic human rights, its difficult to give these away. Nazi rarely make good government for these they consider inferior race - see Jews. Sure negotiation was not possible before - Ukraine would simply need to disband their Nazi ways - which was impossible as per UA leadership. When asked about say Bandera the answer was simple, we will never abandon him. I.e. Ukraine was entrenched in their Nazi ways and Donbass did not feel the urgent need to be dealt with as the Jews. So we have war. "There is very little reason why the stale mate that had been in place since 2015 couldn't have remained in place. " I will place a mortar 1km from your home and get Joe to take over your back yard. See how you like the long term solution. It will be fairly stable, I only fire mortar just once a week - promise it will not kill all your family members. And Joe will only rule over your back yard. Is this a long term solution? Really? There is no annexation of Ukraine into any Russian empire. Putin said that he did learn lessons of the Soviet Union well. Thus I doubt he would want to repeat same mistakes. In case you don't know, its having too much can undo you. Soviet Union was big, but that big was its weakness. People of Tajikistan (which I been to) as an example discovered money just over 100 years ago. Soviets did build everything there BUT that was not free. The costs to Russia were huge. I.e. poverty of large parts of Soviet Union and need to subsidize was an issue. With Ukraine its very strong Nazi presence in the west of the country. Only way to deal with it is either not take it or do what Stalin did. Putin is by far not Stalin. Also need to rebuild even Donbass will drag Russia down more then sanctions will - annexation of Crimea was already expensive - to bring it up to Russian standard. If I was Putin I would take as little Ukraine as feasible while making sure maximum damage is done. So Donbass plus till Dniepr river and Odessa. Odessa needs to be taken to ensure Ukraine is neutralized. Cutting sea access would ensure Ukraine will be of no threat. Even that is very ambitious plan - remember it is Russia that will have to rebuild Ukraine and do so without any outside help. Now you know why Ukrainians do not care about cities in Donbass - these are enemy cities. Its OK to leave them burned down and destroyed. We see what happens soon. Whatever does happen, Putin is the lesser of two evils.
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  5915.  @seanniemeyer5437  Didn't whole Donbass fight against Ukrainian Kiev regime???? "Do you understand the difference between dictatorship and democracy?" I do, but do you??? You are believing way too much of what you read in the west. Way way too much. I ask you how could Hitler be a dictator - his party after all had most votes and this he was handed they keys to the kingdom (no other party wanted to have coalition). Then he proceeded to simply outlaw all other parties. How many parties are in Ukraine? ONE. Opposition is made of "bad elements" and was eliminated ;) After all, whom does not agree with Z is a bad man. " Crimea cost Russia a lot of money 60% of it tourists industry came from Ukraine. " LOL, no, they needed to pay pensions and fix infrastructure - tourism is now from Russia and is way, way more income than before. "resettlement of over a million Russians to Crimea" - why would anyone do that or pay for that ;) I am sure some moved there to retire as this is what the place has been used for - see above about pensions. But a million is way too much, it would increase population by 50%. "amnesty international, the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), Human Rights Watch, the Office of the United nations high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR)." Oh and what about same reports for Ukraine proper??? Where are they??? Why did not UN make reports about abuses there? Selective reporting? How can anyone trust western sources when they fully allowed return of Nazism in Ukraine and pretend all is fine? Where are western condemnations? where are sanctions? But what do you expect from a system which ignores atrocities in Yemen, Iraq or older stuff from war in Vietnam. As for Minsk agreement - once the other side drifts away from it, why do you think you should keep your side. It took two to tango. Do you think it was easy for Russia to go onto full scale war - I am sure they did all they could to avoid it. You only go to war when political solution is not attainable. Ukraine before the war few times repeated that "we may take a look at Minsk again". So they knew they did not do their side. And yes I read the Minsk agreement - its not a lot of things in both that are to read - the summary of all points is like 1 page.
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  5919.  @seanniemeyer5437  You must be crazy to think that in any referendum unless it was heavily fixed Crimea would pick something other then Russia. This would be like doing referendum in Berlin and expecting them to say, join Poland ;) "Ukraine is a very poor country" that is an under statement, its now close to being the poorest country on earth, if not there already. Before the war it was middle Africa level, now it is low Africa level, maybe poorer then Afghanistan. " international investment" - it had such issues from the very start, it had these issues with pro Russia and pro west government. Since it emerged from the Soviet Union it never had anyone invest there... other then... Russia. "Ukraine would have been wealthier had they been able to join the EU. " LOL, well, they made the mistake in 2014 of trying to be pro EU and look how their economy tanked. Oh I am sure you blame Russia for like everything. This is the standard excuse. Look, Baltics border Russia, Poland borders Russia. I do not see them as poorest on Earth. There was little past 2014 Ukraine could give to EU - it was an epic mistake to join up with EU that costed Ukraine its economy. In order to be rich with EU you need to have something to trade with EU. But Ukraine had nothing. Really, nothing. So much nothing it had not developed normal trade relations with EU. Its main trading partner is China - where they sell food. The best title I seen about Ukraine (by Polish economy professor) is titled "rich country of very poor people". With now open borders with EU the disaster of Ukraine continues as everyone and their dog and cat are leaving Ukraine. A country of old people, farmers, and Nazi. Yep, certainly a lot to offer for EU ;) If you do not believe me you can look up their economy and what their idiot governments did to it starting from 91. May I remind you that in 91 they were a country of well over 50 million people, with GDP per capita higher then Poland. For many years they had governments that switched between west and Russia - so cannot blame Russia. Yet their economy never went up - it just went down. Before the war, they had just 37m taxpayers as per Kiev. They were uber poor. Almost 3 times poorer then Russia. Even more vs. Poland. Now they have maybe 28m or 27m taxpayers. If this war ends in say 6m they may have less then 20m (!!!!). And I already outlined whom will make up these 20m. So what will they offer to EU???? Trips to Kiev to see Russian missile strikes???? Will that be their biggest export?
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  5925.  @seanniemeyer5437  Well, after fall of Minsk agreement what do you expected? If people of Donbass do not want to be in Ukraine, why Ukraine insists on keeping them by force? I know in US if a state had a referendum to separate tanks would roll, but in many places, like UK or Canada, if someone voted to leave by referendum I believe it would be honored. I.e. they would be allowed to leave. So I just named two sovereign nations, UK and Canada, which I also believe you think are sovereign, which would allow for these that do not want to be with them to just leave. Yes, a lot of help from Russia will be needed to help rebuild Donbass - but until it becomes part of Russia it can be left at a level similar to Ukraine - there is a reason why Donbass de-populated at the same rate as rest of Ukraine - people left for Russia. Well, if it becomes part of Russia I see no problem paying for its defense. There will not be any costs of "occupation" as one can say that Russia is paying for cost of occupation for Moscow as well. Sure, in the short - medium term it will hurt Russian standard of living. But Russian people are as such that they will take the pain - they are proud people and will be happy that Russia showed the west it can fight. They also will know they are helping their fellow Russians. Ukraine will never be in NATO - this was one of the causes of the war after all. Maybe in 50 years it may join EU. Probably more then that, 75? EU membership is not a big threat to Russia, NATO is. On the other hand, maybe if Russia takes what it needs and Ukraine signs up that it no longer has a claim to that land, Ukraine could join NATO? This is at least 20 years away then, maybe much more. Of more interest then Donbass and Crimea are all other territories that Russia will add.
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  5926. ​ @seanniemeyer5437  Given how everyone run around scared of powerful Russia I doubt that anyone outside of propaganda machine believes Russia is weak. On the contrary Russia has shown they are indeed one of the strongest armies on earth. Heck if US air power could be controlled with powerful air defenses there is no way similar number of US soldiers could taken on same number of Russians - Russians are clearly superior ground force. "poor treatment of prisoners of war" - yes Ukraine was found multiple times executing POWs. On camera. With video. "the expectation is for Russia to be beaten to the point the Russian army no longer has the will to fight." well that is not happening. Russia is winning the war without having to mobilize. Which is amazing against supported at peer adversary. You misunderstood "take the knee" - this means doing US bidding. Being US lap dog like say UK. That is what taking the knee means. "forced deportation of Ukrainian civilians " - there were complains Russia is taking civilians into Russia. Now you are complaining reverse. "Russian war ships being sunk in the black sea make Russia look week." Oh come on, US lost an aircraft carrier in port to a fire. No one called US navy weak. "Every cruise missile that hits a school, or hospital or residential building turns the voters of the west against Russia. " Russians are way to cheap to shoot a million USD plus missile at a residential building. Accidents do happen. Missiles get shot down and hit a school. At least they did not smoke a lot of civilians or a hospital market on a map intentionally like US later claiming they though they were terrorists. You should not play civilian card if you are American. US killed so many millions of civilians that Russia would need to kill every Ukrainian to maybe catch up. Maybe. As far as killing civilians US is such a leader they are more untouchable then their covid numbers. "Ukraine's small poorly equipped and trained army has definitely made Russia look weak. " I never had the largest and strongest army entirely in Europe describe in such terms. How would you call French army then - almost not there? Or UK army, none, just some weak navy? Or German army - just a shadow? Come on, Ukraine had the largest, super heavily armed army in Europe. Their main weakness was air-foce. But by the number of modern air defense systems, as an example, they were stronger then Germany. Maybe 4 or 5 times stronger then Poland (at least). You may want to read about it. Also I said modern - yeah, not some ancient stuff. Modern. I will not even mention artillery, where Ukraine was like all of NATO in Europe combined (!!!!!) This is why giving Ukraine 100 M777 is a joke ;) compared to the numbers they had. "How long will it take Russia to replace the losses in equipment that it has sustained. " I expect few years. They have ability to turn around 150, maybe almost 200 T-72 upgrades per year. They can also use another factory that used to make T-80s. I say less then 5 years. Airforce added around 70 new airframes per year including helicopters, so maybe 3 years? 4? Overall I say at most 5 years. I agree, Putin should have tightened the screws more on corruption. But it seems endemic to former Soviet Union. I mean there is no single former republic that does not have high corruption. Some places its like scary high. "Controlling a third of the world's wheat production " umm, Russia already has that. They also went big into organics - I think they are one of the largest producers. Doing resources is what Russia knows. So wheat or metal or other raw stuff is what Russia is able to make. And good weapons. Consumer goods, not so much. Through Lada Niva is a good off roader. War against Ukraine has multiple area of why. Its not simple as to why, its not one sentence answer. Needless to say from geopolitical view point having Ukraine in NATO would be a disaster for Russia. They simply need to stay neutral as much as Cuba cannot have nukes (nor Venezuela nor anyone as close as them to US). This is in case you tell me that sovereign Ukraine has the right - so does Cuba and others, no? Avoiding this war was not that hard.
