The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[CharlesPhipps]

The massacre of Bucha is already a sign that Russia's invasion has become a monstrous shit show.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nearly- ... ays-2022-4

The Russians killed every adult male in the village of fighting age as they retreated.

[clearspira]

Heard a funny story today.

So, y'know Chernobyl? That power plant that is the most famous nuclear disaster in the world? That place that is now in the middle of an irradiated ghost town?

The Russians took it towards the start of the war in a brave and noble skirmish against some unarmed scientists. Well... they have pulled out. The official story from the Kremlin is that the Russians gave it back to affirm peace talks out of the goodness of their hearts.

Turns out that they were all dying of radiation poisoning!! What a bunch of dumbasses. They set up fortifications and trenches within the most contaminated part of the exclusion zone and then wondered why their skin had begun to peel off.

Ukrainian officials issued the following statement: “It should be noted that the information about fortifications and trenches that the racists built right in the Red Forest, the most polluted in the entire Exclusion Zone, was also confirmed,” the agency stated on Telegram. “So it is not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness.

[clearspira]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... ine-losses

The Russians have now lost more troops in one month in Ukraine then they did in ten years in Afghanistan.

This invasion is an absolute balls up from start to finish. A real classic piece of military folly up there with the greats. Books will be written on this farce.

[CharlesPhipps]

It will probably bring down the Russian Federation if this continues.

[Riedquat]

It will probably bring down the Russian Federation if this continues.

Not really sure how it could bring down the country - are there that many significant internal divisions it could split over? The government, hopefully, although with the population still only receiving the drivel that the government spouts and apparently lots believing it I think it'll be a long time, if ever, that many will even accept that they've done anything wrong or made any mistakes.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sounds like it's one of the classic conundrums of intelligence, that acting usefully on it requires the chance of giving away how you got it (e.g. the apocryphal story about the bombing of Coventry; whilst the details aren't as normally portrayed it's still a useful illustration of the problem).

If intelligence is to have any value it needs to be acted on, which always runs the risk of problems caused by showing that you actually know. But if you don't do that there's no point in knowing anyway.

It's rarely the case with important decisions that you can follow some pre-determined guidelines and get the right answer without actually having to think and make a real decision (whatever the Trek Prime Driective zealots would think - today's review is pertinent there).

I'm not sure what the issue is this way or that. Everybody on both sides knows the nature of the developed espionage game between the two territories and it seems like a rather pedestrian flex to expose even what's mentioned in the article.

I doubt our spies are nearly as quiet as theirs. We're also much bigger and probably have more transparent policy on operations that it's silly to try to hide it.

[hammerofglass]

Plus Russia has been using the exact same "false flag attack to manufacture pretext" tactics for every war since Georgia so it wasn't exactly a huge revelation.

[clearspira]

It will probably bring down the Russian Federation if this continues.

It'll be an indirect fall but I can predict one course of how it could happen.

Russia's population crisis is one of the worst in the world, easily rivalling that of countries like Japan. Its women simply are not having kids. THEN add in something that Japan does not have which is a Soviet standard of living for the poor and mass alcoholism and what you have is a country that really cannot afford to be sending its kids to war right now because the people who are left cannot pick up the slack. The Russia of 2022 is not the Russia of 1945 - AKA the only country in the world that decided to buy Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War (''knowing their one weakness I sent wave after wave of my own men against them.'')

[CharlesPhipps]

Not really sure how it could bring down the country - are there that many significant internal divisions it could split over? The government, hopefully, although with the population still only receiving the drivel that the government spouts and apparently lots believing it I think it'll be a long time, if ever, that many will even accept that they've done anything wrong or made any mistakes.

The amount of dead and economic devastation isn't quite as easy to cover up.

[Riedquat]

Not really sure how it could bring down the country - are there that many significant internal divisions it could split over? The government, hopefully, although with the population still only receiving the drivel that the government spouts and apparently lots believing it I think it'll be a long time, if ever, that many will even accept that they've done anything wrong or made any mistakes.

The amount of dead and economic devastation isn't quite as easy to cover up.

The number of dead is fairly easy to cover up when you've got complete control of the media and they're scattered across a huge number of towns, cities, and villages. Just round up as "traitors" any attempt at getting them to compare notes.

The economic devastation will just get blamed on hostile Western aggression. Complete crap but that's Russia for you.