Seen a lot of interesting takes on this war ranging from Reddit-Tier Avengers fanboyism to Putin is playing 5d Chess.

I don't really feel biased towards either narrative, so i'll give my quick take.

To me, Russia seems to have the clear upper hand at the moment. They have avoided taking any scorched earth approaches thus far which makes me believe they're not panicking yet, and are probably playing this very methodically.

Russia seems to have underestimated how difficult it would be to pull off this soft-invasion. Putin et.al probably thought they could clean house with relatively small amounts of resources in a few months, but it hasn't panned out this way.

With that said, it's pretty clear that they have changed strategies and are incorporating a longer term approach at this point. Right now, they seem to control all of the ports in Ukraine and are also successfully bleeding the West dry financially. The Western powers are more interested in propping up Ukraine at the expense of their own people, which is only going to get worse. At this point, it's in Russia's favor to drag this out into the winter because Europe has a looming energy crisis which will give Russia an enormous amount of leverage.

To be quite honest, I can't see how Europe can keep up this constant support especially once Winter hits. The U.S will try their best to keep Ukraine propped up by their selves, but it's likely going to end up being futile.

Much of the West (especially Europe) will be very busy trying to quell unrest domestically and Ukraine likely going to be thrown to the wolves. I don't see this ending well for Ukraine, or the West. I'd love to be wrong.

Lets be honest, none of us have a solitary **** how this war will conclude, but just my 2 cents.

Zelensky and his crew will be evacuated to Western mansions, American kids will end up dying, and billions in US taxpayers money will be flushed down the toilet before this is over.


Bet on it.

I do believe Putin was pissed about NATO expansion. I think the Black Sea matters a ton to Russia. I also don't think he intended to conquer and hold all of Ukraine with only 200k men. There's just no way. Putin has studied military strategy. He's not stupid. His attack on Kiev was simply to try to force a surrender and see if Ukraine would blink. He couldn't have possibly expected to actually conquer and hold Ukraine with such a small force.

I've seen people unironically argue that Russia somehow doesn't have nukes. This is in spite of our own inspectors having viewed their arsenals. We are talking ourselves into some really stupid situations.

Pathetic.

"Ukraine assassinating politicians" - you mean the invaded party blowing up traitors and collaborators.

You might want to look up how many separatist leaders have been eliminated by the Russians since 2014.

It's more of a cult thing than a dem thing. Dems just do it because they've gone full cult. People that deal with cults call it 'othering'

How many troops were killed on that karkov advance? Where did those troops go after Russia retreated behind its border and east of the river? How are those troops faring now?

Do you not find it suspicious russia being able to essentially evaporate without casualties in Kharkov? Why they won't drop missiles on military headquarters in Keiv? Why they haven't until now targeted General infrastructure and previously only targeted military infrastructure?

It's unconventional. Extremely unconventional. Other than the millions of rounds Ukrainians are catching on the line. I cannot analyze it other than the fight purposely drawn there.

What the vatnik (retard) crew doesn't understand, is that they are retarded.

They clearly haven't met or know any Ukrainians. Death is better than listening to vatniks. Same goes for all the Baltic countries.

vatnik crew on the misc are socially retarded rejects that have been ignored or rejected by hot Ukrainian girls. Just look at your post counts (in the 10's of thousands!) Literal ****ing losers who don't live in reality, only online from their safe spaces. If vatniks said the **** you say online in person, you would have your heads caved in pretty damn quick. Enjoy your online forum circle jerks, *******s.






Nobody likes russians.

They are no better. Currently you're in a hot war. You have rules. What you are missing is the repercussions of doing such. Recourse is not on a pretend court that Russia has power on either.

It's obvious some of you have never been challenged by another man in person before. Same goes for this. In the moment, words on paper cannot protect you there is ability and that's it. This is what is happening now.

The most interesting thing about the US reaction to all who love them some Ukraine is basically one of, or a combination of the following. In no particular order of importance:

1) The kid who grew up watching Red Dawn (the 80s version) way too many times.

2)The incel who bought a Ukrainian wife, and therefore is super into "his" people getting killed.

3) The NeoCon. Never met a war (they don't have to fight) that they didn't like.

4) The "Cold War Era Veteran." Spent his entire career working as supply or admin at a Kasern in Germany, or an MP in Japan, and was just chomping at the bit to kill him some Commies.

Un ironically, most literary are all 4

In the Kherson direction, there were really tangible losses and a lot of things did not work out there between August and September and much of what was planned by the general staff - i think, could not be realized.There are just pure fields and steppes - no trees, no hills or protective structures, so it is very difficult to attack and plan anything with a limited amount of equipment and aviation.

