For the army of a state willing to be completely independent of the West to use an American web based service for military purposes, and to do it in a way other people can see it is sloppy to the point of tragedy.
Or maybe that's an elaborate attempt to do psychological warfare?
As an example from the other side, the British BOWMAN comms system used to be understood as Better Off With Maps And Nokia.
I believe the name for this thing is "the devil in the details" - reality has a surprising level of detail, and the more you go into detail, more murky and shitty things appear to be.
In fact I am amazed that complex things, like, say, the internet, work at all !
As I said, the crazy complexity is above the network level.
Or, just purely from a UX standpoint, you can use a military receiver with an interface like this https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0083836/800wm and then look up the coordinates by hand on a twenty year old paper map. Or you can drop a pin on gmaps and text it to Sergey at the artillery battery. If you don't care about opsec, which is easier?
But my guess is that you simply get your information from clearly biased media.
You've got to be kidding me. Maybe you've missed the indiscriminate artillery and rocket attacks on population centers such as Kharkiv?
And the Russian army hasn't failed at occupation. It's miserably failing at capturing anything of note, properly conducting sieges ( Kharkiv was resupplied multiple times), basic logistics, basic air operations.
If you're going to accuse people of using biased sources, it would be good for you to include some examples of clearly unbiased media, so that they can compare and learn.
Russia already lost more soldiers in this war than the US in the entire Iraq War.
From their POV. I mean if the "sloppy" approach works (in this specific case) roughly as good as whatever military specific alternate approach they have(1), then it makes sense to use that, to not disclose the capabilities of alternate approaches to their enemy (the US).
(1): That is assuming they have one, if not ... I would be both quite surprised and somehow not really surprised like both at once.
After seeing the relatively poor performance of the Russian military this past week I'm not surprised but I would have been surprised two weeks ago.
Such an expensive mess, especially for the Ukrainians, who are paying it with their lives, for reasons outside their control.
Senior leadership thinks he went off half cocked because he's running out of time.
Propaganda? Sure. Even if it's true.
He apparently couldn't keep the ol' convoy up today either...
Some positive adjective that denotes using a resource in a way no one expected.
People need to be a little less naive and skip conversations like this. There’s a 40 mile (65km) convoy heading for the capital of Ukraine. A lot of Ukrainians are about to die. Rather than complaining about how Russia is using 21st century technology from the West, perhaps discussing real solutions would be more beneficial?
Meanwhile, you're suggesting "This does nothing" when in fact, it's a legitimate avenue because, to use your specific quote, "all is fair in love and war".
On reflection, I'm completely flummoxed why you would suggest this has no potential. In fact, it seems to be the exact opposite, and quite interesting that these pages are being taken down nearly as quickly as they're posted here. These things taken together suggest that this idea is perceived as dangerous to someone
Nothing nuclear happened during the war with soviets in Vietnam, Korea, etc., or with Russians in Syria. RF is much weaker than USSR.
It is not.
> Nothing nuclear happened during the war with soviets in Vietnam, Korea, etc., or with Russians in Syria. RF is much weaker than USSR.
You don’t need much power to fuck up the planet. A single thermonuclear bomb would suffice and Russia, however weak, has thousands of those.
The Chinese did not have nuclear weapons when the US fought them in the Korean War. Neither the Chinese nor the Soviets were (officially) involved in the Vietnam War. The US and Russia have danced around very carefully in Syria; the only direct conflict I know of involved Russian "mercenaries". In none of those cases did the Soviets or the Russians signal that they would use nuclear weapons; likewise, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was given covert military support by the US, but there was no direct conflict.
NATO operations in Ukraine carry a very large risk of accidental escalation, in addition to Putin's threats.
> The US and Russia have danced around very carefully in Syria; the only direct conflict I know of involved Russian "mercenaries".
Turkey shot Russian airplane.
> NATO operations in Ukraine carry a very large risk of accidental escalation, in addition to Putin's threats.
I'm sorry to inform you, but war between two nuclear nations has much larger risk of escalation when NATO will play the role of coward.
Even if some scientists could technically build a bomb, the hard part with nuclear arsenal is not the bomb itself but the launching device.
“…perhaps discussing real solutions would be more beneficial?”
Maybe we come up with nothing but tens of thousands of lives could be saved if we think of something.
A week from now the world is going to wish it had done more.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians will be dead within a week.
You’re the one that came in complaining about how nothing is being done and offering a suggestion of… talking, which is what is already happening.
