Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[villa89]

Dictator Putin conscripting another 150k into the meat grinder. Ukraine already talking about an orderly retreat due to a lack of US support and man power. 

Edited March 31 by villa89

[Captain_Townsend]

Shame on the West. 

[Panto_Villan]

On 31/03/2024 at 14:21, villa89 said:

Dictator Putin conscripting another 150k into the meat grinder. Ukraine already talking about an orderly retreat due to a lack of US support and man power. 

That’s just the regular draft that happens twice a year, and those conscripts can’t legally be deployed to Ukraine (which Russia has stuck to so far during the war).

The lack of manpower problem is entirely of Ukraine’s making, too. They clearly need more foreign aid ASAP but the Ukrainians are holding off another big wave of conscription for internal political reasons.

Edited April 1 by Panto_Villan

[bickster]

34 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

That’s just the regular draft that happens twice a year, and those conscripts can’t legally be deployed to Ukraine (which Russia has stuck to so far during the war).

It really hasn’t. Where did that bullshit come from? Russia has even acknowledged that this isn’t the case and Ukraine have taken many conscripted men as POWs

[ender4]

9 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Shame on the West. 

Completely agree. Western Europe needs to massively step up. 

And as for the USA, they are just politically broken.

[villa89]

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

That’s just the regular draft that happens twice a year, and those conscripts can’t legally be deployed to Ukraine (which Russia has stuck to so far during the war).

Eastern Ukraine is legally part of Russia according to Russian law remember...

Edited April 1 by villa89

[Panto_Villan]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

It really hasn’t. Where did that bullshit come from? Russia has even acknowledged that this isn’t the case and Ukraine have taken many conscripted men as POWs

Nope. There were some on the Moskva, there's probably been some involved in the fighting, but generally they're just used for guarding Russian territory. 

Don't confuse conscripts (which all males in Russia need to do) with the hundreds of thousands of people who were mobilised up last year; those guys become contract soldiers rather than conscripts.

It's a fact that seems to be taken as read among most of the Russia analysts I follow on Twitter, but if you want some supporting evidence, a quick Google reveals here's an article on the BBC from towards the end of last year that reports that they've found the names of 29,000 soldiers that have died in Ukraine, and 57 of them are conscripts. See also this article from Reuters: 

"Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.
Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were exempted from a limited mobilisation in 2022 that gathered at least 300,000 men with previous military training to fight in Ukraine - although some conscripts were sent to the front in error."

3 hours ago, villa89 said:

Eastern Ukraine is legally part of Russia according to Russian law remember...

Yeah, but in practice it's not considered part of Russia for this purpose.

[bickster]

7 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Nope. There were some on the Moskva, there's probably been some involved in the fighting, but generally they're just used for guarding Russian territory. 

Don't confuse conscripts (which all males in Russia need to do) with the hundreds of thousands of people who were mobilised up last year; those guys become contract soldiers rather than conscripts.

It's a fact that seems to be taken as read among most of the Russia analysts I follow on Twitter, but if you want some supporting evidence, a quick Google reveals here's an article on the BBC from towards the end of last year that reports that they've found the names of 29,000 soldiers that have died in Ukraine, and 57 of them are conscripts. See also this article from Reuters: 

"Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.
Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were exempted from a limited mobilisation in 2022 that gathered at least 300,000 men with previous military training to fight in Ukraine - although some conscripts were sent to the front in error."

Yeah, but in practice it's not considered part of Russia for this purpose.

Russia has send conscripts to Ukraine, some have died, some have been captured. You keep saying it hasn’t happened despite posting articles that say it has. Russia has admitted this has happened.

You don’t send conscripts to the frontline in error.

Not only that but when Russia did mobilize 300k men with “military experience” how do you imagine they got that experience? Essentially they were conscripted a second time. Most of them didn’t volunteer

[Panto_Villan]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Russia has send conscripts to Ukraine, some have died, some have been captured. You keep saying it hasn’t happened despite posting articles that say it has. Russia has admitted this has happened.

You don’t send conscripts to the frontline in error.

Not only that but when Russia did mobilize 300k men with “military experience” how do you imagine they got that experience? Essentially they were conscripted a second time. Most of them didn’t volunteer

The context of the discussion is Russia is throwing 150k more men into the grinder”, and if even a full 1,000 of them end up in Ukraine then it’s still 99% less than the OP figure is implying.

