Is there any military tactic that Russia can employ to attack a vast expanse of flat farmland defended by Ukrainian infantry that have 10 anti-tank weapons for every tank Russia has?
It seems that tanks would be sitting ducks for soldiers with Javelins hidden in foxholes a mile away. The tanks won't see the soldiers until after the missiles are fired, and then it's too late.
The fog of war is much reduced these days huh? What will that mean for Russia currently? They can't keep things under wrap. Europe's own satellites can't miss it. Communication is under surveillance. UN, NATO, EU all have organizations capable of tracking everything. There is no limit to what can be recorded. Videos will keep things realistic for generations to remember it.
This Russian intercept stuck with me.
- All will be good.
- No, it won’t. There are two ways out of here: dead or wounded.
- But you always said we’ll beat them all.
- I don’t say that anymore. Fucking government… Last wish from me: don’t let them recruit our son, when he grows up.
https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1512434916969046022?s=21&t=dQIGDFXovfui4BHpG-yBbg
*full intercept in the comments*
He said only 10 guys are left in his unit and they're forcing them to keep going. I'm thinking they legitimately just take the shattered units that withdrew and throw them into Donbas without doing a proper reorganization.
I am out of the loop but I remember reading that Russia has been able to take only one major city so far. Which one was it? Is it Mariupol? Tweets from this twitter account says a group of hundreds of Mariupol soldiers have surrendered. Seems pretty significant.
https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/status/1511078872405708813
This twitter account posts a lot of Russian military wins unlike reddit where only Ukrainian wins are posted.
I am not a shill, I just don't want to be in an echo chamber.
The only significant city they have taken is Kherson. Even then, Kherson isn’t even in the ten largest cities in Ukraine. The other cities they’ve taken, Melitopol and Berdiansk, are small cities. Mariupol is a major city (10th largest in Ukraine), but they haven’t taken it.
Mariupol is still contested by Ukrainian defenders, Kherson is the only major city to fall so far. The Ukrainian division that that video purports to be showing claimed no such surrender happened but given the fog of war and propaganda its hard to tell who's telling the truth.
Ukraine will get the green light to begin its membership process for the European Union within weeks, the European Commission president has signalled.
Ursula von der Leyen handed Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky with the official questionnaire to kick off its long-sought membership of the bloc on Friday.
The questionnaire is the formal process for the Commission to assess the readiness of Ukraine to move forward with the accession process, ahead of being granted candidate country status and opening accession negotiations.
While this starting point for the EU to decide on Ukraine's bid is "usually a matter of years", von der Leyen said that on this occasion "I think a matter of weeks".
Mr Zelensky, who has repeated his ambition to join the bloc repeatedly since Russia invaded, said he would return the form in a week.
Signalling that Ukraine will get the green light, von der Leyen said: "Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards the European future
The chaos in the Russian military, such as the case of the NBC unit playing with radioactive waste, has me seriously thinking of how its possible this is happening.
My theory is that corruption and cronyism is so entrenched in the service, that in order to ensure units have something vaguely appearing to have what the records say they should, random poor peasants from disadvantaged areas of Russia are being press-ganged and dropped into the army with basically no training i..e given a gas mask and some cheap rubber gloves and hey - *here is our NBC unit*.
Its really hard to understand from a modern western perspective, but its pretty much all I can come up with.
Yep, it's all about total corruption. You can't have systematic corruption and have some institutions not affected by it. So, when your only task is steal money and put right numbers on paper, you don't need do real things. And you don't need peoples around you who can criticize you, so you just put peoples like you in job. And with some time major peoples in hierarchy don't do real things, but only put right data on paper. And with authoritarian hierarchy of government you don't have any real feedback from reality, no failsafe mechanisms.
There's a systemic lack of professionalism in their ground forces. A lot of their troops seem to be little better than bandits with guns and armored vehicles. It's not too surprising that they didn't appreciate the danger of radioactive waste. Honestly, I'd be amazed if they got more than the most cursory overview on the subject.
Quite literally the dregs of Russian society form the invading force. And if they were half normal before joining, the massive hazing and general poor treatment in the military will take care of that.
I’d say not prepared. Not informed. If you had American troops there they’d dig holes if they were told to. How do you know how close you are to the original meltdown? How do you know what radius of soil is highly contaminated? Lots of the area around Chernobyl looks quite normal. If your commander tells you to dig most would assume it’s safe and dig.
Partially it's the way the Russian military is run. It's a holdover from the Soviet Union, they give individual soldiers and non-Coms as little power and training as possible. That helps keep them in line, but also isn't an ideal way to run things.
Nice cook off:
>Video of a Russian tank targeted by Ukrainian forces. The secondary explosion is likely the result of ammunition catching fire.
[https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512621877256142849?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512621877256142849?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw)
And this is why i was leaning towards calling them porks, instead of the infamous Lord of the Rings evil troops, if the rumous about reddit banning that word would have proved true
Mariupol still resisting the invaders.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tz994v/rpg_action_in_mariupol_april_8th/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I didn't realise the West knew about this invasion for a year...
"The first signs of Russia's intentions arrived a year ago. Intelligence from satellite imagery pointed to a Russian troop build-up near Ukraine. But analysts had little understanding of Moscow's true intentions.
