Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

[VorZakone]

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[VorZakone]

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[VorZakone]

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[The Firestarter]

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In case anyone had any doubts

 

[Rajma]

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What a muppet, when does his term end?

 

[Simbo]

Increasing murmurs of Russian withdrawal in this area. This is where AFU has been building forces for a while and the on the route most people think the next main push will be, toward Melitopol.

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[Organic Potatoes]

Increasing murmurs of Russian withdrawal in this area. This is where AFU has been building forces for a while and the on the route most people think the next main push will be, toward Melitopol.

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Polohy on the right side of the last image has been getting mentioned; was supposed to have been hit hard over the past couple weeks.

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[frostbite]

 

[Red_toad]

The conditioning of most of those people is amazing. Propaganda is like second nature, it just flows out of them.

 

[The United]

Increasing murmurs of Russian withdrawal in this area. This is where AFU has been building forces for a while and the on the route most people think the next main push will be, toward Melitopol.

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I do wonder though if the UKR forces have combat capability right now with the current weather condition to open another major offensive deep into the east.

 

[ShoePolish]

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[frostbite]

I have posted this question many times: why NATO does not provide Ukraine with modern airplanes (F-16) and modern tanks?

I read some explanations that involve "escalation", "fear", "nuclear holocaust", etc... but I wasn't convinced.

For the first time I read an answer that makes sense to me: It is too difficult to set up proper maintenance for these complex systems during a war. The M777 is a much less complicated weapon, and still many of them are out of order in Ukraine and they have to be sent back to Poland or Germany to be fixed. F-16s are much more complicated and need even more maintenance. The hard part is not to train the pilots. The hard part is to create the maintenance infrastructure and train the engineers.

I have no idea if the author is correct, but I have finally found an explanation that makes sense to me!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...Ukraine-hasn-t-gotten-the-most-modern-weapons

Ukraine update: There's a good reason Ukraine hasn't gotten the most modern weapons

 

[Rajma]

Russian opposition in exile:

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Russian opposition and liberals are all about ending corruption , so that their tanks and equipment can become better at killing. As I told you many pages ago, their society is fundamentally broken on every level. Until total capitulation including giving up the nukes there can not be any talks about going back to “normality” by west.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

F-16s are much more complicated and need even more maintenance. The hard part is not to train the pilots. The hard part is to create the maintenance infrastructure and train the engineers.

I don't get it. We're talking about a design that is almost half of a century old as the F-16 saw its first flight in 1974 and then entered service in 1978. How can it be more complicated to train engineers and give them what they need for maintenance of F-16s compared to MiG-29s?

 

[Rajma]

I don't get it. We're talking about a design that is almost half of a century old as the F-16 saw its first flight in 1974 and then entered service in 1978. How can it be more complicated to train engineers and give them what they need for maintenance of F-16s compared to MiG-29s?

Also, if the training of these engineers would have started a long time ago now this stupid excuse would hold any longer but this is being delayed due to some weak hands in WH costing many Ukrainian lives for no good reason.

 

[stefan92]

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This appears to be Kusemivka, one of the last strongholds before Kreminna. AFU troops have reportedly been seen as close as 2km near Kreminna so while progress has been slow in that area, it has also been steady. As it's now freezing troops should become more mobile again and we might see some faster advances in the next weeks again (also I too believe that they will put more focus on the Melitopol direction, but we will see..)

 

[the hea]

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[Simbo]

I do wonder though if the UKR forces have combat capability right now with the current weather condition to open another major offensive deep into the east.

Conditions do seem pretty awful right now, I'm sure it's a bit of a waiting game even if they are ready. Temps right now are the worse, 4 degrees during day so overnight frost melts and everything stays damp, muddy & miserable. If they get some solid sub-zero day temps, that may bring some opportunity.

 

[harms]

Russian opposition in exile:

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Russian opposition and liberals are all about ending corruption , so that their tanks and equipment can become better at killing. As I told you many pages ago, their society is fundamentally broken on every level. Until total capitulation including giving up the nukes there can not be any talks about going back to “normality” by west.

