Ukraine Conflict - In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only war!

[Mamoulian War]

Of course the polls are now that way. Even Zelenskyi said in September, he wants to end the war as soon as possible. (note, neither him, nor the polls have explicitly specified what date they are talking about, when using term as soon as possible)
 

Few days ago he even said, that he wants to end it in 2025. No surprise there at all. Still 38% of UA want to fight till the victory.  And I guarantee you, that ending war as soon as possible even in the eyes of these 52% of Ukrainians does not mean to surrender to Russia, just to have peace, but “enjoy” the ethnic cleansings, like before, when Stalin was still around…

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

In other news, looks plausible that Russia fired a bunch of ICBM at Ukraine. No nuclear warheads, obviously. Probably used only as kinetic impactors. Would explain all those embassies that were ordered closed, the launches would have been disclosed ahead of time.

That is not a good turn of events... Even if it's just to make a point.

Edited November 21 by Sarex

[Malcador]

Pretty at least. 

CNN reporting it was an experimental MRBM. Although I guess isn't that great a distinction between classes when the concern is a nuclear warhead

 

Edited November 21 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

With which, if it is true, they have broken another treaty and some people still want to negotiate with them

 

Back to Kursk. It is said, Lieutenant General Solodkov was on site, welcoming the 12 Storm Shadow arrivals. His fate for now is unknown.

[Zoraptor]

Eh, which treaty did they break?

(IRBM aren't banned any more. INF was 2 party, with the US withdrawing in 2019. It's defunct. Much like all the other agreements Trump or Bush broke Biden had 4 years to reinstate it or renegotiate it if he wanted, but didn't.

The US had also systematically and provably abrogated it for years previous via Aegis Ashore, which uses ground based tomahawk launchers. Russia may have as well but that was never proven- indeed, the only accusations of them using weapons that would have been banned under it, in the Ukraine War, are within the last year. This would be the first Russian system used too, since the other accusation (not proven) was a DPRK system)

Anyway, looks like it was definitely an IRBM ('Oreshnik') since Putin has announced it as such.

[HoonDing]

<- nuclear apocalypse

-> slow societal collapse

[Mamoulian War]

On 11/21/2024 at 8:40 PM, Zoraptor said:

Eh, which treaty did they break?

(IRBM aren't banned any more. INF was 2 party, with the US withdrawing in 2019. It's defunct. Much like all the other agreements Trump or Bush broke Biden had 4 years to reinstate it or renegotiate it if he wanted, but didn't.

The US had also systematically and provably abrogated it for years previous via Aegis Ashore, which uses ground based tomahawk launchers. Russia may have as well but that was never proven- indeed, the only accusations of them using weapons that would have been banned under it, in the Ukraine War, are within the last year. This would be the first Russian system used too, since the other accusation (not proven) was a DPRK system)

Anyway, looks like it was definitely an IRBM ('Oreshnik') since Putin has announced it as such.

People here on boards were talking about ICBMs. Media as well... And taking anything that Putin says at face value in current day and time? Seriously?

But yeah, if it was IRBM, as currently reported by "untrustworthy western media", they did not break any treaty

[Zoraptor]

They also didn't break a treaty if it was an ICBM. Using an ICBM with a conventional warhead or as an impactor isn't banned and never has been, and the US says they got advance notice.

Both the US and Russia say it was an IRBM though, and with a launch site near Astrakhan it seems more than likely it was. ICBM was the initial claim from Ukraine.

[Gorth]

Split off from previous thread....

 

 

 

[Mamoulian War]

On 11/24/2024 at 9:21 PM, Zoraptor said:

They also didn't break a treaty if it was an ICBM. Using an ICBM with a conventional warhead or as an impactor isn't banned and never has been, and the US says they got advance notice.

Both the US and Russia say it was an IRBM though, and with a launch site near Astrakhan it seems more than likely it was. ICBM was the initial claim from Ukraine.

Looks like you might not be correct even with the IRBM treaty violation statement

https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/ss-x-31-rs-26-rubezh/

as Oreshnik is “based” on Rubezh missile…

Quote

The RS-26 Rubezh is a Russian solid-fueled, road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) currently in development. Although classified as an ICBM under the New START Treaty, the RS-26 has been tested with heavier payloads at ranges below 5,500 km, potentially putting Russia in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

 

[Lexx]

No fun allowed in Moscow.

 

[Malcador]

16 minutes ago, Lexx said:

No fun allowed in Moscow.

 

Sounds like Ukraine for the past year.

Neat parry of the West wanting 18 year olds drafted

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/43097

 

[Zoraptor]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Looks like you might not be correct even with the IRBM treaty violation statement

https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/ss-x-31-rs-26-rubezh/

as Oreshnik is “based” on Rubezh missile…

 

Three main points. (1) As mentioned before INF has been defunct for 5 (five) years, after the US withdrew, (2) as mentioned before INF has been defunct for 5 (five) years, after the US withdrew and (3) as mentioned before INF has been defunct for 5 (five) years, after the US withdrew. Technically of course that's one point, but it seems it needs repeating.

The US also test fired a ground launched tomahawk within a week of withdrawing which would incontrovertibly have been a violation and showed that Russia's objections over Aegis Ashore were 100% right; its mk41 launchers could be used for ground firing tomahawks with no alteration. Which was utterly unsurprising since they could be used for firing them everywhere else and were what they were designed to fire. Indeed, the now in use US Typhon system uses the self same mk41 launchers for ground firing tomahawks, though one suspects that wouldn't be a violation of INF even if it still existed.

