Did anyone make recorded predictions prior to the war that:
1. Russia would invade, and
2. Russia would not achieve a coup de main or fait accompli.
It seems like lots of people predicted one or the other, but not both. Any examples of someone who got both the invasion and the shitty Russian performance right?
Also, thread for blue ticks making catastrophically bad predictions about the war.
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We don't know who got what right until it's over. Unless someone predicted that both sides would fight like mildly retarded passive-aggressive dipshits, with the Russian retardation being slightly greater and therefore offsetting their material superiority.
>Did anyone make recorded predictions prior to the war that:
>1. Russia would invade, and
i didn't. I'm man enough to admit that i really didn't think Russia would launch a full scale invasion and thought Putin was posturing. Russia has consistently been a crisis-management problem for the west, contain them long enough and they back down, but this time they're going all the way.
Zeihan, I guess? Not that it takes a genius to say "there will *probably* be conflict in *Eastern Europe* in *the next decade*.
kind of hard to conclude poor Russian performance at this point
I predicted both and was just staring dumbfounded at the amount of troops massed on the Ukranian border that would have to invade or else ruin the Russian economy--which would ruin the Russian economy. The 'they can't be doing this as a flex, this has to be crippling for them' and 'they can't be this stupid, there's no way this will be anything but a bloodbath' halves of my brain were fighting each other.
no proofs unless you want me to post texts I sent my mom
Post proofs. I don’t believe that you talk about geopolitics with your mother.
I 100% expected Putin to wait for his intelligence to trigger a false flag, but he’s dumber than I gave him credit for.
Not really. It's not so much the length of time as much as in the overall strategy, logistical issues and lack of intelligence. If Russia had gone in all guns blazing and methodically taken apart the Ukrainians then no one would be talking about their poor performance but they grossly miscalculated the situation and are doubling down. They will still win in a conventional sense, but I guarantee you the supplies for continued insurgency are already being put in place. Unless Putin withdraws which he won't because he's in too deep and risked too much to cut his losses, then expect several years to a decade of back and forth cyber warfare and a long insurgency that the Russian military simply cannot handle either in manpower or supply. There is literally no scenario in which this ends well for Putin or Russia.
i completely believed he was just posturing. i didn't and still don't understand what could be worth so much to warrant an invasion which would trigger so much backlash from the global community. what does Ukraine have that Russia wants so badly that they would even shoot themselves in the foot to get?
Natural gas I'm Crimea. Getting the water flowing to Crimea from the canal that was blocked since it costs Russia to try and keep Crimea from turning into a wasteland unsuccessfully. Plus they wouldn't have to pay tariffs to Ukraine for the use of their pipelines. I would add fear of NATO and a more modern Ukrainian Army down the line, but ultimately I don't think Putin actually knows much about military affairs other than Russia Stronk and creaming over non existant T-14s. When this shitshow is over I want to see just how much of this was his own planning.
Tell your babushka that Crimea was annexed because 80% of Ukraine's oil and gas is offshore of Crimea, and Ukraine was trying to develop it with western help. They could almost have supplied western europes gas needs if it was successful.
Because that's why they did it.
Love all these stooges being exposed for the brainlets they are
Well I know that now, but thanks, I'll let her know I figured it out.
This is less 'shooting yourself in the foot' and more 'shooting yourself in your femoral artery'. They've become economically North Korea in a week, there's no way he expected sanctions this intense.
Screenshot of prediction that the RU mil would kind of suck?
Biden knew.
Every speech he gave about it he was smug as fuck.
He gets the intel briefings, and hiding the preparations for a massive ground invasion from the US is hard if they're looking for them.
Sadly no proofs of that. I didn't expect they would suck this much, that's for sure.
Honestly i thought they would have made a blitz push for the greater dombass and Luansk areas to secure the buffer, faint an attack on Kiev with a massive amount of troops on the Ukrainian/Belarusian border.
Or focus the attack to the Russian speaking south building a bridge between transinistria and dombass calling it novorussya (they have even made flags for it) effectively gaining massive leverage on Kiev by controlling access to the black sea, only controlling the most manageable Russian majority areas and still leave rump Ukrainian state that doesn't really matter if it joins the EU or whatever else.
A full out attack trying to take over all the country seemed to me that it should have needed a lot more men.
:(
user I know this may shock you but if you go read up on the gulf war and Iraq war to a more granular level. it was nowhere near as perfect as you imagine it in your mind.
