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Russia-Ukraine War - News and Developments

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@Huffal

And slowly but surely....
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Was asking myself some question also. Why VKS failed to close the Ukrainian Airspace?

Better yet, I have another question for you.

Why Zelenskyy still able to broadcast his speech/meet virtually to Western Leader?

I mean, look at his video, he did US Congress this morning, Canadian Parliament 2 days ago, British Parliament earlier this week, and EU and NATO last week. I am not saying Russia should be able to assassinate him (that would actually be bad for Russia as this will make him a martyr) But Russia should have put pressure on him, and put him on the move, they can also jam their communication, taking out internet or TV infrastructure.

Why all that was not done?

That leads to 2 conclusion.

1.) Russia is Culminating - They have no resource left to pursuit those measure.
2.) Russia military is not fighting this war - Putin is behind all the decision. Essentially he is doing a Hitler, he is no military man, he don't process proper military knowledge, if Russia Military is running this war, all these will basically priority number 1. Which mean Russia is entering dangerous territories here. A person have no wartime experience in charge of the entire operation....
In DC, I had so many heated discussions with my Air Force friends about the VKS. A lot of pizzas and booze, mine is bourbon. I am the most generous of the bunch, as well as the oldest, and I fought for the VKS at as many turn as possible. But I was outnumbered and out-argued.

Point 1. That the VKS reached its logistical limits. Then who the hell told the generals they had enough to prosecute the war? Back in Desert Storm, we never ran out of 'bullets'. We had jets returned from a sortie, taxied in, refueled, re-armed, then taxied out, only to return to change ordnance, and we never failed. I literally had my jet changed from ground (all bombs) to air (all missiles) sortie within five minutes of hot refuel because of one phone call.

Point 2. This is my favorite.

As to why Zelensky was able to broadcast, I lean more towards the technical. It seems Poutine failed to anticipate Elon Musk and his satellite link stations. To cut Poutine some slack, I do not think anyone could have anticipated Elon Musk. For something as valuable as your president talking directly to the US Congress or the Canadian parliament or whoever outside Ukraine, you better make sure your president have the best connection possible as it could be his only chance. Did Musk do a James Bond 'Q' and somehow gave Zelensky a secure interweb connection no matter where and under what condition? Those virtual meetings were not secrets. So if Russian 'hackers' could not interrupt, maybe the best of of them were busy trying to scam money instead of being in the service of their country.
 
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What is agreed upon is that the Russian performance is not worthy of the status of the second most powerful army in the world..But at the same time, let us remember that the balance of power is not measured by the performance of armored units and mechanized infantry, but by other strategic factors.

The biggest problem that the Russians fell into was the incompatibility of their combat concepts with the type of war they entered. NATO trained and armed Ukraine not to be able to repel a military invasion, but to be a trap and quagmire for the Russian army..

That is why It is difficult to understand, for example, how helicopters and vehicles were stacked at Kherson Airport, far from its control, without adequate security operations or field fortifications, and the airport is known for its geographical coordinates, and any missile launcher can target it from a range of tens of kilometers!..

Also, heavy vehicles were dropped at Antonov Airport, near Kyiv. It is not know what they were expecting other than bombing the airport, whether the enemy knew the coordinates, type and size of the forces or not..

The forces that storm the cities are inexperienced, their tactics are poor, and there is no security for supply convoys..

The Russian performance is worthy of a major war against NATO, where there is no place but for great firepower, and it does not matter to control the cities as long as they can be surrounded and circumvented and threaten them with surrender or mass destruction..

On the other hand, the Russians also did not advance their best forces, nor their latest weapons, and even the opening strikes of the war were modest, it seems there is a saving in the use of qualitative weapons..

The Russians are using the oldest in their arsenal!!!

And, by the way, the Russian ground forces do not constitute all the forces deployed in Ukraine..

The Russian forces that were noticed in Ukraine are the following:


1- Russian National Guard


View attachment 824805

Camouflage

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The Chechen forces are affiliated with the National Guard, not the Russian army, and this particular branch is strongly involved in the current operations!!!

View attachment 824808


2- DNR forces

They are the Donbas separatist forces, they number about 44 thousand and are the spearhead on the southern and eastern front..

View attachment 824809

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3- Russian Airborne Forces VDV

They are very active in the Kyiv and Kharkiv fronts, where they have carried out many special tasks behind the Ukrainian lines, most of which have been successful, including the control of Antonov Airport, for example..

View attachment 824812

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The armored forces participating in the battle are difficult to determine to which service they belong in Russia, but there are some factors indicating that they are newly established forces and not professional forces!!!


Final note:

The uniform of the Russian ground forces is the digital flora camo known as EMR, which is generalized to the Russian infantry and mechanized forces.. there are many variants,,

https://kula-tactical.com/what-camo-does-russia-use

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Another group that is not listed is the LPR (Lugansk People's Republic) forces.

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Sure you are not. :rolleyes:


So now we can put John Mearsheimer's theory of great powers geopolitics to the test where, for the sake of discussion in this little corner of the interweb, we will legitimize his theory as valid justification to respond under the national security umbrella. We have two relatively contemporary real world situations.

Situation 1:
The US is a great power and is the leader of the democracy bloc.​
Cuba is a neighbor and is a member of the communist bloc, not of the Warsaw Pact in particular, but of the communist bloc in general.​
Cuba hosts nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, the leader of the communist bloc.​
The US responded with a blockade of Cuba.​
The US negotiated with the Soviet Union for a successful settlement.​
The Soviet Union withdraw the nuclear weapons.​
The US ended the blockade.​

Situation 2:
Russia was once a Soviet state, leader of the Soviet Union, and leader of the communist bloc.​
Russia today is a great power and is no member or leader of any bloc.​
Ukraine was once a Soviet state, not an allied country but a member of the Soviet Union who had full jurisdiction over Ukraine.​
Ukraine today is an independent country next to Russia and is no member of any bloc.​
Ukraine expressed an interest in being a member of the democratic bloc and specifically NATO but no actual admittance occurred.​
Russia responded by invading Ukraine.​
We can see the different responses by both great powers regardless of their neighbors. Both great powers felt threatened but at different stages of the national security crisis.

So under Mearsheimer's theory of great powers geopolitics, to what degrees of response is acceptable?
Why are you so obsessed with Mearsheimer? You're stuck talking about him because someone mentioned him like 10-20 pages earlier.

And yes,I'm not a communist. On the contrary. I'm everything communists despise actually. Greek Orthodox and romantic pro-monarchist 😋

People don't have to be communists to oppose Western invasions.
 
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