Russia and Ukraine

[The Architect Of Fate]

Soledar was a minor victory that cost the Russians huge amounts of troops and equipment and months of fighting. Proof Russia can't fight because if they could they would have won weeks ago and this imaginary encirclement Russia simps keep bleating about isn't going to happen. It's amazing Russia can lose battle after battle and the simps will keep saying they aren't losing yet they win one minor victory and they act like it means something...

They are thinking about Endsieg. Its the only thing that matters. 

Russian simps are funny 

[The Grand Nudger]

Soledar is strategically important to Prigozhins bank account. He'll have to round up some pows and stolen kids to work the salt mines, but that shouldn't be a problem. Russia intends to build a bunch of labor camps and penal colonies in the occupied areas.

[Peebothuhlu]

Of course it doesn’t mean ‘indestructible’ - no one said it did. But the US has nearly 300 of these planes in mothballs.

During Desert Storm, the USAF flew 8000 sorties with A-10. Five were destroyed. Five. So, it’s clearly destroyable, but not easily so.

Boru

So... they have 300 of them?

I suddenly have an image of an A-10 'BRRRRRRRT-ing' at something with the caption;

"This! IS! UKRAINE!"

Being added underneath now.   

Not at work.

[Deesse23]

Soledar is strategically important to Prigozhins bank account.  He'll have to round up some pows and stolen kids to work the salt mines, but that shouldn't be a problem.  Russia intends to build a bunch of labor camps and penal colonies in the occupied areas.

Yeah, and Russia has "conquered several cities".
Which ones if i may ask?

Bel is also pontificating about alleged profiteers on the western side, while Shoigu with an annual salary of 100k has a mansion for several millions, or was that his wife?

[Thumpalumpacus]

For example, it looks as though these super-duper Abrams tanks which are going to fly in to rescue our man Zelensky are difficult to use because they require fuel that's different from other machines. This increases logistical and maintenance difficulties. And the reason they are built this way is because Rumsfeld used the Abrams program to enrich the Chrysler Corporation, which was struggling at the time. 

You're an idiot. The AGT1500 is a multifuel engine. You should perhaps take up the habit of fact-checking claims you come across. The engine wasn't built by Chrysler, either; it was built by Honeywell, as anyone who did even minimal reading to verify what he was repeating would have learned.

You're a low information blatherer who thinks he sounds intelligent when he deploys pseudorevolutionary rhetoric. Shit, I could have told you about the Turkish missile deal. And the F-35s weren't scrubbed because we were trying to control Turkey's purchasing. It was scrubbed because we did not want anyone to be able to examine the F-35 with a good modern radar under controlled conditions in order to defeat its stealth aspects. But that doesn't fit your tres-cool anti-American codswallop.

'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool ... I think you can finish this thought.

Thar goes for finding your military facts from Youtube videos. too. There's a lot of junk there and one must be careful.

[The Grand Nudger]

Soledar is strategically important to Prigozhins bank account.  He'll have to round up some pows and stolen kids to work the salt mines, but that shouldn't be a problem.  Russia intends to build a bunch of labor camps and penal colonies in the occupied areas.

Yeah, and Russia has "conquered several cities".
Which ones if i may ask?

Bel is also pontificating about alleged profiteers on the western side, while Shoigu with an annual salary of 100k has a mansion for several millions, or was that his wife?

Russia "conquers" piles of rubble.  Case in point....Soledar.  Meanwhile, on the grift angle, ukraine has just booted some ministers for corruption.  

The value that most of the piles of rubble have for ukraine, is that they're already destroyed and there's no one left in them for russia to torture, or murder, or kidnap.  If they can keep the conflict largely contained to them, that's a huge strategic victory.  If they can cause russia to chew up thousands of their men and hundred of their vehicles for a symbolic win, a russian version of a mission accomplished banner for domestic consumption, another strategic victory.

The irony here, is that the purported prize for russia in having taken soledar..is that gives them an oppurtunity to threaten bahkmut...which is another pile of rubble russia has been feeding.  No one doubts that russia is paying a huge price for these piles of rubble, which may yet get swept up in another ukranian wagon wheel at any moment - and which have been changing hands back and forth just about weekly since the start of the conflict.  No one doubts that russia is losing many...many more men than ukraine in the effort.  There is still the concern, ofc, expressed by ukranians soldiers on the front (and mangled by Bel so that it was more useful to his pack of lies) that Russia can, ultimately, afford the loss of those men more than ukraine can afford the loss of their own. That russia may be able to win despite having lost, and lost hard, in any given engagement. There is also, ofc, the fear that their western allies will extort them on russias behalf in the event that russia simply cannot win but will not leave.

[Pat Mustard]

New Zealand would happily send some tanks, but I think ours is being washed right now.

Boru

Thought ye built more than one Bob Semple? It'd still be better than what the Russians are fielding.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

New Zealand would happily send some tanks, but I think ours is being washed right now.

Boru

Thought ye built more than one Bob Semple?  It'd still be better than what the Russians are fielding.

Three. There were three. And they functioned about as well as you might imagine.

Boru

[The Architect Of Fate]

Look At This Glorious Beast.

[Pat Mustard]

I feel like Putin could've avoided all this current mess in the first place, were it not for his big ego. He, and the Russian government, should've taken more time  (before invading) to consider whether this whole invasion idea was a really good idea because clearly, things aren't going well for them, and they know that the Western powers weren't going to sit by and just watch. I know, hindsight is 20/20, but this is the situation Russia is in now. And both Russia and Ukraine are suffering because of it.

As for this whole idea about how Putin is sort of like the good guy in this story, and who just happens to be horribly misunderstood (which is what I keep reading on Quora), I don't buy it one bit.

ETA: It also doesn't matter whether the Russian government was provoked into doing it, because at some point, each government (and individual persons) should be held accountable for their own actions, and we shouldn't keep blaming others for what we ourselves do.

If Putain had done any sort of serious long term analysis of the Ukraine invasion, he would have realised that even if (somehow) his half baked invasion plan worked, the occupation was doomed to massive failure within a few years. Even by conservative efforts (assuming the lower end on number of occupation troops required, and assuming minimal post war resistance), it would have required a full time force of 800,000 troops to keep Ukraine occupied.

This is something Russia wouldn't have been able to manage for a matter of weeks, never mind the decades it needed to strengthen its grip on Ukraine.

But then again Putain is a narcissistic idiot who thought the people of Ukraine would immediately fall on their faces and start kissing his arse.