Comment by ukraineally | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ukraineally | Hacker News Reader

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Russia is not self-sufficient. They require Germany, Finland, and China to keep sending them resources. It is a matter of time before they are simply incapable of continuing the war. Simply from a resource depletion point of view.

Unfortunately, this desperation will not open up diplomacy, it will likely be at the cost of the people. They are not in a situation to take on such a large military force if they attack EU or NATO.

The point of these damaging sanctions is to not need war ever again in the future. If Russia, a nuclear power, cannot take Ukraine and cannot weather the sanctions toward success. It will tell the entire world that war is not needed anymore. That is a thing of the past for humanity.

Additionally, there's some very unusual resistance to Russian troops. It was Spetsnaz blue berets who airborne dropped to take this airport: https://news.yahoo.com/russian-forces-attack-airport-outside...

But were routed so quickly? The probability that normal Ukrainian troops could do this is quite low.

The probability that many other countries have their special forces operating in Ukraine is 100%. Obviously nobody will admit to this. The Russians probably don't realize this and is suffering these massive casualties because of it.

The speculation is that the CIA has stealth drones that are hitting key Russian targets at night. There is also incredible intel filtering down to Ukrainian command and control. Ukrainian special forces now behind enemy lines are likely doing severe damage to supply lines, guided with excellent instructions. Supposed video of one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM1PlldjfHs

They also reportedly destroyed every rail line leading to Moscow which is very impressive given that they’re surrounded

Source? Are we talking about rail lines in ukraine that lead to moscow, or rail lines around moscow?

In Ukraine. I just saw it here : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Russia disinformation isn't worth the bits it's proc generated with. You shouldn't be repeating it.

"Magic CIA Drones" is stealing the credit from self sacrificing self defense malitia.

The CIA dronestrikes sounds made-up, but a US combat surveillance aircraft had its transponder on and was publicly announcing its flight path as it patrolled south of Crimea.

"South of Crimea" as in international airspace in the Black Sea?

That's right, not in Crimea, but south of it.

Not stealing any credit - this should embolden the Ukrainians, if they are indeed getting this level of support from the USA. As I wrote, speculation as this stuff would be top secret. Don't you think we have stealth (to radar) drones if we have F-22s and F-35s?

Is anyone here able to translate what he is saying ?

Youtube has a (more or less reliable depending on the cases) automatic translation. Turn on subtitles/close captions, then use the subtitles settings to auto-translate it.

I was wondering about this. The US said they won't be sending troops to the Ukraine, which I believe. But the technological gap between Russia and the West is now large. Look at the phones behind Putin here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-says-ukraine-attack... He is is trying to project am image of strength, yet us sitting in front of technology so old your average western teenager would struggle to recognise it.

What I don't know is if the technology matters in a war. But it does seem possible. The US has been fighting a proxy war with various Islamic militia for over a decade now, with the US "combatants" sitting in the USA piloting drones taking out one target after another. And it looks like after a decade they were largely successful. So perhaps technology does matter. A similar thing happened to Russia in Afghanistan. They were holding their own until the west put SAM's in the hands of an rebels. Then Russia did the same thing to the US.

If it is happening, I'm not sure we or Putin would know. These smart weapons are launched from km's away so no one knows who pulled the trigger, and Ukraine would have some anyway. Earlier it was looking like the Western leaders wouldn't have the collective will do to it, but the financial markets have shown otherwise. Maybe that dilly dallying they put on was just for show, as it isn't in the Western leaders interests for Putin to think they are attacking him directly. But I'm guessing the nuclear threat means Putin already suspects.

If technology does make a big difference, it's likely to be a blind spot for entire Russian military. They are so far behind technology wise they have no experience with it. It would likely be as much of a surprise to them as it is to me, and they would have reported the odds of winning as though it didn't exist.

likely but it's an open secret at this point that nato is non-reciprocally sharing intel with ukraine, this is completely unprecendted. look at intelligence aircraft signalling their presence on ads-b, including forte11/12 drones in the black sea - ukrainians are getting data from them, no other explanation for their effectiveness - they seem to be aware of every move of russian forces, every inbound airstrike, etc.

>likely but it's an open secret at this point that nato is non-reciprocally sharing intel with ukraine, this is completely unprecendted. look at intelligence aircraft signalling their presence on ads-b, including forte11/12 drones in the black sea - ukrainians are getting data from them, no other explanation for their effectiveness - they seem to be aware of every move of russian forces, every inbound airstrike, etc.

Oh for sure. so many awacs and global hawks in the air. This 'ghost of kyiv' ace without question had downlink or at least specific real time intel to know exactly how to put himself on their 6.

Ironically, the russian media denies the ghost of kyiv exists. says the footage is all DCS. Frankly it's impossible given so many different points of view. The best argument they can really say is that its more than 1 pilot. But the first reality of nato intel is far more plausible.

Nope. Just the kit has become easier and easier to use. As a 12 year old I was quite surprised I could handle a MILAN missile simulator and just hit almost all slow moving targets. The instructor was less surprised. I can only imagine the current software has gotten so good that most monkey could down most Tupolevs...

I don’t find the level of resistance to be unusual. Ukraine have been at war since 2014, many people know how to fight and ready to fight. They have good reason to fight as well. On top of that they have good equipment provided by USA/NATO. They are opposing an enemy making frontal attacks with tanks, with little support from the air and who does not use precise weapons. This is exactly the target that Ukrainian army can hit really hard.

What is much more fascinating is how weak Russia is. I long suspected that corrupt state like Russia cannot produce modern weapons at scale. Instead it produces a few items and tons and tons of propaganda. Ukraine has outdated aircrafts, Russia on paper has last gen aircrafts. Yet Russia didn’t get air superiority, the likely reason it simply does not have enough precise missiles to destroy Ukraine air defense and does not have enough modern aircrafts either.

I would not be surprised to find out that today’s Russia tactics is the same as it was in Afghanistan almost 40 years ago. It is severely outdated but Russia has no other choice because it cannot produce modern weapons.

> Additionally, there's some very unusual resistance to Russian troops.

One or the reasons the Blitzkrieg worked so well for Nazi Germany was because many of their soldiers were experienced combat veterans from the international brigades during the Civil war in Spain.

Ukrainian soldiers have been in active combat since 2014, and they are fighting to defend their own country.

That being said, I don’t think any of us really have much of a clue as to what is going on, I just hope the best for Ukraine.

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