The Gulf war is a good example, at the time they thought they had a 90% or greater bomb hit ratio with, years after it turned out it was more like less than ~50% accuracy. The air war due to serious weather problems was significantly delayed and we actually had missed just about every point on our schedule after day 1. Tank forces out in the western desert continuously got lost creating a "stop start convoy" this resulted in them being significantly behind schedule and had to be urged on by Schwarzkopf directly. The battle of al khafji was completely unexpected and caught marines completely by surprise. The coalition lost a large number of aircraft particularly a-10s and f-16s with a-10s having to be moved off re0publican guard units because they kept getting torn to shreds.
The reality is nobody has the purview to make any accurate detailed statements on how the war is going as of yet. Especially when the only sources any such claims could really use is the Ukrainian MoD who has an interest in demoralizing the Russians, and social media with is largely western owned.
We can set upper and lower bounds for how it's going. We know that the US didn't lose 550 fighting and logistics vehicles in the first week of the Gulf War, but we can say with a high degree of certainty that Russia has.
>but we can say with a high degree of certainty
I don't know how you achieve that without appealing to some non existent gods mind eye.
There's photographic evidence of all of those losses.
oryxspioenkop.com
I not only didn’t think Russia would actually invade and that it was US propaganda, I also didn’t expect Russia to be so fucking bad
is that a fair chunk of russias ground vehicles?
Biden said Putin was going to invade and he was right.
>steel-pot helmets from 1968 with camo covers and a fucking Mosin-Nagant
What the fuck, Russia?
You haven't seen anything yet.
en.wikipedia.org
it looks like an image from 2014-2016, from the DNR and LNR
I should hope so, but this invasion has been full of surprises.
Wtf I love obongo and zoros now.
saved all thx user
i rly hope we start hanging commies soon
>1. Russia would invade
Yes, although it depends on what you qualify as "invade". I thought they'd just go for an incursion into Donbas for an official annexation. I didn't expect an all-out assault on all fronts
>2. Russia would not achieve a coup de main or fait accompli.
Did not expect it and I doubt that anyone did. Everyone thought that Russia would at least be able to support an offensive across Europe, something they've been planning for decades.
Like these guys- I assumed the troop buildup was saber-rattling like the stuff China does in the South China Sea. I didn't realise it would amount to a genuine invasion force.
But won't someone PLEASE think of the Russian propaganda outlets.
Sometimes unsourced claims are actually true.
The problem with Snowden's assessment here is that he assumes that the US IC didn't truly believe that Saddam had WMDs prior to Gulf War 2. They did, and the failures of their reasoning that lead to that conclusion are well documented.
Beyond this, there's some inbuilt assumptions that are bad about how hard it is to do enough collection to be sure that a invasion is going to happen vs a country possessing something that they're hiding.
But hey, it's 2022. Who the fuck has time to calmly reason to find the truth when you could be spamming BIG DUNKS on social media against people who believe different things to you.
Me too, mostly because saber rattling was going in favor of Russia already
I will make a one that seems unlikely but will seem prescient if true:
>Russian military is losing men fast. Sieges go in for three more weeks. Heavy losses.
>This forces them to call up Belarusians in larger numbers. This leads to mutinies and new mass demonstrations and riots.
>Russia has to invade Belarus to support Lukashanko.
>Ongoing protests in Kazakhstan kick back up now that they know the Russian army won't be around and gas is still going up.
>The rapid destabilization makes Putin go full North Korea on his leadership and people, resulting in actual resistance.
>Ukrainian invasion is forever known as the start of the Second Russian Civil War, which won't begin until probably 6-16 months later.
This motherfucker must have been a saint in a previous life because no matter how mentally handicapped he is, he keeps falling ass backwards into even greater financial success.
He’s so fucking stupid and people just keep giving him millions of dollars per year while left leaning media outlets write glowing articles on him. It’s infuriating.
I figured russia wouldn't invade and if they did they would just take everything fast as fuck like in 2014. I am wrong on both counts.
same here, i thought this was an attempt to scare some concessions out of NATO or something, i didn't see why Putin would invade
If NATO were smart the next step would be supporting cross-border insurgencies in Belarus and Kazakhstan
never forget that WaPo is basically where the CIA leaks stuff:
washingtonpost.com
When Putin moved troops from Siberia to Belarus, it was pretty obvious he wasn't bluffing.
Second part of your question is harder to answer.Took the US three weeks to take Baghdad in 2003. What is your definition of coup de main? Here is WaPo again 4 days ago (unfortunately paywalled, but you get the gist from the headline):
washingtonpost.com
I remember on President's day weekend I was talking w/ friends and basically said Putin isn't stupid enough to invade because he doesn't have enough forces and the Russians aren't ready to conduct the most complicated military operation they've done since WWII. Additonally he's getting everything he wants by simply threatening to invade.