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  5981.  @pogo1140  Its an upgraded block 10. MLU upgrade is old - super old. These have zero chance against modern Russian stuff. They will not be used in such role. There is no need to even supply any AIM-120 which with older versions they get are no match for what Russians have. This aircraft main and only role is to supplement / replace Su-24 aircraft. Any attempts to use it in offensive role will end up with them getting shot down. If west wanted Ukraine to have a chance at winning air war they would need to send around 1000 F-16s and all of NATO air defenses. All. 100%. But no, they are sending block 10 F-16s with MLU ;))) Wait, didn't Dutch commander say the aircraft are obsolete? Do you know what "obsolete" means? You need to go to the dictionary and check the meaning obviously. I do not understand this hype with old junk - if it was worth anything it would have been sold but it was not - The actual aircraft is F-16AM - "upgraded jets being referred to as MLU or Block 15" "In 1989 a two-year study began regarding possible mid-life upgrades" So study was complete in ... 1991 (!!!!) "The first of five prototype conversions flew on 28 April 1995, and the first production kits were delivered in November 1996." Let me remind you of something you seem to forget ---- its year 2024. This is electronics that is 30 years old (!!!!) In an airframe that is over 40 years old (!!!) Its electronics are ancient. And you seriously want to send this junk against Russians with electronics radars that have similar track range as this old F-16 ... from the rear???? With missiles twice the range? Let me remind you that oldest Su-35 was made in 2014. The oldest airframe is 10 years old.
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  5989.  @williamhenry8914  Well, Oryx is known to decrease Ukraine losses by roughly 3 so lets multiply Ukraine losses by a healthy factor of 3. So Ukraine lost about 1200 systems. That is visually confirmed. So add your 20% and we are at close to 1500. So Ukraine has roughly 700 less then it started with. Ukraine had before the war 350 mortars of 120mm + 500 AT guns + 500 towed + 600 mobile. Depending if you count AT or not we have total of 1450 systems. So Ukraine lost up to HALF of its pre war strength. "I don't know why people believe Russia invaded with a smaller army when it's so blatantly false." - this is reported by CNN / Fox / BBC and claimed by US intelligence etc. etc. etc. I have no idea why anyone would believe that both sides are lying - so whom is not? Both faking it? Both? "without a declaration of war " - no one does this now since WWII. And even if they did they would do it few hours before the actual start. "low quality of its troops and equipment " - I fail to see that given its newer equipment Ukraine has and these troops were outnumbered yet pressed on. Please do not get your facts from propaganda sites as you simply will believe like Germans in 1944 or even 1945 that victory is possible. You will also make ridiculous claims as to the losses of your own side based on propaganda where people believed that Ukraine had more tanks towards 2022 then it started the war with due to captured tanks. Russia is advancing all over the place in Donbass and Ukraine uses very little artillery - this is clearly seen on video - if Ukraine had as much as you said it did, why would they not use it - are they out of ammo then?
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  6133.  @lotharbecker8680  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred-Maurice_de_Zayas Most of these atrocities were fabricated lies as there simply were not enough Germans to commit crimes against & these areas where there were Germans were quickly overrun in border battle - hard to do crimes in days. Thus it simply cannot be true. Also given Germanic roots of my own family I would certainly know of any discrimination against Germans in Poland. Do you have any links to these supposed reports? I only know of reports by German commanders up chain of command about activity of German "cleaner" groups that went behind the front line and quickly "liquidated" mental hospitals and similar places. A lot of "Germans" in Poland were forced to be Germans against their own will - the territory of Poland that was incorporated into Nazi Germany was subject to Germanization. Poles were removed, any pp that wanted to stay were forced to sign a folksdeutche list and Germans were moved in. A lot of explanation for German acts later in the war was done with help of German propaganda machine. That machine created "atrocities" against Germans to justify German invasion. There were atrocities committed against Germans it seems all over the place, Germans were mistreated in Czechoslovakia, then Poland even the French with their occupations of German lands after WWI were now evil. Imagine Poles mis treating Germans to give pretext for invasion by Germany! LOL! Also Poland was very, very multi cultural country in 1939. Catholic Poles were no more then 60% of Poland. There were millions of Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians and some Germans in addition to many others. In order to keep country as one all Polish constitutions were very liberal as far as minorities go - they had to be. Form this link you can see that in 1921 Germans were just 3.8% of Poland's population and far less in 1939 as many immigrated to richer Germany. The estimates for 1939 were from about 600k to 1.2m (and this is high German estimate). http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/Content/34657/008.pdf Germans in Poland had strong economic help from Germany itself aimed at convincing League of Nations that borders need to be corrected. Certainly if Germans were discriminated Germany itself would run very fast to LN with proof! The only acts against Germans that can be seen as clearly violent were months before WWII - at the time where many Germans were already with Hitler & Polish minority in Germany was ... well... not treated "well". This with false flag attacks were used as pretexts for the war. As you can see German propaganda was so good, even today people believe in it.
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  6167.  @garymartin9777  Problem is there was no threat - notice he did not engage / shoot at anyone that shown their hands up etc. re watch the video when he is kicked / attacked with skateboard and gun is pulled on him - all these that back away are fine. I.e. if they just stood their ground they are all fine - in order to be in danger they have to go on the attack which throws away self defense claim - I mean if you are safe just standing, not even retreating, then it is your attack action that is placing you in danger. What one can say is they were trying to place "active shooter" under arrest - as citizen arrest is when you go and chase someone you think is danger to someone else etc. But in citizen arrest you open a whole giant can of worms - here you need to be 100% sure you are arresting or attempting to arrest the right guy. Yes it was total mess that occurred in just seconds. But this is why pp that are trained in say gun use would immediately realize that you have to positively ID the target. In Canada you technically are not give access to guns but somehow it is mandatory to learn in class proper safety, proper use, when and how etc. including making sure you know what you are engaging 100%. Or in other words if you mis-id the target and shoot not active shooter but a cop your best hope would be manslaughter charge. What I also don't like about the video is when he gives and example of a gun owner almost shooting someone that was arresting an "active shooter". Again, that would not exactly be self defense. Self defense is only when you are in danger and if you provoked that danger you back away and only when you back away it does not go away - i.e. if you created the danger by chasing the guy the only way you could claim self defense if after you backed away he went after you... but that is not the case at all.
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  6215.  @HyperNova48  Ukraine has shown that with their S-300 they can down a lot of missiles. And that is with 1980s (late) tech. China certainly has better system, maybe not S-400 level but certainly that of a patriot. US has very few anti-missile systems or anti Air. US does not even have any mid range systems at all. US has precious few mobile short range systems. US is an attacker, defense is not really US thing. I am unsure what "coast" has to do with it. It does not matter where things are. They are all well within missile range of both parties. China can easily out produce US and has easily far better defense capability. China also easily has more missiles as wars have shown US stocks are low. Compare US stocks to Russia is a joke as Russia has proven they have way more in its current war in Ukraine. I think you are way over estimating missile damage. Through they are precise they are single warhead which can be solid or cluster. Factories are immense. It took 1000s of hits to soften up industrial areas of Mariupol. Factories in China are just as vast - you would need at least few dozen missiles to disrupt a factory making say steel & at least 100+ to demolish it. No country on earth has that capability. No country has caring capacity for missile. Also as far as missiles go most would be low flying cruise missiles for which you need point defense systems... you know, these that US has ... zero of. Chinese, as Russians today, as Americans, are not willing to die for CCP, Putin and Biden. They are fighting for their nation states. In industrial war US has same chances against China as Germany had vs. US in WWII. Numbers are similar. I.e. none.
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  6502.  @conquery  I think everyone agrees this was a provocation. There would be no war over such little things. If UK wanted to somehow continue it they would be alone. US would told them to stop if they refused they would see what bear could do to them. Which mostly would be defensive in nature. I.e. UK would be full on aggressor. Remember NATO is US organization and US is in charge. Wars are no joke with at peer adversaries and are fought for a solid reason. There is zero reason for UK to have a war with Russia. Nor is there a reason for anyone to get involved on UK side. Just imagine for a second what would it mean for say Russia to loose such war - be forced to apologize? Why would NATO assist right away? In what - sudden attack on Russia to escalate? Is UK itself under attack? Nope. So why would NATO (US) help immediately? Finally NATO is a defensive treaty. Attacking Russia by say insane UK government would get a quick rebuke from all NATO members & US. There simply is no point to such action. The most that would happen is sanctions against Russia / demand for investigation. Diplomatic chaos. Maybe thoughts of some retaliation. This would go in front of UN. I am sure Russia would bring the card out that ship was in its waters as per UN laws. Also UK would not be so willing to go for a Russian coast ride without making 100% sure it can win any shooting encounter. NATO is not a license to kick someone and hide behind it. The kick would have to be fully authorized by US and even then could strain NATO on the inside - so frequently US would just kick itself. Imagine UK went into Russian waters and under some pretext sunk a cost guard ship. To which Russia retaliated and sunk the destroyer as it attempted to flee. UK asked NATO for "help" and NATO members (with few exceptions) refused to join some kind of "invasion" of Russia (almost 100% certain). US would go ballistic. Behind the scenes UK main threat would be angry and pissed off US, not defensively minded Russia.
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  6810.  @anglet64  Well, we do know whom is going into recession - Europe is - they say they will be in recession in the last 3 months of 2022 and first 3 months of 2023. But what is multiplier of goods for that 1.4T ? If its 20 as an example, then Russia represents ending of value added product of 28T while NATO is only 18T. Clearly 28 >> 18. I think what pp do not understand that a lawyer in NY making at least 500 USD per hour needs a desk, which is nice, which costs also 500 USD. That desk needs mostly wood to be made into a desk which costs in say US (its a nice desk) $50. The said wood is from Russia and Russians get maybe $20 for it... So you say, look these poor smucks, how they can ever compete against mighty economy of Europe.... They do not realize that lawyer needs that desk to work and wood worker needs that wood to make a desk. Without that $20 for wood, 1000s of USD cannot be made in value added products. UK alone is spending on "energy subsidy" about half $$$ which Russia receives in revenue for energy sold to all of EU. If you make it a model for EU, they will spend at least 5x as much $$$ to deal with subsidies so their energy sector survives then what Russia made $$$ from energy (!) And these are just subsidies. Price of oil and gas is still super high with them - so if you count that you are probably at 10x or maybe even 15x of what Russia made - total. Or to make it uber simple, do not anger farmers, without them there would be no life ;) Many may be poor (especially in 3rd world) but they are far more important then lawyers that make 100x ... even to overall economy.