When people rightfully pointed this out to you, you suddenly involved “we”. You’re the one that has instigated this meta-discussion, and you just don’t like that people called you out on it.
I’ll let you guys get back to saying how bad the Russians are for using Google maps. Forget I even brought up the brainstorming idea.
Quite honestly I should have know people would go with “you first”. But when I go with “me first” people spend the entire time talking about how it’s a bad idea, missing the point completely
A lot of people here probably don’t even remember the Cold War.
It’s all about to get pretty real.
Considering all the people who are going to die, I had to try.
At best, it's yelling from the sidelines that nothing is getting done and everyone should feel bad.
(That is to say, probably not competent at it, which is better than "definitely not")
Also, you can bet concrete actionable suggestions made here will bubble up to silicon valley execs by the morning.
Cool, can’t wait to see the thread you start discussing these important things.
Or are you saying someone else should solve this for you?
If we were in Kyiv right now it could be different, but maybe not. Actually, the Russian invasion has been very low intensity so far and to be frank, if not for the nonstop calls for more action from warmongers on the internet, I would still believe we are still well within the range of peace negociations.
I'm conscious how naive this sounds, but after all the Putins and the Bushs can only go to war when their people are filled with enough hatred, that's the first ammo that's ever manufactured.
My opponents usually disagreed, pointing to a big military budget and some modern-ish new weapons shown here and there. No, they do look cool at a show or a parade, but does the personnel know how to use it? Are they built en masse? Is the quality good enough? (With all that corruption!)
Turns out, things are even worse then I imagined, but in the hindsight it shouldn't be surprising: this is far from the first time in history when decaying russian institutions and imperial hubris had led Russia to a disastrous war, which was planned as a 'small victorious' one: Crimean War (1853), Japan war (1905), Winter war with Finland (1940), Afghanistan war (1980), Chechena war (1994).
Now Putin has one of his own. I hope his regime will crumble in the fallout from a resounding defeat.
My theory is that Russia threw their D league to go fight so that no one could accuse them of them actually trying to take over.
I don't know about China, but Russian exports are mostly soviet-era models, and they are known to have huge maintenance issues. Also note this: in the USSR they knew how to build things, but modern Russia can't. We have no electronics industry, no machine industry, we can't really make commercial airplanes, and we can't build a decent car. How would country with such capabilities make state of the art military equipment?!
I'd rather trust my national security on equipment that's subpar but reliable and predictable, instead of trying to make my own and failing. Kind of like home security: I'd rather buy a lock for my front door that may be not perfect rather than trying to machine my own better version, even if I technically know how it works and could maybe make a working prototype. Military development is really, really expensive and extremely hard to do right when your state is still developing and running low on qualified engineers, physicists and mathematicians.
In any case, having recent russian weapons is more than enough when your neighbours are equipped with leftovers from the fifties.
I just don't understand how that could happen unless they literally run out of fuel on the way, or if some serious airforce intervenes.
surprise (not), but they literally ran out of fuel on the way [0]
that 65km convoy is just a 65km sitting duck of a traffic jam at the moment. without fuel and food
all of this war is a festival of glorious russian corruption and incompetency at its best. i, as a ukrainian, must thank them for that
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-move-kyiv-stall...
We don't they just count the vehicles, I would imagine even basic computer vision software could do that with reasonable accuracy.
If 100 vehicles are in a 10 mile long convoy and then they space out more and are now in a 20 mile long convoy, it's still 100 vehicles.
I do enjoy reading each day the different lengths and distances to Kyiv.
Pop the leader with a Javelin. Pop a couple more vehicles that try to get around it. Presto, instant traffic jam and the Russians have repeatedly shown they clump up in traffic jams. Now you hit the vehicles in the rear, you're not likely to need sophisticated weapons to do that.
Now you have a huge mess that you can rain mortar fire on.
Finland did a lower-tech version of it to them long ago with trees rather than mud as the barrier.
It's going to be a slaughter, on both sides :(
this seems to be happening quite a bit
If anything, it is unthinkable for an advanced army to move in such disposition. They what, cosplay the Freedom Convoy?
Putin did say his troops will be fighting for "Freedom" of Ukraine.
And what did Putin lose in that country anyway? The entire population hates Russians and are willing to die for their freedom. Let's say he can capture it. They have no natural resources of interest or anything like that. Meanwhile his own economy, that was already as tiny as the Benelux, goes completely to the shitterhole.
He has nukes, yes, he has nukes.
