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SkyDekker

Ukraine

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On 9/20/2022 at 11:55 AM, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Robert,

Ukraine or Russia?  Now, where do I want to live?

Jerry Baumchen

Hi folks,

Looks like some Russians have answered the question:  men attempt to leave the country to avoid a military call-up 

Ukraine war: Russians flee to border after military call-up - BBC News

Jerry Baumchen

PS - ETA)  Maybe each one of them should carry a white handkerchief so that they can immediately surrender to the Ukranians once they get to the front lines.

Edited by JerryBaumchen

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11 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

PS - ETA)  Maybe each one of them should carry a white handkerchief so that they can immediately surrender to the Ukranians once they get to the front lines.

Historically the Russians have had very harsh ways of dealing with conscripts who won't fight.

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25 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Historically the Russians have had very harsh ways of dealing with conscripts who won't fight.

Times have changed. The Russian army has lots of lawyers evidently. So contract soldiers are coming up all the time with new innovative ways to avoid combat.

So now(two days ago) "Russia's Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved legislation that toughens punishment for soldiers breaching their duties, in an apparent effort to boost discipline in the ranks amid the fighting in Ukraine....Under the new legislation, deserting a military unit during a period of mobilization or martial law would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, compared with five years under the current law.

Those who voluntarily surrender to the enemy will also face a prison term of up to 10 years, ..

Another amendment introduces a prison sentence of up to 10 years for those who refuse to go to combat or follow an officer's order."

I'm sure many Russians will find a way around all this new get tough approach. No word yet if any family members of the Russian parliament are "serving the motherland".

In WW 11 the Soviet Union had commissars(political communist leaders) in every regiment and on every ship. Cowardice, desertion, etc. were all shooting offenses. With a trial dispensed as unnecessary.

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6 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Times have changed. The Russian army has lots of lawyers evidently. So contract soldiers are coming up all the time with new innovative ways to avoid combat.

I dont know if it's true or how widespread it is, but one analyst said something interesting about Russian military discipline. Because the Russian Army has a strongly stick based motivational system with harsh punishments for small infractions, Russian soldiers learn that following the letter of an order is always the best thing for them to do, even if there's an obvious error, the facts on the ground have changed, or it just plain doesn't make sense.

 

Apparently this is one reason why Russian artillery is good at grinding cities to dust but bad at fighting enemy forces. If they're told to hit a target at a certain location, they could be given new targetting information 10 seconds later but they will often still methodically aim and fire at the first location they were given before moving on to the next one so no-one can accuse them of not carrying out the orders they were given. In the meantime the Ukrainian mobile battery or whatever they were trying to hit has a good chance of staying 3 steps ahead.

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17 minutes ago, jakee said:

I dont know if it's true or how widespread it is, but one analyst said something interesting about Russian military discipline. Because the Russian Army has a strongly stick based motivational system with harsh punishments for small infractions, Russian soldiers learn that following the letter of an order is always the best thing for them to do, even if there's an obvious error, the facts on the ground have changed, or it just plain doesn't make sense.

AFAIK its more a case that they are never trained to think for themselves. They follow orders because initiative has never been suggested to any rank at any time. Till now the army is based upon individual service contracts. Troops do what they are told but the entire system is corrupt. Theft, looting and self dealing is rampant In Ukraine the chain of command has been severely compromised. The troops don't think officers are competent or care for them. Entire units have disobeyed orders to attack. Because of lack of direct command, ammo, artillery, or air support. Yes they can be punished. But the prevailing attitude is.despair and lack of morale. i.e. What are they going to do? Send us to hell, or to Ukraine. Its the same.

18 minutes ago, jakee said:

Apparently this is one reason why Russian artillery is good at grinding cities to dust but bad at fighting enemy forces. If they're told to hit a target at a certain location, they could be given new targetting information 10 seconds later but they will often still methodically aim and fire at the first location they were given before moving on to the next one so no-one can accuse them of not carrying out the orders they were given. In the meantime the Ukrainian mobile battery or whatever they were trying to hit has a good chance of staying 3 steps ahead.

Counter-battery radars in Russian units are taken out as fast as the emit. The US is supplying HARM missiles to Ukraine. Which has jury rigged MIGs to fire them with laptops in the cockpits.

Many Russian artillery systems, the old towed systems have old, old barrels. They are not very accurate. Most Ukrainian fire missions have drone support for targeting. They have been supplied with substantial quantities of gps guided artillery rounds. Russian troops have said again and again that they are impressed with Ukrainian artillery accuracy. Even though Ukrainians are severely limited by the number of rounds available.

In some areas Ukrainians can fire towed artillery now and not have to move them after a fire mission because they don't fear return fire.

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‘Voting’ has started in Russian controlled areas of Ukraine. ‘Votes’ are being collected by election officials going door to door accompanied by armed police and soldiers, using ballot papers written only in Russian.

