Latest Ukraine/Russia Thread

[Hatfort]

1 minute ago, The Crocodile said:

Wasn't it supposed to have that secured like ten years ago?

And weren't they supposed to have toppled Kyiv in a few days or weeks in February 2022? But it's been a stalemate for two years until the Ukrainians were given the ahead to basically do whatever they want.

But . . . now they have Ukrainian troops in Russia and assassins in Russia? With generals and administrators getting killed in both combat and assassinations?

And the scary American drone technology being superior, just able to kill numerous numbers of Russian soldiers and destroy columns of tanks in minutes?

Any contradiction of this just seems like blatant arbitrary pro-East anti-West propaganda.

No, Crimea was separated from Russia, and the Azov Sea was half Ukranian until two years ago. Now it's Russian.

Yeah, Russia didn't win in one week, we saw that three years ago, you guys are stuck in that frame of time, because you don't want to address what has happened since then, Ukraine failed a counteroffensive that was supposed to be magnificent, but it wasn't, it was a total failure. Russia has been getting more and more land in a consistent basis since then, and this consistency is getting it to victory.

Everyone is using drones, Ukraine is, Russia is, times have changed yes, and we'll see where it goes, but if you think Russia or China are not investing in military technology like the West is, you guys live in wonderland.

I just address the multipolar nature of the world we are living now, which is a pill that the previous unilateral one will have to swallow, because a real war between big powers like this would be a total disaster. A big problem is that the US has since WWII a war-based economy, not totally, but in a big part, that's why it steps from one war to another, Vietnam, Afganistan, Irak, and the proxy ones like this one. The world is tired of this shit, mostly the East, because it suffers bigly from it.

[The Crocodile]

@Hatfort I think the main problem is that you're just pro-Russia. If you get rid of that then the rest of the bullshit falls apart because then you don't have any ideological interest in defending and/or creating it.

And the sea there is a big part of the war? This is not a naval war. And I don't believe it increases the "security" of Crimea that much or that the security of Crimea is related to the actual substance of the war.

And the idea that russian technology is anywhere near the advancement of AMERICAN technology is absurd.

Of course the West could some evils to it, and that's fine. It's just that Russia is objectively the worse side.

[Hatfort]

Just now, The Crocodile said:

@Hatfort I think the main problem is that you're just pro-Russia. If you get rid of that then the rest of the bullshit falls apart because then you don't have any ideological interest in defending and/or creating it.

And the sea there is a big part of the war? This is not a naval war. And I don't believe it increases the "security" of Crimea that much or that the security of Crimea is related to the actual substance of the war.

And the idea that russian technology is anywhere near the advancement of AMERICAN technology is absurd.

Of course the West could some evils to it, and that's fine. It's just that Russia is objectively the worse side.

No, I'm not pro Russia, but I'm not anti it either. I think the neutrality they were asking for Ukraine was a reasonable demand, which was agreed upon when the Soviet Union collapsed. But Ukraine was already NATO in practice, which is something Russia could not agree to, and seeing the precedents and this direction, it was matter of time it was going to be made official in front of Russian noses. So Russia made its move.

If NATO has such a technological superiority, what are they waiting for to use it in the Donbas? They can give all they have to Ukraine so no Ukrainian soldiers need to fight but instead the machines will do it for them. Nope, the drone technology is quite even right now. Face the facts.

[Leo Gura]

It's gonna take a good 5-10 years to develop solid drone tech for warfare. This field is just getting started. What we see right now is amateur stuff.

Drones are gonna revolutionize warfare as much as planes and tanks did.

Edited Tuesday at 05:51 PM by Leo Gura

[Lyubov]

5 hours ago, Hatfort said:

If NATO has such a technological superiority, what are they waiting for to use it in the Donbas? They can give all they have to Ukraine so no Ukrainian soldiers need to fight but instead the machines will do it for them. Nope, the drone technology is quite even right now. Face the facts.

Have you been paying attention to the politics? NATO is a block of democratic countries that requires nuanced consensus to do anything. High tech ballistic missiles and fighter jets aren’t Christmas candy you just hand out. It takes complex training and political processes to hand this over to a developing military. Not to mention the country Ukraine is fighting has thousands of Nukes and there is a fog of unpredictability about how this conflict could escalate if too much of this tech turns the tide quickly. NATO has supported Ukraine but in a sense a very careful approach. You don’t remember how funding from the USA has stalled since 2023? NATO countries have been at odds with each other about how to go about arming Ukraine since this started. You need to look into what the USA has in its arsenal. If the NATO block was actually able to come to a decisive consensus and they weren’t afraid of the political fallout or risk of Russian nukes this would have ended ages ago. The USA could have made Ukraine a no fly zone with the help of Turkey from the Black Sea alone. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:09 PM by Lyubov

[Karmadhi]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But also what matters is tech, logistics, professionalism, corruption.