I highly doubt this, considering https://nikopol.nikopolnews.net/nikopol/uvaga-informaciya-pr... claims the image is of Ukrainian military. In addition to that, all the claims of them being Spetsnaz seem to originate from social media.
> The fearsome Chechenians were on the way to capture the leaders, and then turned out the Ukrainians already drone striked them including the general.
Once again, there is no solid source for this that doesn't circle back to some social media post.
I don't think there's currently way to confirm whether any of these claims are true or not, not until the conflict is over.
Russian army is amazing.
Saddam had a very powerful army at the time, and the US military walked through it like it was nothing. Occupying Iraq and building a new regime went terribly, as almost all such projects do. Even if Russia manages to conquer Ukraine entirely, which is a massive if, I've seen absolutely nothing in the past 6 days to make me think that an occupation by them would be anything other than a horrid disaster.
Aside from pure propaganda, I have no idea what information you could be looking at to come to the conclusion that Russia is executing the invasion well at this point.
Which part exactly?
The elite spetsnaz that got captured?
The Chechenian army that got drone striked including the general?
The failure of securing the airspace?
The total cluelessness of the soldiers?
The inability to defend the airfield once captured?
The failed logistics?
Yeah, great army, never seen anything like it!
Locals know the directions, not having maps is a handicap for everybody but mostly the attacker.
Besides, GMaps could require login for Ukraine, and only be allowed for people with a track record of being in Ukraine. Since Google follows you everywhere.
I suspect the locals only know the directions for routes they commonly travel (eg. for work/groceries/school). If you're fleeing, you'll need it just as much the invaders does.
Someone can use Google Maps to plan a peaceful protest or a Molotov cocktail strike more easily than a missile strike. Why would you expect them to take that capability away from people they've publicly sided with?
Russian armies historically do very badly at first, then improve markedly after being banged around a bit. That's normal for armies of conscripts who don't undergo expensive, realistic training.
The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII, about half soldiers. 13% of the population. The US lost only about 400,000, about 0.13% of the population. France and UK, about 1%. The USSR still won.
That Russians also sent millions of Russians to the GULag -- including most POWs repatriated at war's end -- does not make it less bad.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s-sees-evidence-of-mo...
I haven't seen a single reliable message in Russian social media from conscript's mothers and, believe me, they would not have been quite. And no, you can not hide use of conscripts from relatives on such scale.
That's a Latvian source. May be propaganda. Other sources saying the same thing track back to that one.
The Russian army has "contract soldiers", who signed up, and "conscripts", who are drafted to serve for one year. I've been looking for good counts. Most conscripts are in the army; The navy, air force, and strategic rocket force are mostly (entirely?) contract soldiers.
[1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/02/26/i-m-panicking-where-...
These people actually think they are freedom fighters and want to restore "good" empire.
Why would anyone register a domain with such extension is beyond me unless they are completely brainwashed by the regime.
Here is example of a typical "news" site from that list: sevastopol.su
You can use Google Translate to understand the skewed picture that is being tried to shown to the local people.
Because it's fun? Most sites where probably registered before the war and aren't necessary serious. You can have a good time with a soviet styled website or even community, all with matching url and flags and stuff.
Plenty of anti-Russian Ukrainians use .su
I feel like the US military would have to be completely incompetent to not be able to easily dismantle them at this point considering the size of their budget.
I can't help but think they are planned opposition at this point, whether willing or unwilling.
Or, you know, unwilling to start a nuclear war.
Which dismantling the 50%+ of Russia's conventional military committed to Ukraine would very possibly lead to.
Appeasement will only insure larger conflict
The "we will go to open war with you" line is the borders of NATO and the EU, which haven't currently been violated. It's not an unreasonable line to draw, given the potential consequences of nuclear armed states doing battle.
That will keep the US military far away from their battlefield.
"A shame your tanks exploded. Perhaps their car warranty expired?"
For all we know, this is already happening.
Go back to 1986, and imagine what the Soviet response would be if NATO would have breached the Iron Courtain and would have fighter planes and tanks in Kiev. This is what we're dealing with here.
When we talk about the risk of a nuclear escalation we talk about the risk of this or that country launching nuclear armed missiles at an other country.
How would the posession of nuclear reactors factor into that?
If Russian will capture nuclear reactor, they can convert it to nuclear landmine, because reactor uses enriched Uranium, to create equivalent of 10k Chornobyl's.
Ukraine has know-how and nuclear materials (Plutonium) to create nuclear weapons at will. The only thing that stopped us is USA, Britain, France, and Germany, which used Budapest memorandum as leverage against Ukraine to prevent that.