I guess I was half right.
I knew the invasion was imminent. I just had a deep gut feeling that all the massed troops, preparation, etc was legit. I figured it was a whole lot of time, money, and resources to spend on a bluff.
What has totally surprised me is the ferocity of the Ukrainian resistance. I remember seeing warhawks fretting about how nonchalant the Ukrainians seemed under the threat of invasion, and I assumed that when the invasion kicked off the Russians would steamroll the Ukrainian military and the general populace would just shrug and go about their day. One tinpot presidente gets swapped for another, who cares? Clearly I was mistaken, and even if half the reports are propaganda, let it suffice to say that the Ukrainians really really hate Russians.
I predicted it on December 6th, but I thought it would be a blow out. I thought the Russians would be much more total in their initial strikes, but they didn't use the many hundreds of missiles I was expecting on the first day, nor the thousands of sorties by their Airforce. I thought the army would be destroyed from a command standpoint within 5 days to two weeks. I also predicted they would at least go to Transnistria and make a land bridge with the Donbas and Crimea, so mostly I've been right.
I also expect the Chinese to take Taiwan sometime this year, and the resulting sanctions lead to hunger in North America, and the third world to starve. Recent events have made me consider that Iran might take Iraq, and if India attacks China Pakistan makes a move with Chinese support. They all want things they can't currently get under the current rules, and they all know that their best chance is to go all at once, while everyone is busy dealing with their own issues.
We might also see a civil war in America, or possibly a shootout with feds/National guard. Depends on how Biden reacts to the trucker convoy, and how unreasonable the truckers get.
>Trucker convoy
He doesn't know.
From what I saw truckers are too busy making stupid amounts of money delivering loads to do that, so yeah, no civil war.
Dems sweep mid-terms, because Biden was proved right by Russia and a resurgence of patriotism.
now how many of them rabidly backpedaled "oh....uhh-uhh-uhh what I ACTUALLY meant was..." and how many just straight up deleted their tweets like snakes?
but will China actually be able to invade Taiwan with direct US intervention?
it's one thing to not put boots on the ground against a nuclear power over a non-NATO member but to give up biggest foothold to the Chinese mainland and South China Sea laying down?
>upside down population pyramid insurgency.
Bahahahahhahahha. Europeans do not have enough young men to do anything remotely like that. The best insurgencies are done by religous extremist groups like Muslims. Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in the world, that is one of the reasons the US lost ground. (no no we just left), Nope we lost fucking everything, by the end of the conflict, US troops were confined to FOBs at major cities, the all the villages were against them. Realistically, the insurgency will not be bad at all. Call me when atheists are suicide attacking so they can have gay marriage in there country.
Not at all. I figured Russia wouldn’t invade, or if it did only a very limited incursion in the east with no real fighting. Russia seemed to be poised to capitalize on the west’s weakness to wring concessions out of them. I have to give kudos to Noah Rothman, neocon that he is, for pointing out relatively early that the Russians had brought up difficult equipment, fully stocked field hospitals and the like, as an indication that this wasn’t a bluff.
I didn’t expect the Russians to do this poorly. It is frankly shocking. Ukraine not rolling over more so. Although what has surprised me the most is the response of the west.
I don’t know about you all but I feel like I’m in an episode of the twilight zone. One where most of my dreams on foreign policy and global military strategy suddenly become true overnight. The Western Europeans(the fucking Germans even) are militarizing more, rich democracies are willing to take short term hits to their economies to ensure their long term national interests, and both sides of the political isle are speaking the language of aggressive posture on the world stage. It almost scares me.
Yep, insurgences were invented 09/11/01 in Central Asia and have never been conducted by anyone but Muslims.
>so they can have gay marriage
Because that’s the only reason anyone would want to resist their country being occupied.
Russia considers Ukraine to be Russian clay. Not gonna do shock and awe tactics against your own people, which changes the tactics up.
Putin considers the Ukraine to be Russian clay. I'm not sure about most Russians. This is Putin's Mein Kampf btw:
en.wikisource.org
The only theory I've been able to come up with that sort of makes sense is that Putin wants to go full isolationist and disconnect Russia from the global economy like in the Soviet days, so he's purposely provoking massive sanctions because the Russian people won't go along with it willingly unless he can spin it as big bad NATO victimizing Russia, and he gets the nice side effect of the sanctions destroying half of his oligarch rivals and provoking the other half into standing up to him so he has an excuse to gulag/polonium tea them. Things like crashing the Ruble don't matter to him because he thinks Russia is going to go back to self-sufficiency (maybe part of why he wants Ukraine, for its agricultural output) and any foreign trade would be done with goods rather than currency. It's admittedly farfetched but I can't think of anything else that comes close to logical.