(The US objection to Rubezh was laughable anyway. Sure, overload something and its range will drop. Fire a SRBM without its warhead and guess what, it'll fly more than 500km and break the treaty too. Pretty pointless though, since the whole point is the warhead. An ICBM is designed to carry MTs of TNT equivalent. Sure, you could pack a conventional warhead on it to make it heavier and put it into IRBM territory, you'd just end up with ~one millionth the TNT equivalent on impact. In this case that didn't even happen, it was just a MIRV which is the standard fitting for nuclear launches minus the nuclear bit, fired as a f you)

Edited November 30 by Zoraptor

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, Gorth said:

Yeah... some people were apprehensive at the prospect of facing Russia after Syria but before Ukraine. Sometimes the image in your head is more intimidating than reality once it gets put to the test. Besides Syria, Russian military units are also active all over central and western Africa. Maybe there is a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact equivalent for partitioning Africa?

edit: between Russia and China that is

I still find it funny that people think it would be easy to fight a war against Russia. Even after Ukraine. I find the people wishing for it actively even more funny, when I'm 90% sure they would not volunteer once the mobilization starts.

[Lexx]

It'll be ez if you have huge stockpiles of artillery and missiles, I guess. Just gotta be able to keep those meat waves at distance.

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, Sarex said:

I still find it funny that people think it would be easy to fight a war against Russia. Even after Ukraine. I find the people wishing for it actively even more funny, when I'm 90% sure they would not volunteer once the mobilization starts.

The invaders from the west will succeed on the fourth time around.  All the fancy US stealth aircraft and long range missile have to be good for something.  At least until people start shooting nukes and we all get to see what Threads was warning us about or something.

For the people wishing it, that's the usual lazy bloodlust of people online, or people that spend too much time playing "military" games and LARPing.  Do get some amusing statements though, have seen things like the SAS/Delta being able to turn back Russian flanks alone, 20 Abrams being enough to rout forces en route to Mariupol.   Some people need to experience war first hand, I guess.

[HoonDing]

They'd turn every European capital to rubble without even crossing their borders.

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

..or people that spend too much time playing "military" games and LARPing. 

One of the worst offenders is Hamish de Bretton Gordon, and he was an actual factual British officer- and a very senior one. OK, so he writes for the Torygraph so a certain amount of upper class twit is expected but you don't really expect distilled redditor level delusion despite that. "Challengers are about to sweep Putin's Conscripts Aside" indeed.

Circle jerking your experience from thousands of hours in HoI or Battlefield is comparatively mild.

[Gfted1]

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. ~Mike Tython

Luckily (?), weve been in a constant state of warfare for the last 20-something years so were kinda good at it. What we really need to do is revitalize the US industrial base. Blot out the very sun with cruise missile swarms! 

[ShadySands]

27 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Tython

I laughed way too hard at that.

All I know is that once this war is finally over Ukraine and Russia will go back to being the best of friends just like in all European Wars. No decades or centuries of bad blood and no looking for the slightest excuse to start fighting again. Nope, no sir.

[Malcador]

On 12/3/2024 at 4:17 PM, ShadySands said:

I laughed way too hard at that.

All I know is that once this war is finally over Ukraine and Russia will go back to being the best of friends just like in all European Wars. No decades or centuries of bad blood and no looking for the slightest excuse to start fighting again. Nope, no sir.

Well have to feel Ukraine will be in a better place after the West rebuilds it and rearms it.  Not like Russia is going to be in a place to do much, despite the fear mongering

[Zoraptor]

I'd replace that 'after' with an 'if', at least for the rebuilding. If there were a Marshall Plan type approach of rebuilding economies for (more or less) mutual benefit, sure, but that approach hasn't been in evidence since the Marshall Plan.

(

1) much of the financial 'aid' isn't aid, it's loans. They will inevitably get one of those lovely IMF management plans designed to benefit the lenders

2) much of the 'genuine' financial aid goes straight back to the donor country

3) none of the fundamental issues Ukraine had have been dealt with and the war has made them worse without exception(?)

Ultimately the problem with aid is the same it's been since the 50s. It's very easy to make promises to be fulfilled in the future and frame them in generous language, very hard to pay the costs demanded by them when they come due. So you get 'aid' instead, which is designed to benefit the person giving it as much as possible.

For example Ukraine would take up basically the entire EU development fund and add a lot to the CAP costs if it joined outright- and that's ~50% of the EU annual budget. We've already seen how some EU farmers responded to Ukrainian imports undercutting them; not at all well and that during active warfare. Political considerations will mean that Ukraine gets loans, they'll be for work done by western companies and paid for by selling off every Ukrainian asset possible to foreigners. People won't come back, can't be forced back since they're EU citizens now, and the demographics will get even worse as every young person leaves to- stereotypically- clean toilets in London Berlin/Warsaw. Most of the money 'given' will, inevitably, not end up going to Ukraine beyond some depressed wages. Realistically of course some sort of weaksauce association agreement with a roadmap is about the best they can hope for. Which will still have just about every drawback above for Ukraine, but be a lot more palatable to the average EU voter.

Worse, some of the suggestions being made now by western politicians are outright suicidal for Ukraine as a country. Having an army with an average age of 45 isn't a great situation, but at least those getting killed had a chance to have children. Demanding that 18-25 year olds and women get drafted for combat duty is demographic suicide given Ukraine's population age pyramid is the sort of shape Picasso might design rather than Imhotep. You kind of hope that they aren't expressing actual positions but ones for negotiations instead ("you think Ukraine is running out of soldiers? Well think again! They're now prepared to draft both the 18 year olds in the country!) but they are what is being stated)

[uuuhhii]

did people just forget what happened when ussr collapse

when did usa waste an opportunity to make things worse

[Gorth]

Split off a number of posts into a new Syria related thread. An interesting exercise which may not have succeeded 100% because of the way the conversations were intermingled

[HoonDing]

The Three Stooges