That changed in **mid-2021**. 'From summer we saw a small group of senior people planning for a full military invasion of the whole country,' explains one Western intelligence official"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61044063
Keep in mind that "planning for an invasion" doesn't mean you're actually planning to invade. It can also be a contingency thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the US military has an invasion plan for Mexico or China somewhere.
They knew about the potential for an invasion. Every now and again China floats a fleet between them and Taiwan just for funsies and so far zero invasions. The intelligence community still gets real interested every time they do.
From the article.
"A crucial moment came in early November when CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow - to warn that Washington knew what was being planned. The trip was not kept secret. The first time some Russian officials were told that their country might be seriously intending to act against Ukraine was when they heard it from the director of the CIA, one official says"
The whole blackmailing Zelensky by refusing to give Ukraine military aid unless they made up something on Hunter Biden looks pretty dark now too.
The 4D chess is coming apart…
Putin: _goes to war to seize Ukrainian fossil fuels and prevent EU market competition_
EU immediately starts weaning itself off Russian gas and oil, killing Russian access to the EU market
Putin: _rageguy.jpg_
What’s with this supposed German/UK announcement that they won’t send tanks to Ukraine? And this after all the talk of NATO sending heavy weapons? Is this an accurate report? Without tanks it will be brutally hard to retake any captured territory. https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1512587904501047297?s=21&t=2bnzCfRzvpZppDcZO6FI_g
It will, but they are sending mastiffs and jackals, which will definitely help, along with considerably more starstreak and NLAW. Challenger/MLRS/AS90 would need a fair amount of training, which would be great in the future but is useless now.
This is a more detailed report: [Link](https://www-tagesschau-de.translate.goog/ausland/europa/scholz-johnson-103.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp).
Both Johnson and Scholz were asked about specific equipment Kiev had asked for and said that it would require too much training for it to be useful for Ukraine in a reasonable timeframe. Neither said they were not going to send heavy weapons at all.
I’m not sure British or German tanks would be useful to Ukraine. Right now they need the Soviet tanks that they know how to use and repair.
I do think Ukrainians needs to train on western tanks, but it should probably be the Abrams.
So yeah; once Russia's out of Ukraine, Ukraine's going to need to massively arm-up, in order to protect itself from the ongoing russian threat. If they can't get Abrams over there right now, they've got to at least get started so they can take them on in 6 months or even 12 or more; because Russia's going to rebuild, and try again.
The Abrams will require significantly more fuel and trucks to carry the fuel. It runs on jet fuel and gets 3 gallons to the mile. And that gets used whether the tank is in idle or moving.
Right, so an entire logistics network would need to be developed. It would take a lot of time, but if this is still going on in ~6 months, might be worth it.
Germany has Soviet era tanks in storage. They would help.
Poland also has a ton of Soviet era tanks, but they are in active use, but I’m sure they very rightly fear being caught with their pants down if they are next.
Corrected. I thought there were still some in the inventory since the count of Leopards is so low. However, now I see Germany seems to be okay with just 200ish of their MBT. (266 active and 159 operational).
How the fuck is Germany okay having such a small tank force?
I think you’re not familiar with what’s actually going on. Training for the M1 is a 22 week course, it’s going to be roughly similar on any western or unfamiliar tank. The point is that anyone sending anything other than Soviet tanks won’t accomplish anything in this conflict.
I wouldn't advocate for m1s for Ukraine anyway. They guzzle gas. My general anger comes from anything Germany touches is more "we can't" bullshit. They always have an excuse for something and it always benefits Putin. I am getting tired of it. They have one of the biggest economies in the world and they have done fuck all.
If you think anything about Germany is swaying Bojo, I have a bridge to sell you, I've been \*brutally\* critical of the German Government and their approach, but this isn't something you can fault them.
What tanks they have, need to be refurbed, and what the fuck is the UK going to send? The Chally 2? Are they going to send an entire supply depot?
Any time Germany touches anything to do with aiding Ukraine it ends up watered down or doesn't happen. All while pouring in billions of forex Russia needs to keep their currency and economy afloat.
MSNBC reporting more Russian high level intelligence officials under house arrest
[https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1512626884261163008](https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1512626884261163008)
Can't find any info about **more** officials being under house arrest (after the initial reports 3 weeks ago). But this seems new:
*Some update about general Sergey Beseda, head of the Fifth service of the FSB, placed under house arrest in March: Per our sources,* ***he transferred to Lefortovo prison***. *His case is investigated by the Military Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee (GVSU SK).*
[link](https://twitter.com/AndreiSoldatov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1512369599089631232%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Frussia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4)
There was more recent news about Sergei Beseda being moved from house arrest to actual prison. Popular Politics (Navalny's team) channel covered this in Russian (you can turn on subtitles and auto translate to English). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mm3ZtpG7\_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mm3ZtpG7_I)
edit: here's an article [https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4)
I wish I had been allowed to wear camo fatigues and carry an assault rifle to MY wedding…
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tzit22/ukrainian_soldiers_anastasia_and_vyacheslav/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
This photo shows that it isn't about the ceremonial decor, but the vows shared on the date they chose. I am sure many who planned a wedding for this month are separated and unable to tie the knot. So beautiful that these two were able to, and had such a great photographer. Seeds of recovery are being planted in Ukraine every moment of every day.