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  7026.  @geodkyt  I seen on video at least 100 tanks of Ukraine were captured by Russians. Then we have air force losses, we have 200 sorties per day. Say 100 are close air support. Say half of them are against moving targets. Say only 10% of these are tanks. And each aircraft kills only 1 tank per mission, we have 5 tanks per day - this is a bit of a low ceiling as say in Izium front yesterday aircraft destroyed like 8. Times this by days of war, so we have about 300 tanks taken care of by air force. Double that for helicopters. So 600 tanks destroyed. Russian tanks are also taking out enemy vehicles, they also have man portable weapons in large quantities. They have much more powerful artillery. They have drones. Etc. So one would assume a number here of say 200. Add this up and you are close to 1000 tanks destroyed. If you find above hard to believe lets assume your position - if your side was true, Ukraine would not only defeat Russians they would be heading in Moscow direction. Also Ukraine would not be so desperate for tanks - they would have plenty of their own. Germany would not need to think about sending old Leo 1s. One has to remember that both sides started with roughly same # of tanks, over a 1000 deployed. After loosing a 1000 Ukraine went to its reserves - which on paper are huge, but I doubt they have more then 1000 tanks they can use - rest are ghosts. So this perfectly explains desperation, old T-72s and Leo 1s etc. Also one has to note army sizes deployed. Russians only deployed, as per US army, today 78 BTGs. These have at most 1000 soldiers each. They are supplemented by Donbass forces and others. Given size of Ukraine armed forces and conscription, Ukraine has at least 2:1 advantage in man power deployed. If they actually did so well as you claim in equipment department I doubt Russians would be attacking. The actual number of destroyed Ukrainian equipment is likely higher - thus the panic in Kiev. Note out of that 1000 many may be salvaged - but this is not so likely if terrain is taken by Russians - i.e. looser cannot salvage equipment. Thus the offer of say Poland to "fix" equipment in Poland. Remember, Ukraine started this war with most tanks in Europe, biggest air defense system in Europe and largest artillery core in Europe in addition to largest army in Europe.
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  7039.  @ffrederickskitty214  To move 2x as fast a ship needs 2^3 8x as much power rough estimate as actual curve is different. But that is the *same * ship. Now at low speeds a regular ship viscous resistance of water is most important (we have viscous water, air resistance and wave making resistance). At high speeds wave making resistance dominates. Also for a carrier the total resistance of rather tame air can be up to 10% of total resistance. The topic of ship resistance etc. was studied for past 200+ years. Subs have the most economical shape for traveling under water - a teardrop shape with viscous drag of just 0.04. There is no wave making or air resistance to square shape of a deck. In your car example you are comparing two vehicles traveling in the same medium & try to project that onto two other vehicles traveling in different to each other mediums. You can read more here: https://www.usna.edu/NAOE/_files/documents/Courses/EN400/02.07%20Chapter%207.pdf Also this is all for calm waters - no one adds things such as wave resistance, current resistance, wind resistance - 20kn wind can add 25% extra to resistance and current of 4kn is that much substracted from power - subs are under water - no affect by waves, wind and most of the currents. As a side not this explains why subs cannot go fast when not submerged - in your simplistic example a sub that is on the surface would have lesser area subject to resistance but still same installed power - so it should be able to travel faster. It cannot as at higher speeds (as mentioned above) the viscous resistance is lesser component of total and wave resistance takes over. Turns out teardrop shape is not ideal here.
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  7051.  @nobodyherepal3292  In 1918 tanks were all nice and cool - same as machine guns but they DID NOT break anything. tanks were slow and easy to destroy with... artillery. Heck I consider German storm troopers to be more important than tanks in making assaults. "Artillery, even years later in the Second World War, failed routinely to destroy or dislodge dug in opponents. Even with naval-sized gun fire support, As seen at places like Leningrad, Stalingrad, Omaha beach, monte casino, Okinawa, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and many other places. " Literally every place you mentioned artillery played decisive role. If artillery was so "bad" no one would invest into it or its faster equivalent --- air power - for what are bombs but just air dropped shells. Essentially best way to take out enemy is to lob explosives at them using different methods. As to combined arms - it has been used for well over 2000 years - no one invented anything in WWI related to it. " Even in WW1, artillery constantly failed to dislodge enemy forces dug in to a position, even when fired in the millions of rounds" - you do know that artillery killed during WWI around 1 person per just over 100 shots. So each million of rounds fired was roughly 10,000 enemies dead. If your side fired more of it === more enemies dead. Combined with smaller central powers population it means they are done for. Get it? Once your side has 10:1 man power advantage you can do "decisive attack" with say infantry combined with tanks. But to get to that 10:1 you use something called artillery.
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  7159.  @Aaron-rw3lv  No one wants to fight in a war - this is why you need conscription - same can be said of Ukrainian people - they do not want to fight as well. Putin does not need to lie to anyone - conscription was official - once conscripted you can be sent to the front line. Its military - it works same all over the world. What is not sustainable? Putin officially conscripted just 300k, maybe up to 500k unofficially. Quite sustainable for country size. Russian people know they need to fight or Ukrainians will keep killing their families in Donbass. Western production rates for say tanks are under 100 in all of Europe. It will take years to increase production to say 300. No orders were issued to that effect. Even if orders were made etc. Ukraine needs 1500 tanks or more per year just to keep current status. No one, maybe China, can produce that many tanks per year in short term (less thank a year) even if it was attacked or under threat - i.e. even with war measures act US cannot ramp up production to such high numbers in less than a year. Thus war is fought with what is available at the moment. I.e. with tanks that you have. Entire west has less tanks than Russia. Thus your assertion that Ukraine will have more equipment is false, even if west transferred all it has. Finally west has far less artillery systems than Russia - thus even if it transferred 100% Russia still has more. So no to more equipment. Also Russia has 7:1 demographic advantage - so even with equal losses it still wins.
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  7311.  @mysteriousstranger6857  This has nothing to do with legality or illegality of Russian occupation. Russia is in de facto control and thus has full rights to the waters. Same as any other power that is doing an occupation of any land, whatever recognized or not. This is why UK warship did alter its course and moved out of the waters. Since it clipped on a triangle it was not a big deal. If you were correct then UK warship could have just been parked there. If you are correct the Taiwan can give permission to anyone to sail /fly into PRC waters/air. And vice versa. Also you can certainly fly over Golan Heights, not recognized by anyone except Israel without asking Israel - good luck with that. There are many, many examples. The international law is set on de facto as it is far more practical. Imagine Scotts demanded independence and UK did not want to give it to them. They would claim they are occupied. Would it now suddenly by OK for Russians to sail in Scottish waters if some Scottish lad gave them permission? It also lead to "not recognized" question - if say Russia does not recognize X would it mean it can simply ignore current ownership? What about partial recognition? As you can see it is far easier to go de facto - nice and clear. I mean Spain claims Gibraltar and Argentina claims Falklands - so one can say UK is also occupying these lands - I mean who is the legal authority on Earth (God?) who grants this full on de juro ownership. There is lots of "lines of control" especially in Asia. It is not clear to anyone whom exactly should own the land - even UN cannot resolve the issue. Its not white and black. Hence de facto.
    1
  7312.  @mysteriousstranger6857  Taiwan is as recognized as is Crimea. Israel's territories it occupies are recognized by everyone as occupied. When US invaded Grenada they had ZERO support from international community. It established occupational authority and took over territorial waters. In short UN "international community" opinion do not matter much. There would not be any "war" as a result of a skirmish - as wars have "purpose". International community sees this as provocation. It is also not legal as per international law. So I fail to see HOW international community would rail around UK. Status of "Crimea" is meaningless - occupational authority is Russia. Full UN vote would certainly fail for the UK - these even failed against Israel multiple times (Palestine coast). Israel had no qualms in sending armed troops and killing people. In occupied zone. Foreigners. UK is no US. There is no "power" to back things up. Any "war" would be interesting as there would be no purpose. UK ships would not be allowed into Bosphorus so they could not sail next to Crimea. What would UK do - invade Vladivostok? Come on, be sensible. US did get rammed once and did not try such stunt for some time afterwards (in almost exact same spot - the fact of Crimea not being contested back then was of no issue). Stunts are risky. What if there was miscalculation in the stunt? And we are talking about US here not some small island that is not even part of EU. The main fallout would be diplomatic, sanctions and more behind scenes diplomacy. Lets just say there would be no sailing in Russian waters for a while - recognized or not (which is of no issue). Also this may be brought to international court so UK gets its "international community" response.
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  7715.  @Schwarzvogel1  US has... no oversea holdings? Really? Seriously??? It has most of Europe, small parts of Asia and to control it all a large feel. It has around 200 military bases around its colonies. As for the British, it is true they did not fight too hard after the descent started, but not so much due to some kind of pacifist feelings but more in line with simply being unable to do so - after all, falling WWII UK was bankrupt and needed emergency loan from the US - this is hardly a position to start wars - " In this context, while other European powers such as France and Portugal waged costly and unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact, Britain generally adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies. In reality, this was rarely peaceable or altruistic. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to 5 million, 3 million of whom were in Hong Kong". What they mean above that through UK could not do any major actions for a bit and tried to "disengage" they did not do so to the degree you suggest. There was blood - and lots and lots of it. I.e. despite UK more or less being bankrupt it still fought as much as it was able to. I do not see why US would be today or even anytime soon as weak as UK was. Also others that were a bit stronger did fight. " please tell me the last time the US attacked a country which anyone actually liked, or which had any major significance to the global economy." Are you kidding? US invaded a lot of countries - there is a huge list. We have Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria just recently - I am sure everyone knows about Vietnam. " country which anyone actually liked" - I am not sure what does it mean. "it attacks countries which are already borderline pariahs on the global stage, and which no one cares much for (or about)." Wow, just wow, so its not OK somewhat to attack countries that US designates as targets which it says are "borderline pariahs on the global stage"? I guess Russia should just designate Ukraine that - and just like that its OK. Heck, Taiwan is not even a country - so totally fine.
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  7749. ​ @leejones4429  When this war started - like right at the start I said that if Ukraine is to fight to last Ukrainian they may last 4 years, if to last woman, 5 years. I think I did well. Lets looks at the losses in detail - so far Ukraine lost say under 350k per year. So at 4 year mark that would put as at most at 1.4m permanent losses, probably less. Is that impossible? Not really, during WWII it was common for around 1/10 of the population to serve, or maybe touch under it. Taking Germany as an example, and looking at the same metric for them - given length of war is similar, we see Ukraine, based on population of around 27m (after all pp that run away) has capacity for around 2.7m or say 2.5m - so after 4 years of massive losses, you can still have sizable army and still would be able to say defend Dnieper line. Regarding Russian losses they are roughly 1/3 that of Ukraine. This total non recoverable losses - i.e. much higher than actual killed people. Ukraine is now trying to do what Germany did in 1944 - try to take pp from the pool of non recoverable losses and "recover" them - thus push for people without arms and legs to go back to service. As time progresses we will see larger UA losses and/or much smaller Russian losses if positional fighting continues - especially when Russia starts better dealing with primitive PVP drones. Note Ukrainian ability to hold an army of men may be less than Germany in WWII as a lot of males escaped BUT Ukraine can lean more on women that Nazi Germany did - thus it all may end up being the same number. Thus by say late 2025 we may se half of UA army made up of women.
