Russia invasion of Ukraine

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14847192

Asahi Shimbun ran a story on Mariia Gudzii, a 69-year old woman who got evvaced to Japan with help from her daughter, Kateryna, who lives in Mitaka.

Mariia, sadly can’t cope living in Japan even when her daughter wanted to help by serving her Ukrainian food. She also has a language barrier issue with her Japanese son-in-law and grandchild that she’s considering to go back to Kyiv.

[Key Board]

Changing countries at that age is really hard

I would consider relocating to the western side of the country first , but if every part of your country gets bombed periodically maybe the capital is the safest place

[Yu Ominae]

This really is the dilemma Japan has. Most of the expat Ukrainian and Russians who are against the invasions have stepped up to help Immigration Services Agency and various cities with Ukrainian language services to help the refugees cope.

Doesn't help that some editorials have accused Japan of doing the double standard.

[Yu Ominae]

Doing the first week of class (online so far) for Intelligence in Peace and War.

We did some discussion on the Russian War in Ukraine and how people underestimated the Russians. The Indian guy in my class (He's, according to Linkedin, an intelligence analyst of the Government of Assam) says that it's because of Yank support.

Prof slightly shot down his answer.

[GDB]

Underestimated or overestimated? Because I don't think anyone underestimated the Russians.

[Yu Ominae]

Maybe the latter. I confuse myself sometimes.

----

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarV...o_schools_with

A Wagner contractor returned back from the field and was "invited" to speak to school children about his experience.

[Key Board]

Originally Posted by Yu Ominae

Doing the first week of class (online so far) for Intelligence in Peace and War.

We did some discussion on the Russian War in Ukraine and how people underestimated the Russians. The Indian guy in my class (He's, according to Linkedin, an intelligence analyst of the Government of Assam) says that it's because of Yank support.

Prof slightly shot down his answer.

I have seen enough online chatter to expect someone from a BRICS region to root for Russia by default. Especially if they're terminally online

//

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/02/polit...deo/index.html

Meanwhile, fact checkers are working hard to dispel claims that Zelensky is asking for American interventions since conservative politicians (including MTG) are claiming this when he's not asking for them to come and help the Ukrainian military.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/com...images_russia/

Sat images of trenches being made in Crimea as we speak.

[Ithekro]

Well with the British doubling the number of Challenger 2 tanks going to Ukraine to 28, the Ukrainians will be operating a battalion of British tanks, a battalion of American tanks, and several battalions of German built tanks in the next several months. So, with these NATO tanks they will gain two (maybe three) tank brigades worth of tanks and other equipment. Which would rebuild maybe 40% of their prewar tank forces (assuming they have only seven tank brigades at the start of the war)

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well with the British doubling the number of Challenger 2 tanks going to Ukraine to 28, the Ukrainians will be operating a battalion of British tanks, a battalion of American tanks, and several battalions of German built tanks in the next several months. So, with these NATO tanks they will gain two (maybe three) tank brigades worth of tanks and other equipment. Which would rebuild maybe 40% of their prewar tank forces (assuming they have only seven tank brigades at the start of the war)

Ukraine has more or less had their tank force rebuilt to the pre-war level by donations or captures from former Warsaw Pact members (Ukraine has captured like 500 Russian tanks, Poland alone has donated 200-300 T-72s). The important thing about NATO tanks is that it represents a pool of higher quality AFVs to stand up new mech and armor brigades. This is important since Ukraine mobilized a lot more soldiers than they have heavy kit to outfit them all with to their standard force structure.

The issue of that relative to Russia is that while Russia does have very deep vehicle stocks to try to replace their own losses, how much of it is functional and how much of it can be refurbished up to modern standards is a bit up in the air. Russia is making attempts to refurbish some of their old stock to semi-modern standards, but we've also seen cold war era tanks without thermals getting pulled out as combat replacements, and some frankly bizarre Syria tier adhoc modifications to some of their vehicles. A lot of people potentially overstate the capability of western AFV's compared to the better parts of Russia's tank fleet pre-war, but by the time western AFV's show up in force I'm not certain how much of the better part of Russia's tank fleet will be left.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

but by the time western AFV's show up in force I'm not certain how much of the better part of Russia's tank fleet will be left.

Let's not forget the human factor, at least by some recent battles footage on the south, it seems the people piloting the tanks have not been adequately trained. So even if putin had a super-secret stack of up to date tanks, they would still underperform even against leopard 1.

Seems the battle of bakhmut is designed to decimate the better trained wagner mercenaries and their leader is already foreshadowing the return to pre-war boundaries since he knows the current situation is unsustainable.

[Roger Rambo]

In more somber/grotesque news. Some element of the Russian military released a video of them executing an unarmed(but defiant) Ukrainian POW with a freaking machine gun.