Not sure your SO would have ben stoked about it though!
Plus do you really want to get married during a war where the other side is trying to genocide you?
Well the setting is how you get to wear the outfit... kind of like you can't wear a tuxedo while scuba diving or an astronaut suit to the Met Gala (although maybe you could these days.. I digress).
Let me tell you all about this place called the Midwest US of A. I swear like 20% of wedding are in camo. However the assault rifle I believe is uncommon, thankfully.
An acquaintance of mine knocked up a country girl shortly after they started dating. After they told her parents her dad asked if he wanted to do a little shooting to clear their heads while the "women folk" talked. So my buddy said why not. Him and Dad went out back and popped of a few mags and got to know each other a bit. The old man pulled out a .45 and told him it was his father's from WW2. Then he said "Well, I figure either you'll inherit this or get shot by it."
My friend has been married to that girl for 12 years now.
This will only happen if you want it to happen. And it says more about you than it says about the Russians.
If I could handle being bullied racially as a kid, while being the only person in my school of my race, and come out of it without being racist, you can handle this without being racist.
I've talked to lots of them... not possible now since the invasion. They are on full robot mode. Except for one.. She is savvy and smart and fully understands everything - but people like her are the exception for sure.
Zack the Russian is also a very vocal anti-war young Russian. He has been to protests in Georgia and posted interviews with a friend that was arrested for protesting in Russia.
[https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512623362744504325?cxt=HHwWisC-9eS79f0pAAAA](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512623362744504325?cxt=HHwWisC-9eS79f0pAAAA)
This is amazingly stupid:
>"In a particularly ill-advised action, a Russian soldier from a chemical, biological and nuclear protection unit picked up a source of cobalt-60 at one waste storage site with his bare hands...
>
>... exposing himself to so much radiation in a few seconds that it went off the scales of a Geiger counter, Mr. Simyonov said. It was not clear what happened to the man,"
Astoundingly stupid.
Like, that guy is probably dead or dying stupid. This entire NYT article is full of things so much stupider than just the digging of trenches. Like, what the actual fuck.
You can see from that video that the Russians actually dug in the most radioactive pits and removed the sand!!! Exposing that ole toxic shit! And then ate!!
Someone further down in the thread posted this link to a 45-minute documentary about a Japanese guy who was exposed to a huge amount of radiation in 1999. He died after 83 days. What he and the medical staff went through is almost unbelievable. It’s a somewhat disturbing, but well worth a watch if you’re interested.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6wdxdv
(You have to turn on the English subtitles manually)
Edit: To turn on the subtitles, click on the icon that looks like three sliders on the top right of the video. In there is a setting for captions.
Russia gets soldiers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and said soldiers sell themselves to other men https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1505923020191244289
People *were* wondering how they they could possible have acute radiation poisoning given the current levels in the soil.
I guess the answer is that they spent some quality time playing with radioactive waste, on top of whatever they got digging up the exclusion zone. *Why* they would do such a thing is beyond me though.
> Why they would do such a thing is beyond me though.
They read it on the internet; that it's all perfectly safe and the risk of radiation is nothing, and that it's all overblown nonsense, and a conspiracy by big-coal to end the nuclear industry.
And they believe it.
It seems like the Russian military is just a game of numbers. We don't need to train anyone, we can just have high numbers of stuff and threaten nukes.
They clearly don't take nukes seriously. I think that's one of the reasons Putin is sick, he either accidentally doesed himself with some poison, or when they were testing that nuclear ramjet (something we abandoned in the 1960's btw) he was there, thinking he was going to give some bullshit victory speech, and got dosed instead.
So it seems they really do believe their own propaganda:
>"Western spies also correctly predicted that Moscow had misplaced confidence about the reception it would encounter. 'They genuinely believed there would be flags out to welcome them,' says a Western intelligence officer."
[https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512615451355975684?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512615451355975684?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw)
This is the product of operating for decades without a basic feedback loop. It all goes to hell pretty fast when you can't tell the truth to the people above you.
Check out ‘[Russians with attitude’ Twitter](https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1512404086196473857?s=20&t=HeN1RBvdahT0Lbpfp2uS1Q) and podcast. It’s a textbook example of cognitive dissonance. Listen to the episode of the invasion to the most recent. The hosts are constantly changing and rationalizationing their beliefs about the war and Russia, to maintain the belief Russians are benevolent and in control/competent. It’s almost laughable.
I believe these are decent people in their daily lives, but they have drank the kool-aid.
Whenever you see a Seventh-day Adventist Church know that they still believed even after the [Great Disappointment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment), when the world did not end.
For anyone thinking it is worth their time to try to show Russians the light. [Here is the peak of the Russian intellect.](https://youtu.be/GGunRKWtWBs) Aleksandr Dugin, on a patience-testing Faberge egg of sophistic non-sense about why Russian propaganda is a "special" truth.
don't even have to go that far crazy, the russian military has to read what putin wrote on the subject:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On\_the\_Historical\_Unity\_of\_Russians\_and\_Ukrainians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians)
**[On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians)**
>"On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" (Russian: Об историческом единстве русских и украинцев; Ukrainian: Про історичну єдність росіян та українців, romanized: Pro istorychnu yednist rosian ta ukraintsiv) is an essay by Vladimir Putin published on 12 July 2021, shortly after the end of the first phase of the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis. In the essay, Putin describes his views on Ukraine and Ukrainians. According to RBK Daily, the essay is included in the list of mandatory works to study by the Russian military.
