Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

MTF

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Re. Russian troops that came all the way from Vladivostok, in Russia's far East ...

Deputy commander of the 155th brigade of the Russian Federation still admitted catastrophic losses in the war – journalist

" About 80% of the bodies of dead servicemen could not be taken from the combat area. Today, the losses in the brigade amount to more than 500 dead and missing,” the report says."

https://ukrainetoday.org/2022/04/16...ed-catastrophic-losses-in-the-war-journalist/
Looked into this for a second, found that on March 28th Putin signed a decree giving the 155th Separate Marine Brigade the status of Guards unit, so something definitely happened with them.
 

horsechoker

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I'm not going to use the devil's advocate phrase, because it's really dumb, but should we put so much faith into Twitter threads? Every page there's a new thread . This time the person has 112 followers and the thread itself has a grand total of 17 retweets and 31 likes. That doesn't mean its wrong, but it's a little bit like linking to a post on another forum and saying "here, read this 17 paragraph post".
Amen, I hate the format, its not even about the content. Can people just write blogs? What happened to Twitlonger?
 

GlastonSpur

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The BBC reports:

"Another Russian general reported dead

The deputy commander of the 8th army of Russia's armed forces, Vladimir Petrovich Frolov, has died in the war in Ukraine, the Russian news agency TASS has reported.

The news was confirmed by St Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov. Beglov said: "Vladimir Petrovich Frolov died a heroic death in battle with Ukrainian nationalists ..."
 

GlastonSpur

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Looks like Mariupol is falling now. Guess it was inevitable.
The BBC reports:

"Soldiers in Mariupol 'continue to hold the defence' - Ukrainian official

As we've been reporting, there is no indication from Ukraine that it will be surrendering to Russia in the besieged city of Mariupol.

An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andriushchenko, said on Telegram that despite Russia's "'surrender corridor' for the remaining troops" in the city, "our defenders continue to hold the defence".
 

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GlastonSpur

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1 quote tweet, 0 likes, barely 10 minutes old and with Reddit as a source. Account has 600 followers.

Are you posting your own tweets, or if not how are you finding these things?
The survey cited - from Global Soft Power Index 2022 - is the focus, not the tweeter, nor Reddit. If you think the survey is questionable, then why?

I don't have a personal Twitter account.
 

NotThatSoph

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The survey cited - from Global Soft Power Index 2022 - is the focus, not the tweeter, nor Reddit. If you think the survey is questionable, then why?

I don't have a Twitter account.
Just curious, I have no issue with the survey or what it shows.
 

Pintu

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Even if it "falls" it would be a non-victory for the Russians given that there's no city left.
I think its all about the land bridge to Criema. They can sell that internally as an important victory.
 

GlastonSpur

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Thing about it is, from what Zalensky is saying, Ukraine isn’t gonna stop fighting to push them out of that land bridge.
I think the supply of Switchblade drones is going to have a big effect in due course, depending on how many can be or will be supplied. The Russian military have no defence against these, and some variants have a range of 40km.

The cheapest variant costs only $6,000. I don't how how quickly they can be manufactured, but pretty rapidly I would have thought. If thousands - or even tens of thousands - of these can be supplied to Ukraine, then the Russians in occupied territory could see dozens of these raining down every single day until there are no more Russians left.
 

Carolina Red

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I think the supply of Switchblade drones is going to have a big effect in due course, depending on how many can be or will be supplied. The Russian military have no defence against these, and some variants have a range of 40km.

The cheapest variant costs only $6,000. I don't how how quickly they can be manufactured, but pretty rapidly I would have thought. If thousands - or even tens of thousands - of these can be supplied to Ukraine, then the Russians in occupied territory could see dozens of these raining down every single day until there are no more Russians left.
Yes. Using them to clear an area of Russian armor and artillery could go a helluva long way to helping Ukraine preserve their armor for the actual breakthrough stage of an assault.
 

sun_tzu

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I think the supply of Switchblade drones is going to have a big effect in due course, depending on how many can be or will be supplied. The Russian military have no defence against these, and some variants have a range of 40km.

The cheapest variant costs only $6,000. I don't how how quickly they can be manufactured, but pretty rapidly I would have thought. If thousands - or even tens of thousands - of these can be supplied to Ukraine, then the Russians in occupied territory could see dozens of these raining down every single day until there are no more Russians left.

I believe the commitment so far is more like 100

A mix of switchblade 300 (not anti armour costing circa 6k)... 10km limit of operations

And switchblade 600 cost a lot more is anti armor and operates at 40km

It may also include the unarmed s300 variant as well?
 

Carolina Red

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I believe the commitment so far is more like 100

A mix of switchblade 300 (not anti armour costing circa 6k)... 10km limit of operations

And switchblade 600 cost a lot more is anti armor and operates at 40km

It may also include the unarmed s300 variant as well?
We’ve sent 300 more switchblades

 

Raoul

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I'm actually surprised that only 74 percent in the UK and 60 percent in the US think Russia are to blame. Id expect it to be well into the 90 percent plus range
The US numbers are probably down to anti-establishment elements on both the left and right - the fringe left is largely anti-interventionist and the fringe right more or less vacillate between Trump's NATO skepticism to Rand Paul style isolationism. The US is a divided country so it should come as no surprise that there is a lack homogeneity on even something simple as who the bad guy is in the Russia-Ukraine war.
 
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GlastonSpur

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I'm actually surprised that only 74 percent in the UK and 60 percent in the US think Russia are to blame. Id expect it to be well into the 90 percent plus range
OK, but you have to figure in those who say 'don't know'.' So in the UK for example, it looks like less than 10% blame Ukraine/NATO/the U.S.

The real standout for me is the 25% (?) in the U.S. who blame the U.S - due the influence of Fox News/Trump **** I guess.
 

Carolina Red

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OK, but you have to figure in those who say 'don't know'.' So in the UK for example, it looks like less than 10% blame Ukraine/NATO/the U.S.

The real standout for me is the 25% (?) in the U.S. who blame the U.S - due the influence of Fox News/Trump **** I guess.
Mostly, but not exclusively. As you can tell on here, there’s folks on the opposite end of the spectrum from Fox/Trump who also blame the US.
 

GlastonSpur

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The BBC reports:

"The Ukrainian troops defending the huge Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol may hold out for a long time with guerrilla tactics, using its nuclear bunkers and tunnels, a military expert says.

Justin Crump of security consultancy Sibylline told the BBC "they are really well set for defence", having had more than 50 days to fortify the site and build escape routes.

"I suspect that unless they are wiped out they’ll be there a long time - they could do nasty stuff at night, and go back in."

He estimates as many as 800 fighters are defending the plant, led by the far-right Azov Battalion - a group vilified by Russia as "neo-Nazis".

"The soldiers there don’t want to get captured, I don’t think they'll surrender. And Russia doesn’t want to go in and clear it out metre by metre, underground, that's horrendous," he said.

Ukraine has managed to resupply its beleaguered forces in Mariupol in very risky night-time missions, he said.

The steelworks is a key industrial site and, if Russia does get control of it, "maybe the Chinese will get them back in operation, as they want the steel", Mr Crump said. But it will take years to rebuild devastated Mariupol, he added."