Alternatively, either Putin just found out he's dying and wants to start WW3 as a last fuck you to the world, or he's doing some crazy shit where he's actually taking one for the team and forcing NATO to get its shit together in preparation for some bigger threat he knows/thinks is coming. (Ayys, China, or whatever.)
Read . There's no need to theorise. Putin explains his world view and goals clearly. He wants to re-establish a "greater Russia" with a buffer state which is basically the USSR, with the old Polish Commonwealth as a buffer.
The dude is unhinged on a similar level to Hitler, but with his fantasy world centred on Moscow rather than Berlin.
so we are basically hitting late war Hitler levels, moving around divisions that aren't there, except now it's VDV?
SCS sabre rattling was no where near the naval equivalent of full army groups. Their rattling was a few full combat ships at most, a small percentage of fleet. Putin committed the vast majority of his army.
No. We're in early war territory, except there's no appeasement going on and because the flavour of Putin's derangement is Slavic supranationalism he thought no one in the Ukraine would fight against Russian troops coming to reunite them with the motherland. The VDV shit is a manifestation of the latter; these aren't unsupported drops because they're supposed to be dropping into friendly territory. Basically the dude has drunk too much of his own slavic IDPOL koolaid and believes the whole region loves Moscovite rule when the reality is that practically everyone wants to get the fuck out our Russia's orbit because it enforces a shit way of life.
Will Putin send him in with the VEH DEH VEH?
Wrong. The purist form of the warrior spirit is the belief in the metaphysical. It requires a belief in a metaphysical ideal that makes you impervious to death. Atheist do not suicide bomb people so women can vote. The IRA relied on Catholicism; Chechen's, Iraqis, Afghans, Islam. You need a foundational society that is worth protecting. When most men in society are over the age of 30, you don't have the "energy" for sustained terror, at least not like the Afghans, which could not be called anything other then impressive. I don't know about you, but I would never fight to protect the "government". Maybe if invaders were trying to promote communism,..... meh, maybe. But if you went after Christianity, I would consider it a just cause. But I don't worship America, I consider myself Catholic first.
The fire to fight war dies with age, its a young mans game. The other issue, is that once the Ukrainian government falls, the mandatory "can't leave if your a man, fight and die for the government" policy should end. Allot of dudes do not give a fuck about fighting in this fruitless conflict and are only "fighting" because they are forced to at gunpoint or are shamed into it.
Were the other counties' intelligence agencies in agreement with US intel? Wasn't paying too close attention to that at the time.
Or was it just him reading into their intentions since everyone could see the troops waiting at the border, just most couldn't be sure if it was just posturing or not. Not even sure if we could have intercepted many order since the first waves didn't even know they were supposed to be invading.
Putin's general staff probably leaked it in hopes it would cause Putin to back down. Neither his MoD or his chief of general staff seem committed.
Russia will take the breakaway republics.
Sanctions will last 4 or so years.
US Gas prices plus the election year mean a year of hostilities in the USA.
Those are my predictions
Russia will lose this war. Their current loses are already absurd and only going to get worse. They've lost your offensive momentum too and had to resort to shelling cities.
It is over for Putin.
>Took the US three weeks to take Baghdad in 2003
If Baghdad was a 30 minute drive from the Texas border it would have been a lot quicker i think
All the Leftist "Anti-War" grifters are about to be out of a job.
Thanks for saving the existing "New world order" Putin, LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
I thought in early Feb there would be like a 10% of Russia invading. But the night before the invasion I was putting that up to like 50%. One of the biggest things that I saw was the mobile crematoriums & police vans for POWs. I really can't imagine how a crematorium would be a part of any training exercises.
Yeah. My go-to line for friends and family asking was always "any crisis like this has a less than 50% probability of actually resulting in war, but not zero". Didn't think it was likely until Putin recognized DNR/LNR, at which point it became very likely.
As for Ukrainian performance I've always said that they could hold quite a while if they concentrate on defending cities and using partisan tactics in the Russian rear, but my earnest belief was that they'd get BTFO very publicly, rout, the internet would be flooded with dead/surrendered Ukrainian troops shilled by triumphant Any Forumstards and the government would collapse or surrender in days.