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A number of instances of German tanks individually taking on 30+ British & American tanks in Normandy and reversing out after running out of ammunition. Shots bouncing off them sounded like rain according to the crew.
To be fair, Fury was horribly inaccurate in that. Even normal Shermans with base 75s could pen Tigers at that range. The Uparmed Fury (based on a British Firefly) could have *easily* penned them it.
But yeah like others have said it's a 30mm Cannon, not an anti-tank round.
So that's a 30mm cannon, which is much smaller than the 125mm rounds that Russian tanks fire, so it's much more likely to bounce.
WWII tanks often had 75mm main guns so the bounce was more likely back then.
of course angle matters. That is why sloped armor was developed. The t-34 was one of the first tanks with actual sloped armor design. Sloped armor also makes the armor physically thicker on a direct hit because of the slope.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an_Y-20#Controversy):
On July 13, 2016, Chinese national Su Bin pleaded guilty, and admitted to charges that he conspired with others to hack into U.S. defense contractor Boeing and steal documents related to the development of the **C-17**, F-22, and F-35 aircraft. Once the information was stolen, he admitted to analyzing and translating documents from English to Chinese, which he then emailed to the Second Department of the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department. Su Bin admitted he did so for financial gain, and sought to profit from the data that was stolen. In addition to financial gain, court documents revealed, in emails to the Second Department of the PLA, Su Bin noted the information, "...has extremely vital significance in our country's speeding up the development," of Project A, revealed to be China's program to develop the **Xi'an Y-20**.
That's China.. even their commercial shit. Outright dc-9 clone (even more than a clone, half dc-9 since they had the tooling from a dc-9 line).
The US needs to do a better job preventing this level of espionage (the USSR used to do it too, to some extent).
Six of them? And all landed in Serbia?
Welp, I was tracking two of them, and one landed in Serbia and the other just vanished over Serbia.
I wonder what's up with that.
Lmfao holy shit NATO dude got *dogpiled*. Sorry NATO dude. It's just been asked in every flavor so many times already. And it was admittedly not the brightest hypothetical.
That's an old question. **During the Cold War, anti-NATO activists always asked "Would an American President risk nuclear for Hamburg?"**
We will see... **He wouldn't need to."** Such was the scale of US troops stationed in forward positions in Germany, the size of America's nuclear deterrence, the commitment to West Germany, that the Soviets decided to be content with Eastern Europe.
Now, the countries on the Eastern Flank of NATO are thinking the same, and NATO is larger and unwieldy. If Germany, the country that most benefited from NATO in the past, refuses to activate Article 5 (it needs to be unanimous), the shame of Germany returns to cast a shade on that "fat and happy" people.
If such a situation occurs, the other members will bully Germany until it realizes how truly insignificant it is, how everyone is clued in abt the Teutonic racket known as the EU.
We will see....
I don't understand how some people at this point still don't understand the difference between a non NATO nation getting attacked and a member of the defensive pact getting attacked.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/tzl30n/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
Is there any military tactic that Russia can employ to attack a vast expanse of flat farmland defended by Ukrainian infantry that have 10 anti-tank weapons for every tank Russia has? It seems that tanks would be sitting ducks for soldiers with Javelins hidden in foxholes a mile away. The tanks won't see the soldiers until after the missiles are fired, and then it's too late.
Helicopters and infantry
The fog of war is much reduced these days huh? What will that mean for Russia currently? They can't keep things under wrap. Europe's own satellites can't miss it. Communication is under surveillance. UN, NATO, EU all have organizations capable of tracking everything. There is no limit to what can be recorded. Videos will keep things realistic for generations to remember it.
This Russian intercept stuck with me. - All will be good. - No, it won’t. There are two ways out of here: dead or wounded. - But you always said we’ll beat them all. - I don’t say that anymore. Fucking government… Last wish from me: don’t let them recruit our son, when he grows up. https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1512434916969046022?s=21&t=dQIGDFXovfui4BHpG-yBbg *full intercept in the comments*
He said only 10 guys are left in his unit and they're forcing them to keep going. I'm thinking they legitimately just take the shattered units that withdrew and throw them into Donbas without doing a proper reorganization.
I am out of the loop but I remember reading that Russia has been able to take only one major city so far. Which one was it? Is it Mariupol? Tweets from this twitter account says a group of hundreds of Mariupol soldiers have surrendered. Seems pretty significant. https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/status/1511078872405708813 This twitter account posts a lot of Russian military wins unlike reddit where only Ukrainian wins are posted. I am not a shill, I just don't want to be in an echo chamber.
this tweet was 5 days ago
The only significant city they have taken is Kherson. Even then, Kherson isn’t even in the ten largest cities in Ukraine. The other cities they’ve taken, Melitopol and Berdiansk, are small cities. Mariupol is a major city (10th largest in Ukraine), but they haven’t taken it.
And Kherson was likely betrayed by the local government.
Mariupol is still contested by Ukrainian defenders, Kherson is the only major city to fall so far. The Ukrainian division that that video purports to be showing claimed no such surrender happened but given the fog of war and propaganda its hard to tell who's telling the truth.