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  7914.  @TheInfamousMrFox  You are tank clueless. It has no mobility as it has mobility worse than T-34 (!) or many other tanks of WWII. Just look at power to weight ratio :) I.e. T-34 was more mobile tank. Who cares what record the gun holds - taking out some old garbage does not count - what counts is actual specs. They are terrible b/c its a rifled gun - no one else in 1st world uses... rifled guns ... far at least 30 years ;) HESH is obsolete type of ammo... it was good in 1960s but now its not good for anything. Maybe you should read how HESH ammo works and what it is good for. Its armor is not the best as it has weak spots even at the front where it has plain steel. What incoming fire? From whom exactly? Really basing this again on Iraq??? And even there they penetrated the front with some old missile. What Kornets? It never even seen a Kornet ;)))) What tandem RPGs???? It faced few and some penetrated. Even from the front! You are an idiot if you think that this tank, many times described as worst of NATO - is any good - there are whole videos dedicated to what garbage it is. T-72 can penetrate it from the front based on latest numbers for ammo and what is know of Challenger 2 frontal armor. What do you know of T-72 not being able to penetrate it from the front? Was it ever shot at with some modern ammo? No. So what do you know exactly? I do not even think it was shot at with some 1960s ammo! It obsolete gun cannot penetrate most frontal armor of T-72 latest variant - we know ammo specs, we know armor specs. No go. Or are British lying? Or maybe Americans? These are all facts. Easily verified by google. Cope. Get decent tank.
    1
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  8003.  @zooldoo  Problem is in Ukraine, in difference to most places on earth extremists are allowed to form armed units & country laws support them. Also in Ukraine they have huge support, west Ukraine has 70% support for Bandera! NATO is an alliance of countries that US has heavy control over. US frequently gets token support of NATO in its wars. Many wars. Lots of wars. Thus by far NATO is not defensive only alliance. Defensive only alliance would not be involved in more wars then any other country / group on earth. Azov battalion (or is it division now) is sure to end up with Javelins and NLAW etc. Come on. If moving NATO troops was not done to "offend" Russia - why main demand of Russia is to decrease these numbers - I mean they were high before Ukraine. US builds 100s of bases all over the world for control purposes. Poland dislike of Russia is based on the fact that they guy whom controls the government, aka the duck, thinks they killed his brother AND even before that he did not like them (commie red stuff). Through even he said that Ukraine will not enter EU with Bandera. If Russia is shadow of Soviet Union, why everyone is scared of it? Finland / Sweden had an understanding with Soviets they will not join NATO. I guess Russia being weak now is prompting them to join? Or is it pressure from US? Regarding Ukraine & respecting borders, why NATO does not respect border of Serbia? Why NATO carved out Kosovo? Why NATO wants "freedom" for Taiwan - if they respect borders so much, does it apply universally, or ... more selectively. Personally I am tilting more towards people in the regions deciding their fate, similar to as post WWI - Crimean wants to be with Russia, let them. east Ukraine wants to leave Bandera, let them. Taiwan wants to be outside of China, sure. Catalonia wants to separate from Spain, why not? Etc. One has to point out also no conditions in Ukraine for any minority to live there. They do not have even a hint of laws present in EU. They have even less then another "Nazi" which are the Baltics. How is EU tolerating the Baltics is beyond me, but I guess not all minorities or not all people are equal.
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  8037. ​ @kyoungd  War is not as simple as you describe. If US really had such a strong army why did it say lost in Vietnam? If it really had well trained army, good airforce etc. etc. etc. it would have won within months! Yet instead it lost and also lost well over 10,000 aircraft (planes + helicopters). Russia is not investing all of its money into ground forces - it also has air force, nuclear force, navy etc. Ukraine inherited the very best equipment from Soviet Union. The newest stuff. In huge numbers. Ukraine by far was the strongest army entirely in Europe by 2022. This is not some pushover. In addition to being already so powerful Ukraine received largest ever help in human history. Ukraine received same help in one year as Soviets during entire WWII (!) Actions do indeed speak lauder - why is Ukraine unable to win the war despite such huge investment? Why are they taking such huge casualties? Why west constantly needs to escalate? Sanctions have hit EU much harder than Russia - time is on Russia's side as the pro Ukraine crowd is bleeding out huge amounts of money. This is why there is such push for Ukraine to start some offensive. Again, your estimate of Ukraine - largest army entirely in Europe - with by far largest air defense network that makes say Germany look like undefended skies is totally taken from CNN. How could such huge army just collapse? They fought Donbas separatists for 8 years - they did not collapse. You have purchased the 3 day cool aid. And if Ukraine makes Russia weak - how weak is US? Much weaker no? US has totally failed in Afghanistan. Despite spending 20 years there and around a trillion $$$ they were defeated by some poorly clothed insurgents. Or I repeat Vietnam - where they were defeated by equally poorly armed but determined Vietnamese. How can you say "Russia is weak" when there are clear examples of US getting its rear end handed to them - even super recent? And may I add no one helped the Taliban and Vietnam received rather minimal help compared to Ukraine. The war has shown Russia is a very strong country, with well insulated economy and well prepared military industrial complex. Russian army is fairly well trained and more than a match for anything from NATO. Russian army premier units are as well equipped, commanded etc. as very best units from NATO. Today, these Russian units also have combat experience and experience in large maneuver warfare - something US has zero recent experience with. Again, just think and stop repeating CNN.
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  8038. ​ @kyoungd  US had volunteer army during times of Vietnam but it simply was not enough thus US had to do draft. "conscription remains in place on a contingency basis and all male U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, residing within the United States, who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service System.[2][3] United States federal law also continues to provide for the compulsory conscription of men between the ages of 17 and 45 and certain women for militia service pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and 10 U.S. Code § 246" Ukraine does not really have a navy nor it has any nuclear forces nor it actually spent any money on air force - all of it went to the army in addition to aid supplied by the west from 2014. The military aid - as you state 50B in say first year of the war is significantly more than Russia spends on its equipment for the army during a year - around... 5x more. I know, shocking that soldiers in the Russian army get paid a salary, or they maintain their bases or maybe existing equipment etc. Actual acquisition budget is not 100%. US is not fantastic at fighting a conventional war at all - US lost almost every war it ever was in. Including conventional wars. Please do name a war, other than 1st Iraqi war and not a small invasion of an island of Grenada where US army had a victory since WWII. Russia is good at conventional war - it won almost every conventional war it was in since its inception again in 1992! Cannot say that for US. Also as Soviet Union we see almost all victories - "List of wars involving Russia" on wiki for a list. Yep, looks good no? Through I would say Syrian war is more or less over and is a Russian victory, as usual. Right now Russia is on clear course to win in Ukraine - despite epic level of western support, full mobilization etc. Russia is set to win a full blown conventional war in Europe.... certainly way, way, way better record than US - which last time fought at peer enemy and won ... in WWII (!) I am unsure about this myth of western crucial involvement in Russian gas and oil infrastructure. Its not like Russia has no connections outside of it and its not like Russia cannot take care of its own oil.... you do know.... that Russia managed to get oil as Soviets.... with zero western help? Not even tiny little bit?! It also sent dog and man to space, without any western help - who would have ever believe that! Why would China need expertise in oil and gas - they have Russia for that. They are one of world's largest producers - they certainly have technology needed. Why would China ask for concessions - we do not see that - you do know there are others in Asia and around the world - like 87% of the planet is not the west and 82% is not China. Actually there are no significant discounts given to either China or India - Russian budget would have issues not records if they had to sell low. Besides most Russian oil still goes to Europe - except now its blended in India. Russian economy is doing great - its growth is predicted to be over 2% year over year, unemployment is under 4%, inflation is low. They are growing quite faster then rest of Europe. As someone remarked, Russia is running the very best war economy there ever was! I have no idea how someone can look at this an think that Ukraine and west that clings to control can win. It is not 1960s anymore. BRICS passed G7 few years ago and by 2050 will be more than 2x as big. The world wants to be free - and part of this freedom seeking is to drop western control and so called "international order". They want to be free and want any order to be equal among all people. Also how on Earth does anyone in the west think betting on Kiev regime run by pure blood Nazi is a good idea is beyond me. I know US loves to bet on the devil himself and did many times - but each time it backfired. Heck, US loans to Nazi Germany did not work out too well either. After all these episodes supporting clearly Nazi racial supremacy is lunacy. Clinging to control will not work any better that clinging to slavery worked for the south - time to move on with progress - pass on the torch to Asia - China. Of course falling empires never do it easily - lets hope US will not have to loose major conventional war in order to finally let go.
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  8039. ​ @kyoungd  Russian navy plays roughly same role today as it played in the beginning - that is its a missile platform. There is no other role for it. Well, it did in the beginning do some transport duties - but I hardly would point this out as major role. US weapons aid is just acquisition of new equipment - so when comparing apples to apples you compare how much new equipment one got. Thus base maintenance etc. is not involved in this at all. It is pure gift of weapons. This is why it is like 5x of yearly budget for same equipment as Russia - easily. Ukraine pays salaries of troops from economic aid money it gets - i.e. the other 60+B it gets a year - that money pays for salaries. Do if you want to compare that - sure - this is what most pp would compare. For example, Soviets during WWII got a lot of aid such as trains and food - hardly military stuff - 10000 train cars and 1000 locomotives. If we compare total aid, its well over 120B per year. So well above current yearly Russian budget for military - even at war (!). Russia did not just support Assad - they actively used their troops - ground forces as well. At one point they were loosing up to 100 people a month. They also did a lot of bombing runs. How many troops did US loose in direct fight with ISIS as part of support? Regarding Afghanistan, lets compare apples to apples - US was there, Soviets were there. Soviets after 10 years or so left and their government, without any support, and against the Taliban supported by the US lasted almost 3 years. US was around 20 years in Afghanistan, fought against Taliban which were NOT supported by anyone and the government they formed lasted three weeks.... So do you really think US is so good at conventional wars? US totally failed to root out Afghan resistance. They did not even scratch it. They only controlled the capital and area around their bases - so much so for "control". Three weeks, based on local roads and country size is roughly how fast you can drive. Ukraine gets EPIC support as no one got even close. "Afghanistan and Iraq received much greater Western support than the current situation in Ukraine. " not true. Both at the very top received less than HALF of the support Ukraine gets. Around 120B per year. And this is low ball figure - as a lot of aid is not really shown - for example, aid from Poland is frequently marked as "charity". Regarding China / India / rest of the planet - this is not a war between Russia and Ukraine supported by the west - this is a war between Russia supported by non west and Ukraine supported by the west. China especially has vested interest in breaking western grip on power - but even India has interest in it as well. Do you really think anyone in say Europe cares about some territorial integrity of some UA? Nope. This is about control - they want to say they are in charge - the west is in charge, the western "rules" - you hear this a lot. This is why its in the best interest of non western world to break these rules - these rules are not for say India - they are for west.. In G7 only US matters and in BRICS only China - so what is your point? Sure they are friends as much as say Japan and US are - you do know Japan fought a war with US somewhat recently? Its not like G7 is all roses. Polls show the world does not want not just US but any western influence. I.e. they do not want US to lead at all (come on, who would - crazy!) what would be next, survey of slaves that say they want their master to stay in power? Really? Really? People want to be free - and that means no leader. The main problem with rise of China is that it may become next US - and no one wants that. So far China shows nothing of the sorts - China is far easier to deal with than US - you can trade with China with no strings attached! Fun fact, in China over 70% of people (around a billion) say they are best democracy in the world - only 6% say US is ;) More people in the world (just looking at China) say China is #1 world democracy than there are people in the west ;) Ukraine is a Nazi state - having a Jew as president and I believe a PM is not an issue. You can have Israel with right leadership descend into Nazism - there is nothing in ideology saying that cannot be done. We had Nazism flare up in imperfect form in Africa. Ukraine Nazi flag is red - black - its their equivalent of German Nazi swastika. Look at videos of Ukrainians on say CNN and you see it all over the place. Alternatively they use "black sun" or "runes" etc. On their tanks they frequently now use German Nazi style double cross. Their laws are carbon copy taken from 1930s Nazi Germany - for example, speaking Russian by official is a fine of 5000 Harvina. Russian books are banned. Ethnic Russians are to be expelled by force etc. History is changed and white washed - now Bandera (official Hero of Ukraine) is a nice guy that did not kill over a million.... You need to read more history to find out about Ukraine Nazi state and its current continuation. These guys make German Nazi look civilized. How can anyone deny Ukraine Nazi links - what will be next, white washing SS and saying there were just some German nationalists fighting for freedom? Well, technically, there were German, they were nationalists and they were... fighting for their version of freedom. It is shameful that the west is supporting this evil.
