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Regardless, the widespread handing out of AK-47s seems to indicate that the Russians are going to be in for at least an Iraq if not an Afghanistan. Not hard to
by outside1234 5y ago
Regardless, the widespread handing out of AK-47s seems to indicate that the Russians are going to be in for at least an Iraq if not an Afghanistan. Not hard to imagine a slow motion killing field in these cities.
- LegitShady 5y agoI worry that handing out arms to civilians means Russia is going to have excuses for any civilian casualties from now on. Sprinkle an ak47 on the body take a picture and call it justified.
- woah 5y agoDo they care about having excuses?
- ch4s3 5y agoIt’s sounds like the Ukrainians have priced that in. There are already videos popping up of Brits, Canadians, and Americans firing on Russian positions around Kiev. I’m also hearing form some Ukrainians that they’re planning to make it Russia’s Vietnam.
- rcurry 5y agoI’m sure the US and allies will make that happen. This isn’t Afghanistan - even if the Russians occupy the Ukraine we will be supplying the insurgent forces with technology that will make the Russians feel like they’re fighting the Martians.
- ch4s3 5y agoI sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.
- rcurry 5y agoAnd I’m right there with you.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> This isn’t Afghanistan Afghanistan was the USSR’s Vietnam, so I don't know why you'd say this isn’t Afghanistan in this context.
- rcurry 5y agoWhat I mean is that it will be a thousand times worse.
- ch4s3 5y agoI just saw that irregulars/volunteers are live-streaming the KIA that the Russians are leaving behind. It’s unbearably grisly.
- ch4s3 5y agoI think the parent comment means there’s kit that could be given to the Ukrainians that’s way better than what the Russians have without having to worry about bigger things like shoulder fired missiles a la Afghanistan in the 80s.
- antishatter 5y agoThere’s 0% chance this is accurate. While Russia is an aging and rusted military power their elite forces are still equipped exceedingly well.
- tomatotomato37 5y agoHaving elite forces with fancy equipment only matters if you use them well. If your only strategy is to yeet them far behind enemy lines while your main front with support is still bogged down then you won't have elite forces or fancy equipment much longer
- antishatter 5y agoWhere does this portrait of Russia as an incompetent troop army come from? I thought we learned with ww1 that portraying your enemy as weak and incompetent only created morale issues when they were tougher than expected?
- tomatotomato37 5y agoThe war going on right now is a good place to start. They did a massive air assault with elite VDV units without proper support, which caused them to lose Antonov Airport like six hours after capturing it, and are now wandering armor through urban areas that have AT nests camping out every window. Really the only reason they managed to do as well as have is their focus on shutting down Ukranian air in the initial missile wave and their sheer numbers. Ironically that train of thought is what is hampering Russia now, since their actions seem to communicate an expectation that they would have been able to just walk into Kyiv like they did for Crimea, and didn't expect the actual resistance of an army fighting for their home
- jupp0r 5y agoHave you read the original article? It's coming from Chechnya.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago"we will be supplying the insurgent forces with technology that will make the Russians feel like they’re fighting the Martians" Would be nice if the West supplied Ukraine with all this technology before the war began in the 8 years prior - their airforce and Air defence are tiny and dated. So far the rich nations of the west mostly left Ukraine to the wolves - supplying only short-ranged squad level weapons and dated equipment.
- 2-718-281-828 5y agoWhere do you find those videos? On Twitter?
- ch4s3 5y agoThere’s a war videos Reddit, and I’m not on TikTok but apparently a lot of volunteers are streaming commentary with the camera pointed at the ground.
- moltar 5y ago> There are already videos popping up of Brits, Canadians, and Americans firing on Russian positions around Kiev. Any links?
- davidwritesbugs 5y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/t0zhhw/british_volunteers_fighting_in_the_battle_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/t0zhhw/briti...
- awb 5y agoThere's nothing to stop anyone from claiming anything they want. It's word against word. There is no neutral authority that's going to investigate during the middle of a war. The only way to prove a war crime (like killing civilians), is documented evidence and/or testimony from fellow troops.
- wycy 5y agoRussia has such a history of making fake videos that hopefully any video "evidence" presented by them is immediately taken with mountains of salt anyway.
- awb 5y agoAlready a lot of video game footage online (mostly planes and explosions) masquerading as real video. Hopefully there’s AI analysis of video too to make sure it’s not manipulated.
- e12e 5y ago"military aged male".
- savant_penguin 5y agoIf you watch how a Russian armored vehicle went out of it's easy to trample an unarmed civilian car I'd say they do not care about having excuses Sometimes the only defense is to shoot back however you can
- 2-718-281-828 5y agoThere are several videos about that incident because it happend right next to another incident where a military truck got ambushed and the personal was killed. Those were wearing Ukrainian uniforms. I'd really like to know whose tank that was (seems to have been Ukrainian) and who steered it and why it crashed into the car. Might actually have been an attempt to avoid a perceived attack instead of intentional.