I don’t generally agree with you on the matter but fecking hell… I had really hoped for a mistranslation or something similar.

Edit: I do know a few of TV Rain guys personally, including their editor-in-chief and I know that the generalization that you've made at the beginning is far from being the truth but this segment is bad enough to more than excuse it. I think it does show the bigger issue that you can point out in the Russian media in exile is that they're still focused on Russia a bit too much as in comparison to what's happening to Ukraine... from one point it's understandable but it does sometimes lead to inexcusable mishaps (can't find a better word but this one seems too light) like this one.

 

[Cloud7]

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Everytime I see a statement from him they just get worse and worse

 

[hellhunter]

What a muppet, when does his term end?

Just been elected roughly a year ago, so in three years

 

[harms]

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Seems like a logical thing to do, right until he decides to invade someone else.

 

[Rajma]

I don’t generally agree with you on the matter but fecking hell… I had really hoped for a mistranslation or something similar.

Edit: I do know a few of TV Rain guys personally, including their editor-in-chief and I know that the generalization that you've made at the beginning is far from being the truth but this segment is bad enough to more than excuse it. I think it does show the bigger issue that you can point out in the Russian media in exile is that they're still focused on Russia a bit too much as in comparison to what's happening to Ukraine... from one point it's understandable but it does sometimes lead to inexcusable mishaps (can't find a better word but this one seems too light) like this one.

I stopped watching TV rain some time ago but for me as you say the biggest issue is that all these “opposition” channels tend to as you say focus on issues from regular Russian perspective instead of drilling the real messages home even if those completely contradict their propaganda influenced view of reality and will push the viewers away.

 

[VorZakone]

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[harms]

I stopped watching TV rain some time ago but for me as you say the biggest issue is that all these “opposition” channels tend to as you say focus on issues from regular Russian perspective instead of drilling the real messages home even if those completely contradict their propaganda influenced view of reality and will push the viewers away.

They have fired the guy just now. Not sure what reaction I've expected from them, especially since I doubt that he went rogue on live TV, but I guess it's a decent gesture from their part.

 

[Zen86]

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Everyone knows there’s no backsies on renouncing aggression

 

[Lemoor]

Everyone knows there’s no backsies on renouncing aggression

Scholz will personally force him to do a pinky promise.

 

[TwoSheds]

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Apparently the BASF plant in Germany on its own uses more natural gas than the entirety of Switzerland. Ever since the financial crisis and before German politics has been incredibly self interested and myopic. Any kindnesses to other eurozone countries and beyond have only been about maintaining stability and success in Germany. The exception might be their acceptance of refugees but even that was likely decided on an economic basis as much as it was humanitarian.

Hopefully ordinary German people will see the folly in trying to cling on to an unsustainable model and that their economy needs to be reoriented around cleaner domestic sources of energy, but I won't hold my breath. The good thing about their politics is at least they also have green voices in the room and other competing ideas making up the government and it's not winner takes all dipshittery like in the UK.

 

[Rajma]

They have fired the guy just now. Not sure what reaction I've expected from them, especially since I doubt that he went rogue on live TV, but I guess it's a decent gesture from their part.

You don’t need to look far to understand how Putin regime should be fought in the right way if you’re in the opposition. Look no further than Kasparov.

 

[stefan92]

The exception might be their acceptance of refugees but even that was likely decided on an economic basis as much as it was humanitarian.

Th way that was done created a huge economical burden, it would have needed to be dealt with quite differently to be anything other than humanitarian.

Apparently the BASF plant in Germany on its own uses more natural gas than the entirety of Switzerland.

[...]

Hopefully ordinary German people will see the folly in trying to cling on to an unsustainable model and that their economy needs to be reoriented around cleaner domestic sources of energy, but I won't hold my breath.

The idea was that gas is cleaner than coal, reducing gas usage currently means burning more coal which is the only readily available fuel for existing powerplants.

