Ukraine Conflict - war continues on

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Their defence budget alone is meant to be ~60$bn, annually.

Which sounds ridiculous and is, but may actually be an underestimate of the true cost. A 4 unit Patriot battery has around 400$mn (!) worth of pac-3s loaded (16 units/ launcher, 6mn per rocket. Not quite as bad as it sounds, it's 10 million for the old pac-2s, if you're Saudi Arabia). Firing them off once a week would be 20bn, alone; and Ukraine has more than one battery. Even if you go back to the cheapest pac-3 cost listed it's still ~13bn to fire one battery off weekly. That's partly why Europe has been so awful at ramping up actual production: it costs monumental amounts of money to make and run the fancy gear which everyone in the west has been conditioned to think is necessary. Then your 30mn euro shiny new Leo2 gets popped by a $300 drone using a $50 cold war era rpg warhead for everyone to see.

The money overall pays everything from salaries for teachers- and soldiers- to generators to keep the lights running. The 'funny' thing is that 45bn p/a isn't even close to enough. It covers the theoretical budget deficit, but is only about 2/3 of the amount actually needed. And of course it's for two years. In two years time they'll need another 90bn. 

Talking about AI and fake news, I thought   Pokrovsk had fallen to Russia weeks ago? Didnt Putin himself claim this and a Russian flag was hosted 

The one thing I have learnt about this war is not to believe any of the " updates "  from either side until its confirmed and thats weeks later

But I am still surprised by the Pokrovsk false narrative because even several Western media houses were repeating this 

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/12/19/moscows-narrative-wobbles-as-ukraine-takes-back-kupiansk

 

[Zoraptor]

Well yeah, everything is going swimmingly for Ukraine, according to Ukraine. Russia has definitely gone backwards in Kupiansk, but meh. I'm not a doom and gloomer claiming Ukraine is finished; they can generally hold areas they really want or need to, still. Just at the expense of other places- in this case Vovchansk, Siversk and Huliapole. And yes, Pokrovsk and Mirnograd.

Really though, acritically repeating Ukraine's casualty claims is at this point extremely shonky reporting. At best. The latest body exchange via the red cross this week was 1003 Ukrainians to 26 Russians. Of course the actual ratio isn't 40:1 in Russia's favour but there really really isn't an explanation for that ratio- which has been pretty consistent for 18 months- which doesn't involve Ukraine either lying about retreating, or lying about the casualties it's inflicting/ receiving. Or both.

The satellite imagery on the attack on the sub was also pretty conclusive that it was a clean miss. You can bet if it were a conclusive hit he'd have the satellite images in the article but it clearly hit the pier about 20m away from the sub. Still embarrassing, but if embarrassment was enough Ukraine would have won in 2022.

Edited December 21, 2025 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

The reports of 360k RF troops chilling in Belarus were funny though. Timed just for the decision to cut Ukraine a cheque, too. 

[Malcador]

Seeing NAFO types praising Kapustin is pretty funny, given the guy has a Schengen ban. 

Hm, Stephen Miller would cry for him.

[Zoraptor]

NAFO types think tricking the intellectually disabled into planting bombs and then blowing themselves up is fine, so long as it kills Russian police as well. They think using an Azeri truck driver to deliver a bomb and getting him blown up is fine, so long as it's targeting the Kerch Bridge. And yes, they shed tears for a literal literal Russian nazi, so long as he's fighting for Ukraine and killing Russians. There's pretty clearly quite literally nothing they wouldn't excuse so long as it results in dead Russians. They are the living (eh, rather a lot are most certainly bots) embodiment of 'no bad tactics, only bad targets'; many have a previous record of supporting ISIS, when it targets Russians. It is thus utterly unsurprising that most of them are absolutely fine with dead Palestinian children, tortured Palestinian prisoners etc etc. Not very high quality human beings, to be sure.

Fair chance Kapustin got whacked by his own side anyway. His organisation was largely irrelevant once the figment of the Belgorod incursions being home grown was gone, and he personally was embarrassing. Plus if there were a peace agreement he'd be an excellent chance for trying to mess it up. Always a good candidate for an 'unfortunate accident' as happened with a number of pro Russian militia leaders.

[Malcador]

So apparently White Rex is alive, it was a fake to scam the bounty on him.  Bit weird, and shame that racist POS still lives 

[Zoraptor]

Kind of appropriate for Bandera's birth day. You'd have to suspect the timing was deliberate.

I very much doubt they got any bounty. For all the talk about fooling the Russians the response from them was very muted. Not sure it even got any official comment at all? and most of the unofficial comment was equivocal about whether he was even dead or not.

[Lexx]

I'd be surprised if russia would pay out anything unless you literally send them his head.