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  8040. ​ @kyoungd  Why would Russian navy approach UA coast - to do what, wave? LOL! There is no need for equipment maintenance right away for new stuff received - it is destroyed long before any maintenance costs are taken and these are paid by the west. Training is rudimentary. For trucks etc. there is almost no training needed or provided. Americans do not loose 100s of people but do not win anything in return - see Afghanistan - Soviets lost a lot of people - but had great results. US lost few people but had terrible results. You go to war to win it - accept losses. US lost almost a trillion USD in Afghanistan. So what that for PR they did not have casualties? Maybe they should have lost 20k killed but had results - or never actually stayed. Clear win for Soviets / Russia. Soviets loss in Afghanistan was not related to break up of Soviet Union later on. Costs were not even remotely high. The breakup was due to poor policies of Soviet leadership. Let me re-iterate - the total aid as per google in year 1 of the war exceeded 120B. This includes money from US poppet states. The war is between Russia - supported by non western countries and Ukraine supported by the west. China cares about Russia a lot. China cannot afford for Russia to loose. Come on, this is geo politics 101. Look at the envoy now traveling around EU and back to Moscow. China is getting ready to, in emergency, provide aid to Russia - if west oversteps read lines. 85% + 2% (Russia) did not sanction Russia - let that sink in. They all trade with Russia & are happy to break western dominance. China as well as everyone else in Asia knows that eventually they will need to go into full sanctions war with the west. Of course this will cost them as well so they are not to eager to go into the hot water. However, even countries such as Indonesia created their own payment system - they are getting ready. Russia absolutely does not want to re-create Soviet Union - even Putin said that. LOL. Even trying to join Russia would be rejected. Heck, Putin flatly refused to get involved in little Tajikistan - Uzbekistan conflict ;) They had to both beg for weeks for Putin to send a single police battalion. Putin simply said they are independent now and need to take care of their own affairs ;) EU is not a country. I do not think that a lot of countries prefer US over China - I think if such survey was done China would be picked over US - if someone wanted a leader. China would get overwhelming support from places such as Africa or South America. Yes, China is by far easier to deal with than US - by far! This is why a lot of smaller countries are signing documents of cooperation with China. Sure, China is throwing around a lot of influence etc. around - but not even close to what US is doing. Please, take a look at surveys about US - US is the most hated country on earth. With few exceptions world view of US is negative. US forces countries to do its bidding. They call it "free choice" - you are free to be poor or do as we say. With China you do not have to make such choice. With China you can trade without strings attached. And do let me know who bombards city centers with dumb artillery every day and fires on hospitals - oh wait, its Ukraine. Who officially say they will cleanse millions of people? Who has laws of racial superiority? Putin said that Ukraine and Russia are very similar or even the same - no Nazi would say even something remotely close to that. As for children - what will - children now have a will to stay in a war zone? Really? they were moved out of war zone and once parents were located they were returned to such parents or guardians. What is wrong with that - this is how things should be done. Protect the children and then return them to their parents. As for adults - they moved to Russia freely - they can leave anytime - over 2 million people. No one is keeping them there against their will - why would they? Of course I show you officials fined for speaking Russian - no links allowed so you need to google - "Ukrainian authorities have fined the mayor of Kharkov, Igor Terekhov, nearly 100 euros for speaking Russian on television and managing his social networks in the same language, as he would have violated a law that places Ukrainian as the vehicular language throughout the state, even before the Russian invasion." from MSN "Russian book ban in Ukraine" - from wikipedia "Ukraine withdraws 19 million Russian, Soviet-era books from libraries" - reuters "Tamila Tasheva, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's top representative for Crimea, told Ukraine's Radio NV that some 500,000 to 800,000 Russians are currently living illegally in Crimea, and could be forcibly deported in accordance with the norms of Ukrainian legislation and international law." I can provide a LOT more links. You can google yourself as well. The Kiev link to Nazism is as clear as that of Germans. I live in area heavily populated by Ukrainians. They make around 20% of the population. This does not imply that Kiev regime is not Nazi in some way or form - their actions, statements etc. are clearly linked to Nazi as well as flags, symbols etc. What are they supposed to do? Build concentration camps? I am sure you would also have a good explanation for that.
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  8062.  De G  Well, we can see today that it is not correct view - we see that a lot of countries - including China have reached quite high levels. You have a theory that was correct in colonial times when world economy could be compared to a balloon - if you pinched it in the right spot you got far bigger share then others - if no one were to pinch it all would be poor (vs some very poor and some rich) - this is how British Empire functioned. However, we are not longer in so much of scarcity of resources phase - i.e. our economies are mostly services with tiny pinch of manufacturing - with exception of say Saudi Arabia and Australia our wealth can be limitless and unbound by some limited resource. India brought the issue on themselves with some poorly calculated moves - they wanted Goa - a small Portuguese colony in India. Instead of waiting few years they decided to have a little tiny war. This gave China legitimate reason to settle border dispute in their region also by force & win another war with India. To this day India and China have disputes in the region - as does a lot of others. India is behind China a LOT - its people are far less educated, it has archaic systems of governance and its democracy is quite flawed. Being both in India and China I can guarantee that India will be one of the last countries on Earth to reach prosperity - many countries in Africa if they control birth rate will beat them. As for China thinking the world is going to remain the same - I think that is more US thinking then Chinese - China is very future and change oriented - they are building more railways and highways then the rest of the planet combined. They invest heavily in latest technologies and education. I do not see China limiting some technology at all - I do see US trying all sorts of sanctions to limit spread of technology - for example US coerced with sanctions EU to not export latest chips to Hauwei. All this did was for China to invest even more to jump the gate and within few years it will have capacity to produce all latest chips for its phones (it does 10% currently) - give it few years and it will exceed technologically its competitors. Then we see whatever they will limit technology - so far I see only US doing limiting. I doubt 3D printing is as magical as you think - it is just another process - additive - similar to current common processes which are subtractive. I.e. 3D printing just wastes less material and in some cases it is cheaper and faster. It does not fundamentally remove anything from the manufacturing process - its just another tool. The problem with manufacturing in say Canada is not luck of some magic but luck of people / machinery / investment / high pay to even contemplate competing with China. Let me put it this way, when I make a part out of steel the material to make the part + energy + cutting costs etc. is roughly in line with the cost of the part in China mainland. I.e. in your 3D world, the cost for 3D printer in Canada to make widget X will be roughly the same in material cost as ready made good in China or maybe even on eBay. With current shipping rates in Canada there is NO WAY you can compete 1:1 with China - it costs at least 3x as much to mail it in Canada then China to Canada. So even with no profit and no wages we cannot compete. Let that sink in.
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  8140.  @kpadalldotablet1009  Any history book with stats. There usually is no controversy and numbers are well agreed on. There is no bias - all sides agree. Sure you do not need history book - you can just google. Data is quite good as all sides agree - and neutrals as well. There is no controversy. We are talking about WWI and WWII here. Sure Russia and everyone else has a neo Nazi element. Putin does not care that much about land as land was to be give back to Ukraine in return for no membership in NATO and no Nazi policies. Maybe you need to re-read Minsk agreement. Sure, Nazi in 2023. What is so strange about that? That west allowed this to happen and supports them? Come on, one can point out to say ISIS in 2020 - any different? Land and people do not equal power at all - since when? Africa has lots of people and lots of land - last time I checked they were low on power ;) Problem is that western system - especially US system is for US not for others. For example, Russia and China currently, have lots in common with say US even internally how they are run. So what? US does exactly the same, or worse than Russia OUTSIDE of US. I.e. democracy and freedom for us, slavery and dictatorship for them. So is west good or evil - depends on point of view. I have no idea what the Nazi in 1943 as an example would need to do in order to prove to you they are indeed bad. Or maybe you think they were good? The collective west, including US, sure did think they were good up to roughly 1937. After all, "elimination" of say mentally deficient or sick was popular in the west - see California.
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  8190.  @missJolie85  Sherpa is a race of people that frequently gets the credit for being only mountaineer guides out there - which is 100% false. One has to remember that Pakistani people are great in the mountains as well - as good as Nepali Sherpa people. Reason is, they live on the other side of the same mountain range. In fact, Karakorum is harder and more technical then Nepal Himalayan range. Porters of course go above base camps - they have to go over passes and frequently do little mountains such as 6000m peaks that are "non-technical in nature". Main problem is that Karakorum is quite technical so this may not be common. Pakistani guides are fully capable of fixing the ropes and I think in this case many rope fixing teams were in fact Pakistani - on a mountain you don't exactly ask someone for their ethnic background. A village in Pakistan, Shimshal claims to have the most mountaineers of any village in the world. I also been to India, Pakistan and Nepal and thus I roughly know the pay structure b/c I actually paid these people. So, no, a Pakistani guide will not get a summit bonus that is less then Napali Sherpa - the bonus will be more based on service provided and possibly on fame of the guide, much less so on exact ethnic background. It is claimed he was a high altitude porter and thus he has been caring loads up to 8000m - either that or someone is lying. People from these villages climb a lot and know the business very, very well. Many have whole families in guiding. Thus it is a totally wrong to say that he was clueless about being out there. Also, regarding equipment, his may be old etc. but it has to be up to spec needed as he simply would not get as far as he did. I know locals can go in flip flops up to around 5500m but no matter how strong your legs are you need proper gear on your feet to be at over 8000m. Also rope setting team would not be cool with someone whom had really crap gear as it would effect their safety. He simply had a large jacket and pants which is totally acceptable gear.
