This is how it looks like when a HEAT warhead is mounted on very fast drone and flown into a trench shelter.

scary stuff from infantry POV.

Humanity.
 

Would that it were so simple; those troops may have families, whom may be left behind to be punished by the state. Those who need to surrender are the leaders of the state.

Much the same could be said of those called up for the Wehrmacht and who invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa. Many war crimes were committed by them, especially when they were given a free pass to do so from the Fuhrer himself. We are all responsible for our actions, particularly when issued with illegal orders. Of course, failure to comply leads to unpleasant consequences. Tough, that's what comes of electing people like Putin and Hitler into power. The Ukraine is fighting Russia, not Putin. In WWII we were fighting Germany, not Hitler, not the Nazis, but Germany. The 'leaders of the state' will never surrender, nor for that matter will Russia. It simply needs to withdraw completely from all occupied Ukrainian territory and stay behind its own borders. All countries that share that border need to seriously contemplate their own security and enter into common defence treaties with others facing this rogue state

Countering loitering munitions. Apparently the nets are worth using.

Santa's been busy this christmas.
Just wondering the type of chaff Rudolph is releasing.

We've touched the word poor before in this context, perhaps godforsaken is a better fit.

The Lord of Heavens weeps what this breed brought onto themselves if either by wrong action or non-action.

To be the winners standing after the other party gets defeated, losing the human part and compassion needs to be avoided. Yet still, fear from actual warfare over one's doorstep will preclude that easily and the defender cannot allow diluting his resolve. The paradox has no solution.

Go tell that to the survivors of Bucha.

Those “poor” Russian troops were the ones that carried out the atrocities of rape and murder of women and children, the order may have come from on high, but they are the ones that carried it out.

They have a choice, die in Ukraine or return home and exact a change on their command structure, they are equally to blame and equally must bear that responsibility.

Remember, being ordered to do it is NO EXCUSE, just as it was after WW2.

That comes from the Ukrainian T72 hit by two loitering munitions, they were caught up in / snagged by the camouflage netting and failed to detonate.

Well said. No pity for the pitiless, there is a barbaric streak running through the nation which manifests itself every generation or so.
My red line was reading of the exhumation of the body of a 7 year old girl with seven different DNA rapes. Animals, and those less wicked appear to condone or tolerate them.
Let them fertilise the soil of Ukraine.

Nothing new about Russian barbarism. Their troops have behaved like this since long before the Soviet Union. Raping, murder and thieving is an inherent part of the Russian forces psyche, it's not something new that Putin has encouraged. The troops themselves get beaten and murdered by their commanders, violence and brutality is just part and parcel of the Russian military.

Look at Stalin's tactics during WWII. Same approach, including using troops as cannon fodder as an accepted means of reconnaissance. Commanders send troops in over a wide front and those that get slaughtered show where their opponents strongest defences are. The loss of life is unimportant, all the more so because a lot of the troops aren't ethnic Russians anyway, so are expendable in the eyes of Russian commanders.

Wow, that's quite an assumption!

That neither justifies it nor makes it right though.

It certainly does not, but we are left with the problem of how to deal with a neighbouring people who are so willing to abandon civilised behaviour and descend into barbarism. The last time it had to be done cost millions of lives and could easily do so again. Ukraine must undoubtedly be given every assistance to eject Russian forces from their country, at a cost of great suffering, but then what? It seems to me that sanctions would have to stay in place until there was some confidence that Russia could be trusted again. We can hope for a coup or revolution that replaces Putin’s regime with something better, but governments born in such circumstances are rarely an improvement on what went before. We can ponder the possible breakup of the RF into a group of independent and less belligerent countries, but there is no evidence that this is likely. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a new Cold War, with a militarily emasculated (but still nuclear armed) Russia left feeling isolated, resentful, cheated and thirsting for revenge. Not a happy thought on this New Year.

And there, sadly, is the sticking point at where we in the despised “Wesr” We have a problem. History has shown how trustworthy the Russian/USSR/RF state has been since 1917. There is NO trust. Thus, the “West” is:
a. In for a decades long war of sanctions, whatever the cost to our economies, or …
b. Prepared to actually go to war with the Bear … and that has gone badly for everyone who tried it.

PS: Happy 2023 to all those embroiled in this tragedy, except of course Vlad the aggressor and his subservient lackeys.

Apparently Russian officers refusing to go to the meat grinder without sufficient men and fully equipped have disappeared.

A long thread so here's a readerapp version.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...391377408.html

Also reports of a strike on barracks in malakeeva. Officially 58 mobliks dead, but locals are talking about hundreds

Actually, the SS was a component of the governments instruments of war, and as barbaric as they were, they were arguably a legally formed group... who behaved barbarically.

Wagner is a criminal enterprise, which is favoured by the criminal government in power in Russia, and is also barbaric. Under international law, the members of Wagner and those that effect it as a force, manage, pay for... etc meet the 7 elements of criminality required to be labeled a criminal enterprise/criminals.

SS: a group that conducted criminal acts...
Wagner: a criminal group, run by criminals, at the behest of a criminal government and who conduct criminal acts.

Sadly it will take generations and needs to start at kindergarten, they are taught to behave like that and until you eradicate the educational system that does that then you will never solve the problem.

Hence why Russia puts importance in teaching their “doctrine” under the disguise of the Russian education system in occupied schools, it’s a generational brainwashing, it might take 20 years but you will end up with good little subservient Russian clones willing to die for the “motherland”

We are all born equal and innocent, it is only education that moulds us into what we are.

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Apparently the Ukrainian mobile network is no longer connected in that area but they got the message all the same.

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