- dash2 5y agoLink/source?
- reducesuffering 5y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t17w2b/ukrainian_ambush_a_truck_you_will_see_the_armor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t17w2b/u... NSFW/Graphic
- cjbgkagh 5y agoI think the driver survived, I saw a video of them being extracted from the crushed car.
- fuoqi 5y agoThe car was trampled by an anti-air system on the Ukranian controlled territory, no?
- tablespoon 5y ago> I worry that handing out arms to civilians means Russia is going to have excuses for any civilian casualties from now on. Sprinkle an ak47 on the body take a picture and call it justified. Why it that the thing you worry about? The Russians have demonstrated they'll blatantly lie to justify their actions, no connection to reality needed.
- Spooky23 5y agoThat will happen anyway. Asymmetrical warfare always goes that way, especially with conscript armies.
- nitwit005 5y agoI'm not sure it'll make much difference. The Russians haven't seemed to have worried all that much about civilian casualties in past conflicts.
- SamTwardowski 5y agoMany Russians have Ukrainian ancestry and/or family in Ukraine - especially in the southern parts of Russia. If the Russian army wanted to inflict higher civilian casualties they could, but that's not the goal.
- dash2 5y agoDoes Putin care though? If he orders eg missile strikes on cities….
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI think you're making the mistake that Russians care if they kill innocents or that Putin cares how they win.
- HWR_14 5y agoWhat civilian casualties to justify? You don't send cremation trucks with your forces because you want an accurate accounting of the dead. The number of people who are just going to disappear - on both sides - is sobering.
- xdennis 5y agoRussia's excuse so far is that their Jewish president is a Nazi. There's no reason to worry about what excuses they can create in the future.
- rcurry 5y agoA rifle behind every blade of grass, as the saying goes.
- blago 5y agoI don't know if handing out AK-47's necessarily translates to desire to fight the Russians. People can be getting those to protect their families.
- kbelder 5y agoFrom the Russians?
- m_ke 5y agoAs an Eastern European I can guarantee you it will be way worse for them than Afghanistan. There are no good endings for Russia here.
- europewide 5y agoAs a non religious person i pray they have the strength to start an insurrection that the world has never seen.
- SamTwardowski 5y ago
- urthor 5y agoRealistically, Russia just wants to cause chaos in Western Ukraine whilst rolling over the parts of Ukraine in the East where they have popular support. Russia doesn't want to take areas it doesn't have popular support in. It just wants to do exactly what it did to Georgia, punish its opponents and annex the friendly bits. Everyone's doom-mongering, but Russia has a clear strategy.
- akimball 5y agoI fear you may not understand Putin's religious war. He needs Kiev to bring Ukraine under the Moscow patriarchate.
- yrgulation 5y agoBarking at the wrong tree. Putin threatened Estonia, Letonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Moldavia, Georgia and Bulgaria. He said Ukraine shouldn't exist as a country and there is no such thing as Ukranians. The guy then threatened Sweden and Finland with military consequences if they join NATO. People that try and minimise this are simply playing into his propaganda. He also threatened the US with consequences it has never seen in its entire history (couldn't have been any other country he could have referred to because the above have seen everything). Belarus’ Lukasenka already said they need to monitor the “situation” all the way to Berlin and requested Russian S400s.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoIf you look it up, the majority of Iraqis supported the US. How many Ukrainians do you think support Russia?
- europewide 5y agoIgnore anyone telling you the russian army is strong. They cam do damage but their strength is grossly overestimated and part of propaganda used for demoralising the enemy. They are peasants with guns.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoI believe it!
- comrh 5y agoThe Iraqis were under a dictator, the Ukrainians elected their President.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThat's what I'm saying. I'm hoping that the Russians are going to have a much tougher time in Ukraine since they are not welcome.
- tb0ne 5y agoCould you provide a source for that statement? I know that the Shia majority did not support Saddam Hussein, but does this directly translate to them supporting a US invasion?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoPetraeus mentions it in this recent article and everything I've found supports what he said: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/david-petraeus-ukraine-russia-invasion/622893/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/da... > Ukraine is not only bigger but some 50 percent more populous than Iraq, and the Iraqi population included many millions—Kurds, Christians, Yezidis, Shabak, and many of the Shia—who broadly supported the coalition forces throughout our time there. Only a minority of the Iraqi population comprised or supported the Sunni extremists and insurgents and Iranian-supported Shia militia. Though they did, to be sure, prove to be very formidable enemies. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/10-years-after-saddam/277362/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/10... > "Iraq, today, 10 years on from the war, from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is not what the Iraqi people hoped for and expected. We hoped for an inclusive democracy, an Iraq that is at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbors," Salih said. "To be blunt, we are far from that." > "But," he added, "it's important to understand where we started from. ... Literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were sent to mass graves. Ten years on from the demise of Saddam Hussein, we're still discovering mass graves across Iraq. And Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein—the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein." https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797722034/what-young-iraqis-want-for-u-s-troops https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797722034/what-young-iraqis-w...
