Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Absolutely, hitting inside Russia hard and often is important.

Having said that, another BBC article today points a depressing picture of the mood inside Russia, the predictable mix of apathy, indifference, fear and even "I was against the war, but now that it's happened I don't want Russia to lose either" idiocy. A mood of mass uprising still seems a long way off

What's more, a lot of the NATO standard equipment used by Ukraine was designed for this kind of work: Highly efficient, precise strikes against a numerically superior enemy. You just need to look at the type of combat environment these systems were originally planned to be used in, namely a conventional land battle on the North German plain, along the open river valleys in Bavaria or in the Fulda Gap. NATO forces would be facing a numerically superior force coming at them, while air superiority couldn't necessarily be guaranteed. Therefore, it was important for western artillery forces to pinpoint hostile artillery or other assets quickly, get a precise strike off as soon as possible, and then vacate the area immediately to avoid counterbattery fire or other surprises coming their way. This is exactly the combat environment we're seeing in Ukraine, and a combatant equipped with weapons designed for that environment, with proper tactical awareness and access to a wealth of reconnaissance and intelligence data will be able to exploit this advantage. Ukraine is doing just that.

Regarding the second paragraph - this happens with every single war if it runs for long enough. Let's use an analogy:-

If a man loses an arm in accident, for the days, weeks and months afterward, the lost arm is forefront in his mind. It may consume pretty much all of his waking thoughts as he has to deal with the grief of losing it, with relearning how to do a lot of tasks he used to take for granted and any treatment the wound requires. But as months turn into years, he comes to accept it somewhat. He learns to live with it as best he can. At some point, he must focus on other aspects of his life. It's not that he no longer deals with the lost arm, but more of it becomes automatic and routine. This doesn't mean, however, that he wouldn't happily accept a new arm, if that became a possibility.

The modern Russian Federation is now sanctioned away from legal access to Western markets, and replacement parts. They have few avenues left to sell anything from those natural reasorces you mention, and extraction operations have to rely upon (in many cases) Soviet-era engineering that are in constant need to maintainence with parts they have often lost the capacity to machine themselves (or ironically used Ukraine for).

Their military base has been shown to be rotten to the core and is now primarily manned by untrained civilians that they have pressed into service with poorly maintained Soviet surplus materielle. Their airbases are now even being threatened by drones made of cardboard. Cardboard!

They are primarily cut off from most of their traditionally lucrative markets. Europe is progressivly weaning itself off of Russian gas while the NordStream pipes may well be destined to the scrapheap. China might want access to the Arctic shipping route, but they couldn't care less if a weakened Russia was bordering it. If anything, they'd probably prefer that.

Western nations have been stedfast in their support of Ukraine in reclaiming all of it's land from Russia (including Crimea) so I'm not sure *where* this "European goverments changing their tone on Crimea" notion is coming from. (Although I can take a guess).

So, Alan, I'm curious. What kind "negotiations" do you feel should happen when a nation engages in a war of annihilation with it's neighbour and then starts to lose?

• Should it be the terms of their total withdrawal from illegally occupied territories so that they won't lose what's left of their army?
• Should it be scale of compensation due to Kiev for what the Russians have tried to do?
• Or are you advocating for....*something else*?

Lol, they're at it again

Definitely seen some posts that were very pro putin that were deleted. Not sure if the term bot or putinbot is strictly defined but have seen some posters that seem happy to spread moskovyte propaganda and so they may have been flagged as spam and removed.

Video of cardboard drone in action

Been lurking for months on this thread. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, escapes the Spanish Inquisition here. It's quaint.. the hubris of being a keyboard warrior spilling over into the deluded belief that it would matter a jot if every single post on this thread was pro-Russia or not. I understand that it is war and that brings the best and worst out in people, but this thread is fascinating to observe... 'popular' (i.e. entertaining lunatic) posters losing the run of themselves with hubris and one by one over the months they end up banned, a victim of their theatrical playing to the gallery. Boards.ie's own fallen heroes.

All that said, a lot of the mistrust and doubt comes because there are broadly two types of people in this world - those that believe in an eye for an eye and those that don't. Each group appears dangerous, stupid, and insane to the other... but we're all on the same 'team', for what's worth (and it's worth fupp all).

A "Bot" is just a lot shorter word than "pro-russian mocovyte shyte posting user" hence every pro-russian is labeled as "bot". A number of posters here gave a good enough explanation on who gets usually marked as "bot". Now, lets move on.

It's actually very difficult to tell the difference between the two - are you having a conversation with a cranky oul git or with a bot which has been placed there to spread misinformation. One big giveaway on social media though is post count - you'll see some yoke you're having a conversation with and he has 35,000 posts since November 2022 or whatever, sometimes even 50,000 (no way would even a crank have that much time on his hands).

Most of the points have been well refuted at this stage. I've not heard an original contrarian POV in quite a while.

Easier to ignore at this stage. Unless it's someone new with what appears to be a genuine interpretation in their opinion. There's a pessimistic slant that can be applied to all the points alright which may fit in with your personality or perhaps someone is simply just being contrarian. I don't mind either way. It's good to have contrarian voices but I prefer when the points are original at this stage. The thread is so long that a lot of stuff keeps getting regurgitated.

• Russian superiority in numbers of equipment and weapons - Comparing pre war levels to current levels and project future levels there's an obvious trend here.
• Russia has endless meat for the grinder - Can prove useful but in and of itself it does not present an significantly superior force without proper training, equipment, morale. I'd take 1 Ukrainian fighting for his his countries existence over at least 2 Russian mobiks any day.
• Ukraine running out of support from the West - Public interest was always going to wane but I've not heard any governments turn heel or suggest they will on previous commitments of support to Ukraine. Some promises/pledges have proven to be impulsive and not materialised to the same degree (Politicians will politic) but that does not equate to a withdrawing of support for Ukraine.
• The BOMB - Why would they use it? What would be the tactical gain? The continuing failed invasion is driven by Putin's spite and while he's been found dumb enough to believe his own propaganda and the lies peddled back by his yes-men he's still no idiot.
• Russian defence is too strong - They've proven better in defence than attack alright but do the soldiers truely believe they're defending for their countries future? Ukraine have had to change tactics and it's been a slog but they are the ones making the slow gains.
• Soldier deaths hurt Ukraine more - This is true and accounts for the the previous point. I trust that Ukraine know the knock on morale effects of simply trying to overwhelm defences with men. I'm happy to let them conduct the offensive as they see fit and call a halt if needs be. But I'll be cheering them every step of the way. This is the first major war of the 21st century and a lot of the old doctrines are being tested so I don't take what any far removed expert says or speculates as gospel. It was obvious the counter offensive didn't go as planned from the start (when a rapid recapture of territory was seen to be too costly for both men and equipment) so the plan has changed.
• No one is winning this war - Ukraine continues to exist as an independent nation is what winning looks like to me at the moment. Getting land and people back is an obviously an additional goal that may end up at the negotiating table eventually. Nobody knows, but the momentum is still with them and it is their decision when to stop pushing back. But there will be no 100% winner at the end. Ukraine has already lost so much. But they need to continue doing what they are doing and kick Russia in the crotch so hard that their great grandchildren will still feel it.

And

• The litany of BS reasons for the invasion in the first place. People that want to believe these have already made their decision which side they're rooting for.

It has me stumped as well.

They're hitting twice as much as they were a couple of months ago. Their strikes on artillery suddenly increased recently.