AD1184
Celestial
Have you verified this translation?
Have you verified this translation?
nivek
As Above So Below
AD1184
Celestial
British journalist Fraser Nelson, writing in the Telegraph (paywall), quotes a confidential source, a senior US diplomat, as saying the following:
Putin may lose his war in Ukraine, but the West could still lose the peace
So the US intends to keep the war going as long as possible. Giving Ukraine just enough military aid to that end, and no more. The fact that more and more of Ukraine is being destroyed, and more, and more of her people are being killed, as the conflict drags on is immaterial. There are some in the west who still deny that this is a proxy war between the US and Russia, appealing to the fact that the Ukrainians are fighting willingly. Afghanistan in the 1980s was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union, and a large part of the local population still fought willingly against the Russians. You cannot have a proxy war unless there are people who are willing to fight on your side in your place (i.e. the Ukrainians in this case).
‘If you look at all the options, our strategic interest is probably best served in a long war, a quagmire that drains Putin militarily and economically so he cannot do this again.’
Putin may lose his war in Ukraine, but the West could still lose the peace
So the US intends to keep the war going as long as possible. Giving Ukraine just enough military aid to that end, and no more. The fact that more and more of Ukraine is being destroyed, and more, and more of her people are being killed, as the conflict drags on is immaterial. There are some in the west who still deny that this is a proxy war between the US and Russia, appealing to the fact that the Ukrainians are fighting willingly. Afghanistan in the 1980s was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union, and a large part of the local population still fought willingly against the Russians. You cannot have a proxy war unless there are people who are willing to fight on your side in your place (i.e. the Ukrainians in this case).
nivek
As Above So Below
Russian conscripts are given 19th century rifles, made to drink from ponds filled with dead frogs due to lack of supplies and ordered to run in front of enemy soldiers to draw fire, they reveal
Conscripts in the Russian-backed Donbas region have spoken of how they have been sent to fight Ukraine's forces with no training, a lack of food and water, and inadequate equipment - as Moscow's armies continue to suffer heavy losses. The new accounts of untrained and ill-equipped conscripts being deployed are a fresh indication of how stretched the military resources at the Kremlin's disposal are, over a month into a war that has seen Vladimir Putin's forces hobbled by logistical problems and held up by a fierce resistance. One of the soldiers, a student conscripted in late February, said a fellow fighter told him to prepare to repel a close-quarter attack by Ukrainian forces in southwest Donbas, but said 'I don't even know how to fire an automatic weapon.' Several Donbas draftees have been issued with a rifle called a Mosin (top-right), which was developed in the late 19th century and went out of production decades ago, according to three people who saw conscripts from the separatist region using the weapon. Left and bottom-right: Soldiers in the Donbas region are seen signing up to fight in February. Top-inset: Last week, a video emerged of a group of young Russian soldiers conscripted to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine complaining that they've been 'thrown into the s**t'.
.
Conscripts in the Russian-backed Donbas region have spoken of how they have been sent to fight Ukraine's forces with no training, a lack of food and water, and inadequate equipment - as Moscow's armies continue to suffer heavy losses. The new accounts of untrained and ill-equipped conscripts being deployed are a fresh indication of how stretched the military resources at the Kremlin's disposal are, over a month into a war that has seen Vladimir Putin's forces hobbled by logistical problems and held up by a fierce resistance. One of the soldiers, a student conscripted in late February, said a fellow fighter told him to prepare to repel a close-quarter attack by Ukrainian forces in southwest Donbas, but said 'I don't even know how to fire an automatic weapon.' Several Donbas draftees have been issued with a rifle called a Mosin (top-right), which was developed in the late 19th century and went out of production decades ago, according to three people who saw conscripts from the separatist region using the weapon. Left and bottom-right: Soldiers in the Donbas region are seen signing up to fight in February. Top-inset: Last week, a video emerged of a group of young Russian soldiers conscripted to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine complaining that they've been 'thrown into the s**t'.
.
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
Both sides are receiving his own dose of brainwash.
When one looks at Russian media he can't see dozens of tanks with their turrets blown off and columns of burned down personal infantry carriers.
Media on both sides shows exactly one half of the full picture. Media on both sides treats its own people as a fodder for hype.
When one looks at Russian media he can't see dozens of tanks with their turrets blown off and columns of burned down personal infantry carriers.
Media on both sides shows exactly one half of the full picture. Media on both sides treats its own people as a fodder for hype.
Last edited:
nivek
As Above So Below
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is ALIVE: Elusive terror chief - one of the world's most-wanted men since being Bin Laden's No2 during 9/11 - reappears in video filmed in recent weeks - scotching rumors he died in 2020
Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has appeared in a new video in which he denounced the ‘enemies of Islam’ after a school in India banned the wearing of the hijab.