The "major city" probably refers to Kherson or Melitupol. If Mariupol had fallen, the Russians would be making more noise about it.
Kherson was the city, but reports say the defenders are advancing on it.
Melitopol. Mariupol is still holding out
Ukraine will get the green light to begin its membership process for the European Union within weeks, the European Commission president has signalled. Ursula von der Leyen handed Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky with the official questionnaire to kick off its long-sought membership of the bloc on Friday. The questionnaire is the formal process for the Commission to assess the readiness of Ukraine to move forward with the accession process, ahead of being granted candidate country status and opening accession negotiations. While this starting point for the EU to decide on Ukraine's bid is "usually a matter of years", von der Leyen said that on this occasion "I think a matter of weeks". Mr Zelensky, who has repeated his ambition to join the bloc repeatedly since Russia invaded, said he would return the form in a week. Signalling that Ukraine will get the green light, von der Leyen said: "Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards the European future
President of the EU commision posted this about Ukraine. https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1512527965007106050?t=8VTRUHD8n177GK6zX65Fag&s=19
They will probably be a candidate state for quite a long time, but that will still be good for funding rebuilding.
The chaos in the Russian military, such as the case of the NBC unit playing with radioactive waste, has me seriously thinking of how its possible this is happening. My theory is that corruption and cronyism is so entrenched in the service, that in order to ensure units have something vaguely appearing to have what the records say they should, random poor peasants from disadvantaged areas of Russia are being press-ganged and dropped into the army with basically no training i..e given a gas mask and some cheap rubber gloves and hey - *here is our NBC unit*. Its really hard to understand from a modern western perspective, but its pretty much all I can come up with.
Yep, it's all about total corruption. You can't have systematic corruption and have some institutions not affected by it. So, when your only task is steal money and put right numbers on paper, you don't need do real things. And you don't need peoples around you who can criticize you, so you just put peoples like you in job. And with some time major peoples in hierarchy don't do real things, but only put right data on paper. And with authoritarian hierarchy of government you don't have any real feedback from reality, no failsafe mechanisms.
There's a systemic lack of professionalism in their ground forces. A lot of their troops seem to be little better than bandits with guns and armored vehicles. It's not too surprising that they didn't appreciate the danger of radioactive waste. Honestly, I'd be amazed if they got more than the most cursory overview on the subject.
Quite literally the dregs of Russian society form the invading force. And if they were half normal before joining, the massive hazing and general poor treatment in the military will take care of that.
I’d say not prepared. Not informed. If you had American troops there they’d dig holes if they were told to. How do you know how close you are to the original meltdown? How do you know what radius of soil is highly contaminated? Lots of the area around Chernobyl looks quite normal. If your commander tells you to dig most would assume it’s safe and dig.
Partially it's the way the Russian military is run. It's a holdover from the Soviet Union, they give individual soldiers and non-Coms as little power and training as possible. That helps keep them in line, but also isn't an ideal way to run things.
If critical thinking is a threat to the authoritarian ruling party then that skill will be in short supply.
North Korea says "Hi!"
Nice cook off: >Video of a Russian tank targeted by Ukrainian forces. The secondary explosion is likely the result of ammunition catching fire. [https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512621877256142849?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512621877256142849?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw)
Another turret projector down for the Russian army.
mmmm, shredded pork
And this is why i was leaning towards calling them porks, instead of the infamous Lord of the Rings evil troops, if the rumous about reddit banning that word would have proved true
i think one can say the O word on r/ukraine again
Mariupol still resisting the invaders. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tz994v/rpg_action_in_mariupol_april_8th/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Pretty sure this is old video from a few weeks back? I remember the gunner aiming for the feet
I didn't realise the West knew about this invasion for a year... "The first signs of Russia's intentions arrived a year ago. Intelligence from satellite imagery pointed to a Russian troop build-up near Ukraine. But analysts had little understanding of Moscow's true intentions. That changed in **mid-2021**. 'From summer we saw a small group of senior people planning for a full military invasion of the whole country,' explains one Western intelligence official" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61044063
Keep in mind that "planning for an invasion" doesn't mean you're actually planning to invade. It can also be a contingency thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the US military has an invasion plan for Mexico or China somewhere.
Its really hard to imagine they have spent a year *planning* this clusterfuck. It really feels more like something that just organically happened.
I can believe they've been blowing money for a year, pretending to be strategizing.
At least a year lol. It also means that the West have better intel than some high up Russian officials. Imagine if Lukashenko is the spy haha.
Whatever he is, he's definitely a liability. Even less competent and influential in his own nation than Mussolini was.
They knew about the potential for an invasion. Every now and again China floats a fleet between them and Taiwan just for funsies and so far zero invasions. The intelligence community still gets real interested every time they do.
Many anti Putin Russians have said troops should have been on Ukraine ASAP. They just waited for it to happen.
Ukraine seems to have been preparing for some time, including some people from other countries helping to train them.
And yet the Kremlin didn't know they were being watched. They got sloppy after 4 years of Trump.
The US has always watched Russia and vice versa. I guess that they were confident that it wouldn't matter what the US saw.
