Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

[Hydra009]

Abrams tanks are in Germany and Ukrainians have begun training. Training is expected to take 10-12 weeks, so 3 months tops.  So they'll be ready by late August or early September, in line with earlier predictions that Abrams won't see combat until fall.

But when they're ready, Abrams alongside Bradelys will turn any Russian T-whatever into T-erminated.

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

Diabetes and/or serious heart conditions.  That'll work well with poor rations and drone strikes.  /s

Before long, they'll be wheeling people out of the hospital and dumping them on the frontlines, crutch in one hand and a mosin in the other.

Seriously, just go home and tell yourselves whatever you want.

[Unbeliever]

Well, soon they won't have a single soldier left no matter who they do or don't exempt. I hope.

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

Something may or may not be happening near the borders of Moscow region

[the_antithesis]

Diabetes and/or serious heart conditions.  That'll work well with poor rations and drone strikes.  /s

Airbomb some Jolly Ranchers and wait for the troops to go into a coma.

[Hydra009]

Russia consistently makes wrong assumptions - Kyiv will fall in 3 days, greeted as liberators, the West won't arm Ukraine, the West will tire of helping Ukraine, etc.  This is yet another wrong assumption - that Ukraine won't dare attack the border because it'll alienate the West.  Ukraine found a work-around with Putin's own tactics and Russians who hate Putin (so in a way, Putin made this possible).  Plausible deniability was enough to lower Western ire (much like when Putin did it, sad to say, and a solid year of watching Russia bomb apartment buildings and hospitals did a lot to erode sympathy).  The end result of Putin's assumption is that anti-Putin Russians are tearing through border regions like a hot knife through butter.

Now Putin has to make the lose-lose decision of diverting manpower to guard the border to halt further incursions by pulling troops away from the war effort or just let the border be on fire and lose anything unguarded and deal with popular unrest and loss of face.  Partisan activity has increased in temporarily-occupied Ukraine, so Putin has to deal with that or suffer the consequences, too.  And every expenditure of resources on all this extra stuff is less spent on war.

[Hydra009]

Russia's new strat: unpaid overtime.

6-day workweek with the last day being entirely unpaid and/or two hours of unpaid work every day

Forget being a serf under Putin, these poor bastards are becoming enslaved.  I bet they wished they had hopped the border while the getting was good!

Potentially, this is yet another blunder.  Even the most dedicated workers can't transform Russia into an economic powerhouse comparable to the EU/NATO.  Much like the Nazis were, Ruscists are outmatched in economic and industrial terms.  And in Russia's case, it's not even close.  Other countries can prop Ukraine up with less than 1% of their GDP.  That's pocket change.  Russia can't compete and will destroy what's left of its economy trying.

[Hydra009]

A Russian telegram channel is "collecting evidence" of Ukrainian "warcrimes" and among said "evidence" is:  the Ukrainian military using abandoned residential buildings as cover (this is dishonestly represented as if they were using civilians as human shields)

[Blackleaf]

A Russian telegram channel is "collecting evidence" of Ukrainian "warcrimes" and among said "evidence" is:  the Ukrainian military using abandoned residential buildings as cover (this is dishonestly represented as if they were using civilians as human shields)

I wonder why those civilian buildings were abandoned. Hmm...

[Hydra009]

Ukraine hits Berdansk with Storm Shadow cruise missiles

It reportedly hit a barracks (previously, two seaside resorts) and likely killed/wounded hundreds of Russian invaders.  A S-300 AA was also destroyed nearby.

This area is along the Ukrainian coastline and given their accomodations, the invaders perhaps thought they were safe.  They instant they step on Ukrainian soil, they are not safe.

[Hydra009]

How much does it cost to blow up a tank or down a vatnik: cost comparisons of various weapons and as a bonus, probability of success

The cheapest way to blow up tanks is FPV drone with a cost ratio of 1:175 (it costs 1/175 of the target's value), but it has a <50% chance of success.

For a combination of certainty of destruction and low price, your best bet is a Switchblade, with a roughly 90% success rate while costing only around 1/8th of the target's value.

Javelins have an amazing 93% success rate, but can cost as much as 1/4 of the target's value, making them not super cost-effective, but sometimes you gotta spend money to save civilian lives.  And on the whole, it probably costs a lot less to destroy tanks than rebuild cities.

For infantry, and here's where things get pretty morbid, the best value is again a FPV drone with a whopping 90% success rate.  But no matter what you choose, you're getting a pretty decent (literal) bang for your buck, costing anywhere between 1/70 to 1/9 of the target's estimated value.  And unlike armor, troops just can't be rebuilt - it takes a long time to make new soldiers and a lot of money to train and supply them.

[Hydra009]

Ukraine claims to have a wiped out another Russian company along the southern front.  So that's 8 vehicle/equipment losses and roughly 50-100 troop KIA/injured.  They also claim to have blown up three ammo depots.

(I'd share a link, but they have a photo of a dead body front and center, so I'm thinking it'd be best to just summarize this one)

[Hydra009]

Missile attack on Kyiv