In a nine-minute video released by As-Sahab Media, Al-Qaeda’s official media wing, al-Zawahiri praised Muslim student Muskan Khan after she wore the Islamic scarf at a school in Karnataka state, governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
According to translations provided by counter-terror experts on Twitter, including the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors jihadist websites, the Egyptian-born doctor accused ‘the pagan Hindu democracy of India’ of seeking to ‘oppress Muslims’.
Al-Zawahiri, who took over al-Qaeda after Bin Laden’s death in 2011, also decried France, Holland, and Switzerland, as well as Egypt and Morocco, as ‘enemies of Islam’ for their anti-hijab policies.
He further criticised the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh, accusing them of defending ‘the very enemies that have empowered them to fight us’.
(More on the link)
Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has appeared in a new video in which he denounced the ‘enemies of Islam’ after a school in India banned the wearing of the hijab.
In a nine-minute video released by As-Sahab Media, Al-Qaeda’s official media wing, al-Zawahiri praised Muslim student Muskan Khan after she wore the Islamic scarf at a school in Karnataka state, governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
According to translations provided by counter-terror experts on Twitter, including the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors jihadist websites, the Egyptian-born doctor accused ‘the pagan Hindu democracy of India’ of seeking to ‘oppress Muslims’.
Al-Zawahiri, who took over al-Qaeda after Bin Laden’s death in 2011, also decried France, Holland, and Switzerland, as well as Egypt and Morocco, as ‘enemies of Islam’ for their anti-hijab policies.
He further criticised the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh, accusing them of defending ‘the very enemies that have empowered them to fight us’.
(More on the link)
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
An old article from 2019 shows that Zelensky doesn't really have control over Azov battalion.
Thread by @morphonios on Thread Reader App
Thread by @morphonios on Thread Reader App
AD1184
Celestial
Not to mention that some of the Russian-backed separatist groups in the Donbass are also neo-Nazi affiliated.
AD1184
Celestial
This looks to be a fake news story:
PolitiFact - No, NATO Allied Land Command leader wasn’t captured by Russians in Ukraine
General Cloutier is the current head of NATO's Allied Land Command, this is an extermely high-profile, high-status position. It is inconceivable that he would be acting as a military adviser (a relatively low-level position) in such a risky location as Mariupol, and in such a sensitive conflict as the war in Ukraine. If there are US and allied military advisers in Ukraine, they would not have sent in their top generals, and they are probably not in the Mariupol area. A careerist senior officer is unlikely to accept such a posting.
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
Sad, but true, neo-nazis and nazis across the world are the only people who want to physically die for this or that.
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
TBH that's stupid idea. It most certainly didn't come from a military person, but from some think-tank or journalist.
Hole idea about missiles is that you don't need to hide them, because you can fire them from far away.
OK, so you fired your few missiles from container ship. Container ship now had changed role from civilian ship into a military ship, which means that your enemy will start shooting at the slow moving container ship, which is now for all practical purposes a sitting duck. And you are going to lose not just the container ship, but all the other cargo that probably costs x3 times as much as the ship itself.
Ridiculous idea.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
Russian conscripts are given 19th century rifles, made to drink from ponds filled with dead frogs due to lack of supplies and ordered to run in front of enemy soldiers to draw fire, they reveal
Conscripts in the Russian-backed Donbas region have spoken of how they have been sent to fight Ukraine's forces with no training, a lack of food and water, and inadequate equipment - as Moscow's armies continue to suffer heavy losses. The new accounts of untrained and ill-equipped conscripts being deployed are a fresh indication of how stretched the military resources at the Kremlin's disposal are, over a month into a war that has seen Vladimir Putin's forces hobbled by logistical problems and held up by a fierce resistance. One of the soldiers, a student conscripted in late February, said a fellow fighter told him to prepare to repel a close-quarter attack by Ukrainian forces in southwest Donbas, but said 'I don't even know how to fire an automatic weapon.' Several Donbas draftees have been issued with a rifle called a Mosin (top-right), which was developed in the late 19th century and went out of production decades ago, according to three people who saw conscripts from the separatist region using the weapon. Left and bottom-right: Soldiers in the Donbas region are seen signing up to fight in February. Top-inset: Last week, a video emerged of a group of young Russian soldiers conscripted to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine complaining that they've been 'thrown into the s**t'.
.
I wondered about some of that. There are rumored to several countries sending Soviet era tanks and armored fighting vehicles, the Czech Republic being one. I would imagine the less that media outlets cackle about that the better lest they become like the damned Mig-29s.