Russians getting btfo in war is normal. Chechnya, Afghanistan, ww2/1. Just give them a couple years of throwing wave after wave of people into the meat grinder
They are not following their own doctrine and have taken heavy, preventable casualties. Their performance is definitely poor even if they end up winning regardless. Though at this point they can get anything that looks like a victory long-term even if they do defeat the Ukrainian army and take all the major cities (which is still quite likely, though appearing less likely by the day).
>purist
Trust a Catholic to demonstrate that they can't write English properly at the first opportunity in their "actually religion is good" rant
Fags like this should be shot.
>what could be worth so much to warrant an invasion which would trigger so much backlash from the global community
it would absolutely be worth it if said backlash didn't happen, or rather was the usual lukewarm "look, we're doing something, and the next letter will be VERY stern"
I don't think anybody expected stuff like Germany rearming as a consequence
They're deep in Ukrainian territory.
Out of fuel and out of food based on their abandoned vehicles, more and more everyday.
Ukrainian spec ops are ambushing straggling elements, all guided by NATO intelligence assets.
More and more weapons being delivered to Ukraine everyday.
Putin is done.
>is that a fair chunk of russias ground vehicles?
russia has a fuckton of soviet surplus lying around and modernized plenty of it so it's still usable
losing SO MUCH due to weird shit like not exercising the vehicles so now all their tires are fucked (in addition to said tires being chinese bargain bin garbage) is certainly not what anybody had expected.
fairly sure the local warhawks won't be needing viagra for a while, and some deep seated anxieties were put to rest after russia's performance so far
I will admit that I never thought that Russia would be retarded enough to do this.
And I also never thought that they'd be retarded enough to fuck it up this badly.
I believed that Russia would go in the rebel-controlled Donbass region and maybe invade the rest. And during that they would perhaps scare Kiev with some bombardments and their huge forces there. But never in my life I thought they would actually go for a full invasion of whole Ukraine.
I didn't think Russia would invade because I thought they thought they couldn't pull off the second part.
Turns out they were not only massively overconfident in a way I discounted, they were utterly shambolic in action, to a degree I can scarcely believe.
Isn't their doctrine built around not giving a fuck about heavy preventable casualties in the first place. Because honestly that's how it looks.
Russia is going to win the war even if it ducks their country long term because of sunken cost fallacy. They will continue to throw bodies and equipment at the Ukrainians to slowly whittle them away.
In the end the Russian state will become a Nork tier hermit kingdom dependent on exporting raw resources to Chyna. Sad!
I have a feeling this is going to end with them taking the eastern parts, then cutting their losses and leaving the west alone, including Kiev.
Then they'll move the goalpost and say they achieved what they wanted to achieve, and that the invasion was very successful, and not a complete and utter embarrassment.
Their tactics are based around the idea that a short war-no matter how bloody-is going to be better than a long war. On paper, a willingness to throw men at a problem up-front instead of pussyfooting around at the moment of decisive action can save more lives than it costs.
That was back when they had the industrial base and population to support it.
Modern Russia has failed to maintain the Soviet heavy industry that could mass produce cheap, good enough military arms. Meanwhile their demographics can't support losing many young men.
Russia is doomed. We can only pray the generals take out Putin before he gets any nuclear ideas.
>Isn't their doctrine built around not giving a fuck about heavy preventable casualties in the first place
No, and it never really was. Russia has always taken a disproportionate amount of losses, but it's not because of doctrine, but sheer incompetence. But instead of admitting this, they simply call it a doctrine, and pretend to be tough guys who are doing it on purpose.
red white and blue flies over kiev by d+14
same
this
>Wrong. The purist form of the warrior spirit is the belief in the metaphysical. It requires a belief in a metaphysical ideal that makes you impervious to death.
Hating vatniks IS a metaphysical ideal.
I predicted that Russia would invade, you don't spend that much treasure moving military equipment to staging positions just to let everyone know what your plan for invading Ukraine is and then go home.
That being said I never expected Ukraine to put up a fight, figured there would be pockets of resistance but that otherwise the country would crumble in a couple of days followed by some mopping up.
The West spent 8 years building this bear trap in Ukraine. We'll see the end of Putin's chapter in Russia's history soon.
I'd point out one thing, in addition to the gas and water. Sevastopol provides the russian navy with a warm water port, which they have been continually desperately short of. The Bosporus still has to be contended with, but Turkey has had a rough time with the US for the past few years.
I knew Russia was incompetent. It's something I've been very vocal about for 20 years, despite all of the idiots who for some reason believed they were this big, tough military powerhouse.