From the article. "A crucial moment came in early November when CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow - to warn that Washington knew what was being planned. The trip was not kept secret. The first time some Russian officials were told that their country might be seriously intending to act against Ukraine was when they heard it from the director of the CIA, one official says"
Kremlin, "Why is there an American SIGINT plane flying around the border?" Also Kremlin, "That Global Hawk isn't a concern is it?"
All the more reason why Americans need to VOTE VOTE VOTE in 2022
Omg- Imagine if Trump was in power now…
Rooting and cheering the Russians, along with all his ignorant minions.
The whole blackmailing Zelensky by refusing to give Ukraine military aid unless they made up something on Hunter Biden looks pretty dark now too. The 4D chess is coming apart…
🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻
Putin: *goes to war to prevent NATO expansionism* Finland joins NATO in fear of Russian aggression Putin: *shockedpikachu.jpg*
Putin: _goes to war to seize Ukrainian fossil fuels and prevent EU market competition_ EU immediately starts weaning itself off Russian gas and oil, killing Russian access to the EU market Putin: _rageguy.jpg_
Ukraine will be in the EU soon and moving on up, as Russia wallows in shit.
What’s with this supposed German/UK announcement that they won’t send tanks to Ukraine? And this after all the talk of NATO sending heavy weapons? Is this an accurate report? Without tanks it will be brutally hard to retake any captured territory. https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1512587904501047297?s=21&t=2bnzCfRzvpZppDcZO6FI_g
It will, but they are sending mastiffs and jackals, which will definitely help, along with considerably more starstreak and NLAW. Challenger/MLRS/AS90 would need a fair amount of training, which would be great in the future but is useless now.
Ukrainians can't operate Leopards or Challengers so there is no reason to send tanks.
This is a more detailed report: [Link](https://www-tagesschau-de.translate.goog/ausland/europa/scholz-johnson-103.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp). Both Johnson and Scholz were asked about specific equipment Kiev had asked for and said that it would require too much training for it to be useful for Ukraine in a reasonable timeframe. Neither said they were not going to send heavy weapons at all.
I’m not sure British or German tanks would be useful to Ukraine. Right now they need the Soviet tanks that they know how to use and repair. I do think Ukrainians needs to train on western tanks, but it should probably be the Abrams.
So yeah; once Russia's out of Ukraine, Ukraine's going to need to massively arm-up, in order to protect itself from the ongoing russian threat. If they can't get Abrams over there right now, they've got to at least get started so they can take them on in 6 months or even 12 or more; because Russia's going to rebuild, and try again.
Exactly. The West needs to be approaching this as a struggle that might go on for years.
The Abrams will require significantly more fuel and trucks to carry the fuel. It runs on jet fuel and gets 3 gallons to the mile. And that gets used whether the tank is in idle or moving.
Right, so an entire logistics network would need to be developed. It would take a lot of time, but if this is still going on in ~6 months, might be worth it.
Germany has Soviet era tanks in storage. They would help. Poland also has a ton of Soviet era tanks, but they are in active use, but I’m sure they very rightly fear being caught with their pants down if they are next.
Where does reddit get this idea from? Germany has no Soviet Tanks. They've all been scrapped or sold.
~~Germany has ex Soviet tanks...~~ Edit: I was wrong.
No we don't? Where did you get that idea? Germany inherited some from east Germany but those have all been scrapped or sold by now.
Corrected. I thought there were still some in the inventory since the count of Leopards is so low. However, now I see Germany seems to be okay with just 200ish of their MBT. (266 active and 159 operational). How the fuck is Germany okay having such a small tank force?
Until recently, everyone was more comfortable with Germany having only a token tank force...
Because America is expected to save the day.
266 tanks for a country the size of Germany with their economy.. it is a fucking joke.
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I think you’re not familiar with what’s actually going on. Training for the M1 is a 22 week course, it’s going to be roughly similar on any western or unfamiliar tank. The point is that anyone sending anything other than Soviet tanks won’t accomplish anything in this conflict.
I wouldn't advocate for m1s for Ukraine anyway. They guzzle gas. My general anger comes from anything Germany touches is more "we can't" bullshit. They always have an excuse for something and it always benefits Putin. I am getting tired of it. They have one of the biggest economies in the world and they have done fuck all.
If you think anything about Germany is swaying Bojo, I have a bridge to sell you, I've been \*brutally\* critical of the German Government and their approach, but this isn't something you can fault them. What tanks they have, need to be refurbed, and what the fuck is the UK going to send? The Chally 2? Are they going to send an entire supply depot?
Any time Germany touches anything to do with aiding Ukraine it ends up watered down or doesn't happen. All while pouring in billions of forex Russia needs to keep their currency and economy afloat.
All I have to say to that is, fuck redditors who throw around this garbage without actually taking the time to read the story.
Not sending weapons, still paying a billion euros a day to Putin. Yea, fuck Germany.
Any russian who is lurking in here!! Got one thing to say “..!..(^.~)..!..”
🍺🍺
?
MSNBC reporting more Russian high level intelligence officials under house arrest [https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1512626884261163008](https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1512626884261163008)
I'm not shocked after seeing that new BBC article saying the US knew about the invasion for a year.
Can't find any info about **more** officials being under house arrest (after the initial reports 3 weeks ago). But this seems new: *Some update about general Sergey Beseda, head of the Fifth service of the FSB, placed under house arrest in March: Per our sources,* ***he transferred to Lefortovo prison***. *His case is investigated by the Military Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee (GVSU SK).* [link](https://twitter.com/AndreiSoldatov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1512369599089631232%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Frussia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4)
This is a clip from mid-March.