Ukraine Situation Report: Donated Czech T-72 Tanks, BMP-1 Armored Vehicles Headed To Ukraine
Regarding those old rifles. When WW2 started a bolt action rifle in a full length service caliber was standard issue for infantry, and for most combatants remained so throughout the conflict. British .303 Lee-Enfields, German 8mm K98 Mausers, Japanese 6.5mm and 7mm Arisakas. The US was an exception with it's semi-auto M1 Garand in .30-06 but still used plenty of 1903 Springfields and M1917 rifles early on. Of course there were other types but the old bolt guns existed in profusion.
While most produced these in the several millions, those particular rifles pictured were produced in the tens of millions. Mosin Nagant 91/30s in 7.62 x 54R. I think the real # is something like 44 million in fact. So many that up until about ten years ago you could purchase them by the crate, still packed in grease with tool kits and numbers matching bayonets. The only thing that had been done to them was to have the crate opened and an importer's stamp zapped into the receivers. I am sitting next to three of them right now and have a wooden crate with all sorts of Cyrillic writing on it containing two 440 round 'spam cans' and the tool to open them.
Somehow I'm not surprised to see these make their appearance. Definitely a sign of the times that they broke them out but the fact that they still have them ready for use is unremarkable. By comparison to their contemporaries they are crude and brutal, absolutely punishing to shoot. Zero ergonomics. But they are still extremely dangerous weapons that can reach out a very long distance and do a lot of damage. In competent hands they are still damned dangerous - but they are likely not in competent hands at all. Certainly when these kids recent ancestors were using them - also in a modern combined arms arena - they were tough customers.
I once heard a US Marine speak about the fighting as they invaded Iraq and said 'they were still using WW2 mass tactics and even if we traded weapons with them we'd still win'
AD1184
Celestial
Russia and Israel already have them, and China showed off a mock-up containerized missile system at an air show in 2016. Although that appeared to be an MLRS with likely unguided rockets, and it was not in a standard shipping container. I don't think it is that stupid of an idea. Clearly it violates the rules of war, but I don't think that the Chinese care very much for the rules of war in any conflict with the US.
China 'could hide cruise missiles inside shipping containers for surprise attacks' | Daily Mail Online
In China's case, it would enable them to get complete autonomous weapons systems onto, or near, enemy territory with existing civilian infrastructure, and potentially without being detected. I don't know if the idea is to shoot them from moving ships, but that is itself not that bad of an idea. If the Chinese do not own or operate the ship, and it is crewed by an unwitting foreign crew, then what do they care if there is a counter-attack on the ship? The Chinese could easily contrive to have their missile containers loaded onto the top layer of containers on a ship at a Chinese port.
Every new weapons concept, and every new iteration of an existing concept, is something of a gamble. You don't necessarily know how it will perform, or how it will change the balance of power, in a real world conflict until it is used. Sometimes elementary reasoning, testing performance, or battle simulations can reveal the concept to be flawed. Sometimes a new conflict reveals that your staple weapons systems and doctrine are flawed. Look at battleships in WW2, or main battle tanks in the Ukraine war. The progress of missile technology also indicates that the aircraft carrier battle group, the linchpin of American projection of power, is a concept whose days are now numbered.
Last edited:
nivek
As Above So Below
It's perfect for a sneak attack without much loss, the ship could be piloted with minimal crew or remotely with no other cargo except missile launchers hidden in cargo containers...They could have a dozen or more missile launchers on one ship with multiple missiles in each, they could do a lot of serious damage before any military unit comes to challenge it if the ship is in a civilian area...Those cargo missile systems could be used for an invasion, punching a hole for troop carriers and equipment to land ashore, they wouldn't care if they lost one container ship to gain a foothold into another country...
...
Dejan Corovic
As above, so bellow
Totally detached from reality, very Hollywood style, but I'll leave it at that.
Anyhow, here is a nice list of weapon systems that Ukraine has got so far. Only system missing are 50 old Leopard tanks that Germany is preparing to send right now.
The weapons being sent to Ukraine, and those it’s still hoping for
I can't resist to think if Iraqis or Afgans had access to these same weapons as Ukrainians, would that had shorten the occupation of their countries? Its just a very interesting question because it seemed to me that with advent of drones, guerrilla warfare was finished for good. But, as Ukrainians are showing, if guerrillas actually have a technological edge over the occupying / "liberating" force than possibly guerrilla resistance might still has some future. We'll see. Russians definitely got their collective a..e kicked.
That might provide some hope for Texans and Californians ( not to mention Floridians
) to finally one day become sovereign nations?
Last edited: