How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[barbos]

Yea, it's so funny. Of course the morale must be high for the Russian soldiers. Who wouldn't find it jolly to be sent to war by old fuckers! Think of all the adventure the lads are having in Ukraine!

Well, it's higher than ukrainian soldiers morale.

 

[barbos]

If there were a manual on how not to care for your military forces it would be written in Russian.

You know what ukrainian propaganda you parrot actually does?
They replace russian with ukrainian and vice versa.
So you need to change it back when you parrot it.
They are liars. Everything that comes out your media talking head mouth is 100% lie.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Yea, it's so funny. Of course the morale must be high for the Russian soldiers. Who wouldn't find it jolly to be sent to war by old fuckers! Think of all the adventure the lads are having in Ukraine!

Well, it's higher than ukrainian soldiers morale.

Yea right! That's the ticket.

 

[steve_bank]

China has thrown down the gauntlet. I expect this is also a justification for seizing Taiwan.

It would appear the battle between communism or whatever it really was never ended. My feeling is the Chinese are whipping themselves into a frenzy.

We keep expecting China and Russia to act like we do and it always fails. If we are nice enough and help build an economy they will be like us.

The saying is insanity is repeating the same failed response expecting a different response.

Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage over suggestion former Soviet states don't exist | CNN

European countries are demanding answers from Beijing after its top diplomat in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, in comments that could undermine China's efforts to be seen as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

www.cnn.com

Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage over suggestion former Soviet states don’t exist

European countries are demanding answers from Beijing after its top diplomat in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, in comments that could undermine China’s efforts to be seen as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

The remarks by China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye, who said during a television interview that former Soviet countries don’t have “effective status in international law,” have caused diplomatic consternation, especially in the Baltic states.

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia would be summoning Chinese representatives to ask for clarification, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed on Monday.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yea, it's so funny. Of course the morale must be high for the Russian soldiers. Who wouldn't find it jolly to be sent to war by old fuckers! Think of all the adventure the lads are having in Ukraine!

Well, it's higher than ukrainian soldiers morale.

Yea right! That's the ticket.

Reports are coming in that there was a shoot out between Russian soldiers among themselves. There's some high morale for you.

 

[Elixir]

Reports are coming in that there was a shoot out between Russian soldiers among themselves. There's some high morale for you.

Hey, that shows fighting spirit. At least they’re not sitting around playing their national roulette game. THAT would be a sign of possible flagging morale.

 

[steve_bank]

What will those wild and crazy fun loving Russian soldiers do next.

 

[ZiprHead]

Nobody important cares about lil' Biden's family drama.

Do you care about your government lying to you constantly?

Right back atcha there, chief.

My government lies way less than constantly.

How adorable you are.

Not only does your government lie, they force the people at gunpoint to lie too.

That's patently false. Nobody force people to lie in Russia.
There are few cases of people being convicted of lying, that's true. I disagree with this approach but I understand why government is doing it.

Can't call the war in Ukraine a war. If you do you get arrested. How is that not being forced to lie?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Serrendering en masse.

 

[Elixir]

Heh. Ukraine is labeling all Russian soldiers who surrender as "captured on the battlefield" rather than "surrendered", because Putler wants to send those who surrender to his prison camps.

 

[TV and credit cards]

China has thrown down the gauntlet. I expect this is also a justification for seizing Taiwan.

It would appear the battle between communism or whatever it really was never ended. My feeling is the Chinese are whipping themselves into a frenzy.

We keep expecting China and Russia to act like we do and it always fails. If we are nice enough and help build an economy they will be like us.

The saying is insanity is repeating the same failed response expecting a different response.

Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage over suggestion former Soviet states don't exist | CNN

European countries are demanding answers from Beijing after its top diplomat in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, in comments that could undermine China's efforts to be seen as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

www.cnn.com

Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage over suggestion former Soviet states don’t exist

European countries are demanding answers from Beijing after its top diplomat in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, in comments that could undermine China’s efforts to be seen as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

The remarks by China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye, who said during a television interview that former Soviet countries don’t have “effective status in international law,” have caused diplomatic consternation, especially in the Baltic states.

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia would be summoning Chinese representatives to ask for clarification, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed on Monday.

China quickly walked those comments back.

 

[Copernicus]

Nobody important cares about lil' Biden's family drama.

Do you care about your government lying to you constantly?

Right back atcha there, chief.

My government lies way less than constantly.

How adorable you are.

Not only does your government lie, they force the people at gunpoint to lie too.

That's patently false. Nobody force people to lie in Russia.
There are few cases of people being convicted of lying, that's true. I disagree with this approach but I understand why government is doing it.

Can't call the war in Ukraine a war. If you do you get arrested. How is that not being forced to lie?

Some people aren't forced to lie, but choose to as a way of showing support for the Putin regime. Perhaps what barbos means here is that the others are being forced to lie and that he approves of that means to an end, even though he would rather they lied willingly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your SAMs are no cheaper than ours. You do have a lot more of them, though, because we have based our strategy more on control of the skies.

It IS cheaper. First Russia does not have MIC markup
you have. Second it is simpler, I mean rockets themselves are simpler.

If your SAMs are "dirt cheap" why did you lose the Moskova?

Because of fire.

Still denying the missile hits??

