I don’t understand this comment.
In response to they’re advance being bogged down, they are intensifying the shelling of major cities. That doesn’t match up to worry about civilians. Civilians are always secondary to military goals. And Russia has a poor track record with ethnic Ukrainian civilians. You know, that whole little Holodomor thing. So, no, I’m not absolutely sure about that.
They found out the hard way! 
From the first days of the invasion - video footage of several helicopters being shot down:
Could be one of those things where since the Russians aren’t going after stuff with attack aircraft, the Ukrainians aren’t running their search radars and broadcasting their positions. I mean, you can’t hit what you can’t see, and for AAA batteries, the search radars tend to be the beacons that everyone homes in on.
I have wondered this as well. The Russians probably didn’t care if a thousand men were killed and some old equipment was blown up. Just another move on the chess board. Pawn sacrifice.
“Never ascribe to malice which can better be explained by incompetence…”
Some former intelligence officer on TV was mentioning that one of the issues was likely that with such a huge mobilization - odds are these vehicles had mostly been sitting in yards unused for years. Most of the soldiers for this big a mobilization are mandatory draftees, some only 1-year term, the rest 2-year. They don’t care about keeping equipment in good running order and few of them will be competent mechanics. Add in the Russian reputation for things like spare parts, and it is likely that the level of equipment breakdown in the column is high, not to mention fuel supply.
I wonder if the guys driving the column even thought of things like “the tank is on that side - drive on the wrong side of the road so the fuel truck can do a quicker job.” On the plus side, probably a lot more young men in Russia are capable of driving a stick shift.
They must have better videos because I only see a couple of helos being shot down. And those could actually be the same one from 2 different videos. I think they are mistaking the countermeasures such as flares for hits. There’s also the problem of so many videos that are from past wars floating around claiming to be from Ukraine. It would help if someone could confirm a landmark of some kind.
They are correct about the type of helo because the Ka-52 is the only one I know of where the pilot can eject.
Finally, a good reason to learn how to drive a manual transmission vehicle!
Maybe, but Russia not using the clear advantage of their air power is very bad tactics. I don’t understand why their entire war plan seems to rely only on ground troops, no matter the delays or losses.
So far Russia has stretched out only the first finger on one hand of its power. They have been trying to do it the easy way - but if necessary, they will do it the hard way, pulverising anything that resists and turning it into another Aleppo or Groszny.
It seems likely that they will take steps to interdict the resupply routes from the Polish border and choke off the supply of incoming a/t weapons and S.A.A.
I’m hoping you are wrong. 
I think they thought what they had was enough for their purposes and aren’t prepared to support a hugely augmented ground force. They are already having trouble with supplies as it is. Even something like moving artillery closer requires a lot of manpower and protection, unless they just dump them out on their own.
I’m not sure how good the Russians are at moving artillery by air, but those are just the targets that Stinger missiles are made for.
I would surmise that this is really just an Occam’s Razor case. If a massive convoy of vehicles is headed for Kyiv, it’s with the intention of…capturing Kyiv. Nothing fancier than that.
If you watch some of the videos of helicopters @Loach mentions above, in all of them, you see most of the helicopters sending out flare counter-measures, in addition to the one that gets shot down. It’s pretty clear that someone is doing their best to shoot these guys down, which means hanging around the battlefield like the US helicopters did isn’t really all that safe.
I don’t know how effective that fire has been overall, but it’s clearly having an effect on how the Russians use their helicopters.
Putin & co. brought up the described “history shows we’re but One People, unjustly divided” narrative as justification/excuse. Now they’ll have to eat their words if they want to go full no-quarter on Ukraine.
People on FB and Twitter are just as susceptible to hoaxes and propaganda as they’ve always been.
Another point some commentator made - the convoy has been on the road for how many days now? And the occupants of the convoy have likely been sleeping in their vehicles in freezing weather. I wonder how many days’ supply of toilet paper is part of a standard issue backpack? Not having showers is the least of their problems. they’re probably getting tired of cold rations.
(Brings to mind a comment about the Falklands war. When a rancher got back to his farm, his comment was the filthy Argentinian occupiers had shit all over the house. Someone else pointed out it was less likely vandalism, but raw recruits isolated in the middle of nowhere in crappy conditions and bad food who had such severe runs they couldn’t even make it to the bathroom. )
Especially the ones with 2015 expiration dates, I’d imagine.
Any chance of getting a crapload of vodka delivered to the stalled troops? Get enough of them plastered and that column might be there for good.
I would have thought that should have been the first objective of the northern force. Instead they all seem intent on the shiny object (Kyiv).
my guess is the radar is always on … otherwise you would not know if russian fighters are coming in …
but then again, maybe there is something like a tiered radar system … e.g. if long range radar dosnt show any action AAA will be turned of … you get a blip on the radar, you whatsapp the AAA crew to set their beers aside and throw the switch
conscripts are $20.00 per month … you get good milage out of your Jackson
Conscripts can also be mass produced by unskilled labor. Tanks and airplanes, not so much.
Yes, because as far as we know, their is no second buildup anywhere. They were pretty out in the open with everything and it’s hard to hide a large build up of armor from satellites when you have to stick to roads.
Okay, that slipped right by me. I think Putin would kill every ethnic Ukrainian he had to if it would accomplish his goal.
Maybe we could airlift all the vodka that people are pulling from shelves in the US to the convoy. Maybe with a lit fuse stuffed in the bottle.
It’s not like Russia has never sacrificed troops before. I’m sure Putin wouldn’t cry over it, other than maybe the bad press if it was broadcast at home.