In the Kharkiv direction, the losses are negligible, there was virtually no fighting, and many units from Donetsk and Luhansk were not even warned about the withdrawal of Russian troops and thus many were captured (They talk about a figure of 500-1000 people). There was minimal fighting only in Kupyansk and the villages on the approach to this city. Russian artillery and aviation practically did not operate, mostly only tank skirmishes and street fighting (this is according to military acquaintances who took part there).The majority of these troops are already in the rear, only some are in the liberated territories, guard the border and stay on the west side of river, only few of those troops such as "special operations forces" have been transferred to the Donetsk direction and are involved in the operation to encircle and seize the town of Liman.


My close friend's brigade, which from the first day of the war participated in combat operations, lost almost 85% of its personnel already in June, especially many were killed and wounded in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk (according to him, half of them were either wounded or dead, the other half are either in a mental hospital or have lost their minds and are working with psychologists)


I think the worst is already behind us, the Ukrainian army's heaviest losses were in May and June in the Donetsk direction (about 15,000 wounded and killed per month).

I can also tell you that there are ≈1,300 military personnel who take front line positions from my town with 70k population . so far, of those, 24 have been killed, 78 wounded.

you're right about the fact that if we really don't solve this conflict diplomatically within a year or a year and a half or if we suffer huge losses and Russian troops break through somewhere fast - America will indeed enter this conflict directlyThere is good logic in your words, but I think you overestimate Putin very much. after all, putting a man with no military education and experience at the head of the defense ministry is a stroke of genius. I'm still inclined to think that Putin really thought that the bulk of the population here still supported Russia and wanted to join them, so he sent so few troops to capture Kiyv. I remember his rhetoric from the first days: "The armed forces of Ukraine stop serving the drug addicts in the central government and the drug addict president and drop your weapons, join us".
I think putin wanted to get all of ukraine in a week and its combat-ready troops so that in a couple of years with an additional army he could attack one of the baltic countries (former ussr) and compete with the nato bloc. just theory.

In fact, the most important sign, which indicated that Putin really expected the capitulation of Ukraine in a week, was the complete absence of logistics.

Greece Spain and Portugal backed finalnd and Sweden nato membership this week. Greece finalized, Portugal and Spain will finalize this week. Slovakia is supposed to finalize this week.

That leaves Hungary and Turkey. Hungary expected by end of month and Turkey first week in October. Turkey could delay.

https://www.nato-pa.int/content/finl...eden-accession

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swed...NATO_relations

#5 -->

People who have learned firsthand through contact over many years just how absolutely wretched, disgusting, angry, hateful, mass murder supporting, evil, immoral, lying, harassing, threatening, and downright toxic Putin's Russians are ... constantly, incessantly, without exception ... when on the other hand Ukrainians are pretty much the exact opposite and almost always helpful, patient, kind, explaining, friendly, compassionate, and thankful towards us and/or at the very least nothing approaching the terrible behavior of the Russians. I know there are good kind Russians of course but for the most part they aren't the ones highly active online in political discussions across social media and elsewhere, mostly due to the harassment and censorship activities against them, and so that doesn't factor into the support or opposition.

I first came into the Ukraine-Russia discussion because I'm into current events of all sorts from A to Z because it helps me learn about the world and have discussed current events online since the late 90's. I did not come into the Ukraine protests discussion in late 2013 with the idea to support Ukraine/Ukrainians or oppose Russia in the slightest although I did already know Putin was a detestable creature who should have been aborted. The one thing that primarily pushed me to supporting Ukrainians and opposing Putin's mess, and moreso and moreso over the years, was the long long history of my own personal experience with the behaviors described in the first paragraph. It was not only a factor, but -the- factor, and the factor which demanded it. If Putin's people want to blame anyone or anything then look no further than the mirror.

The problem is you think anyone that disagrees with you is being paid to do so by Putin, who you also think reads what you post on twitter.

All kidding aside, it's time to talk to a professional

Do you really think they used to target only military infrastructure? statistically only 1 in 20 missiles hit a military facility. in my region their missiles have purposefully destroyed all barns and grain warehouses, as well as destroyed all food processing facilities and many other "interesting insfrastracture". also in my town, they targeted military facilities using maps from the 1970s-80s. Thus, they destroyed a huge car wash and a car repair service (tank boxes where liquidated in that place in 1979), a simple office building on the outskirts of the city (military unit buildings were there until 1998), they even mixed up the World War II tank models in the central park and dropped two air bombs there, but they missed and hit a bomb shelter.

if you think that the power plant is the first civilian object they aimed at, you are mistaken.

Why they won't drop missiles on military headquarters in Keiv? - I think they afraid of the reaction of the world community because after that they can be recognized as a terrorist country officially.