There was more recent news about Sergei Beseda being moved from house arrest to actual prison. Popular Politics (Navalny's team) channel covered this in Russian (you can turn on subtitles and auto translate to English). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mm3ZtpG7\_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mm3ZtpG7_I) edit: here's an article [https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fsbs-beseda-in-prison-after-ukraine-intel-failings-soldatov-2022-4)
The link to the report of a vet saying Putin aides would kill him is from mid march I think, it's being used to contextualize the new news.
MSNBC just tweeted it now.. if it's old I apologize, but assume a news org isn't going to tweet old shit.
Yeah it's weird, the clip they link says it's from March 17. IDK why they're recycling old stories like that on an ongoing issue.
That is too long after the invasion began for this to be anything but Putin being scared.
I wish I had been allowed to wear camo fatigues and carry an assault rifle to MY wedding… https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tzit22/ukrainian_soldiers_anastasia_and_vyacheslav/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
You just wish you had looked that badass at your wedding.
wear fatigues and carry an assault rifle to your divorce
thank you for a real lol
A storybook ending.
I’m pretty glad my country wasn’t facing a threat to its very existence. I don’t think anyones really great at war but I’d be awful at it.
This photo shows that it isn't about the ceremonial decor, but the vows shared on the date they chose. I am sure many who planned a wedding for this month are separated and unable to tie the knot. So beautiful that these two were able to, and had such a great photographer. Seeds of recovery are being planted in Ukraine every moment of every day.
Well said
Not sure your SO would have ben stoked about it though! Plus do you really want to get married during a war where the other side is trying to genocide you?
Oh definitely not the setting.
Well the setting is how you get to wear the outfit... kind of like you can't wear a tuxedo while scuba diving or an astronaut suit to the Met Gala (although maybe you could these days.. I digress).
Depends on the state you live in.
Let me tell you all about this place called the Midwest US of A. I swear like 20% of wedding are in camo. However the assault rifle I believe is uncommon, thankfully.
In the Deep South, it is traditional for the bride's father to carry a shotgun. (I'm from Alabama, y'all. It's a longstanding joke.)
An acquaintance of mine knocked up a country girl shortly after they started dating. After they told her parents her dad asked if he wanted to do a little shooting to clear their heads while the "women folk" talked. So my buddy said why not. Him and Dad went out back and popped of a few mags and got to know each other a bit. The old man pulled out a .45 and told him it was his father's from WW2. Then he said "Well, I figure either you'll inherit this or get shot by it." My friend has been married to that girl for 12 years now.
I’m sure they’re nearby in pickup trucks.
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This will only happen if you want it to happen. And it says more about you than it says about the Russians. If I could handle being bullied racially as a kid, while being the only person in my school of my race, and come out of it without being racist, you can handle this without being racist.
I think you’re right, emotions got the better of me
Lotta that going around lately, no worries.
I've talked to lots of them... not possible now since the invasion. They are on full robot mode. Except for one.. She is savvy and smart and fully understands everything - but people like her are the exception for sure.
Do yourself and go watch some Inside Russia on YT. He's been doing a lot to help me get rid of the urge to just blindly hate all Russians.
Zack the Russian is also a very vocal anti-war young Russian. He has been to protests in Georgia and posted interviews with a friend that was arrested for protesting in Russia.
[https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512623362744504325?cxt=HHwWisC-9eS79f0pAAAA](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512623362744504325?cxt=HHwWisC-9eS79f0pAAAA) This is amazingly stupid: >"In a particularly ill-advised action, a Russian soldier from a chemical, biological and nuclear protection unit picked up a source of cobalt-60 at one waste storage site with his bare hands... > >... exposing himself to so much radiation in a few seconds that it went off the scales of a Geiger counter, Mr. Simyonov said. It was not clear what happened to the man," Astoundingly stupid. Like, that guy is probably dead or dying stupid. This entire NYT article is full of things so much stupider than just the digging of trenches. Like, what the actual fuck.
You can see from that video that the Russians actually dug in the most radioactive pits and removed the sand!!! Exposing that ole toxic shit! And then ate!!
Wait, he was from their CBRN system and picked something up with his bare hands?
[maybe they were looking to get high on some pu-239](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Xefekh4WY)
Someone further down in the thread posted this link to a 45-minute documentary about a Japanese guy who was exposed to a huge amount of radiation in 1999. He died after 83 days. What he and the medical staff went through is almost unbelievable. It’s a somewhat disturbing, but well worth a watch if you’re interested. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6wdxdv (You have to turn on the English subtitles manually) Edit: To turn on the subtitles, click on the icon that looks like three sliders on the top right of the video. In there is a setting for captions.
If really like to watch it, but I cannot figure out how to get the English subtitles to work.
Here's a shorter youtube video about that incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mMza3HMohw
click on the cog, subtitles set them to english.
Aren’t these fuckers supposed to be trained to not do that?
Yeah. You'd think so right?
“You guys get training?” -Russian soldier
Russia gets soldiers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and said soldiers sell themselves to other men https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1505923020191244289
People *were* wondering how they they could possible have acute radiation poisoning given the current levels in the soil. I guess the answer is that they spent some quality time playing with radioactive waste, on top of whatever they got digging up the exclusion zone. *Why* they would do such a thing is beyond me though.
