On the artillery discussion. Common sense would have you not wasting it, especially the 'smart' rounds. They were designed to minimize collateral damage while hitting target. With civilian out of the conflict zones, better to strategically shell the whole landscape. Ukraine should have done it, but they don't got the mass ammo. RU seems okay scorch earthing their gains with their strategy. Seems a better defensive play. The territories they are taking are ruined husks. Gonna take decades to recover.

Sunk cost fallacy driving the show.

"Big deck" of arguments requires a separate circulatory system, oftenly bypassing the brain.

Well, the Chinese people are not playing fair with the western people. There are "trade wars". Like: we import "X" from China, and to continue importing China demands us to do "Y". When you deal with China companies you dont deal on capitalism grounds, but you deal with authoritarian regime that tries to become world leader and make others their vassals. So Im not surprised USA actually fights them back in Florida.
China is a single country, while west is something like 50 countries.
China plays politics to divide us, for example they might be nice to Irish people, while in the same time China ambasador suggests "former Soviet states don’t exist", while some of them are even part of EU and NATO.

As a result of Russia Free Legion uprising in Russia, Ukrainians get undamaged R-330Zh Zhitel in the latest configuration.
That is, a system that could jam the supposedly unjammable satellite communications and encoded GPS.
What UA got today is worth a several F-16s in barter ;-)
It will probably be delivered to the West or bartered for Western armaments. The Russians will feel the effects of the loss of this system very much, but in about some months, because that's how long it takes for the West to get to know this system, check what has been changed and make its own means of communication immune to their jamming means.

This post was edited by Ironfister on May 24 2023 12:19am

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/world/europe/mrap-armored-vehicles-russia-ukraine.html

So to state the obvious, the raid into Russia was done by Ukrainian fighters using US-provided weapons, not magical well armed internal dissident groups popping up out of thin air. It was done to give Ukraine a morale boost after losing Bakhmut. It doesn't look like it served any strategic purpose and probably bled away some lives and resources. Given it seems to have been an attack-and-retreat raid as they drove right back where they came from, I also doubt Russia killed 70 as they claimed. But given that its obviously Ukrainian fighters and the western media obviously lying to us about it in a coordinated fashion, you have to look at it and ask why anyone would bother throwing away lives and equipment- always more valuable when its in the field and not blown up by Russian artillery/airstrikes- on such an operation. And only answer that makes sense is just as a pure propaganda coup in response to Bakhmut

My opinion is when a belligerent in war is losing in a conflict , their propaganda picks up speed more and more to a point of being incredulous. Of course, this doesn't mean that the Russians aren't doing their own propaganda domestically as well.
That being said , since the West is on Ukraine's side at the moment, the full force of international media will spin whatever that is needed for their own interest, which is now against the Russians.
Not only does this boast morale it also demoralize the Russians who have access to international media. The media will have an effect on populations or try their best to influence the population in those countries that are supporting the Ukrainians so it encourages that particular government to continue sending arms and funds to allow the war to continue .

Just my take.

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on May 24 2023 01:19am

One thing I've lamented a few times is that mostly due to language barrier, but also due to the nu-iron curtain, we really have no idea what's going on with domestic Russian propaganda / talking points. When our only portal into the east is via western propaganda conduits, well shit we might as well ask resident vatniks on PARD whats up.

I suppose the other flip side is the question of what are the implicit limitations of propaganda and reality-sculpting. When the whole media apparatus can not only give controlled messaging and effectively suppress all dissent, but now do it in real time- it puts 1984 to shame. But it exposes that no matter how much you lie about something, you never change its true nature. I'm sure there's a joke about transgenderism I'm missing in that. Western media have gone from using Nazism as the ultimate boogeyman and a smear to denigrate any foe to supporting overt Nazis and shipping them heavy weaponry with such abruptness the whiplash should have sent all our heads careening out the back window. I'd say they've reached their maximum stride. And to what end? Will it change the outcome in the Ukraine war? Will Ukrainians, who already are being asked to fight to the death and embrace total war and war crimes and suicide missions- be more motivated to fight? Will world geopolitics be moved even an inch to give NATO more backing?

What if big brother is impotent? If propaganda alone would achieve anything Kim Song Il would be living on the moon

This post was edited by Goomshill on May 24 2023 01:48am

We learned from mr Putin speech in 2014year that military equipment could be bought by anybody in any military equipment shop. You dont disagree with your boss, do you?
This is just a vehicle, with some armor, its not even a tank.
And no they were Russian people, not Ukrainians. These Russians were cooperating with Ukrainians in the past, but they werent Ukrainians. Dont lie.
First of all Russia will need to protect the border, and this will cost them, it will create holes somewhere else.
Second of all partisans have stolen undamaged priceless zhitel, which is a key technology to win this or any other future war.

I don't know what is the flip side honestly but what I can say is this. ( In regards to Western back US Nato and allies)
They lie now, create a whole narrative and further down the road they say sorry when things eventually surface.

But the extreme damage have already been done. In our current day, technology have shrunk oceans, social media , mass media (MSN) etc etc are at least 200 times more effective than say 20 years back to spread the narrative that they want to with government backing.
This applies to all nations. And those nations that are advanced and being deem the " good guys " have the upper hand in every single category that we can fathom.

The sad thing is the United States led NATO ( US to be specific at times ) have a rather friendly way of helping people think for themselves. They are religiously fervent in spreading their version of " Democracy, rights so on and so forth " without first understanding the culture.
Or maybe they do understand their culture but deem it too Barbaric and unbecoming of a modern progressive liberal world in their eyes and it is their mission to change that and if it includes proxy wars, regime change , colour revolutions then so be it because it is the only right way to do it.

So to what end ? Nothing changes, people die, and I would say majority of those countries they were involved in end up worst than what it used to be.

Here is the scary part, if we remember clearly and well what happened to Afghanistan ( not the most recent one ) back in the late 70s and early 80s. The US and her allies came and left..... Yes they repelled the soviets, the Taliban Mujahedeen is trained by the CIA and ended up with a big middle finger to those in 9/11.

Would we see similar situations in future if for example due to unforeseen circumstances and Geo Economics and Geo Politics that the NATO and US pulled out and stop supporting Ukraine eventually?
And if that happen and the Ukrainians are thrown under the bus , will they give their former allies the 9/11 treatment ? This time round it will be rather dicey, they will be white and non muslim....

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on May 24 2023 02:28am

Resident vatniks that hurts

This post was edited by Norlander on May 24 2023 03:19am