They've already been universally maligned by the west. What could they possibly fear? It is Putin's humanity holding him back, not logic.

Don't misunderstand what it is I'm saying. When militaries with the ability attack such, they attack in a way that cripples anything the military can use to include power, water, etc. I'm not refuting civilian targeting. Russia is not a clean or respectable country.

So for example if they hit a missile production facility, we'd neuter that facility by removing all power to the city, fuel depot, water processing or any other strategic point we could. This is often done regionally or country wide.

Russia obviously has that ability to do so and only recently struck a few plants. Why? I don't understand the reason. Why enable Ukraine to use that to help its military in any way?

They've already hit targets in Kiev. Military is viable. Same with lvov (again and not for warning) etc. They just don't. Again, it's odd.

you have to realize how Russia views Ukraine. They are the same people to them, relatives. They don't want to damage the country, the goal has always been to occupy the Russia portions (largely accomplished already) and de-nazifi.

I don't think Russia opposes this so long as they don't base NATO. Turkey should budge I suppose.

Thanks for the intro which reminds me I haven't posted this in a while ...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades







Former Russian trolls expose misinformation operations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEPNdjs6b74


Twitter released 9 million tweets from one Russian troll farm. Here’s what we learned.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990...tion-tampering


Russian election meddling is back -- via Ghana and Nigeria -- and in your feeds
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/world...ard/index.html





********, Twitter Remove More Russian-Backed Fake Accounts Ahead Of Election
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/24/91663...ad-of-election


This is What Pro-Russia Internet Propaganda Feels Like – Finns Have Been Tricked into Believing in Lies
https://kioski.yle.fi/omat/this-is-w...nda-feels-like


Inside the Internet Research Agency: a Mole Among Trolls
https://www.voanews.com/a/inside-the...s/4352107.html








Two New Reports Expose How Black Americans Are Targeted by Russian Disinformation
https://www.justsecurity.org/61192/f...isinformation/


The Kremlin's Growing Army of Internet Trolls
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia...ternet-trolls/


Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America
http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/do...my-hit-america






Putin's New Weapon In The Ukraine Propaganda War: Internet Trolls
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrode...ternet-trolls/


Russian shill program exposed
http://pharaon01.livejournal.com/474086.html


How to spot a Russian Twitter troll
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.nl/2014...ter-troll.html







Kremlin-paid internet commenters caught red-handed
http://www.ukrainebusiness.com.ua/news/12018.html



Russia This Week: Here Comes the Kremlin’s Troll Army
https://www.interpretermag.com/14302/



Top of a Russian Twitter Troll network exposed for spamming internet with propaganda
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.com/201...l-network.html










The readers' editor on… pro-Russia trolling below the line on Ukraine stories
Guardian moderators, who deal with 40,000 comments a day, believe there is an orchestrated pro-Kremlin campaign
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...uardian-online



How Putin Secretly Conquered Russia's Social Media Over the Past 3 Years
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/0...-past-3-years/



How Russian trolls are recruited, trained and deployed
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/01/3...-and-deployed/







Russia's Online-Comment Propaganda Army
http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...a-army/280432/
[OCT 9 2013, before any of the Ukraine situation even began]


Putin trolls
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/p...olle-1.1997470










================================================== ==========================


There are only three types who repeat Putin's rodent propaganda in western forums, social media, youtube vid comments, news article comments, etc -

- Putin's propaganda army employees, most of whom post from Russia but pretend to be from their target countries; an online propaganda/psych warfare army which he has built a massive one of since 2000

- mass murder sociopath tyrant loving sociopaths who admire a mass murdering sociopath tyrant like Putin and who voluntarily and knowingly repeat his lies; these are generally people who are amoral and immoral and seek evil instead of goodness and have no honesty in their lives

- naive useful idiot fools who are unaware of and have succumbed to the constant psychological warfare of 22 years of Putin's online army



No it is not simply a valid alternative point of view for anyone in the West to support what's Putin's doing. It's simply one of the three above.

================================================== ===============================

I'm looking tactically, not especially into the sentimental viewpoint. If that were the case, they wouldn't have struck the plants.