Election observers around the world are condemning it as a sham, the Texas GOP is condemning it coming too late to copy for the midterms.

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2 hours ago, jakee said:

the Texas GOP is condemning it coming too late to copy for the midterms.

LOL. Texans need to check out Zimbabwe where voter intimidation is rife but nobody in the rest of the world seems to give a flying F. They don't do too much well in good old Zim these days but they certainly know how to get the voting right. Yes, I know, admin.....this should be in Joke of the Day forum. 

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13 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

I'm sure many Russians will find a way around all this new get tough approach. No word yet if any family members of the Russian parliament are "serving the motherland".

Son of Putin's spokesperson isn't too happy about serving:

Nikolay Peskov pranked, caught trying to get out of military service (nypost.com)

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4 hours ago, jakee said:

‘..., the Texas GOP is condemning it coming too late to copy for the midterms.

 

2 hours ago, Bokdrol said:

LOL. Texans need to check out Zimbabwe where voter intimidation is rife but nobody in the rest of the world seems to give a flying F. They don't do too much well in good old Zim these days but they certainly know how to get the voting right. ..

The GOP uses modern education techniques like Hannity, MTG,  FOX and trump.i.e. lies, distraction, promises of "trickle down utopia" Using Gestapo type tactics is so outdated.

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2 hours ago, BartG said:

Son of Putin's spokesperson isn't too happy about serving:

Nikolay Peskov pranked, caught trying to get out of military service (nypost.com)

The mobilization is a general mobilization and not limited to 300k as Putin originally stated. A Kremlin insider reported the objective is 1,000,000.

Obviously more fodder for Ukrainian cannons must erase earlier defeats.

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Like a infamous US president. President Putin has decided that he knows more than his generals. He is now directing the battle plan according to US officials. He has ordered that there will be no retreat from Kherson even though Russian troops have been largely cut off.

Stalin was famous in the first several years of WW ll for ordering Soviet forces to stand their ground or be shot. The Germans regularly encircled them. Cut them off from resupply. Then either took hundreds of thousands prisoner. Or just shot them. Perhaps Putin is not as great a historian as he thinks he is.

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1 hour ago, Phil1111 said:

Perhaps Putin is not as great a historian as he thinks he is.

I think its a lot more that he's not been told 'no' in a long time.

So he doesn't understand when he cannot get something done.

We saw this in the US, with the run up to the Iraq invasion.

Everyone who had a contrarian view was ignored, dismissed or attacked (at least Cheney didn't directly kill anyone).
As a result, real information that the WMDs didn't exist was suppressed, the pretext for the invasion was sold to the population and the next decade was a shitshow of death and destruction in Iraq.

Putin is ignoring, dismissing or murdering anyone who disagrees with him.

So legitimate concerns or criticisms are not getting through.

He's become the 'emperor with no clothes' ('no army' for Putin), and he's not being told he can't win anymore.

The Russian army is going to be decimated, Russia won't really be a 'world power', Putin will likely get the 'full Mussolini' at some point.

The 'wild card' is the nukes they have. 
I have little doubt that Putin will try to use them when he has no other options left.
I can only hope that the Army officers who have the actual control over them have he willingness and ability to resist using then when Putin tells them to.

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Zelensky offers guarantees for Russian soldiers who surrender

Appealing directly to Russians during an address, Zelensky said Ukraine could guarantee three terms to Russian soldiers in exchange for their surrender. He said such Russians will be treated in a civilized manner, the circumstances of their surrender will remain undisclosed and Ukraine will find a way to ensure those who do not want to return to Russia are not exchanged.

Sounds like an attractive way to GTFO of Russia! (As long as you can find a way to surrender before Ukraine lobs a missile at you.)

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On 9/24/2022 at 6:16 AM, Phil1111 said:

Like a infamous US president. President Putin has decided that he knows more than his generals. He is now directing the battle plan according to US officials. He has ordered that there will be no retreat from Kherson even though Russian troops have been largely cut off.

Stalin was famous in the first several years of WW ll for ordering Soviet forces to stand their ground or be shot. The Germans regularly encircled them. Cut them off from resupply. Then either took hundreds of thousands prisoner. Or just shot them. Perhaps Putin is not as great a historian as he thinks he is.

On the Eastern Front, both sides were brutal on Prisoners of War during World War 2. Hitler intended to clear Eastern Europe of Slavic untermensch to make way for good, upstanding German farmers.

To that end, Nazis executed thousands of P.O.W.s especially leaders: professors, politicians, journalists, army officers, writers, poet, play-wrights, etc. in Poland.

Meanwhile, the USSR starved thousands of P.O.W.s or let them freeze to death. They also deported huge numbers to labor camps in Siberia and kept them there for a decade after the war ended. Only a handful survived.

