While I feel for your friends, they stood by and elected Putin and after his term, stood by and watched Putin elect himself President come dictator, the West never did this, the Russian public did, they allowed Putin and his cronies to rob and subjugate the population, the West did not produce Putin, Russians did, and to be honest they are reaping what they sowed. I agree as things stand things will not return to normal, the only way Russians will ever begin to restore that trust is to revolt and cast off Putin, the oligarchs and the Dumas and restore trust in the country.

but at least they have an apparent plentiful supply of INOP stickers. Don't need crew if they do much more breakages.

Spot on, lines have to be drawn, and giving any doubt to the enemy and the rest of the world that nuclear weapons can be used against a totally unaggressive country, let alone in OUR part of the world, Europe, is dangerous, how many country's would go for the bomb. Its a miracle there's only a handful of country's that HAVE gone nuclear in the last 50 years.
And thankful yet jarring knowing a few have given up on there programs/weapons. Brazil,South africa etc. The fact the uk,usa promised ukraine its protection in renouncing its thousands of nukes and trained forces is a big deal here. Budapest Memorandum. By all accounts we have them let them down, faced by that promise. you cant go by half measures forever, "give an inch", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areas_annexed_by_Germany. we've been lucky in the last generations since then. sacrifices have been made, how many pilots do you all know who have died, training, keeping the peace. I do fear that we clearly have became to cushy in Europe, our governments have cut away again and again gambling on alliances, Nato, and trident. Our grandfathers & fathers are watching, history is watching, and its no time to appease anymore.

Theres some civilizations you cant help, unsolvable. alien. Afgan, china, but the Ukrainians have shown they as we thought willing to take unspeakable pain, take bloody nose. For freedom, to better there society. to be our mates. and you gota put yourself out there for your mates. they've been holding the line. yes they have corruption, but a big deal of this is they want to escape that. and you gona stand by while putin rapes and nukes there country, sending animals of men, the worst of the worst to do his bidding. we've staved off ukraines total collapse this far, (Bucha) how many did we help stop, those javalins and Nlaws, kept them in the fight, to be cowed now.

precisely
https://giphy.com/explore/fast-show-nice

I don't think it was that simple

I think that Chamberlain knew exactly what he was doing when he held up the "piece of paper" - he knew we weren't ready and was prepared to sacrifice his reputation in an attempt to buy us enough time to make ourselves ready. And fortunately it worked ... just

Back in military topic, we"ve learned now what the partial mobilization really means:
mobilizing partially capable, giving them partial training, equipping them with part of the kit, giving them part of the ammo and making then partially combat ready. Eventually only part of them make it to the front, being then parted by Urainian army.

based on this video the mobilized troops will have a training of two weeks prior to sending to units (which most probably means the front). Also, they are told that they won't be coming home until the Special Military Cockup is over.
They don't seem very enthusiastic about it either.

Well the mobilization adds a new equation to the things, best case scenario for the Russians, they can take back the tactical advantage.
However it will just be a grind. we are going on the partial mobilization Russian news as face value. and there already hiding in plain sight with that redacted paragraph.
covert mobilizations been going on for a while now, now its partial,public, is it really just 200000-300000 being drafted this week, its a big country.
Its a wait and see moment, the lead time on arming them up i see is a topic.
Have they been bluffing with keeping tanks & equipment back. will the 2nd wave troops be backed up with new stuff?
Fact they started sending T-62s at one point was crazy, equivalent of centurions. Are they truly scraping the barrel, or just scraping the barrel of the first line/wave troops.

It seems like they have learnt one thing with the drones now from Iran, that part of warfare's changed. who knows what chess pieces we haven't scene. The phrase pawn sacrifice come to mind.

There has to be some elite troops they have been holding back, and can still be used, the withdrawal of units around and amongst the western military districts has been noted.
Can the bayraktars,Himars, newly acquired t-90(russia), t-80s, Hinds & fresh western trained Ukrainian troops now entering the mix, handle whats to come.

New views of the Kherson

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....be02bcd57.jpeg




..

Left by forced conscripted Ukrainians?

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2...kraine-regions

"We will work with our allies and partners to impose additional swift and severe economic costs on Russia."
Swift..

Fruition's of the recent summit

Worrysome if true.

Imagine being handed one of these and told to go to the front line.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1573591907447574530

Sometimes it feels like sabotage from the inside.

This is a Rumour Network so I will post this here. No idea how true it may be or what effect it may have on Chinese influence with Russia over Ukraine but President Xi is rumoured to have been placed under house arrest in China.

Chinese President XI Jinping Under House Arrest? Sensation By Subramanian Swamy's Tweet (spotnews18.com)

If its a rifle for training, I have used rubber rifles, hi viz yellow and red, with the same weight and a dynamics for training rather than a working rifle. But if thats what he taking to front he sorta screwed, probably be able to yoink a better one off a body in no time

We had .303 rifles modified to look like SLR’s for drill practice.


Aviation Content:

KA-52 shoot down.

Its coming from indian sources, which to me is only just higher than russian sources

Declaring mobilization was a risky gamble that may lead to Putin’s demise. But not because it is unpopular with the public.….

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...716069377.html

First timer in Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces in the South shot downed an Iranian Mohajer-6 UAV.