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  8225.  @kurousagi8155  No. Ukraine had deployed 1000 or so tank. Ukraine had over 2000 tanks in storage. Russia deployed 1200 to 1500 tanks. So Russia had small edge - a bit more than 1000 tanks Ukraine had. Yes Colonel Reisner - do I really have to find the video and exact minute - come on - he mentions the losses on a slide. It took me 30 seconds to find it - video has "War for Ukraine - First Conclusions from 2022 and New Challenges 2023" and the slide is at 8:25 mark. Also note the Russian slide - especially the artillery numbers. You can also look up at the upper slide of deployed units. Ukraine cannot continue the war as long as it likes even with wester help as they simply run out of men - i.e. all men will be dead or too wounded (missing legs or arms) to fight. Without western support Ukraine would collapse in max three months - its not just weapons but their budget is all paid by the west. Summer Ukrainian offensive will only speed up end of the war with Ukraine defeat - it does not even matter how much the offesnive fails or how much of a success it will be. That is not even important. What is important is that UA losses will be huge - losses that UA cannot fix. While for Russians - the losses will be acceptable. Thus any land Ukraine wins during that offensive can be simply taken back by the Russians. War will end sooner as Ukraine will run out of stuff sooner. Why T-62s are a problem for Russians - they are very good block tank - Ukraine uses T-55s and there are videos of some movie prop tanks at checkpoints. Why if Ukraine uses junk it is OK when Russia wants to recycle its junk its suddenly sign of weakness - is Europe sending Lepard 1 tanks sign of Western collapse? Come on. Why would Russia not look for support from China? Again, that would be stupid. Soviet Union wanted lend lease even in 1945 & was pushing hard for D-day despite wiping Nazi off the face of the earth - it would be stupid to increase own losses if they did not have to. Come on - this is common sense. You do not have any logical thing in your "common sense".
    1
  8226.  @kurousagi8155  50% of equipment losses means 500 tanks as tanks are equipment and you admit there were 1000 tanks deployed initially. So for year 2022 the losses of tanks are 1000. Ukraine suffered massive losses of people - both dead and wonded. Massive. Zielinski claimed a 1 million army back in 2022 - what happened to it according to you? The number of Ukrainian forces is at its peak now and dropping - NOT increasing. They have less and less total troops - their peak was few months ago. Losses for Russia are acceptable - they have plenty of people - they can always do another round of mobilization while Ukraine cannot - they already mobilized everyone after what, 10 or 11 rounds? I do not see any logistical issues for Russia - their logistics works far and wide better than Ukraine - they transport 6x as many shells as Ukraine. Russia is not fighting war of territory - Russia is fighting war of atrition. Territory is just one of many things to play with. Ukraine has only been loosing territory for past 6 months - so one can say why do you think they can take any back? Manual loader is easiest crew member to train. These T-62s are great as assault guns or simple checkpoint tanks. T-62s were featured at pre-war exercises in large numbers - I wonder who operated them ;) They do not need some crack team to operate - they need basic team as tank is for basic guard duty most of the time - maybe some assault use. Its not for normal MBT operations. Ukraine devoted a LOT of $$$ pre-war to military - a LOT. If Slovenian M-55S are so good - why T-62M - which are better are so bad? T-62M has better armor, better main gun and better sensors than M-55S. Why T-62 is Russia "not prepared" when the tanks were featured in large numbers in pre-war games - were Russians joking? Why? Explain. At the time they were fielded they make a stir as people did not understand why Russians took out these old T-62s and why Russia claimed a huge fleet of 1800 of them ready. Some speculated aid to Assad - which did indeed get at least 100 of them. But now we know what they were for. So how is that for your "theory"?
    1
  8227.  @kurousagi8155  Why are Russian losses not acceptable? Even if we take clearly incorrect figure of 1 to 1 losses Russia has at least 5 times the population of Ukraine - so they can take the losses - Ukraine cannot. There are many reports that Ukraine mobilized troops with little to no formal training sent the to the front and they were destroyed. This is from both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. Russians did not have pants on fire - they took months and months to get their mobilized forces ready. All mobilization is a political act as war is a political act. Russia is not fighting for any territory other than Donbass. Russia is fighting war of attrition and winning big time. Why attcking Bakhmut would not make sense - Russians need to liberate Donbass and Bakhmut turned into a nice meat grinder for Ukrainians with epic level losses. So wait, if I am an idiot Ukraine is an idiot as they are transferring tank crews from 3 to 4 - and not for block tanks but actual front line MBTs. Also Ukraine is terrible idiot since the tank they received all use different ammo to what they have, Ukraine currently has ammo for at least 4 tank types - can actually add more. US used tanks as artillery during Korean war - I guess Americans are idiots as well. Tanks in this conflict are used as assault guns by both sides - I guess... everyone is an idiot. T-62M has 2nd generation thermals and either brow armor or K-1 reactive armor. Base armor is slightly better than T--55. I am quite sure it has other cool stuff like laser warning receiver, ballistic computer etc. Not sure about having that in 1980s ;)))))))))))) T-62s were used in major training exercises in large numbers, use google "Russian T-62Ms being transported by rail for Zapad-2021" to find picture and maybe a video of T-62M used in Zapad 2021.
    1
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  8360. Russia / Soviets even before WWII lead the world in tank design. Nothing suggests things have changed. Autoloader is of course the way of the future. Same as 3 or 2 or even 0 man crew. Maintenance argument is a joke - you just move the 4th man to maintenance company. The less pp in the tank the better. 3 was picked b/c they are afraid, like in T-34, that gunner and commander roles should not be joined as it would create problems. T-14 is the lead of the next generation of tanks. Its main problem is price & that its not so easy to "debug" all issues in a new tank - and its still "new". 152mm was already fitted on a tank - ISU-152 is a turretless tank / assault gun. Made in Soviet Union. As for zoom level - come on - we already had this stupid talk with cameras where a handheld had like 30mb pixel count and sensor you could not see, DSLR cost 10x as much had only 15mb pixel count but huge sensor. T-14 has better sensors then Abrams as they are 1 generation ahead - Abrams is lagging behind other NATO tanks. 50x zoom is useless if you cannot see anything past zoom level 10 ;) Given that ballistic computer on Abrams is, well, behind other NATO it is safe to say Armata has better one - I mean what do you expect, they used same model as in T-72 upgrades ;) Of course it is empty talk as both tanks would engage at close range of around 3km - I hope we can agree that both can see each other from that distance. Price of Armata is at least 8m per unit. Weaknesses include mostly teething problems, such as issues with the engine. But price is #1.
    1
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  8362.  @colinwise8044  After Maiden square once their president was removed sure there was discontent - come on - if you elected a guy and they removed him would you be ... happy? Maybe Donbass and Crimea did not want to outright leave Ukraine but they certainly wanted something to happen. There was no intervention of Russian "mercenaries and irregular forces in Crimea" - they had their regular forces there. "The Odessa event looks like an accident that would not have happened if Putin had not done his best to sow discord in Ukraine" please - Putin's fault? Really? This event has 100% shown the true side of Banderites - they were BACK. The worst evil on earth was born again. And do you care what people of Ukraine want? Like all of them? Donbass was supposed to go back to Ukraine with set of rights as a territory. But nope, none of this was materialized - I am sure its Putin's fault. It is also Putin's fault that Kiev wants to go to NATO at any cost - even if it means burning down all of Ukraine. Strange no? This is why so many people in Donbas fight against Kiev regime - they want freedom. They are tired of empty stuff. Saying in 2014 they did not want to leave Ukraine - neither did UK want to leave EU in 2014. So I guess we have to de-legitimize their referendum, correct? Elections are held every few years as people view changes. So did view of people of Donbas - they no longer want to be part of Ukraine. Why the west insists incorporation by force is a solution? I support freedom for Donbass and their choice. Sure Russia had its hand in it - but so does US or anyone else - so everyone is as guilty. May I remind you of embassies that US has in countries it controls that are the size of small cities? No influence there ;) Millions or Billions spent on Ukraine by US also does not count, I guess, in influence shaping - so why blame Russia?
    1
  8363.  @colinwise8044  Ah yes, people burned themselves ;) And again somehow fault of Putin - I guess he instructed people to set fire to a building with at least 40 pp inside. And I love the idea that if they make one decision its final forever - who cares what referendum said in 1991? You do know we have elections every few years as people change opinions and things change. In 1991 Ukraine was Bandera free - not so much later on like in 2014. So this argument makes no sense at all. Also we do know that after Maiden there were very strong anti Ukraine feelings in Crimea - we do know over 70% of Ukraine army stationed in Crimea joined Russia. If your troops join the "enemy" in large numbers then clearly they do not want to be part of Ukraine. Kiev was with different president in 2013 - irrelevant. They wanted to be in NATO by 2014. They wanted to be in NATO at any cost in 2022 even if they needed to fight a war for it. Looking at Donbas right now almost all males of military age fight for freedom. If any left their homes (and many did) they did so to go to Russia. "people of Donbas did regularly have their say and would have had it again following Maidan" - LOL, sure - you must be kidding - their president was just removed by force and new Ukraine just banned their culture and language. What do you want these pp do - I would fight for freedom as well! "They might have elected many MPs or even a president sympathetic to Russia. " - LOL, Ukraine arrested all opposition and all MPs. "Much of it was in promoting or supporting democracy." i.e. western US version of it. Not actual freedom. If someone wanted anyone "poisoned" dead they would be dead. Same as any other strange poisonings. They are a joke. Bottom line is people have the right to determine their future. People of Donbas do not see that future in Ukraine but with Russia. You can say that "Putin changed their mind" or some similar stuff - but that is just a way to go around election results - I mean anyone can say that Biden is not true US president as Americans were coerced by say... Putin? Do you think that would fly? I think democrats actually tried that with Trump. Past results of elections etc. are of no importance. What counts is now and current will of the people. Kiev regime knows 100% they cannot win any referendums in Donbass or Crimea - even if we get 100% of people that were there in 2022 and had residency. After all, would you vote for regime that shelled you for past 8 or 9 years? Ukraine today is one party multi leader dictatorship. There are no freedoms. There is no opposition and people that are inconvenient are disposed off by force. Go ahead, ask why Ukraine does not want any referendums that are totally free? Go ahead ask why they fight a war given they can end it by simply saying they want to be neutral? Strange they say they want NATO for safety yet they lost all that safety b/c of NATO. Nuland and US admitting to some spending is also not exactly to be trusted. There is a reason countries are banning or taking a careful eye to all these "charities". I wonder how somehow its OK for US to have so much influence in Ukraine but you start to scream when Russia does the same - one is "legal" the other is "evil". To summarize will of the people needs to be respected and the current will not some past will and without any conditions. Simply ask, what they want.