That said, I didn't think Ukraine would stand a chance at all, but that's primarily because I thought they were equally incompetent.
I've read up on it a bit since, and aside from the equipment they've been given by the west, which is a massive force multiplier, the CIA seems to have trained a bunch of Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers. I hope we get some insight into what they're doing, once all of this is over.
Anyway, I think the situation would have been very different if Putin had simply gone all in back in 2014, instead of giving Ukraine 8 years to prepare.
But they had Stevastopol, they weren't in any more danger of losing it than they are of losing Kaliningrad before the invasion of Crimea.
its a safe bet to say that things will get worse
note quite Apocalyptic cult level, but near that directoin
>look up Dan Cohen
>ofc he's an infowars-tier loonie
>somehow became really quiet around the end of february
mild shock
I thought it would be a limited offensive in Donbass, probably an attempt to move LNR/DNR borders out to the Ukrainian administrative borders of the Lugansk/Donetsk oblast.
I thought the western response would be stronger sanctions, but Russia will survive them, at least for several years.
A few people predicted an all-out invasion of Ukraine, but I don't think anyone at all predicted the unity of the Western response, the crippling nature of sanctions, the complete isolation Russia now faces, and the lack of support from Iran or China.
There are already talks of Europe reducing Russian gas imports; buying from other sources. Most economic experts in and out of Russia agree that it's not even necessary. Russian economy will completely implode, year 1991 style, in the course of the next 4 months or so.
Regardless of how this war goes, Russia is done as a world power. Its only hope is to fully close its borders, nationalize everything, and become China's bitch as soon as possible - before its people starve.
The bear is dying.
I don't like living through major historical events.
didnt the trucker convoy to DC end up being like 5 trucks?
Putin's cornered and more desperate every day. He's going to lash out. Next few months won't be pretty.
Maybe even tactical nukes?
>Alternatively, either Putin just found out he's dying and wants to start WW3 as a last fuck you to the world, or he's doing some crazy shit where he's actually taking one for the team and forcing NATO to get its shit together in preparation for some bigger threat he knows/thinks is coming. (Ayys, China, or whatever.)
Maybe the storyline from Resistance: Fall of Man is true? He's training us to fight the Chimera?
That's a big dunkaroonie of a post, quality bro.
Deep down I didn't think Putin would go through with it. Zelensky countering the American intelligence and telling them not to raise tensions was a big part of that reasoning. I listened to a good podcast with journalists in Ukraine and Moscow at the start of February though, and that made me very wary, as they found the American and British intelligence credible and reckoned denying it was a ploy by Zelensky to give Russia cover/deniability to pull back and save face. I also had that John Mearshimer talk from 2015 in the back of my mind and knew Russia would NEVER accept Ukraine in the EU or NATO.
Even given all this, I still figured there was a reasonable chance of some kind of diplomatic solution. I feel like an idiot for following news of talks when it was all just stalling tactics by Russia, who always intended to invade anyway.
The force multiplier is USA military intelligence. We see everything the Russians do, where they are, when they launch planes for airstrikes, or cruise missiles for strikes. And we feed that to our Ukrainian assets.
Russia's fighting with the fog of war on but Ukrainian special forces are not.
Biden gave Putin so many chances to back down. Now he's going to be reminded who the cold war, again.
In some ways this whole thing strikes me as a case of 'It's a poor workman who blames his tools.' It's true that Russia does not have anywhere near as capable a military as they claim, or as some of the world has believed up until now. That being said I place a lot of the blame on their operational planning. They picked the worst possible time of year to invade. At least in the dead of winter, or preferably the summer they could have manuevered cross-country as needed and made good use of those core forces that actually are reasonably capable. The VDV isn't terrible, but for christ sake they have deployed them in the most retarded ways imaginable. It doesn't matter how good you are when you wind up stuck on a flat airfield with absolutely no support or heavy equipment. Even conscripts can be effective if they have good leadership who understands their limitations.
HOT TAKE:
Putin's nuclear bluffs will increase in volume as this clusterfuck continues.
They were stalling because their logistics are trash. We're seeing that now. From the Chinese reaction I don't think they were upfront with Xi about the scale of the operations either.
>be russian
>all is going to shit
>state-regulated media tells you its NATO hostility making life shitty
>Putin is set to rule forever on a golden throne, kept alive by sacrificing thousands of VDV each day
I have a few friends who deal with russian companies now being hit by sanctions, and the stories they are telling me are just absurd
Nukes are the red line at which I think his own henchmen will actually kill him, even if they tolerated everything else. There are rumors that the Chinese have already scolded him after his first outburst about nukes a couple days ago.
