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Flattening Kyiv is Putin's last resort: he can't retire and he can't drag things for too long, but should he give the order to level the city and reports would
by squarefoot 5y ago
Flattening Kyiv is Putin's last resort: he can't retire and he can't drag things for too long, but should he give the order to level the city and reports would slip under the censorship to Russian people and the rest of the world, that would surely be the first day of his demise.
- baybal2 5y agoHe is already doing it, just ran out of ammo. Russian ammo stockpiles are wast, but very old, and decrepit. Some literally date to WW2. In first 2 days, they used pretty much everything against city outskirts. You think Putin is afraid losing sleep? He already tried to bomb the Kiyv dam multiple times, he wants to destroy the city plainly, and simple. https://uacrisis.org/en/the-russian-occupiers-tried-to-blow-up-the-dam-of-the-kyiv-reservoir https://uacrisis.org/en/the-russian-occupiers-tried-to-blow-... If Kiyv dam is breached, it will flood the Zaporizhna nuclear plant.
- AYBABTME 5y agoWhere did you get this data about their ammo stockpiles? I'd love to believe it.
- bluGill 5y agoEven if true pre WWII era ammo is often found by sportsmen and tested, it works just fine. Modern shell design which is over 100 years old doesn't degrade with time very much. New ammo is more reliable of course, but old works well enough if you have a gun to use it in.
- technothrasher 5y agoYup, I've fired plenty of WWII era 7.62x54r out of my M91/30. No issues with it ever.
- simonh 5y agoIt’s bogus, the standard rifle of the Russian forces is the AK-74, developed in the 1970s. Their main tank is the T-72 developed in the 70s but continuously developed and upgraded since. Most of their attack helicopters date from the 70s and 80s or later. That may all sound dated, but bear in mind the M4 rifle used by US troops is based on a 60s design and the Abrams M1 tank is basically a 70s design. The Russian forces have been comprehensively re-equipped and resourced over the last decade and have experience from operations in Chechnya and Syria.
- baybal2 5y ago122mm ammo - WW2 stocks still there, 7.62x54R - same, 82mm mortars ammo - same, earliest KPV ammo is just few years older.
- ByersReason 5y agoOld tanks as no match for modern MANPADs
- Manuel_D 5y agoI think you mean antitank rockets & missiles. MANPADs - Man Portable Air Defense weapons - are for use against helicopters.
- ByersReason 5y agosorry, generic misused term. In this case I meant javelin and the UK/Swedish equivalent. Both of which have been supplied to Ukraine.
- jjtheblunt 5y agoT72 is a 60s design too
- simonh 5y agoIt’s literally named after the year it went into production. Of course it was a product of iterative design, refinement and experience going back decades.
- belter 5y agohttps://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038 https://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038
- chefkoch 5y agoSure, the russians who have been fighting in syria since 2015 and who have build more than 8000 of their most modern tank run out of ammo in 2 days. It would be really good news, but that's totally unbelievable.
- terafo 5y agoThey lost more soldiers just today than in all of the syrian war. And it's not about "all of russia ran out of ammo", it's "they overstretched their supply lines and can't supply enough ammo, fuel, etc, so their forces have just what they took with them".
- chefkoch 5y agoIt's only a four hours drive from russia to kiev, i can't believe one of the biggest armies in the World can Not find enough trucks to do this.
- stickfigure 5y agoIt also seems unlikely to me and I am skeptical. But logistics are hard under fire? Does Russia control the airspace or are the rumors true that Ukraine still has aircraft? Are there enemy teams with shoulder-launched missiles along the route? With cheap drones for reconnaissance? My impression is that the country is full of handheld antiair and antitank weapons, supplied by the west. That can't make it easy.
- dragonwriter 5y agoWhile troops were deployed to Belarus for “exercises”, there were lots of reports of them selling fuel and other supplies. That could have complicated logistics for the invasion.
- terafo 5y agoMajority of Ukrainian aircraft is intact. Drones are being used. >Are there enemy teams with shoulder-launched missiles along the route? Yes, and civilians are doing whatever they can to stop them. >My impression is that the country is full of handheld antiair and antitank weapons, supplied by the west. That can't make it easy. Yes. It's true, and more are coming.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoRussia has plenty of new artillery and arms. They have been building up a couple of decades. This is a tiny percentage of what they have waiting in the wings.
- ant6n 5y agoKiev is the cradle of Russia. It would be like the US flattening London.
- SergeAx 5y agoThis is extremely bad and distracting analogy.
- dalbasal 5y agoAlmost all analogies are bad and distracting, to some extent. Itoh, I do think it gets across, coarsely, a point about the sentiment scape. Russian people's tolerance of Ukrainian suffering can't be taken for granted. Kievans haven't attacked them, or given Russians much reason to hate them. Hate is a necessary ingredient for that kind of war.
- jessaustin 5y agoHate is a necessary ingredient... Not when there is control fraud. Very few Americans hate Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Yemenis, Afghans, Palestinians, Vietnamese, etc.
- InCityDreams 5y agoIt's great to know someone else (coarsely) feels this way. Once people introduce analogies, I give up as they a) become a discussion about the analogy, or b) result in further analogies, and further discussions not about the original argument. 'Bad and distracting'. Yes.
- redisman 5y agoIf they flatten Kiyv.. I don’t know. I would want my country to send in troops.
- throwawayay02 5y agoWould you volunteer to go?
- wyldfire 5y agoI wonder how much he cares about his reputation. Do the Russian people believe the lies?
- stickfigure 5y agoIf enough human rights abuses show up in media, NATO will grow a pair and get directly involved. That's probably Putin's biggest fear, and why he blusters so much. He thinks the west is decadent and cowardly. So far, in this case, he's been right. The thing about western democracies is that they respond to public sentiment. If the populations are seething with anger, they will want blood. Especially the Americans.
- lazide 5y agoVery unlikely NATO (overall) would get involved even if there are serious atrocities. That’ts a fast path to nuclear war. They’ll fortify heavily and the moment any Russian steps onto NATO member soil, they’ll be repelled though. NATO is about mutual self defense, not invasion. Ukraine is caught in the middle between Russia and NATO.
- stickfigure 5y agoPutin threatens nuclear war whenever he wants something. Nobody believes it. You think Putin will commit suicide - both for himself and his people - over Ukraine, which by now quite obviously doesn't want him, even to his own citizens?
- lazide 5y agoYou assume too much about Russia and Putin. Historically, the wests lack of understanding of motives and hard lines for Russia has almost caused several nuclear annihilation events. People sometimes have hard lines that are surprising, and will cause them to do things that no rational person would do. Militaries and organizations do too. War causes confusion, stress, anxiety, etc. which magnifies everything. It doesn’t require ‘sane putin’ to push a button for someone somewhere to THINK it makes sense for him to and push the button in their exhausted and freaked out state of mind. Putin didn’t start this invasion because he was bored. Dictators generally do things because their internal power base demands something, but that is rarely visible to us, so we don’t know if a series of hardliner generals need this, or the base of paranoid hardline folks is getting angsty and he knows if he doesn’t appease them he is in trouble. Near as I can tell, the senior leadership has already seen the writing on the wall re:getting frozen out of the west (sanctions and other stuff), and is seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow. They probably see this as now or never. We don’t know how desperate the leadership or Putin may be. Ukraine, like Poland has historically been caught in the middle of these kinds of things, which sucks. it also isn’t their first time.
- tootie 5y agoAs much as Russia have an overwhelming tactical advantage they also have the most to lose. Putin has staked everything on this being a war that he will win and win with ease. A loss is completely unacceptable and even a protracted siege or insurrection would be enormously costly.