Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[crazy canuck]

I think the Russian Revolution started with a mutiny?

That's two, so maybe my understanding of the revolution is faulty. I'll accept that.

The first revolution was in February, and it was a led by the military.  The Bolsheviks didn't take over the revolution until later.

[crazy canuck]

That's two, so maybe my understanding of the revolution is faulty. I'll accept that.

Bread riots in the cities + soldiers refusing to fight + Lenin.

Lenin had nothing to do with the Feb revolution

[Barrister]

On the topic of how to feel about various people fighting for Russia - I've come across a few references to Ukrainians from the occupied areas being forced to fight. Presumably some of them are "Russian minded", some of them are ambivalent and just trying to survive (and unable to avoid conscription), and some of them are being forced into cannon-fodder roles, in spite of wanting Ukrainian independence.

Do any of you have information on how prevalent that is?

So remember that Russia has declared that the Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts are part of Russia, which makes those men eligible for mobilization.

The number who are "russian-minded" is higher than zero, but of course it's completely impossible to tell just how much more than zero that number is.

The one thing though I would point to is how enthusiastically Ukrainian forces were embraced when they liberated Kherson back in 2022.

[Solmyr]

We do have an example of a mutiny from last summer. We saw how that went.

[Tamas]

We do have an example of a mutiny from last summer. We saw how that went.

Remarkably well? They were just mercenaries wanting to get paid, yet Prigozhin was hailed as a liberator in the city he occupied before he got cold feet and cancelled it before he was forced to attempt a coup on his own.

[Josquius]

That's the level that would be required for a mutiny to be successful.
And again after Prigozhin's adventure Russia is very aware of this threat so they're taking steps to keep soldiers compartmentalised and their mutinies extremely small scale and easily contained.

And yep on Ukrainian draftees. I remember reading a story not too long ago about some kid who escaped from Russia (or occupied territory? Can't recall) to get back to Ukraine and how they kept threatening him he was off to the front when he turned 18.
Its not even anything new, its been there since the beginning of the war that special units from the "peoples republics" served as meat shields.
It'll be sad to see after the war quite how depopulated those places have been by it all; whoever wins it seems settlement by Ukrainians or Russians will be required just to get an operable economy.

[Zoupa]

Here's why this video is cool but at the same time infuriating.

It's not very clear to see due to grainy footage, but what happens is in the middle of the screen, a russian tank, a T-90M (a tank made in 2016), gets the jump on a Ukrainian Bradley, an american infantry fighting vehicle produced in 1981, which you can see rolling from the bottom left to the bottom right of the screen (footage is sped up btw, this was a 10 minutes long engagement).

So the russian tank get a first shot off and misses the Bradley, because russians suck and russian tech is terrible. The Bradley strafes the tank with its 25mm autocannon, seemingly detonating the ERA on the russian tank and maybe its smoke canisters (what you see sparkling).

It then bugs off screen and calls in his buddy in another Bradley, who proceeds to charge at the T-90M like a maniac with balls of steel, absolutely wrecking the russian tank as it's turning to run away, because russians are stupid and russian tech is terrible; meaning the T-90M has a reverse speed of literally 4 km/h, so if the tank wants to disengage and bug out it typically needs to turn around, exposing it's less-armoured flank to enemy fire. The Ukrainians know this, proceed to dump a bunch of lead into it, and the whole tank crew gets shredded, the turret starts spinning because either the gunner is dead and slumped over the controls or the 25mm autocannon fucked up all the mechanics.

The russki tank then finishes its shitty genocidal life crashing into a tree.

It's awesome because it shows the superiority of a 45 year old american made machine to one of the most modern russki tank. It's infuriating because it shows that with more gear donated and proper training, the Ukrainians can squash the invaders.

The US has 6500 Bradleys, including 2000 in storage. They donated 186 to Ukraine.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Yeah, the west cares too much about some none existing Russian red lines. Same with the airforce: we should have taken a page from the Russian playbook  during Korea there I think.

[Josquius]

It's weird America has donated so little. I have to suspect it's about something else than Russian red lines. You donate tanks you've already crossed that line. There's no line of 1000 tanks.

[DGuller]

Could it be the Chinese lines they're worried about crossing?

[Sheilbh]

Could it be the Chinese lines they're worried about crossing?

That has definitely been part of it - especially early in the war. The Poles were going to give a load of MiGs and the US replace them with American jets. The Poles had already actually announced it.

It was, reportedly, then escalated very fast from Beijing to DC who revoked the deal. This was a point when Putin was making lots of hints about nuclear and the Chinese made it very clear (including with public statements) on no nuclear escalation and also wouldn't provide much direct military support to Russia (which is why they need North Korean and Iranian weapons).

A year later that red line either didn't matter as much, or DC didn't care, as the deal went ahead.

I'm not sure if it's been a factor on other weapons. I think some of it is a little bit of Western arrogance. I feel like I've heard several times about how x system is just very complicated and takes a lot of training and Ukraine wouldn't be able to integrate it into their forces. I don't think it's proven an issue on anything so far but it does seem to be something we keep hearing.

[Zoupa]

It's something we keep hearing, even though it's been proven wrong many times over.

[Zoupa]

This one also seems relevant...

[Admiral Yi]

Relevant to what? 

[Zoupa]

To highlight that the trainees are often way more advanced in their knowledge than the trainers.