If it makes you happier, I’ll amend the statement to “almost all of them will remain in Russia”. The effect for Ukraine is the same.

Of course the mobilised men didn’t volunteer. Certainly many of them don’t have military experience beyond their year-long conscription period (although many do). Yes, the 150k conscripts being released back to civilian life as the new ones rotate in have just enlarged the pool of potential military recruits for future mobilisation. 

But that’s not what Russia announced, is it? They announced a 150k wave of conscription, not a 150k wave of mobilisation. They’re not the same thing. The former happens twice a year and serves only to replace those finishing their service. The latter would be adding additional contract soldiers and would be really bad news for Ukraine.

Edited April 2 by Panto_Villan

[magnkarl]

Ukraine finding new ways to take out Russia's factories. 

This is a Cessna as far as I can see, turned into an UAV, packed with explosives and sent way behind where Russia keeps its air defenses to hit their Shahed factory. There's several thousands of these planes sitting around Europe.  

Edited April 2 by magnkarl

[bickster]

Quote

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Ukrainian drones attacked Russia's third largest oil refinery on Tuesday about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the front lines, hitting a core unit which processes about 155,000 barrels of crude refining per day.

Russian officials said its jamming devices locked onto a Ukrainian drone near Tatneft's Taneco refinery, which has an annual production capacity of more than 17 million tons (340,000 barrels per day).

...

The attack was one of several in Tatarstan, a highly industrialised region south-east of Moscow, in the early hours of Tuesday.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters in Kyiv Ukraine had struck a major Russian oil facility in Tatarstan to reduce Russia's oil revenue.

The source also said Ukrainian-made drones hit a facility producing long-range "Shahed" attack drones, causing "significant damage". There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

...

According to Reuters calculations, around 14% of Russia's refining capacity has been shut down by drone attacks. There is more demand for refined oil products than for Russian crude.

...

Reuters via MSN

[Genie]

Quote

Bungling Russian helicopter pilots are revealing the location of “decoy fighter” jets painted onto the tarmac at air bases by landing on them, say British defence chiefs.

Vladimir Putin’s military and Ukraine are both seeking to protect key assets, such as tanks, ships and planes, by hiding them.

One method is to paint “silhouettes” of aircraft on airfields and of ships in ports to encourage them to be attacked rather than the actual vessels or aircraft.

In its latest intelligence update, the Ministry of Defence in London said: “It is likely that as a result of continued successful Ukrainian strikes on military locations, Russia has been forced to implement a number of decoy and deception techniques in an attempt to obfuscate Ukrainian targeting efforts.

link

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Or is it a painting of a helicopter on top of a real jet? 

[chrisp65]

Just the fact they’ve written decoy and put it in a big yellow box shows how incompetent they are. Or is it some crazy double bluff?

[brommy]

51 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Just the fact they’ve written decoy and put it in a big yellow box shows how incompetent they are. Or is it some crazy double bluff?

Also, wouldn't a 10 metre by 4 metre label tied to the rear rotor, seriously impair the performance of the helicopter?

[Anthony]

26 minutes ago, brommy said:

Also, wouldn't a 10 metre by 4 metre label tied to the rear rotor, seriously impair the performance of the helicopter?

Durr, it's a wing, for extra lift an that. Makes it proper stealthy too.

[Genie]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Just the fact they’ve written decoy and put it in a big yellow box shows how incompetent they are. Or is it some crazy double bluff?

I reckon they painted it and then panicked Ukraine would blow a huge hole in their tarmac so put “decoy” next to it to avoid any confusion 

[magnkarl]

So yesterday Russia lobbed 6 cruise missiles at a school in Dnipro. The kids (most of them - 5 casualties) luckily got into the shelter half a minute before the explosions happened. The same day at the UN the talking point was about how the Shahed drone factory and refineries in Tatarstan are civilian infrastructure and that there might have been civilians in harm's way. The talking points are propped up by Iran, China and all the other lovely authoritarian regimes out there.

The UN is a farce. 

[villa89]

12 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The UN is a farce. 

This times a million. It should be disbanded.

[avfc1982am]

The Cessna attack on the Oil refinery....