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Unsure's avatar

Appreciate these alternative sources being presented and your analysis. Difficult to navigate all the possible reasons but at least being somewhat aware of the competing agendas of the reporters is a start.

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Surviving the Billionaire Wars's avatar

Ukraine has rushed into a cauldron, They are now in a race to bring needed supplies into the front, and apparently intend to double-down on forces there, while Russian reserves have been arriving for 3 days & continue to arrive.

The Ukes are about to be crushed from both sides Their retreat will be disorderly & a bloodbath.

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Rurik Skywalker's avatar

Maybe. They could have overextended. Depends on whether or not there are enough Russian troops in the area.

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Surviving the Billionaire Wars's avatar

They have been pouring reserves & additional air cover there continuously since the 6th, per video at Intel Slava.

Intel Slava reported several weeks ago that 400+ fighter planes & 300+ copters were moved very close to the border. No further word on that. Advance preparations?

I have read the way Ukr moved so fast was, unlike prior attempts at offensives, by mostly avoiding direct confrontations & populated areas.

I think that may be where Russia's mistake was. Didn't anticipate speed.

Meantime - goals: demilitarize & denazify. Not about taking territory. The land will still be there to retake.

The arms & trained soldiers are hard/impossible to replace on short order.

This is a big cauldron, rumor was 50,000 Ukr coming. So not the biggest. Read there was one with 100,000 forget whether WW or prior.

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Fedorov's avatar

It’s been pretty obvious everything is not going to plan.

Constant rumours of troops being Ill equipped in every single aspect.

Refusal to bombard trenches from the air. Wtf?

Troops doing their own reconnaissance with toys and using old Soviet artillery, accounting for most ukrop loses that the high command always takes credit for.

Russian government scared of the idea of announcing they bought uav’s. They probably have them but don’t want to use them. Last resort.

Constant footage of helicopters destroying parked empty vehicles/tanks from 5 Kms away. Good work guys, they’ll never get another one. Are these morons even trying to kill the living?

The whole war looks like literally a group effort by the grunts while those in charge do everything possible to lose. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Girkin is the true mvp here.

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𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿 𝘾𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙕𝙀𝙉's avatar

If the Queen didn't die yesterday the entire western media whore complex would be stroking themselves incessantly with the volume up to eleven and yet they're still frothing at the mouth like goblins, and that's how you know just how much they've been lying about everything else regarding the conflict for 7 months.

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Rurik Skywalker's avatar

We know the West has been lying, true.

But that doesn't mean that the Russian MOD has been upfront with us either.

Look, the Kremlin really thought that this would be a policing operation. They literally sent in SWAT teams and FSB guys and other heavy-duty cops to do the operation in Ukraine. They seem genuinely surprised by just how armed up Ukraine is and how good Western intelligence is.

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RegretLeft's avatar

Good point; but I did see some "stoking" on a Yahoo feed on Sept 8 - AM EDT. Actually it was rather cautious "if confirmed and if [ukr] can hold the territory". The rulers are probably working out the structure of the upcoming narrative with the Queen's death giving them room to do so. (I only wish I knew what a "banal convoy" is!)

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cassandra's avatar

I read that substantial numbers of Russian troops were fighting on 6 month contracts which just now expired. a) Is this true? b) How severely did it affect Russian troop strength? c) If I heard this, do you suppose the Ukrainians might have too and taken advantage?

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Blissex's avatar

Looking at daily details is pointless, we don't really know what's going on.

Indeed the RF military are “outnumbered and the contact line is too long” so sudden localized events can happen. So far the ukrainian military have refrained from creating surprises because that's very risky for them as they too are overextended, but I guess that there is an urgent political necessity to prove to UK/EU voters that their higher bills will be rewarded soon with a famous victory.

«2/3 of the reported unit strengths was fake.»

«Constant rumours of troops being Ill equipped in every single aspect.»

Most militaries are badly run and organized, and only quite rich states can throw money at problems. UK etc. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan also complained having to buy their own equipment (and in WW2 even some american troops did that, even if by far they were the best supplied). The question is the degree of faking and lack of supplies, and as to this my guess is that the ukrainian military is in much worse state than the RF military.

«Winter warfare on the open steppe in eastern Ukraine!»

«win, but at a huge cost and all this will take more than one year»

The main logic of the Donbas republics counter-attack and the SMO has been to cause the logistics of the ukrainian military to collapse, preparing that collapse for this winter.

The ukrainian fascist government has even been thanking NATO countries for donations of winter uniforms, which is amazing: this seems to imply that the ukrainian military stocks did not include winter clothing for all troops, even if Ukraine has harsh winters every year.

«There is going to be an endemic, perennial state of war in East Ukraine»

That is unlikely to be the USA plan: their phase 1 outcome is a slow and bloody ukrainian defeat, not a stalemate, because phase 2 is an endemic state of guerrilla war in Ukraine to trigger regime change in Moscow, and that requires the ukrainians to feel vengeful for that slow and bloody defeat; a stalemate would not motivate them much.

There was a stalemate against the Donbas republics, and that led the ukrainian public to elect _elensky to negotiate a peace, not to continue fighting.

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Stan_R's avatar

Winter warfare on the open steppe in eastern Ukraine! RF has air power, artillery superior advantage.

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Frantic's avatar

> ... then we, of course, will win, but at a huge cost and all this will take more than one year.

At this pace, it will take years only to liberate the Donbass. I see at least 4 or 5 heavily fortified cities on the frontline or immediately behind, plus part of Donetsk ring road is still in Ukrainian hands. Nevermind taking Kharkov, or God forbid Odessa.

There is going to be an endemic, perennial state of war in East Ukraine, as there has been for years or decades by now in Yemen or Somalia. Perhaps they need it in order to test the weapons and tactics of modern war, and to be able to use more forceful methods to suppress internal dissent, using the military emergency as excuse. Maybe the 5D chess move consists in this.

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Frantic's avatar

Or they are waiting for CAROLUS REX to land, at the head of the flower of the youth of Albion, to vanquish the Eastern hordes of that Jacobite of Putin, once and for all.

After all he hasn't got much time left to add glory to his name, and posterity is watching.

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