Imho The Israelis know more about Iran weapons than anyone. Glad their advising Kyiv.
Cite Russia escalating use of Iranian ‘kamikaze’ drones in Ukraine | Russia | The Guardian
I’m curious about one of the details of the recent sham referendums. In particular, has there been any claim as to what areas exactly were involved in the voting? What I’m wondering is if there were any supposed votes cast in the Ukrainian controlled areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. A related question is whether or not any of the areas that participated have since been liberated by Ukraine. Did they purposely leave out the cities and villages right on the front lines to avoid having a newly annexed area immediately “conquered” by Ukraine?
No, I don’t think so. A lot of the Donbas militias of late have been troops hastily conscripted off the streets. (Here’s an article from back in June.)
A 7 ft tall guy won’t have a chance on the front. I believe his size will attract a lot of gunfire.
No doubt he could beat someone to death. I doubt he lasts a month in combat.
So, I as thinking about this new Russian call-up of new troops, a lot of whom seem to be either untrained civilians, or overage prior service guys. This all seems a bit desperate, I think we can all agree.
Now, historically, we’ve seen this kind of “Old men and kids” call-ups before, but all the cases I can think of involved a power on the losing side of an invasion - think the final defense of Berlin in 1945. Have we ever seen such a call-up by the invading force itself?
It seems to me, most armies only invade when they know they have a plan that involves lots of already-available prepared troops, and a robust system of training replacements. I can’t think of anyone who ever tried to invade another country with the expectation that if they ran into trouble, they’d just deploy Grandpa and the kids to fix it.
To think that one of Russia’s severest problems before this war was underpopulation - 140 million was almost insufficient for a nation of such size and eleven time zones.
Now with the deaths and people fleeing, Russia’s gonna have even less…
Exactly this. A Belarusian mobilisation might help Russia but it has the potential to turn on Lukashenko and then Putin risks a disastrous second conflict and losing Belarussia as its puppet state. But Russia has reportedly sent thousands of its troops there thanks to the mobilisation and I do wonder if they are not there to invade Ukraine but rather to fortify the puppet government. It’s desperate stuff and risks a kind of odd civil war with a gooseberry.
Risks go up big time after Russia announces annexation of those area. Doctrine says they can use nukes to defend Russian territory. There’s a chance that using a nukes is the best way to get people to agree to freeze the lines and ceasefire for a side that’s not doing well in the current circumstances.
Not saying that’ll happen, but the likelihood is higher now than in a long time.
Speculation - That depends on what Trump had/stole and if he sent it. And to whom.
I’m sure the FBI, the NSA and a bunch of other alphabet agencies are working overtime to try to clean this mess up.
Latest on the encirclement and likely imminent fall of Lyman from Russian milblogger Rybar:
Odd. There is a town near Donets’k called New York. Not Noviy York as one might expect, but literally the phonetic spelling Нью Йорк, as used for New York.
That was what I implied. Surviving was higher up on their list.
By formally annexing these territories, Russia is just making its humiliation worse when Ukraine re-takes them.
You have to admire the delusion in these kinds of posts…“If decisive measures are not taken…” As if Russia was capable of taking “decisive” measures, but for some reason was just holding back until now.
?? Why a gooseberry?
Nope. But even worse for Russia, soldiers in 1945 did not need anywhere near the training and cohesion that a modern attacking force needs. 300,000 men with guns could be effective in WWII after relatively little training. 300,000 men with WWII era guns on a modern battlefield are little more than artillery fodder. Useful to pacify an occupied population perhaps, but useless as an attacking force IMO.
As a defensive force well, see what’s happening around Lyman right now. The Russians seem to be unable to hold back the Ukrainians from closing the Lyman pocket and cutting them off. Russian soldiers are exhausted and demoralized.
I don’t think there are any magic wands that can make Russians somehow develop enough combat power to start taking large amounts of new territory. Putin’s just hoping to fill the Donbas with soldiers to make it painful to retake the region, while using his nuclear card to attempt to force the Ukrainians to give up territory.
But I don’t think it will work. The Ukrainians are not stupid. They know that if they stand down now, Putin will simply rebuild and attack again in a few years, just as he did after he took Crimea. And by then his military may have time to fix some of their glaring structural problems and figure out ways to deal with the west’s advanced weaponry. Russia needs to be pushed back into Russia now, or this never ends.
We are entering the most dangerous phase of this war. Putin is cornered and rattling his nuclear sabres. Ukraine cannot accept his ultimatum. We’re probably closer to a nuke going off in anger than at any time since the start of the cold war.
See, Vlad, this is what it looks like when a population cheers an army as liberators. 
Holy crap, the picture of the Security Council meeting is bizarre looking. He’s behind a desk and in the far distance there is a semicircle of people sitting in chairs. And that was back in Feb.