But more gas is used in private households than for powerplants anyway (mostly for heating), so getting rid of gas means changing stuff in the majority of German private houses - which will obviously take a lot of time. Currently if you want a modern heat pump system installed in your house you have to wait 6-12 months, and that's without a big effort to renovate older houses, that's mostly just for new buildings.

And regarding BASF etc you seem to misunderstand what they are needing gas for - not as an energy source, but as a raw material for chemical reactions. At some point the world as a while will need to completely redesign it's chemical industries, but so far there simply doesn't exist a solution to get rid of gas an ingredient to most processes.

 

[TwoSheds]

Th way that was done created a huge economical burden, it would have needed to be dealt with quite differently to be anything other than humanitarian.


The idea was that gas is cleaner than coal, reducing gas usage currently means burning more coal which is the only readily available fuel for existing powerplants.

But more gas is used in private households than for powerplants anyway (mostly for heating), so getting rid of gas means changing stuff in the majority of German private houses - which will obviously take a lot of time. Currently if you want a modern heat pump system installed in your house you have to wait 6-12 months, and that's without a big effort to renovate older houses, that's mostly just for new buildings.

And regarding BASF etc you seem to misunderstand what they are needing gas for - not as an energy source, but as a raw material for chemical reactions. At some point the world as a while will need to completely redesign it's chemical industries, but so far there simply doesn't exist a solution to get rid of gas an ingredient to most processes.

Yes but synthetic fuels, biogas, landfill gas, things like that are what they need to work on for chemical feedstock. They can't just try to go back to the heyday of cheap Russian natural gas as a) it's not sustainable environmentally and b) it's not sustainable geopolitically/economically. Fundamentally more clean, domestically sourced, secure energy is the way to secure the future of their industry.

And ref the immigration, an extra several million young workers will prove to be a great boon for the German economy and public services in the next few decades regardless of the initial costs.

 

[harms]

You don’t need to look far to understand how Putin regime should be fought in the right way if you’re in the opposition. Look no further than Kasparov.

I'm not sure if Kasparov does anything that really helps to fight the regime.

Said harms, the famous revolutionist.

 

[VorZakone]

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[VorZakone]

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[VorZakone]

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[Raoul]

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If the Russians are resorting to this sort of thing it must mean they are on the brink of losing.

 

[Raoul]

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Nothing will come of any meeting with Putin.

 

[VorZakone]

If the Russians are resorting to this sort of thing it must mean they are on the brink of losing.

Not sure about brink of losing but it gave me Godfather horsehead vibes.

 

[Raoul]

Not sure about brink of losing but it gave me Godfather horsehead vibes.

It could also mean their intelligence services have been told to do what they can to inflict damage on any Ukrainian interests, which would be an act of pure late stage desperation in a war they can't wain on the battlefield.

 

[frostbite]

I don't get it. We're talking about a design that is almost half of a century old as the F-16 saw its first flight in 1974 and then entered service in 1978. How can it be more complicated to train engineers and give them what they need for maintenance of F-16s compared to MiG-29s?

Also, if the training of these engineers would have started a long time ago now this stupid excuse would hold any longer but this is being delayed due to some weak hands in WH costing many Ukrainian lives for no good reason.

I have zero experience in maintenance of military equipment, so I really don't know how easy or hard it is.

But I have a little experience with cars. Learning to drive a car is very easy, a month is enough. Now, learning to fix a car? How long do you need to learn? Are a few months, or even a couple of years, enough to be able to fix a car? Now add the war, the mud, the shortages, the difficult conditions... it becomes really complicated.

Now the car is actually simple compared to military equipment. For example, a military jet is subjected to huge forces. From simple Physics, I can guess that if 100 things can go wrong in a car in normal conditions, there are thousands of things that can go wrong in an F-16 in war conditions. And it is not easy to diagnose what is wrong, what has failed, how to take it apart, how to replace the failed part, and how to put it all back. And if you made a mistake, the flying jet is not like a car where you will call to be towed to a mechanic.