In either case it's obvious something is about to change. Karkov was empty for a reason. Rest and reserve pace has not changed either. Russia is rotating troops home and to Russian garrison throughout this conflict. Massive amounts of aircraft are staged

The only thing from your list is that they destroyed almost - all the large oil refineries on the territory of ukraine, back in march-may. only one remains - in the west of ukraine (ivano-frankivsk).
They also destroyed almost all the electric boards on the all territory of Ukrainian railroads and because of this we are forced to deliver equipment to the front without using electric trains, but only using outdated diesel locomotives.

as for water and electricity - many water utilities, canals and thermal power plants were already built during Ukraine's independence and they may not have information with exact coordinates, no matter how stupid and ridiculous it sounds, but their reconnaissance and intelligence(scout) system is **** as i wrote above they used maps from 70-80's to launch their Iskander and caliber missiles. By the way, in the Donetsk region, controlled by Ukraine, they have completely eliminated this as well, using the only thing they have developed in intelligence is a network of agents among the local population. In any case, this is just theory and speculation, I don't know the exact answer.


I'll tell you one thing once again- you have no idea how bad russian intelligence is, don't even dare compare it to American, it's on the same level as Iraq.The tactics are not about Russia either, almost all settlements in the Donetsk direction they attacked directly in very fortified positions, instead of bypassing and encircling. also their artillery is not able to work in conjunction with aviation (reports from their war correspondents).
They lost a lot of aviation between February and April, which is why they practically stopped using aerial bombs, but only use x-class missiles and launch them only from long ranges (sometimes even from the Caspian Sea from strategic bombers). they also seem to be having huge problems in the lack of experienced pilot officers.yes, we kill the local population in packs, but we don't damage the local infrastructure because we are kindred spirits and relatives.

I don't understand where people get such ideas, it's stupidity and delusion. nothing personal.

https://www.newsmax.com/scottrasmuss...05/id/1081909/


Lots of finger pointing. Complete disregard for fellow citizens.

Go fuk yourself mental patient. Your paranoia coupled with whatever myopic internet tunnel vision thing you have going on is damaging you. You've lost your mind. I've been here 12 years but now I'm a sympathetic despot loving troll? I've literally posted from combat fighting from this country on breaks multiple times. *******.

Same with other mods. There have been a few of us as random forward operating bases on fronts worlds apart miscing and emailing back and forth.

ISR and Geospatial intelligence isn't complicated. They have both capabilities. They were also in all of our secret and top secret systems for years with solar winds. I'm well aware of US capabilities as well as Russian capabilites. I'm also aware of how to operate a Google map to spot a utility at any given city in any country in the world.

Again. For some reason they chose this and it has been a strict rule.

oh no Russia's about to do something else they're not going to do for memecope failboat post #867


Are you not aware at all of the fact that you've been doing this same exact shtick in fail nonstop for 7 months and 800 posts now?

"Russia's about to do this; Russia's about to do that; Putin's gonna escalate now; they gettin rdy to bring in teh good forces"

on and on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month,

yet they don't do any of it and instead have lost the ability to conduct massed offensives now, greatly reduced artillery and other munitions because they're not the army you and your buddies claim they are

At what point do you gain self awareness of that fact of what you are doing? Ever? Never?

Stop trolling the forum.

yet plainly enough to everyone else but you ..... you never once mention anything similar to your fellow Putin trolls such as this for example -

while denying you're that way and that you're simply an observer posting your opinions, which of course you're not



You are so obvious it's unreal yet you have apparently absolutely zero awareness of that fact.

Your extreme lack of self awareness is bizarre and amazing and moreso than anything I've ever seen. Noliberals4 had that title before but you've completely beaten that one by a mile.

It's obvious to everyone else here.

Keep denying it though.

Wrong. Yet again. Memcope wrong post #868



BTW did another mod or admin confirm recently that the memcop account is being used by who they think it is? Srs question. I want it verified. Let me be clear - I don't think it's likely but it's possible given numerous facts and the strange behavior of the memcop account this year -

given the fact that the Kremlin has a very large online army of paid shills targeting many countries aka online psyops program aka the Internet Research Agency(although there are other orgs/agencies of the Kremlin's psyops program than that one)

given the fact that although myself and others have had many threads here about Ukraine-Russia over the past nine years, the memcop account was never not once seen in the Russia-Ukraine discussion threads in the prior 8 years ... but has been incessant on it this year as if he's lived the conflict his whole life and as if it's immensely important to him as if his life depended on it and with more knowledge of the points of the conflict than just about anyone else here short of myself

given the fact that the memcop account is pushing all the known/identified Kremlin daily talking points and patting the back of others who are as well

given the fact the memcop account is acting far far more like Russian behavior than typical American behavior and especially someone with long US mil history

given the fact the memcop account has ardently attacked every member who is against Putin's war; while repeatedly patting on the back known and suspected Kremlin shill accounts





I want your identity verified by the admin.

Then we go from there.

LOL...anybody who doesn't agree with me is a Russian shill. I kind of want to know how you were able to function enough in life to be able to get to a position where you had a cow and such cow was ignored enough that it got sick and died.