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[jipehog]

The reporter, as voice-over, explained that they're getting a lot of duds/failures... Though I don't know how much of that might be because "a lot of failures" divided by "a honkingly huge number of firings" is still within the expected range for use, rather than there being an increased failure rate due to 'weapon senility', or mishandling, in all its various possible forms. It's a chance anecdote/complaint, given alongside an instance that just happened to be recorded (and broadcast) for posterity.

no idea, was that equipment received from Britain? We know that Ukraine received a lot of equipment from all over the world, including older soviet stocks. I imagine that not all the stuff was stored in perfect conditions, particularly in smaller countries that had little use/budget for military.

[Starver]

The reporter, as voice-over, explained that they're getting a lot of duds/failures... Though I don't know how much of that might be because "a lot of failures" divided by "a honkingly huge number of firings" is still within the expected range for use, rather than there being an increased failure rate due to 'weapon senility', or mishandling, in all its various possible forms. It's a chance anecdote/complaint, given alongside an instance that just happened to be recorded (and broadcast) for posterity.

no idea, was that equipment received from Britain? We know that Ukraine received a lot of equipment from all over the world, including older soviet stocks. I imagine that not all the stuff was stored in perfect conditions, particularly in smaller countries that had little use/budget for military.

As I recall, nothing was explicitly said about the origin, it was just a thing that happened on camera and a comment about how that happens "a lot". (But without qualification, as I noted.) Could be that they're digging into some of the oldest Ukrainian stockpiles, still, even as the stocks come in from international donors far and near (with the possibility of a more dubious history of handling and storage). And I don't have anywhere near the knowledge to have identified the mortar (let alone the partially and briefly visible mortarshell) as typically NATO, Warsaw Pact or anything else it might be, somehow, let alone any more precise probability of origin. I bet someone could attempt that, but not me.

Also, it's the kind of message that I'm sure Russian media wouldn't dare pass back to Russian citizens about the Russian equipment, I betya, even in passing. Even with the complication that it is British reporting on Ukrainian military (using Whoknowswhose equipment) to the people of Britain and whoever else picks this stuff up. And with its possible "hey guys, this help we're giving could be more helpful than it is" message. So I think it's probably in stark contrast. There'll still be some spin and plenty of OpSec, of course, but I know the message is going to have different levels of selective reporting due to the respective media/political landscapes...


(Speaking of which, I'm just hoping that our resident Russians aren't putting themselves too much under pressure...)

[Devastator]

Banzai charge it will be. A lot will be decided in the upcoming Russian attack. I am especially worried about the Russian airforce, Russia still has hundreds of aircraft and I suspect that this time Putin will order to use all of them no matter the losses.

Every plane shot down will be another plane that can't spend weeks bombing cities.  I can't say I welcome it, but end of the day is that they're not going to stop until all their toys are broken, so..

I'm not too worried about construction projects taking a decade.  They've been proceeding much, much faster than that despite complaints about regulation and bureacracy.  Truth is, you can proceed quite fast through the legal system if something is allowed to jump the queue.

[KittyTac]

155mm shells are used from steel and filled with RDX, is the later dependent on ammonium nitrate ?

No but it's often used as an additive.

[Strongpoint]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-reeducation-camps-hold-thousands-of-ukrainian-kids-report/ar-AA17tZLA

Casual genocide. Being done as openly as possible. I can't even imagine what these children are going through

[martinuzz]

It is midbogglingly horrible. The UN should declare war on Russia. Never no nazis no more, we once agreed.

[Dorsidwarf]

It is midbogglingly horrible. The UN should declare war on Russia. Never no nazis no more, we once agreed.

If only we could be sure that Putin wouldn't press the red button...

[martinuzz]

Yeah I know. I would totally approve of a UN peacekeeping mission to demilitarize Russia though.
Even better still, demilitarize the entire world.