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  8804. He took the guts out so he can fit in. You know, its not like a horse has a lot of "spare" space in it, at least not enough to fit a human. Regarding taking the clothes off, sure wool insulates when wet, but you certainly do not want to get it wet with... horse liquid. Smart move. Roll of duck tape. Its important to have some. 1000 uses. Typical uneducated in survival American, I still remember when I cooked some delicious mushroom soup and all Americans around me thought I will die. It is true wolfs are afraid of humans. In ultra rare defensive situation hiking poles / knife would be of great benefit. It is very hard to start a fire without matches or a lighter - better carry one. Yes you can forge steel in wood fire - metal weakens a lot (specially mild steel) once it gets red hot. Once its cherry and above it structure changes. But for basic forming you just have to see it - i.e. reddish. We are not talking here becoming a blacksmith, just ultra basic stuff. Finding suitable stone to make into a knife in the wild may take longer then your expected survival - a LOT longer. Regarding bear - play dead if its a grizzly and not predatory. You cannot play dead all the time - bad idea. Surviving ice fall is cool and all but surviving after effects is much harder. Into the wild story shows how difficult it is to survive even if you are experienced and/or try very hard. Problem with water to survive is: the hot air from the fire cannot burn your lungs so the body of water has to be very large so that you can get away from the active fire. You still need to take in air - that air cannot be uber hot. A piece of cloth over your face would help but not if the fire is actively burning right next to you. Body heat drying wool clothing? Is she insane? I happen to punch through ice into water. My wool socks got wet. It did not help putting them on my body overnight in warm sleeping bag - they were just tiny bit less wet. It would take days to dry them out. I give her 6 or 7. She knows some stuff but for from a lot of stuff about survival. Heck and I am no expert myself.
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  9060.  @johnathanhughes9881  There cannot be more dead as Russia does not have enough forces deployed to support much higher number of dead. 8k-9k also means that there is at least 30k wounded! That is a lot, and only 15k of these come back to fight. Thus the numbers I quoted seem very realistic - I hope you realize that Russia right now has very few soldiers deployed mostly in support roles and like 75% of actual combat is done not by Russian troops. You are stating western opinion on what Russian goals are. The actual Russian goals are: - liberation of Donbass (mostly complete) - denazification (hard to determine this, but many Azov style units were smashed) - demilitarization (hard to determine this but certainly Ukraine has little equipment left) - stopping expansion of NATO (full success) So as you can see Russia almost accomplished its main goal and it is certain they will succeed in it. As for Donbass - the Minsk agreement said autonomy. Ukraine refused any autonomy. Ukraine refused any referendums etc. Or any discussion on the status or any attempts to let people say what they want to do. Russia would be 100% OK with removing their troops if Ukraine did the same BUT Ukraine would not. Why is that? Well, if you do referendums there it would be clearly in favor of Russia (fair ones, with UN only troops). As for pounding it flat - well, what do you suggest they do - most of the fighting is done by pp of Donbass - I am sure they are not happy with destroying their own cities. But Ukraine does not care - its not their cities getting smashed! Personally I seen no way around the war. It was necessary - there was no political solution to the problem at all. Some people you simply cannot nicely talk to - you have to kick their teeth in or out. This is what Russia had to do. Ukraine is same culture as them, they only understand force.
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  9061. ​ @johnathanhughes9881  Russians are conscripting from Donbass, that is true. Kiev regime is also conscripting. Luck of training is certainly on both sides, but losses for Kiev regime are far more epic then for Russia + allies. How do I get it backwards - homes are of people of Donbass not of Kiev regime. It is war, both sides throw poorly trained troops - but for Kiev regime it is far and wide more common. I am glad you condemn Kiev for a change. Russia is NOT using conscripts to fight for someone else's land - that is what UKRAINE Kiev regime is doing. Almost all conscripts are used to fight right next to their homes while Kiev ones are 1000km away from their homes. Research Stephan Bandera and stop being a Nazi apologist / sympathizer. Its a lie to claim holocaust did not happen. Nazism is officially accepted in Ukraine and is official - i.e. it is set in laws of the land - they accept Nazi formations to their army and they accept Nazi heroes as their heroes. Officially. By government. According to you Nazi Germany was not Nazi. They also had around 10% ;) I stand by Azov and SS - in fact I would say that I would rather deal with German Nazi SS then with Ukrainian Azov units. SS was more ... western oriented. Level of sheer brutality was much lower. My grandfather fought in WWII against both German and Ukrainian Nazi and Ukrainians are far and wide worse. Ukrainians are demilitarized b/c their losses are much, much higher ;) Ukraine supply of manpower is not endless especially in a country that quickly depopulated - even before the war. It feels no one wants to live under this regime. As Soviet republic they had 54m. just 20 years later they dropped to 37m. Now they are what, well under 30m? If we start to include Russian liberated and occupied territories they are what, 25m? I stand by my assertion of NATO. Its you whom are lying.
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  9063. ​ @HR_8035_YEA  Oh, its a one party democracy, got it ;) Russia at least has systemic opposition - so it is far more of a democracy then Ukraine. Navalny as per west has support of around 2% of Russian population. I.e. he has less support then communists or extremists. Granted Russia is flowed democracy BUT Putin at least cares about popular opinion. In Ukraine all opposition (ALL) is in prison or exiled. In Russia you mostly quote Navalny - not everyone. Yes, racism is at the heart of the conflict. Russian MIR is based on Soviet ideology which means it is supper opposed to racism. Its allergic to it more then Jews to pork. After all, you have now fights for Bahmut and Donetsk People Republic forces are liberating their city via Patric Lumumba street - dedicated to an African leader whom fought for the rights of black people against imperialistic colonialism. Regarding your claim about Asians being used more then say people from Moscow, it is as true as same situation in US where people from poor neighborhoods, a lot of Black people are used as cannon fodder. I assume you mean US is very racist with this as well - the truth is that poor people want money and people in Moscow are not poor. Has zero to do with race :) On the other hand Ukraine is a very racist country with strong Nazi overtones where racial superiority is a very important thing. After all, official hero of Ukraine, Bandera, demanded that any true Ukrainian has to have proof that ALL 4 grandparents hailed from Ukraine. Anyone else was to be killed or run out. Thus we have all these Nazi units and hate for anything and anyone that is not Ukrainian. This is why Donbass people, with help from Russia, rose up against oppressive state & are now fighting for their freedom. Why you are against people fighting for their freedom? Are you also against US gaining its freedom from UK?
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  9064. ​ @HR_8035_YEA  LOL, Zielinski won against Right Sector.... too bad he was sponsored by the guy whom supported Azov.... so he "won" against them ;) Navalny did break some Russian laws and through sentence was over the top he was not killed or something like that - he is part of systemic opposition. He still controls his own party and political block. I.e. not all of his supporters were jailed (see my comment about Ukraine). As for running for office - HE DID RUN - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny He did not win, but actually had some votes numbers in liberal sections of Russian society - like Moscow. In fact the numbers Navalny got were confirmed by Navalny campaign office as what they predicted he would get (i.e. he had no basis for saying fraud - his own campaign knew there is no chance & predicted the numbers +- 2%) Russia cannot be racists as racism is as allergic to Russians as sun to vampires. I.e. Russia is by far and wide less racist then say US. Its not even close. Like US is racism level 10 and Russia is 1. I am not racist at all, I simply say you do not know what you are talking about. People in Donbass were never oppressed.... I guess Jews were never oppressed by Germans as well huh? I guess it was just one giant conspiracy to get poor Nazi Germany.... The history of this predates FSB, or even KGB. It goes all the way to 1930s. You have zero clue as to what you are talking about. "It will end badly for him, for Russia and for you personally." I see we are now at personal level threats. I am strongly against Nazism as my grandfather fought Nazi (both German and Ukrainian) during WWII. Mass murdering psychopath was the current hero of Ukraine Stephan Bandera.
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  9066.  @johnathanhughes9881  Its a civil war - the sooner you understand that the sooner you understand what is going on. Why did NATO invade Yugoslavia and carve out Kosovo? Was that right or was that wrong? If it was right so is Russian intervention in Ukraine. The rights of people of Donbass and Crimea cannot be ignored. West somehow fights for rights of people if it is politically convenient, for example, in Taiwan, but when its not "nice" for them they simply suddenly do not care about people's rights - like in Yemen. Ukrainians are NOT doing what Russians did in WWII at all - WWII was not based on civil war (we ignore the fact large number of Ukrainians joined the Nazi) it was invasion by foreign power to gain land that they had no neither any allies nor their people on it. Russians are helping their allay, DPR and LPR gain independence from Kiev. Both of these regions do not want to be part of Kiev run Ukraine. They have been clearly discriminated against in the last decade (but no genocide) and have clear case of going their own separate way. Look at Canada. The same issue was with Quebec. Exactly the same. Yet it was solved in a peaceful manner. Why Kiev regime could not do that? In 1970s Quebec demanded freedom, bombs exploded etc. Canada countered with legal way for Quebec to leave Canada via referendum. In order to win French over, full language rights were given! Many other laws were passed to show that English Canada and French Canada should be one. So far after two close referendums Quebec is still part of Canada. No need for a war. Contrast this to Kiev regime whose first move was to make Russian language, more popular in Donbass then French in Quebec, to be illegal. I fully support the struggle of people of Donbass for freedom, same as I support other struggles for freedom. You are on the wrong side of history for supporting tyranny. All people have basic human rights.
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  9092.  @Inhetmidden  Actually I know both Russian, Ukrainian and Polish history very, very well. I would say better then most US history professors. Stalin punished Crimean Tatars, or what was still left of them, after WWII, for collaboration with the Nazi (which was true) by sending them to Siberia / far east. Many did not come back. I am not sure about what Stalin did to Ukrainians - but you are probably falsely claiming Holdomir. For your information, in Soviet Union, there was no notion of "racism" as "racism" was a NAZI thing, and Soviets were 180 degrees apart from Nazi. So if you happen to be Black and Soviet, you were good. If you were any color of the skin, nationality, etc. and happen not to be Soviet, then you went to Siberia to be "re-educated". This the great famine was not directed against any particular "soviet" people and certainly not against Ukrainians that only in early 1930s in Poland were identified as something "non Russian". It was simply Soviet style mis management of resources. Since Ukraine today and in the past was heavily agricultural, it was heavily affected. For you continued consideration, may I add that during that time, there was no hunger in Poland at all. Yet Ukrainian nationalist, later Nazi leader, Stephan Bandera still went ahead and killed as an assassin Polish minister. Thus as you see, you are totally incorrect in your assumptions. Totally. Not even close. You do not realize, that if you made a joke about Stalin, it did not matter you were Ukrainian (if such thing was even seen to exist) or Russian (which everyone was) - you simply said hello to minimum of 5 years. Please do not compare Bandera to Putin. This is very offensive. I am Polish. This is like comparing Hitler to Putin for the Jews and saying both killed & are the same.