- bryanlarsen 5y agoThe biggest difference between Ukraine and Afghanistan or Vietnam is the ability of people to leave. The borders to Poland are open, almost anybody left is going to be hostile or a collaborator or deluded.
- aynyc 5y agoThat makes Russian position even worse. Because Poland will allow supply of weapons and fighters through its border. Making this a protracted war that Russians can’t win. Look at America and Pakistan, talibans moved at Will between the borders and American forces can’t engage.
- XorNot 5y agoThis was also the story in Vietnam. The US was fighting endless supply lines from the north.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoYes. Endless supply from the north swooping into Cambodia around the DMZ and right back into South Vietnam. They moved at-will nearly anywhere they wanted in South Vietnam.
- ethbr0 5y agoAt will... aside from the strategic and interdiction bombing of North Vietnamese trails (officially) and Cambodian trails (semi-officially) and substantial (especially for the 1960s) monitoring of the routes.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoYes, at will. They would fix the trails within hours and bombs weren't accurate like they are today.
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- fuoqi 5y agoHanding out AK-47 to everyone without even recording who got a weapon is outright irresponsible. Without training or any kind of command you will get yesterdays civilians killing other civilians. We already have seen how "territorial defense forces" have shot a family of five (two parents, two girls, and one boy; only two kids have survived) who tried to flee from Kiev. Who knows how many of those 60 diversants reported by Kiev are truly Russian forces and not Ukrainians killed in friendly fire.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThey didn't exactly have a lot of time to form a committee and design a proper gun database and licensing process. They just wanted to kill some invaders.
- urthor 5y agoThey don't give a shit. Realistically, in a conflict, anyone who cannot materially contribute to the conflict is a liability. Every single military, the world over, is heavily trained to ignore civilian casualties. As long as it's not a militarily significant asset, their training is to not care about it. Handing out AK-47s increases the number of military assets. The cost doesn't show up on the military asset balance sheet.
- dash2 5y ago> Every single military, the world over, is heavily trained to ignore civilian casualties. This sounds extremely implausible.
- cryptonector 5y agoPeople, ideas, material -- in that order! -col. John Boyd
- filoleg 5y ago> Handing out AK-47 to everyone without even recording who got a weapon is outright irresponsible "Mr. Miroshnichenko [the head of international affairs for the Territorial Defense Force of Ukraine] turned aside any concerns over arming a civilian population in the capital’s streets, saying that each weapon’s serial number was attached to a passport."[0] While your concern about training remains, they definitely recorded who got weapons. And also keep in mind that Ukraine, the entire time, had mandatory conscription of all males, where they definitely learned the basics of handling a firearm. And plus, I am sorry, but there are certain situations when concern over proper training takes a backseat, and this feels like one of them. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/25/world/russia-ukraine-war#armed-with-assault-rifles-civilian-volunteers-prepare-to-defend-kyiv https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/25/world/russia-ukraine...
- EdwardDiego 5y agoI'm surprised that they haven't learned the lessons of Afghanistan (the Soviet era, the NATO era) about a population that is fighting for their homeland, vs. soldiers fighting because they were told to. Or, I guess, the lessons of the Eastern Front of WW2.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> I'm surprised that they haven't learned the lessons of Afghanistan (the Soviet era, the NATO era) about a population that is fighting for their homeland, vs. soldiers fighting because they were told to. They have learned a form of that lesson, which is why part of their domestic propaganda is about how “Ukraine” is fake country unjustly erected by Lenin and Stalin from Russian territory that has no justification to exist, but is naturally part of Russia, as well as that the current government of Ukraine is a Nazi regime. Putin wants the people fighting his war to see themselves as fighting in and for their homeland against NATO-backed Nazis intent on destroying Russia.
- EdwardDiego 5y agoGood point. I wonder how it'll work? I guess Ukraine is far less alien to a Russian than Afghanistan was (or Afghanistan or Iraq were to an American), so it could plausibly work. Most (if not all) Ukrainians also speak Russian. And your point explains his speech emphasising the Kievan Rus as the origin of the Russian people, and and the often fluid borders of Ukraine. And of course, the Kievan Rus as the point of Christianization of the Russian peoples. And in something that feels like it comes from a Paradox grand strategy game, in 2018, the FSB was trying to prevent people from switching from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Putin really is playing the long game of "Ukraine was Russia, all along!"
- cafard 5y agoSo we should bring in Norwegians to rule it?