[Grim Portent]

Yeah I know. I would totally approve of a UN peacekeeping mission to demilitarize Russia though.
Even better still, demilitarize the entire world.

Who peacekeeps the peacekeepers?

While I would love a world with no wars and no WMDs I don't see a way to maintain such a situation without some kind of overbearing force, which is just setting up a tyrant with a monopoly on WMDs.


Hopefully the kids will be returned to Ukraine when peace happens. I hate to think how many won't have a family to come back to, and trying to sort through and identify children is not an easy task at the best of times. Ukraine's going to have a missing generation when this is all over. 

[martinuzz]

Balloons. This time it's Russian balloons shot down by Ukraine, according to Ukraine.
I dunno man. These could be Chinese balloons. Or we're facing an alien balloon invasion after all.

I mean c'mon. Russia can't be that fast to jump on the trend.
Unless the previous alien Chinese balloons were all Russian balloons.

They all float down here. You'll float too

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/15/world/russia-ukraine-news

[Strongpoint]

It is midbogglingly horrible. The UN should declare war on Russia. Never no nazis no more, we once agreed.

Let us be real. Russia will get away with everything it has done (again). There will be no Russian defeat (in a sense of Russia being occupied).

There will be no Nurnberg-like tribunal on Putin and others (at the very least, not the one that could actually arrest them)

Russia is not going away for as long as its economy is in a semi-working state, which means as long as oil is relevant and that means as long as humanity won't have something like fusion reactors (that means for a long time.) Even then, Russia is big, and has loyal colonies that don't plan to revolt... there are always some raw materials to be mined from the Earth. Maybe, just maybe Russian economy will collapse if something nasty will happen in China AND India, their reliable markets but it is also very unlikely.



The best possible scenario is that after a few more years of war in Ukraine, Russia, losing a few million soldiers, will decide to stop pursuing unrealistic goals and take a pause to prepare for the next attempt. Then cold war 2.0, spanning decades may probably end Russia.


_______

USA not finishing Russia in 1991 is one of the greatest mistakes of humanity ever, victory in the Cold War was thrown away.

[MaxTheFox]

I'm still hoping for something to happen here.

But I wouldn't give Putin off for a trial. I'd just publicly execute him and several of his cronies without a trial. He doesn't deserve one.

[EuchreJack]

I'm still hoping for something to happen here.

But I wouldn't give Putin off for a trial. I'd just publicly execute him and several of his cronies without a trial. He doesn't deserve one.

That or dying in his sleep are probably the most likely way Putin will end his leadership of Russia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-reeducation-camps-hold-thousands-of-ukrainian-kids-report/ar-AA17tZLA

Casual genocide. Being done as openly as possible. I can't even imagine what these children are going through

Pretty clear what some of those children are being prepped for:
"Two camps in Crimea and Chechnya appear to subject children to military education, teaching them about firearms and military vehicles."
 

(remember the definition of child is anyone too young to be drafted)
Will we see Russia resorting to child soldiers before the war is over?

[anewaname]

That article about child re-education is only a piece of what is happening. Wikipedia's filtration camp page says:

According to the Ukrainian government, some 1.6 million Ukrainians have been forcibly relocated to Russia, with about 250,000 of these being children.[11]
and
After passing "filtration", Ukrainians are reportedly often forcibly transferred to the Russian Far East.

This isn't significantly different than what the WWII Germans did, splitting non-German families by transporting people from east of Germany to work construction in France or to farm in Germany, while their families remained in their home countries and took the work they could get to feed themselves. From that link:

The Germans abducted approximately 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe.[1]

[Madman198237]

This is exactly the same thing the SOVIETS did in WWII. Grabbed anyone they didn't like and shipped them off to gulags out in the middle of nowhere in Siberia. Many of them didn't return, those that did often didn't want to talk about it.

The Soviets were worse than the Nazis, no doubt about it. And Putin is just trying to make a new Soviet Union, evils and all.