Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I'm reading some interesting discussions of hundreds of Russian officers and soldiers in Ukraine simply resigning their posts and asking to be returned home - and there is not a damned thing the authorities can do about it. The country claims not to be at war, there is no martial law back in Russia or any type of emergency legislation in place. Therefore the men can resign quite legally and there is nothing the army can do about it.

Some booby traps found in Ukraine.

Also pictured in the thread is this one which people are questioning it's viability.

A grenade in a glass in a press. (cabinet)

There is also A reply in thread says

"When I did my military service, we were still trained in setting up such booby traps (and, of course in finding and disarming them).

Today, the German #Bundeswehr doesn't do that any more. It is prohibited by the Ottawa Treaty of 1997" .

So silly question does that mean they don't train to disarm now?

Probably not what you are looking for but the best source I have found is the Ukraine armed forces own telegram channel. Lots of detail on far more things than are picked up by normal media, such as the large problem they are having with criminal gangs, secret infiltration groups and local officials like mayors, who are all being used to try and find and organise traitors to stab Ukraine in the back and sabotage from within. There's a disturbing amount of that going on.

I wouldn't agree with that at all. If the Ukrainians are forced to keep fighting Russia, they will bleed their military to ruin and taking back all former territories would be a piece of cake compared to what has gone before and their national rage and hatred of Russia would ensure it. The only way for Russia to retain those is to capitulate under the guise of 'peace talks' and have holding onto them a condition - which has to happen right now. If they wait until after the looming great battle in the east has mostly played out, it will be too late. I don't see Putin being smart enough to see that. He's sick and anything but sharp.

Regarding one of the intercepted phone calls that some couldn't believe were real, one investigation discovered and confirmed the identities of the two people in one particular phone call

No wonder the Republicans hate her so much. Get some, AOC.

😀

The cyber warfare aspect is interesting becasue for years we were told how WW3 would have a large element fought over the internet but this hasnt transpired to any great extent. There was reports in the first few days of the war that Russia attempted cyber attacks on Ukraine but they clearly didnt succeed. Since then Russia have done a cyber attack on Finnish government websites at the very same time that Zelenskyy was giving a speech to their parliament. That didnt work either as the Finns had the websites back up live again in under an hour.

Also at play here is that Russia successfully attacked Ukraines electricity network in 2015, they took down the power to 250,000 people while they were invading Crimea. It was the first successful cyber attack on energy infrastructure in history. Since that attack Ukraine significantly beefed up its cyber defences and no subsequent Russian attack has been successful. In the opening days of the war Russia took down some 70 Ukrainian government websites but they were all restored within hours.

Another factor is that in 2016 the US were also attacked by the Russians during the Presidential election that Trump won. After that and the shock of a successful Russian attack on a US election the entire US intelligence community regrouped and the US Cyber Command in the Pentagon hired over 1,200 IT security specialists out of the private sector and in to the military. They made no secret that their stated target was Russia and they spoke of having malware ready to go to hit them. They also said they were moving from defensive cyber warfare to offensive and the rules were changed so that cyber warfare operations would no longer need approval from the President, the Pentagon has a free rein to do what they want without the President even knowing.

So while we wont know exactly what is going on in cyber warfare during this invasion for some time to come what is known is that both the US and Ukraine are well set up to thwart Russian attacks. So it would seem to me that whats happening in the background isnt that Russia arent trying to attack Ukrainian infrastructure, they are as they have done in the past. But similar to their ground offensive in Ukraine it isnt working very well, if at all. Either the Ukrainians have the capability to thwart Russian cyber attacks on their own or else they are working in tandem with the Americans to do it. Given the easy plausible deniability available to the Pentagon (even Biden doesnt know what they are up to) Id say their hands are all over this either through assisting the Ukrainians themselves or just gong to the source and hitting Russian hackers directly.

The first attack on the Airfild was likely the real deal, but the fuel depot and others with helicopters probably weren't. If Ukraine denied it, which they did, I'll take their word on it. They aren't shy about mentioning their successes.

I'm pretty sure Ukraine aren't actually interested in talking right now. Bucha has steeled their resolve and they're working to eke out a military victory over Russia before heading back to the negotiating table; or at least to further frustrate them and force negotiations form a stronger position.

Personally I don't think it's likely and I fear they're going to lose most or all of the Donbass/Novorossiya regions over the coming weeks. I very much hope I'm wrong however.

The Russians have two big problems. One is they can't target the Ukrainians easily because they are spread out like ants. Another is there are trainloads of dead and busted Orks going back to Russia and this can't go on indefinitely. A war of attrition will really grind them down. More weapons!

"you don't deliberately damage or destroy your own infrastructure"

Bear in mind this is Russia we are talking about, it really wouldn't surprise me.

@ronivek There was a meeting between General Atomics and Ukraine which discussed the potential for supplying drones; but given the modern cost of these drones I would be surprised if Ukraine wanted Reapers in particular. Predator drones potentially.

Even more surprising would be if the US approved such a transfer to Ukraine for the same reasons they've used all along: Ukraine aren't trained to use them, Ukraine don't really need them, logistics would be too complicated, Russia wouldn't be very happy, etc.

The consensus suggest they can have Ukrainians to fly reapers in less than 6 weeks they aren't overly complicated you can pilot them on a playstation controller and for most part their operations are automated ,the main Job of any pilot is reading the information they are looking at and target acquisition and firing a missle ,

The ground stations are based in shipping containers and can easily be flown to Poland or Ukraine it's self ,

At this stage of the game putins threats are all sound bites , Finland and Sweden are plowing ahead with nato memberships despite threats , heavy weapons are still flowing into ukraine via friendly States despite threats from Moscow.