I don't think Putin even fully realized or wants to comprehend what has transpired. It's also entirely possible the Russian generals on the ground (those who aren't getting assassinated by CIA SAD) are not giving him the complete picture, that they are dressing it up like the few remaining vatnik shills do on this board.
This is a no win scenario for him. Any scenario that would improve Russia's situation is a death sentence to him. Up to a certain point, he won't back down. But nukes are it.
Right now it looks like he's throwing more and more meat into the grinder, in the style of 1st Chechen war. Rossgrardia and police units from all over the country, conscript motor rifle battalions that have zero training and just die. It's the denial stage still.
Shit like indiscriminate, but indecisive, small-scale and useless bombing of Kharkov and other cities, as well as last night's attack on the nuclear plant, shows desperation. Kadyrov was very depressed last night, cried about how many losses his proud chechens are taking from artillery, and is advocating for complete scorched earth.
This is very not good.
Well, it makes you wonder how they ended up even more incompetent than expected. Did they just not give a shit? Did they buy their own propaganda? Or did Putin rely entirely on incompetent yes men?
Or maybe he's directing the whole thing himself.
>tfw Stalin thought Hitler would not invade, at least not so soon
after all who would do something so illogical ?
.t did not see this coming
I predicted they would invade, no stated timeline but I think the fact that I left the bet open until December says that I expected it to take a while. My expectation was and is that they will install a puppet regime, effectively taking over the entire country, but I also thought it was possible (lesser chance) that they would only retake enough of eastern Ukraine to reconnect the river for irrigation and link up their two sites. (Had to quantify it because just "takes more land" is too vague.)
You can go to Betmoose and look for the bet by Porky with shirtless Putin sitting in a lounge chair to see. Throw in a few bucks on your expected outcome if you want, someone just fat-fingered a US$4100 bet against me a few days ago, no idea why.
Kadyrov is sadly right, the only way out from a purely military perspective is to apply Russia's firepower advantage before Ukraine is flooded with ATGM and drones. Russia's logistics have also proven they cannot handle an operation of this scale.
China's liberals must feel a sense of relief. Xi and his hawks have to be apprehensive about their own sabre rattling. The West has demonstrated they are willing to apply sanctions on Russia that would bring China, who has no energy or food sufficiency like Russia, to it's heels.
One scenario I haven't seen mentioned is Russia essentially becoming China's puppet. If the sanctions stay in place, Putin's going to have to find other trading partners, which means he'll be wholly reliant on China.
China doesn't really give a fuck about anything, aside from power, and will squeeze Russia for what it's worth.
For all his flaws Putin is not stupid, you don't get into the position he has without a brain. I don't know if he just got impatient, if he asked his military commanders if it could be done and they just gave him the old 'da comrade Putin' line, or if they really did believe (As frankly I did) that Ukraine would just roll over and die.
The thing is Russia doesn't have what China doesn't already have access to through global markets.
Russia's mines are inefficient, they only have one natural gas pipeline to China, no oil pipeline, the Saudi's fund China with cheaper oil. Maybe fertilizer at most.
China also invested 10's of billions in Ukraine that's going down the drain.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but US and British intelligence dropped quite a few pages from the Russian playbook leading up to this shitshow, including calling Russia out on their so-called "look we're going back to base after exercise, globohomo lies again"-statements.
Could the current clusterfuck be a result of constantly exposing their step-of dates and troop movements, to the point of them having to push the timeline and further fuck up their battle readiness? We are after all seeing shitty logistics, shitty conditions, vehicles breaking down, demotivated soldiers etc, all over the place.
He thought the Ukrainians wouldn't fight. See. He believed they'd welcome the liberators from the Moscovite Rus reuniting the nations of Rus under their guidance.
The dude drank too much of his own idpol koolaid, thinks all of the Ukraine is Donestk and Crimea and that it's still 2014 so no one expects Russian aggression.
>old Polish Commonwealth as a buffer.
This nigger hates us, because we heralded the breakup of Russo-Soviet Empire. His pet philosopher Dugin declared repeatedly that there is no place for independent Polish state, and we must either choose to become part of his fantasy mongolo-slavic Steppe Horde or perish.
Our existence is a thorn for the Russian imperialists, because it exposes their panslavism as a fake and creates potential for alternative cultural and political core around which Western Slavs could built their union, distinct both from the West and East.