    1
  9093. ​ @Inhetmidden  LOL, no. Need to read more history. Crimea is the traditional seat of despicable people known as Tatars of the Golden Horde. These pp main source of income was banditry - sort of similar to kossacks, but their target was both Polish Lithuania as well as Russia. Their source of income outside of some good was slaves. I.e. they captured slaves. One of these slaves was a woman from present day Ukraine that managed to go up so high in the rankings she ruled Ottoman empire (Turkey) for few years. Anyways, the evil horde was finally defeated and driven out by Cathrine the great after in multiple wars she defeated Ottomans - I am sure you can see connection between the horde and Ottomans. This is why I said in my comment "these that were left" - not many were left as Cathrine make sure she though these little bastards how to swim (back to Ottomans). Cathrine btw was German. This is why Tatars had "slight" dislike for the Russians. You are totally over playing Holdomir - its nothing more then similar artifical hunger created by communism in China in great leap forward. Except in China it killed like 10x as many pp. No one is saying that Chinese great leap forward "targetted anyone" - why is that? The hunger in Russia was identical, from identical mistakes, and it was not aimed at anyone. Thus saying it was somehow anti X is totally false. As to the killing - it was not done with a rifle - but with simple hunger. Also "higher classes in Moscow and Leningrad" is a joke, its a communism, everyone is equal. There was no real "higher" class - in fact the only class you can ever talk about is peasants and workers as being preferred. Sort of mini affirmative action. For example, when my dad went to university he marked that he had "peasant" upbringing so his chances to get in were better. Thus if anything, it was FAR better to be a peasant / worker then say an engineer, especially with aristocratic background. Also being poor was good. This went so far that if you had (if I remember correctly) more then 2 horses in your farm you would say hello to Siberia for being rich. Or when Polish soldiers were captured during WWII by Soviets, one of the officers avoided Katyn b/c he was actively fixing the engine in the truck (an engineer). Soviets seen his dirty hands assumed he was worker. You do not know even 1% of what did happen, why it did happen etc. It feels a lot of info you have is from propaganda sources, especially with constant play up of Holdomir. As for locking pp up, you may take a look at Ukrainian laws which make what Putin did in Russia feel like Putin is a little mini dictator ;)
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  9270.  @kineahora8736  Oh and do let me know how 2014 elections were NOT FREE. Wait, how amazing it is that you pick some elections not others. As for NAZI it is 100%. There are few hundred monuments to Bandera in the country, largest one is over 30m tall. He is official hero of Ukraine, by law. A lot of high ranking officials are Nazi - they wear uniforms with OUN symbols / colors. This is NOT same as in other countries at all. Equivalent German example, would be 100s of monuments to Hitler, Hitler offical hero of Germany and many officials wearing Nazi symbols on their arm bands. Also don't forget books that would glorify Nazism and point out to racial superiority. Do you see that? I do not. Maybe you need eye exam. Where is your source on Putin firing leaders? Maybe its from .... Ukraine? Or is it US? CNN claimed there was no military leader of the operation. For a month plus. Then it claimed they know whom he is, then he got fired etc. Come on, this is a joke. As for Trump idiots they may be right wing - but they are not Nazi. You need to crack open history book and learn what Nazism is all about. It is a whole ideology. There is lots of there. Maybe they have a chapter about Ukraine, where Nazism, especially racial one, is more extreme then in WWII Germany (!!!) Yeah, Nuremberg laws were "soft". Also Trump idiots are republicans, for the most part, and thus would not like at all Nazism which is National *socialism*. Finally, I think it is clear to like 80% of Americans right now that Trump was far and wide better president then Biden. Which shows how terrible Biden is. I hope American people in November kick a lot of democrats out and republican majority force Biden / Kamala out for sheer incompetence.
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  9342.  @Bwaffle7826  Have you ever been in the army? Yes, they got the F u and then they all surrednered? Who believes this crap? Of course there are no conscripts - you have proven your point precisely. Come on. If I was on UA border with my platoon and found out Ivan is actually a conscript and we are about to go into combat in say 1h I would kindly ask Ivan to sign contract or I like be very angry. I also would be wondering who the hell did not catch that before that Ivan is a conscript! But for now I would try to make him not one. Meanwhile in a different platoon Sergei is also a conscript but he sits quiet and does not tell anyone. He was recently transferred to the unit, same as Ivan, as replacement for a guy that was sick. No one bloody knew there will be war. But now it is. And then there is bloody you whom points out these two and says - see - there are conscripts there! LOL! You did not present single piece of evidence. None. Not from US source, from UA source or from any source of any kind that there are units with 1/3 combat strength that is standard conscript load. NONE. Not even one. What you presented is: - a cook on a ship. One single known conscript among around 500 sailors. I would not be shocked if there were 2 of them. - few captured guys, that all signed contract "under stress" - or maybe it was the fact they were captured stressful??? You do know we have multiple video evidence of executions of Russian POWs, don't you? - a Russian law maker whom stated, based on no military source that there are 100 people that were conscripts but later they turned contract. Which actually makes it all legal, as they are no longer conscripts. Again, what you have is maybe a cook. One cook. On a ship. That was a shocker to have been hit. If I was a commander of the ship and even knew a conscript was on board I would have ignored it, as what are the odds ;) The rest are "forced" conscripts. Maybe couple actual conscripts - like Ivan and Sergei. Again, where is your EVIDENCE??? Where??? Ukraine captured around 2000 Russians and allies. Where are Russian reports in Russia of missing conscripts? At least 7000 Russians died in this war so far (my estimate) this would imply well over 2000 plus DEAD, no missing, conscripts! But all you have is 1 cook! Are all 1999 just quiet? Again, where is your evidence!
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  9473.  @ddshiranui  No we watched same videos you are just very easily swayed by propaganda and simply do not use logic. Let me fix that for you and use only facts, no "expert" opinions, no CNN just facts. 1. It took US weeks to get to Baghdad despite facing an army that lost a major war, was not supported by anyone and had no will to fight 2. It took US 6 weeks to take Falujah despite having 10:1 advantage and facing poorly armed and trained insurgents. 3. It took Russians also 6 weeks to take Mariupol, despite having only 3:1 advantage and facing the very best unit in Ukraine, Azov Nazi regiment. 4. Ukraine had the largest army wholly in Europe before the war started. They had the most tank, the best (!!!) air defenses (1 more battery of similar vintage AA then Germany (!)) 5. Ukraine is / was supported by all of NATO. As well as few western countries. Poland alone spent billions in aid and sent more then half of their own T-72s it had in storage. 6. At first Ukraine received only hand held weapons. Then S-300 (that was destroyed in like 24h), Polish offer for MiG-29s was rejected as provocation. But now, about 10 days ago parts to MiG-29 were sent as well as whole aircraft. Every NATO country is sending heavy weapons, tanks, artillery, AA systems. US almost enacted 33B in extra aid (!!!) US spending on Ukraine this year, total will, including 33B approach 50B (go check it out). 7. Russia never had more then 100k in Ukraine, Ukrainian army is around 300k, most 97% in ground forces - air power is small, navy does not exist. Ukraine has mobilized and added another 200k. At least 100k of that is in extra brigades. 8. All countries in Europe, not just Germany, reacted by buying guns. Lots of guns. 9. Donbass militia is armed with ex Ukrainian stuff, their numbers are at most 70k, including Chechens. Lets look at above facts and facts only. Compared to US I do not see Russian forces doing badly - in fact, they are doing great & much better then US forces did! This is comparing apples to apples. Facts only. We see small Russian force, mopping the floor with huge, western supported army. This reaction to Russian show of power - not a paper tiger - has forces the west to give everything they got. It also is forcing western countries to arm themselves much better. Your conclusions that Russians have corruption issues etc. could be true - but then if a corrupt army can do what Russians can do I fear that not corrupt Russian army is made of Gods. Conclusion is that Russian military capabilities were vastly under estimated. Look at facts and facts alone. This is why west though some RPGs will be enough ;) But this is not all - EU also vastly miss calculated sanctions where Russia did their math well!
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  9474.  @ddshiranui  Most of mainstream media is pure propaganda. Don't waste time on it. Read actual combat reports and info from actual first hand sources plus use logic. Russian focus on tanks is correct - tanks and armored vehicles multiply the force projection power. Everyone sees it and now everyone wants to imitate - i.e. heavy is the way to go - especially for small army. Tanks BTW are protected by infantry - plenty of videos from say Mariupol to show that. Infantry is a dismount from APC. No. Russian advance is NOW. In the first part of the war Russians did advance with tiny force. the idea may have been to catch Ukrainians unprepared to to grab some stuff for free. They did have some success but not enough. It is still puzzling what did exactly happen during first three weeks. Russian forces say near Kiev were smaller then police force in Kiev so way too tiny to even... police the city. Some say it was fixing operation. Day 1 was a success - paratroopers captured and held the airfield. But so what - it was holed and could not be used. Also support force that came in was tiny. Ukraine started with 2000 towed artillery pieces - please don't make a fool out of yourself thinking that 100 more from US will make a huge difference. Sanctions totally failed. Russians just decreased ruble percent to just 14%. Russian bonds have same yields as before - better then Poland. Ruble is up. I watch some videos by students in Russia. There does not seem to be any economic collapse at all. They complain prices went up like 40%. I counter that in Poland stuff went up... 100%. I doubt Russian economy will see any major decline - I would not be shocked to see modest GDP growth. Russian liberals are for Putin - idiot western sanctions erased Russian opposition. Putin pulled up 83% last month - I bet he is closer to 90% now. There is no exodus of Russian intelligentsia - you should actually watch people from Russia. Where these guys would go - to the west that hates them? There are plenty of rich women on Instagram tearing up $5000 bags to show support. Artists for Putin. Lots of Russians are disappointed with the west and are coming home. So the "exodus" is of Russians from the west. You should watch more videos of actual pp not some CNN BS propaganda. On the front line in Donbass Ukraine is folding. It will be a miracle if they are still not encircled by May 9th. Every day they are being pushed and they committed 100% of their force. Situation is terrible and Ukraine should surrender now and accept terms as in two weeks Putin will demand 2x as much land. Surrender now while you still can - limited time offer.
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  9602.  @maurvir3197  Russia did not switch to some total war economy. West is NOT handling Ukraine some excess old material - captured US Bradley was made in 2012. "Remember, the US and Europe are still in peace-time economies and aren't spending significantly on materiel production." EU does not have any means to do any "production" and they have no money to spend. They EU is on the brink of bankruptcy. The US military spending NOT AT WAR combined with interests payments are larger than that of Russia (!) US spends almost 50% of its tax income on military and interest payments.... I am sure US can somehow spend more on the military - maybe causing little starvation here and there ;) One has to note that aid to Ukraine is largest in human history. It is larger than all combined aid US sent during WWII. Expenditures on weapons alone are equivalent to all of EU - i.e. same number of tanks by value is sent to Ukraine per year as all of EU purchases. Eventually west may force China to enter the chat and it will dwarf any total war economy whole west can create. West made huge mistake by entering this war and now there does not seem to be any exit possible other than Russian total defeat of Ukraine. What do you propose? That west sends 2x purchase of weapons for all of EU to Ukraine??? Where will all that come from? Even if billions were spent to ramp up production - money that does not exist - it would take years to industrialize. Even with Hitler at the helm of Germany and Himmler saying that either you make a tank or die its not possible. It took Soviets 20 years to industrialize with millions that starved.... 20 years! Even with ramped up production by 2x we see Russia has at least 5x the advantage in ammo. In defense to overwhelm Russia one would need 3x or 4x production. Even with that you would need more people - people that Ukraine does not have. So either you need to send the French to the trenches or provide even more equipment. So say 6x. Where will all that stuff come from? People just don't seem to know how to count and realize they are asking for impossible.
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