 

They have some of the best missles in the world including the new Oreshnik missle recently used in Ukraine.

Also keep in mind Russia is basically fighting NATO in terms of intelligence, expertise, funds, weapons etc.

It is obvious they cannot beat NATO 1 vs 1.

What do you mean by corruption?

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

A competent military would never resort to using convicts to do their fighting. I don't even think the US did that during WW2.

But the USSR did and they defeated the Nazis which had steamrolled Europe in 1 year. More germans died trying to take a house in Stalingrad than all of France. Do not underestimate the Russia resolve and resources.

Edited Tuesday at 11:58 PM by Karmadhi

[Basman]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's gonna take a good 5-10 years to develop solid drone tech for warfare. This field is just getting started. What we see right now is amateur stuff.

Drones are gonna revolutionize warfare as much as planes and tanks did.

Drones are way scarier than a plane or a tank because of how omnipresent they are due to being so spammable and hard to combat directly.

The "zoom~" of a drone is going to trigger PTSD in future war veterans.

[PurpleTree]

Yea wait until they make those mini drones.

Smaller than a fly but can kill you and your loved ones.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

I do wonder if the creation of Taiwan as an independent country was a mistake. The Nationalists clearly lost, though not officially. 
 

Virtually no countries recognize Taiwan. 

But at the same time, while it is easy for me to judge American foreign policy, imagine if America hadn’t intervened in Korea? How was America at the time supposed to know that China was going to become this big manufacturing powerhouse?

[Lyubov]

Everyone wants to be captain hindsight now and especially with Ukraine. Supporting Taiwan absolutely was the most rational and strategic thing for the US or any superpower in their shoes to do at that time. Imagine if China was able to expand their zombie communism to the rest of Asia? The world would have not developed the same, human rights would have been a joke compared to what it is now . Everyone wants to cry about big bad America. I’m not saying this western democracy form of government is perfect, USA has a ton of issues with it’s double standards but you are taking for granted what we have now because of our form of government being the dominant one. We probably wouldn’t even be having this discussion if western democracy didn’t prevail, have you seen how heavily censored Chinese internet is? Forget any form of open dialogue. 

[Basman]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's gonna take a good 5-10 years to develop solid drone tech for warfare. This field is just getting started. What we see right now is amateur stuff.

Drones are gonna revolutionize warfare as much as planes and tanks did.

What makes drones so succesful right now is that they are simple and cheap. Air locomotion is the simplest plane of travel to navigate and the function of a drone is to either drop munition or just crash into a target. But if you start introducing complexity like guns or ground maunevering you start undermining the core concept of why drones work. What if the gun jams or you get stuck in mud or a myriad other malfunctions born from complexity? Malfunctions that could be easily resolved by crew end up making the drone inoperable. The US has tried and failed to create unmanned tanks for this exact reason.

Heavy drone use is also a result from stagnant frontlines with no air superioty. Air superiority could undermine the logistics of drones.

That said, there is a lot of room to explore within the concept of cheap explosive drones, like a drone swarm.

[PurpleTree]

7 hours ago, Lyubov said:

Everyone wants to be captain hindsight now and especially with Ukraine. Supporting Taiwan absolutely was the most rational and strategic thing for the US or any superpower in their shoes to do at that time. Imagine if China was able to expand their zombie communism to the rest of Asia? The world would have not developed the same, human rights would have been a joke compared to what it is now . Everyone wants to cry about big bad America. I’m not saying this western democracy form of government is perfect, USA has a ton of issues with it’s double standards but you are taking for granted what we have now because of our form of government being the dominant one. We probably wouldn’t even be having this discussion if western democracy didn’t prevail, have you seen how heavily censored Chinese internet is? Forget any form of open dialogue. 

Also forget psychedelics, forget hippies, forget freedom of speech, forget protesting etc.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Basman said:

What makes drones so succesful right now is that they are simple and cheap.

I think drones would still be highly effective if they were more expensive. Like a $100k drone with some firepower and armor on it.

A soldier is worth more than $100k and a drone like that could take out multiple soldiers or vehicles.

A sniper drone would be super deadly and terrifying. A sniper drone could land on a high perch, shut off its rotors, and snipe in silence, then reposition itself.

Or a grenade launcher drone.

Edited 15 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Bobby_2021]

On 12/24/2024 at 9:34 PM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I have a serious and genuine question regarding drone warfare, and this is, can't you just use shotguns (to combat the drones) and render the drones obsolete?