Far more bled to death on the Eastern Front that while fighting in Western Europe (WALLIES included Americans, Brazilians, Brits, Canadians, Indians, Free French, Free Poles, etc.

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18 hours ago, ryoder said:

Zelensky offers guarantees for Russian soldiers who surrender

Appealing directly to Russians during an address, Zelensky said Ukraine could guarantee three terms to Russian soldiers in exchange for their surrender. He said such Russians will be treated in a civilized manner, the circumstances of their surrender will remain undisclosed and Ukraine will find a way to ensure those who do not want to return to Russia are not exchanged.

Sounds like an attractive way to GTFO of Russia! (As long as you can find a way to surrender before Ukraine lobs a missile at you.)

Interesting that Ukraine is offering favorable surrender terms.

I have a feeling they're going to end up with 'just a few' takers for that.

Wagner group is apparently recruiting prisoners (like convicts in Russian prisons).
Offering decent pay, amnesty for the crimes that landed them in prison and promises that war crimes committed in Ukraine wouldn't be punished.

There are reports that some of them are simply finding a Ukrainian to surrender to as soon as they get there.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/20/russia-recruits-inmates-ukraine-war-wagner-prigozhin

Different article on the same subject:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/wagner-group-russia-prisoners-captured-ukrainian-forces

 

Interesting that the article claims that many Wagner fighters are "renowned for their far-right views and Slavic nationalism."

Funny how many of the Russian trolls want us to believe that the Ukrainians are all "Nazis and fascists", when it seems like the Wagner group mercenaries share some of those same traits.

Edited by wolfriverjoe

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How MacGyver helped Ukraine sink some Russian ships.

“We got them off the ship, put them on some flatbed trucks, put the Harpoons, the modules on the flatbed truck, and then a different flatbed truck for the power source, connected a cable between it, figured out was exportable, brought the Ukrainians to train on it over Memorial Day weekend, in our country, over Memorial Day weekend, and the next week two Russian ships were sunk with those Harpoons,” he said.

The U.S. was part of a coalition team that did the training, a U.S. defense official said later. A "vendor" trained the Ukrainians, the official said.

The Boeing-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles used in the strike were given to the Ukrainians by a U.S. ally that LaPlante did not disclose. The missiles were removed from the ally’s ship and then mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. A second flatbed truck served as a “power source,” he said. “There's incredible innovation going on right now and we just don't talk about it enough.” 

In mid-June, Ukraine said it deployed Harpoons provided by Denmark. Days later, reports emerged that the Ukrainian military had sunk the Russian naval supply ship Spasatel Vasily Bekh. A week later the Pentagon said Ukraine had sunk that ship with Harpoons."

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We're heading into a particularly dangerous phase now.  Putin is losing - badly - and his sham referendum will serve to further back him into a corner.  When it comes back showing that 96% of Ukranians believe that they are Russians and are begging for Putin to protect them, he will lose the option to say "well, the people there are crazy Nazis so we're just going to leave them to their insanity."

So where does he go from here?  He can throw all those new conscripts onto the field.   But just as his attempts to use prisoners showed, those conscripts are going to see a lot of benefits in surrendering and spending the rest of the war somewhere safe.  And he can no longer adequately arm them.

He can fly missions to reduce Ukrainian cities to rubble.  But he's tried that already.  Didn't change the course of the war.

That leaves tactical NBC weapons.  And while most of his nuclear weapons are no doubt junk by this point, he has over 1000 - so the odds are that one will work.  And that will escalate VERY quickly.  The Ukrainains have the ability to hit points within Russia but have not done so because they just want the war over.  That will change once nukes get used.

And chemical or biological weapons will cause such a global stink that the repercussions of that might well be worse than anything that is happening right now inside Russia.

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29 minutes ago, billvon said:

We're heading into a particularly dangerous phase now.  Putin is losing - badly - and his sham referendum will serve to further back him into a corner.  When it comes back showing that 96% of Ukranians believe that they are Russians and are begging for Putin to protect them, he will lose the option to say "well, the people there are crazy Nazis so we're just going to leave them to their insanity."

So where does he go from here?  He can throw all those new conscripts onto the field.   But just as his attempts to use prisoners showed, those conscripts are going to see a lot of benefits in surrendering and spending the rest of the war somewhere safe.  And he can no longer adequately arm them.

He can fly missions to reduce Ukrainian cities to rubble.  But he's tried that already.  Didn't change the course of the war.

That leaves tactical NBC weapons.  And while most of his nuclear weapons are no doubt junk by this point, he has over 1000 - so the odds are that one will work.  And that will escalate VERY quickly.  The Ukrainains have the ability to hit points within Russia but have not done so because they just want the war over.  That will change once nukes get used.

And chemical or biological weapons will cause such a global stink that the repercussions of that might well be worse than anything that is happening right now inside Russia.

Russia detonating NBCW in Ukraine risks fall-out drifting over Russian farms and ruining their productivity.

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