Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119130449#Comment_119130449

if there was no Russian plan to take Kyiv, why were slightly confused Russian police units literally wandering around Kyiv on day #1 of the war?

Were they there on holiday? Did their GPS give them wrong directions?

Also why did Putin jail the FSB guy who gave him advice on how easy it would be to take Ukraine? Are you suggesting Putin jails underlings who do their job well?

bobowen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132197#Comment_119132197

I'm no military man but I would imagine the Russian soldiers would probably not have been told that their mission would be a decoy in case it got leaked.

Its more likely General Beseda was blamed and jailed for leaking Russian war plans as the US had way too much intel before the invasion. Your reason just fits the western narrative better. Truth is no one really knows.

Dohnjoe

Loathe the West but can't support Putin directly anymore? Follow the below easy steps to dumpster fire the thread.

1. Create new account.
2. Insert contrarian quips disguised as questions. Use the following templates: "Western media was reporting something, but it isn't, what's going on?", "The West said this thing but it has happened, why?" "I thought the Ukrainian army was winning, what's happening?"
3. Play the "both sides" fallacy as often as possible. Yes Russia is bad, but their opponents are just as bad.
4. Obfuscate and attack facts by claiming we "can't really know what's going on" therefore anything could be true. So lending equal weight to complete propaganda.
5. Rinse, repeat :)

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119131559#Comment_119131559

Please provide literally a single reference to "western media" saying this about Syria.

Also if the Russians idea of a diversion involves getting thousands of soldiers killed, hundred of pieces of armour destroyed and several generals killed then they are idiots.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119126101#Comment_119126101

As much as I like to run down the Yanks when I can, they've been warning for decades about depending on Russia. While there may be a longer game in there as well that policy seemed to be a positive for EU integration.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132609#Comment_119132609

Not commenting on people posting here, but disinformation is a key feature of the army of Putin bots / supporters on social media. They flood the threads about Ukraine with claims and counter claims about 'both sides' and 'fake news' with the specific intention of trying to totally confuse people. It's fascinating to watch them in action : they might have 150 followers, but often when you check out their profile, you discover the account has sent out something like 30,000 tweets and retweets in a short period of time.

amandstu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132948#Comment_119132948

Are you saying that you have not come upon that on this thread?

I ask because I have heard so much about those bots but have never seen one myself -or examples in the public arena(well I only post on sites like these,never on twitter or facebook which may be where you are talking about)

Without wanting to be sceptical I must have heard the description of these bots scores of times but have never come upon one in the flesh ,as it were.

I do understand how this "blaming both sides " and "how can we know?" seems dishonest and disingenuous and those posters don"t need to be bots to pollute the thread in that way.

bobowen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132666#Comment_119132666

Here is the Guardian in 2015 stating that their campaign is running out of steam.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/21/russias-airstrikes-on-syria-struggle-to-spur-progress-on-the-ground

And here is Obama predicting that Russia will fail and be stuck in a quagmire.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-airstrikes/obama-warns-russias-putin-of-quagmire-in-syria-idUSKCN0RW0W220151003

Same rhetoric. Different war.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132979#Comment_119132979

It can be difficult to tell what is a bot and what is an actual Putin / Russia supporter. There are lots of far right and extreme left types on social media pushing the Russian narrative and retweeting stories that are favourable to Russia - very possible that they are real people and are mainly driven by their hatred for the West, NATO, the EU, the US (but not their fellow extremist Trump) etc (I guess their reasoning is that if Putin hates all of those, then he must be one of the good guys).

The ones that are the bots are probably those with huge tweet totals....sometimes 30k, 40k, 50k tweets and retweets, mostly of pro-Russian and anti-western propaganda. Clearly some sort of an agenda at work there and an attempt to flood social media discussion threads with lies and misinformation.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132502#Comment_119132502

They were Russian police - not soldiers - Russian police wandering around Kyiv & doing so on day #1 - hundreds of kms ahead of the Russian army.

Aside from the fact that losing 20% of your committed forces on a feint (remember the one 65km long convoy of vehicles alone?) certainly shows serious commitment to feinting , sending guys whose only job it is to "keep the peace" after you take over - and to have them arrive alone on day #1 in advance of their army to make it look like you are the world's most incompetent & disorganized army in world history shows a level of commitment to making that feint one that only the most gullible could believe was a feint is certainly a novel strategy - I think we can agree on that.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119130757#Comment_119130757

Reports were that they were running out of precision bombs which were capable of being used without GPS (which they were blocked from). Have they gotten more of these or established their own GPS network since then that I haven't heard?

The Russians have had their own version of GPS known as GLONASS for decades. It has been comparable to GPS in coverage for at least a decade or more. Very unlikely that their own precision munitions would use GPS instead of their own GLONASS

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133548#Comment_119133548

Would that be acceptable in your eyes then Timmy that for the €36m fighter a GLONASS receiver is an optional add on?

An improvement since the Syrian days when they were using insecure western GPS.

https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/russian-pilots-in-ukraine-using-insecure-non-military-navigation-equipment-uk-defence-secretary/148656.article

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133585#Comment_119133585

"Would that be acceptable in your eyes" - acceptable how? Do you think I'm Putin in disguise and am in disapproval over the state of the Ru air force?

I dont care - just pointing out that a lack of precision munitions due to a banning from using GPS is absurd. Either they are using insecure western GPS (which means they arent banned otherwise why use it) or they are banned and have their own GLONASS to make use of. That all their precision munitions are halted due to a GPS "embargo" is silly though

bobowen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119132609#Comment_119132609

Can't think of a cogent argument as a response to someone posing uncomfortable questions?

