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weremensh
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Post Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2022 3:39 pm |
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Moderator of DOOM! |
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Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am Posts: 15853
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From what I've been reading the Chechens got themselves fed into the meat grinder down in Mariupol. The folks who got hammered trying, and failing, to grab a bridgehead at the airport outside Kiev were paratroops and spetznaz (special forces); because apparently Putin thinks it's been way too long since Operation Market Garden.
I read back when the invasion started that the Russian forces in Crimea were the only ones that had actually trained together as units (elite formations like the paratroops aside); but I suspect more of their success is owed to the Ukrainian army being deployed further east when the balloon went up, and a deliberate defensive choice to trade space for time in the south and east (Karkhiv aside) while fighting tooth and nail for the approaches to Kiev.
It could be interesting to see what happens if Russian failures elsewhere free up Ukrainian troops to be shifted to the south, because it's pretty clear that the western end of the Russian push north was badly overextended when the locals counterattacked. It may be that so much of the attacking force is tied down in Mariupol that the rest is somewhat fragile right now.
And in other news, Japan may, or may not, be eying some of the disputed islands in the Kurile chain. Something else for the Russians to consider as they ship far-east troops and equipment to the west.
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weremensh
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Post Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:41 pm |
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Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am Posts: 15853
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I'm going to guess that the mass graves and such like, being left behind by the retreating Russians, won't make it any more convenient for those who want to go right back to their particular profitable version of business as usual the instant there's a cease fire.
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weremensh
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Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:04 pm |
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Moderator of DOOM! |
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Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am Posts: 15853
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It seems that the new alliance between England, Australia and the US will now be looking into hypersonic weapons (about three weeks after the US successfully tested one for the first time). The English stress that defensive measures will be the primary goal, and it might be true. In other news, it looks like China is having a bit of a rethink about the wisdom of invading Taiwan; and actually severing the rest of Europe from Russian fossil fuels is looking merely absurdly hard instead of outright lunatic.
Who knows? If the new UN paper on global warming is going to have the smallest prayer of happening, it looks like Putin will be the one to thank.
Oh, and as a personal aside: I'm hard pressed to see why people might be surprised that a Russia led by a KGB agent is behaving towards enemy nationals exactly the same way it did under the previous Communist regime, especially when it's already done so before under Putin. I suppose they just didn't think it through.
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