Considering that Russia and Ukraine still conduct prisoner exchanges (even of Azov Battalion guys), it doesn't seem like this kind of thing is necessarily a top down policy like some other Russian war crimes. But it seems to be very much a byproduct of the systemic brutality in the Russian Army right now.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Let's not forget the human factor, at least by some recent battles footage on the south, it seems the people piloting the tanks have not been adequately trained. So even if putin had a super-secret stack of up to date tanks, they would still underperform even against leopard 1.

Yeah, that's kind of an issue. There were some pretty notable reporting/rumors that from last year prior to mass mobilization that Russia was deploying a lot of the training elements from their Brigades to act as replacements for their combat losses. While Russia kept about half of their mass mobilized troops in reserve to try to train them somewhat properly (rather than just tossing them at the front-lines with 0-2 weeks training like the rest), one has to wonder if the Russian Army had enough qualified instructors to properly train the huge influx of newly mobilized troops. Especially for more technically demanding roles like tankers or artillerymen.

Ukrainians training on western AFV's by contrast have full access to dedicated trainers from NATO countries, including some high quality simulator equipment. On top of that, the Ukrainians seem to have largely selected already trained crews with battle experience. Has lead to some interesting comparison to the old soviet derived kit in terms of the improved quality, while not being as incomprehensible to figure out as some people had assumed.

I defo agree that Russia's higher end tanks aren't going to be nearly as effective even against less advanced vehicles if they can only get quasi trained mobilized troops to operate them. Of course we already saw that dog and pony show play out when Russia's professional tankers underperformed pretty badly against Ukrainian armored units operating less advanced tanks. I don't imagine things will get better if the Ukrainians get to have better crews and armor at the same time.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Some element of the Russian military released a video of them executing an unarmed(but defiant) Ukrainian POW with a freaking machine gun.
... it doesn't seem like this kind of thing is necessarily a top down policy like some other Russian war crimes.

I would disagree. I do not mean to say this was ordered by some top official, what I mean to say it is that the same mentality that bombs civilian infrastructure (like living complex, schools, hospitals & power generating plants) to generate fear in the population at large and make them unconditionally surrender. They russians know they are not winning by any metric and the only tool they know is brutality. Add the known fact that this grunts are cannon fodder that even if captured will end again in the front lines after a prisoner swap, a war crimes tribunal seems to them like something that will never materialize.

[MeoTwister5]

Russia just created a martyr that will further galvanize resistance to the invasion...

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarV...ize_platoon_is

Been seeing (a lot of) videos of Russians sent to East Ukraine and airing their complaints via video online.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Yu Ominae

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarV...ize_platoon_is

Been seeing (a lot of) videos of Russians sent to East Ukraine and airing their complaints via video online.

Yeah, I don't remember how many months ago the first started to appear, but here we have a crystal clear example of why autocratic regimes are bad, they will not think twice about killing their citizens (directly or indirectly) en masse if they so require.

The saddest part here is that this morons think the problem is that they do not have enough ammo/training/air support and not that putin launched a vanity war without the minimal preparations and one year later they are between a rock and a hard place thanks to one man's ego.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Yeah, I don't remember how many months ago the first started to appear, but here we have a crystal clear example of why autocratic regimes are bad, they will not think twice about killing their citizens (directly or indirectly) en masse if they so require.

The saddest part here is that this morons think the problem is that they do not have enough ammo/training/air support and not that putin launched a vanity war without the minimal preparations and one year later they are between a rock and a hard place thanks to one man's ego.

I mean what's really shocking is this isn't even new. Since the start of the war Russia has been press ganging "little Russians" living in the separatist held territories of Donetesk and Luhansk, outfitting them with bolt action rifles and ww2 helmets then assigning them to cannon fodder detachments. They even made video appeals complaining about it before they got sent to the killing fields. Now mobilized Russians are assigned to those same now highly depleted Separatist units, and are surprised to find themselves exposed to the same dysfunction and callousness of the Russian military.

Spoiler for Moist Nuggets:

Ultimately Russian citizens being willfully ignorant about their governments unfortunate combination of inept ruthlessness in pursuit of its ambitions didn't turn out to be a shield from the consequences of it.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.newsweek.com/us-man-john...russia-1784618

As of March 1, there’s report of an American volunteer who defected to Moscow.

John Mc Intyre was in the US army for two years before he went to Ukraine. He told RT that he wanted to infiltrate Azov, but joined the legion instead. He brought with him maps and other military information and provided it to the Russian Army/FSB.

He also mentioned fighting Nazis by helping the Russians and said Kyiv is fascist. He also claimed that all Ukrainian troops are Nazis.

Managed to escape via Odesa and then to Istanbul to Moscow. He says someone was able to figure him out.

John was a PFC and stationed in Fort Bliss, Texas as an Indirect Fire Infantryman (11C) from June 2015 to August 2017.

Calls himself a commie during his RT interview.

[Key Board]

sigh.. tankies

sadly I've noticed there are quite a few people who believe in "American imperialism bad. Russian imperialism good"

//