I'm saying that if SAMs were dirt cheap they would have downed those drones rather than simply watching them--and thus their radar would have been back in search mode and spotted the Ukrainian missiles.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ukraine has not shown it can take urban areas.

Do they need to? Urban areas are a nightmare to fight in, so unless they conceal a highly important strategic objective, such as a bridge/river crossing, the smart move is to go around, cutting off supplies to the forces in the city until they are forced to surrender.

You need to educate yourself more. The only place where nazi forces can feel relatively safe is concrete urban areas and purpose built fortifications. In the open field their life expectancy is close to zero.
And now, Russia started using FAB500 , purpose built fortifications are no longer safe.

Really, now?!?!

(Argh--I didn't notice the units were kg, not pounds. The idea remains valid, though.)
Google hit #1 shows this to be a standard 500 kg general purpose bomb. To drop an iron bomb with reasonable accuracy you have to go into the MANPAD envelope of whatever you're targeting. Russia has shown great reluctance to do that these days because they've lost too many planes that way.

And note the only good reason for using a 500 kg unguided bomb these days is because you're dropping a lot of them from a heavy bomber--but said bomber wouldn't survive over Ukraine. Planes with external hardpoints you'll be putting bigger bombs on them if you have them--which says Russia is running out of them. External hardpoints usually carry 1000kg/2000# bombs.

(Yes, you might drop a 500 kg to minimize collateral damage--but if you do it's going to be a guided bomb. Same as we were preparing to drop hunks of concrete on Baghdad--plink tanks while greatly reducing collateral damage.)

 

[Jayjay]

In this case though, it wasn't a professional spy who'd have a "distress code" but just some idiot posting classified info to impress his buddies. It would have been possible to just take over his computer while detaining the guy, coerce him to give his passwords or hack them, and then keep posting slightly edited new "leaks".

But I seriously doubt this is what happened. Apparently he'd been leaking classified info since the beginning of the war, and was caught only now. It looks like a complete fuck up.

Bottom line, despite your initial proclamations, Russia has nothing to do with it.

My "initial proclamations" which I corrected in the same post:

If the leaked files are altered, it's probably because the leak came from Russian intelligence. And that means they might have more files also.

EDIT: my mistake, apparently the leaked documents are also available in the internet, and the Russian edit was done later.

The edit grace period is, what, 60 minutes? I was under a wrong impression of what happened for almost an hour, oh my! And that coming from a guy who insists a full year after the fact that Moskva sunk because of a "fire" which had nothing to do with Ukrainian missiles or drones.

Info itself is not that interesting to anyone who follows this war.

Well it did show that your claims of 100k/150k/200k (made since last summer, each time increasing the figure to ever more fantastical realms) Ukrainian KIA were full of shit.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I'd sure like to know how they are maintaining a supply line. I doubt they are using the Antonovskiy bridge/ford.

Ukrainian military claims "impressive results" against Russian forces on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.

“We have managed to hit and destroy artillery pieces, tanks, vehicles, armored vehicles, and enemy air defense systems,” Natalia Humeniuk said. “In other words, our work on clearing the front line of the east bank is quite powerful, but we are still working in a counter-battery mode.”

 

[barbos]

Info itself is not that interesting to anyone who follows this war.

Well it did show that your claims of 100k/150k/200k (made since last summer, each time increasing the figure to ever more fantastical realms) Ukrainian KIA were full of shit.

No, it did not show that. It showed that ukrainians are lying to Pentagon about their losses. And Pentagon is happy about it.

 

[barbos]

Really, now?!?!

yes, really.

(Argh--I didn't notice the units were kg, not pounds. The idea remains valid, though.)
Google hit #1 shows this to be a standard 500 kg general purpose bomb. To drop an iron bomb with reasonable accuracy you have to go into the MANPAD envelope of whatever you're targeting. Russia has shown great reluctance to do that these days because they've lost too many planes that way.

Oh boy, you're even more misinformed than I thought.
Russia uses GPS/GLONAS guided gliding bombs. So take your MANPAD and throw it into trash.
And no, Russia have not lost many planes. I doubt they lost any Su-35. Few old su-25, sure, but not Su-35.

 

[barbos]

The edit grace period is, what, 60 minutes? I was under a wrong impression of what happened for almost an hour, oh my!

There was no russian edits. And documents did not come from russian intelligence as you have proclaimed.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Really, now?!?!

yes, really.

(Argh--I didn't notice the units were kg, not pounds. The idea remains valid, though.)
Google hit #1 shows this to be a standard 500 kg general purpose bomb. To drop an iron bomb with reasonable accuracy you have to go into the MANPAD envelope of whatever you're targeting. Russia has shown great reluctance to do that these days because they've lost too many planes that way.

Oh boy, you're even more misinformed than I thought.
Russia uses GPS/GLONAS guided gliding bombs. So take your MANPAD and throw it into trash.
And no, Russia have not lost many planes. I doubt they lost any Su-35. Few old su-25, sure, but not Su-35.

Russia has lost 24 SU-35s so far in Ukraine. Russia also traded 60 SU-35s to Iran for drones, and munitions. Russia start out with a total of 110 SU-35s.

Russia has used its SU-57s against Ukraine, but only to launch long range missiles from Russian held territory far out of range of Ukrainian air defense systems. These attacks are why longer range Patriot missile systems are desirable for Ukraine.