 Like... If a soldier in Ukraine see's a drone flying at them that's rigged to blow, couldn't that soldier just get their dad's shotgun from the basement and go duck hunting? 

Why doesn't every battalion have at least one guy with a shotgun?

Russians already use jamming to counter the drones.

On 12/24/2024 at 9:15 PM, Leo Gura said:

What Putin showed is that the threat of him conquering Europe is a joke.

There was never that threat in the first place. Still warmongers keep talking about this to keep the demand high for arms sales. 

On 12/24/2024 at 9:15 PM, Leo Gura said:

The future is cheap, light, AI-driven warfare with anti-tank missiles

High tech weapons will not have the ground level impact you think it might have. 

As far as cheap weapons are considered, it is making it easier for broke countries to have a bigger shot at winning. The difference is made in numbers, not in how much advanced tech you can compress into a single device.

NATO cannot use high tech to escape the poor decisions made by it's leadership and it's not ready for attrition warfare. Even 5k dead soldier coming back in body bags is enough to traumatise the collective western psyche. And people will call out the  bluff for what it is and call to end the war.

And that's how the Russians will ultimately win. By making it as bloody as possible. You can't hide behind tech. And NATO never engaged in a head to head bloody combat with a worthwhile opponent so we never know their true capabilities. I wouldn't overestimate it to be honest. 

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

As far as cheap weapons are considered, it is making it easier for broke countries to have a bigger shot at winning.

Broke countries will not have the AI software that will make these drones so deadly.

AI tech will allow NATO to do war without risking human lives. This solves the problem of lack of resolve for bodybags.

Really, the US should be switching to a robotic army. Smaller countries will not have the resources to match it. Israel is already doing a lot of mechanized turrets and so on. But that is just the beginning.

I bet the DoD is developing some wicked robotic stuff in secret right now.

Why can't a tank or plane be fully remote controlled? It's a no-brainer.

Imagine an aircraft carrier than is fully remote controlled. No need for food, kitchens, toilets, beds, medical bays, dining rooms, lounges. And the drones it flies are smaller too. The efficiency gains are crazy!

Edited 14 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Bobby_2021]

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32704-document-1-wayne-merry-dissent-channel-cable-american-embassy-moscow

Declassified just a week ago.

Americas predatory and intrusive approach to post soviet Russia would end up in adversial relationship in the future and would harm long term US interests. Beautiful elaboration. 

[Bobby_2021]

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Broke countries will not have the AI software that will make these drones so deadly.

AI tech will allow NATO to do war without risking human lives. This solves the problem of lack of resolve for bodybags.

Really, the US should be switching to a robotic army. Smaller countries will not have the resources to match it. Israel is already doing a lot of mechanized turrets and so on. But that is just the beginning.

I bet the DoD is developing some wicked robotic stuff in secret right now.

Why can't a tank or plane be fully remote controlled? It's a no-brainer.

Imagine an aircraft carrier than is fully remote controlled. No need for food, kitchens, toilets, beds, medical bays, dining rooms, lounges. And the drones it flies are smaller too. The efficiency gains are crazy!

Only for one Russian teenager to come with a jammer technology to render the whole "army" useless. 

Over reliance on tech for will have more than one ways to backfire hard.

[The Crocodile]

20 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

 

 

Great tune.

Though a more modern song is this.

 

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

A soldier is worth more than $100k and a drone like that could take out multiple soldiers or vehicles.

There already is an imbalance. This is already happening. The Russians have to rely on sacrificing lots of pawns and knights flooding the zone, while the West has Queens.

[Basman]

2 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Only for one Russian teenager to come with a jammer technology to render the whole "army" useless. 

Over reliance on tech for will have more than one ways to backfire hard.

Jammers aren't a fool proof solution to drones. They can't hit every frequency and with advanced AI you can preprogram the path and action of an autonomous unit rendering jamming innefective. Not to mention jamming only covers a certain radius. A kamikaze drone might get jammed once it enters a jammers radius but if its already locked on a target its momentum will still carry it forward, though less precisely.

The best way to beat enemy material is to undermine enemy logistics. Its why air superiority is so valuable. You fight drones by blowing up the drone factory.

Also, tech is everything. Its why its an arms race. Not a bulk-out. That much is obvious. Its not like armies are rolling out unproven prototypes en masse to the degree where it would be strategically detrimental. The US spends billions testing and improving tech, much of it never getting to see the battlefield outside of prototyping.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Yep, we gonna make it REAAAALLY easy for the Skynet, won't we?