1) Write a sarky insulting post that tries to portray said poster as a contrarian obfuscator.

2) Receive multiple thumbs up from the other members of the Russophobic echo chamber.

3) Hope said poster goes away so that everyone can go back to affirming each others simplistic "Russia is losing/evil/incompetent" & "Ukraine is winning/Asov fighters are heroes" comments.

4) Get angry when they don't. 

bobowen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133433#Comment_119133433

I can't find any reference to these policemen you describe in any search. Can you put up a link perhaps?

And also if you have evidence that they lost 20% of their forces that doesn't involve the NED affiliated Oryx Opensource intelligence "photo's" or the Ukrainian Publicity department's crazy number shouting people that would be handy also.

johnnyskeleton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133548#Comment_119133548

GLONASS isnt good enough apparently:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-satellites-ukraine-war-gps/31797618.html

https://www.gpsworld.com/russia-expected-to-ditch-glonass-for-loran-in-ukraine-invasion/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/us/politics/russia-air-force-ukraine.html

johnnyskeleton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133610#Comment_119133610

As per my post, they are running out of precision munitions that can be used without GPS. Not that being banned from GPS halts their precision guided munitions. The fact that the Russians have been using GPS in Syria is well documented. They also use western parts for their guided bombs, something which sanctions seems to have impacted a lot more.

But the key point of my post - they are no longer able to deploy significant numbers of precision munitions, and that was what was reported. It was not reported that the Russians were running out of dumb munitions, as the other poster was suggesting.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133989#Comment_119133989

Can you send on a link about Russians being banned from GPS?

I cant find any confirmation on it, also logistically the only way it could work it block on a geographic level which would block large swathes of Ukraine from having GPS used for anyone (Russian or Ukrainian). AFAIK GPS cannot be blocked based on the user device.

Only mentions of Russian and GPS I can find are those about Russians themselves blocking GPS in Ukraine - which if its the case, implies they were never very reliant on use of GPS in the first place - likely preferring GLONASS or LORAN as you mentioned in your posts.

Sam Russell

GPS used to have a 'wobble' on it for casual users that reduced the precision obtainable, but military users could get a precise location using their decoders. The wobble was removed some time ago.

I assume it would possible to reintroduce that wobble for the Ukraine region so non-certified (military) users get poor precision.

Edit: May 2000, the USA ended the wobble.

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134101#Comment_119134101

Definitely possible - but that would impact Ukrainians too. While I'm sure some of them have nice military GPS gear, many will not.

But besides that, there seem to be widespread reports of Russians jamming GPS starting in early March - if part of their doctrine is to jam GPS, surely they wouldnt be overly reliant on it themselves?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134113#Comment_119134113

Well, the Ru were jamming the frequency used by drones, but the Ukrainians waited till the Ru put their own drones up, and then put their up and ... well, then did whatever they were doing with them.

Jamming effects both sides.

saabsaab

Perhaps the pressure by the Russians near Severodonetsk is to draw Ukrainian forces into the battle there and hen close from the sides trapping them in the pocket.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119133801#Comment_119133801

Putin's administration is evil, there's no real debate there. Azovstal steelworks defenders will likely go down in history. Neither side is "winning" as such, but Ukraine's defence has been nothing short of extraordinary considering the circumstances (I had them pegged to fall in a week). Russia's military has been very incompetent so far, few arguments there, but it's all relative, they are still one of the largest militaries in the world, gains are not unexpected, the situation could swing in any direction. Apart from some outliers and sluggishness, the West's response has been pretty cohesive, certainly better than I expected, especially the Baltics. It's only natural people support Ukraine so it's normal that discourse is Ukraine-centric.

Unfortunately some individuals views align with Putin's. And since Putin is the new Hitler so to speak, these individuals are "smart" enough know they can no longer directly show that support, hence pedantic contrarianism. Likewise they can't expose a posting history of Kremlin talking points, hence all the new posters. Some obviously seem to think the disguise works, idk :)

Not angry at all, just pointing out the obvious. Right back to topic, and back to the grind, reading on Western media and feeds all about the Russian gains and problems Ukr troops are having.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134554#Comment_119134554

The good news is that the war has gone as badly for Russia as it possibly could have done. The assumption on the day of the invasion by many observers was that they would take Ukraine relatively quickly. Their forces still pinned down in the south and east of the country over three months later is a quite disastrous outcome from their viewpoint - we can ignore any spin from the numerous Putin shills and fanboys about this reality, the overall invasion has been a terrible failure militarily and geopolitically.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134602#Comment_119134602

True enough and the thing is that there is no obvious 'good outcome' possible for Russia(Putin) now.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134688#Comment_119134688

And that's not even taking into account all the other elements of the invasion failure - economic sanctions, Russia banned from everything, a faltering economy, Finland and Sweden joining NATO. No amount of spin can cover up that this has been a disastrous failure for Russia and should never have been attempted by Putin.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134602#Comment_119134602

The assumption on the day of the invasion by many observers was that they would take Ukraine relatively quickly.

And it's obvious it was also the assumption by Moscow. Russian officers were booking tables at Kyiv restaurants for that week.

Dohnjoe

I see clips like this daily, constant language of hatred from Moscow.

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1531012721713504257

bobowen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119134835#Comment_119134835

You are going to have to back that one up with a link. Restaurant bookings? That's a doozy of an anecdote I haven't heard yet.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119135905#Comment_119135905

Link is in the Russia thread somewhere. I believe the original source was a telegram channel, dead Russian soldiers have a habit of leaving a lot of info on their phones.