>either Putin just found out he's dying and wants to start WW3 as a last fuck you to the world
What I fear is the Russians will get desperate enough to make an example by performing limited strike with nuclear weapons at outlier NATO country in hope that core Nato states will be too intimidated to react and US wont commit, because it isnt immediately threatened. Poland is prime target for that, we have no capability to retaliate, yet our potential justifies neutralizing us, we dont really belong to the inner circle of EU/NATO, and we are being constantly villanized both in Russian media and by useful idiots in Western countries as warmongers, homophobes, racist and whatnot.
I bet the devious KGB nigger made contingecy plans in this vein.
Might as well have done this 20 fucking years ago but nooooooooooooo
>I don't think they were upfront with Xi about the scale of the operations
One of the funniest/saddest things from that podcast was the guy based in Moscow saying the invasion wouldn't take place without tacit approval from China, and that Putin wouldn't make a move before the Winter Olympics were over because he didn't want to annoy Xi by spoiling his showpiece event.
If that's true it really shows the balance of power in that relationship, and how callous these people's attitude towards life is.
>kill 10s of 1000s if you have to, but don't fucking spoil my sports party
>Kadyrov is sadly right, the only way out from a purely military perspective is to apply Russia's firepower advantage before Ukraine is flooded with ATGM and drones.
It's too late for that. The West Ukraine is completely uncontested and is fully in Ukrainian control. This means fresh Ukrainian and foreign volunteers battle groups (commanded by Green Berets and FFL) are being made ready there, equipped not just with the old and boring NLAWS and Stingers, but with the fucking MMP ATGMs now. Never thought I'd see that exported. I don't doubt we'll see long range SAM's and tanks imported into Ukraine as well.
This is a force to be reconed with, especially in the light of ever increasing NATO support and increasing popular support for Ukrainian government, which is over 90% everywhere outside of far South near Crimea and obviously Donbass.
But in the light of shit like rumors of the new "Kherson republic" and Russian units being rushed to the border from the entire country, I think Putin wants even more escalation, further invasion. Total control of entire Ukraine through destruction of all conventional military units and garrisoning every Ukrainian city.
Should he ever achieve that, through casualties not seen in Europe since WW2, he will face the strongest, most numerous and well-equipped guerilla movement in history, probably bigger and stronger than Tito's in Yugoslavia.
This is a nightmare.
Please, do tell
>For all his flaws Putin is not stupid,
He's not stupid, but he's certainly incompetent in many areas. There's no reason for Russia to be the total and utter shithole it is, aside from his own mismanagement.
It's possible to be intelligent or skilled in one area, while being completely incapable in another.
Did you mean in your first paragraph?
>and how unreasonable the truckers get.
They want trucks that work. All that needs to happen is factories reopened, HERE, and some regulations from the late 90s to go away.
>a literal traitor who fucked off from US to sell government secrets to Russia and China
Putin doesn't care about Xi's showpiece. Remember he went to war with Georgia during China's big summer olympics, a much larger event.
Xi loves to sabre rattle but apart from a border clash with India, that both sides pulled back from, he never made do or die proclamations AND tested them.
This is very plausible. Anyone who thought an alliance of equals of Iran-Russia-China was possible played too much Arma 3, I'm sorry to say.
All that China wants from Russia is to buy oil from it at absolute bargain bin prices - and pay in yuan so Russia is forced to buy Chinese products (at any price the Chinese dictate). As for Iran, it clearly wants nothing to do with any of it, to the point of being likely to (temporarily) support the West against Russia to improve its world standing.
Iran would love to sell its gas and replace Russia. Russia Iran China is a marriage made in hell.
For the record /k/ jannies are faggots for moving this thread.
>he will face the strongest, most numerous and well-equipped guerilla movement in history
How likely is Middle East 2: European Boogaloo do you think? Instability and conflict tend to be contagious. I doubt Russia will fuck around with Georgia since they don't need a second front, but I could see them winding up the Transnistrians to give Ukraine a headache in the southwest. Also, Serbia have tended to be more pro-Putin than the rest of Europe. Is there any real danger of shit kicking off there?
I wasn't sure if there would be an invasion but I was hoping for it
Pretty much this. Russia and Ukraine were in a proxy conflict already since 2014, so I thought it would be more of the same. More to the point, I assumed Putin is a rational actor. He can achieve a pyrrhic victory at best in Ukraine (point 2). But apparently he doesn't care. I think that is why most people predicted one or the other, but not both. They're at loggerheads. People who predicted that Russia would invade also thought that they would steamroll Ukraine, because why would they invade otherwise, to get bogged down in shit? And people who thought the invasion would not really succeed thought that for this reason Putin would not invade. Logical no?
My mistake was forgetting that people are often irrational.