Now, maybe if Russia captures a reactor they could send a scientist down to repurpose its parts to make an improvised nuke, but if that's the goal, what would be the point? It's not like Russia doesn't have nukes already.
Just having plutonium and knowledge is not enough to build a nuclear weapon. No country has ever developed nukes while its main territory was being invaded. For one, even if you can build a device, you'd need to test it at least once. What would you do if you had nukes and you detected that the non-nuclear-capable country you're invading has just run a nuclear test?
The point is to use the nuclear reactor like a nuclear landmine, to blow up at retreat, to do maximum amount of damage. It's called «scorched earth tactics».
Ukraine, as part of USSR, developed nukes decades ago. Ukraine is the fist post-nuclear country in the world.
Nuclear reactors can't produce nuclear explosions, for the reasons I said previously. Even the Chernobyl incident wasn't a nuclear explosion, it was a steam explosion. It's no more possible to turn a nuclear reactor into a nuclear bomb, than to turn a gas generator into a molotov cocktail. I don't know where you heard this absurd notion of a "nuclear landmine", but anyone who talks about exploding nuclear reactors is just spreading sensationalism.
Yes, Ukraine had nuclear weapons. Had. It has since dismantled all of them and doesn't have the infrastructure to make new ones. As such, it would have to develop them again. They have to build the machines to build the weapons and then they have to test the weapons to make sure the machines are building them correctly. Then they need some delivery system, which is a problem entirely separate from merely making a device that can produce a nuclear explosion. Good luck doing all that while infrastructure is disrupted by an invasion.
2 weeks ago it was "unlikely" Russia launches a full scale war on Ukraine. Putin is crazy and will use nukes if he deems it necessary.
We have a lot to hate about putting,but it comes from his inaction to solve a genocide on his very border. Instead, he only acted when russia was threatened. Sounds logical to me.
My understanding is that Putin has repeatedly made it painfully clear that that is exactly what he would do if anyone interferes.
Of course, a 10% chance of destroying the world is beyond my tolerance.
It probably depends a lot on the exact circumstances/timing. And in the war, circumstances change all the time.
Putin wants us to believe it's a Dr. Strangelove situation, where no humans make a choice and therefore nuclear annihalation is a guarantee if we cross a line. But that's false.
Any line Putin draws can be tested and shifted along various axes: who crosses it, how bad it is for Russia, how egregious the violation is, how well it can be argued that it's not a violation, how long it takes to confirm that a violation has taken place, how certain he is that a violation has taken place, who authorized it, how long it takes to confirm who authorized it, etc.
And we don't know for sure that Putin can unilaterally initiate a world-ending strike without anyone in the chain second-guessing him.
What probability of global thermonuclear war would you accept? 10%? 1%? 0.1%?
Oh yeah and they can't deliver them anywhere. Then can deliver only a few. Others are short range or should be dropped from old planes that can't even fly.
Wikipedia says as part of START[1], russia has 1457 warheads. Suppose 50% are broken. That's 728 warheads. Even one warhead landing in each of the top 50 cities in the US[2] would be devastating.
>Oh yeah and they can't deliver them anywhere. Then can deliver only a few. Others are short range or should be dropped from old planes that can't even fly.
Source? As of 2009 they have 383 ICBMs. Keep in mind each ICBM can hold multiple warheads because of MIRV. Presumably there's less now because of START, but the ones they decommissioned are the old/unreliable ones, so it's fairly reasonable to assume most of their warheads can be delivered.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Are you willing to bet the future of human civilization on this?
Russia also has enough nuclear weapons, in unknown places (likely off the US coast), to do a lot of damage to the US. They will almost certainly use them in the face of an existential threat (like being at war with NATO directly), so NATO will do everything possible to avoid that contingency.
Nobody is super-rational all the time. If he does get ousted he will certainly be killed. His replacement is, by reversion to the mean, very likely to be less rational.
Abandoning defense gives away the game before it starts
By the same argument that this justifies attacking Ukraine, you must think the US would be justified in attacking Canada if Mexico hosted the Chinese and Russian missiles you describe.
>Imagine if Mexico played host to Chinese and Russian missile launchers pointed at our major cities jn the same way Poland does.
The fact that Mexico doesn't probably says something. I'm sure there's a lot of money in hosting Chinese military assets.
All this is to say nothing about the incongruities between your explanation and the many and varied lies about why the invasion that was happening both wasn't an invasion and wasn't happening...