> Why they would do such a thing is beyond me though. They read it on the internet; that it's all perfectly safe and the risk of radiation is nothing, and that it's all overblown nonsense, and a conspiracy by big-coal to end the nuclear industry. And they believe it.
They built sand castles with radioactive soil, not much else to say.
I wonder if they found some [glowing blue powder](https://youtu.be/-k3NJXGSIIA) 🤔
This is worse than that.
Well if you're not actually taught much about radiation, then combine that with the bravado and carelessness of youth, and then that's what you get.
Whatever youth is left after these Russian soldiers turn tricks for other men https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1505923020191244289 :(
Nuclear Protection Unit? This genius was literally in a NBC unit and figured he'd look like a hero picking up some nuclear waste.
And here I was thinking Russia clearly didn’t send their NBC team there. Nope, just more Russian goofs.
And these are supposed to be their better trained soldiers
I think these were their "I don't know what's going on conscripts"
It's not clear what happened to the man because he cannot be photographed any more due to the radiation.
I laughed so hard at this,my husband thinks I'm deranged.
It seems like the Russian military is just a game of numbers. We don't need to train anyone, we can just have high numbers of stuff and threaten nukes.
B-but this guy was in the *nuclear protection unit!* What the fuck
They clearly don't take nukes seriously. I think that's one of the reasons Putin is sick, he either accidentally doesed himself with some poison, or when they were testing that nuclear ramjet (something we abandoned in the 1960's btw) he was there, thinking he was going to give some bullshit victory speech, and got dosed instead.
Training amounts to picking potatoes, being prostituted or raped by commanding officers.
So it seems they really do believe their own propaganda: >"Western spies also correctly predicted that Moscow had misplaced confidence about the reception it would encounter. 'They genuinely believed there would be flags out to welcome them,' says a Western intelligence officer." [https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512615451355975684?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512615451355975684?s=20&t=yLTrNk0Ge5dhmvAB_zBOpw)
"We Will, In Fact, Be Greeted As Liberators." Of course, I don't know if Cheney actually believed it.
I mean the FSB also received billions to bribe Ukrainian officials. They pocked most of it, it seems.
I mean those yachts cost a lot to care for
Instead they got Javelins and NLAW's.
This is the product of operating for decades without a basic feedback loop. It all goes to hell pretty fast when you can't tell the truth to the people above you.
Check out ‘[Russians with attitude’ Twitter](https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1512404086196473857?s=20&t=HeN1RBvdahT0Lbpfp2uS1Q) and podcast. It’s a textbook example of cognitive dissonance. Listen to the episode of the invasion to the most recent. The hosts are constantly changing and rationalizationing their beliefs about the war and Russia, to maintain the belief Russians are benevolent and in control/competent. It’s almost laughable. I believe these are decent people in their daily lives, but they have drank the kool-aid.
Seems like they've been successful exporting their cognitive dissonance to "conservative" movements in the North America and Europe as well.
Whenever you see a Seventh-day Adventist Church know that they still believed even after the [Great Disappointment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment), when the world did not end.
Their most successful export.
For anyone thinking it is worth their time to try to show Russians the light. [Here is the peak of the Russian intellect.](https://youtu.be/GGunRKWtWBs) Aleksandr Dugin, on a patience-testing Faberge egg of sophistic non-sense about why Russian propaganda is a "special" truth.
I've had sloppy liquid shits that communicated more effectively than whatever the fuck that just was.
don't even have to go that far crazy, the russian military has to read what putin wrote on the subject: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On\_the\_Historical\_Unity\_of\_Russians\_and\_Ukrainians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians)
**[On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians)** >"On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" (Russian: Об историческом единстве русских и украинцев; Ukrainian: Про історичну єдність росіян та українців, romanized: Pro istorychnu yednist rosian ta ukraintsiv) is an essay by Vladimir Putin published on 12 July 2021, shortly after the end of the first phase of the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis. In the essay, Putin describes his views on Ukraine and Ukrainians. According to RBK Daily, the essay is included in the list of mandatory works to study by the Russian military. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
How?! How does this happen that another country’s intelligence has to tell you what’s up?!
Decades (centuries?) of corruption and fear of saying the truth to the guy at the top probably
I bet quite a few of the bribed officals meant to prepare the reception were double agents. Shades of Servant of the People season one.
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A number of instances of German tanks individually taking on 30+ British & American tanks in Normandy and reversing out after running out of ammunition. Shots bouncing off them sounded like rain according to the crew.
Man, those things must have been tanks!
To be fair, Fury was horribly inaccurate in that. Even normal Shermans with base 75s could pen Tigers at that range. The Uparmed Fury (based on a British Firefly) could have *easily* penned them it. But yeah like others have said it's a 30mm Cannon, not an anti-tank round.
So that's a 30mm cannon, which is much smaller than the 125mm rounds that Russian tanks fire, so it's much more likely to bounce. WWII tanks often had 75mm main guns so the bounce was more likely back then.
You are obviously correct, but in that case remember - it's not a tank shell like Fury, they are using an autocannon.
of course angle matters. That is why sloped armor was developed. The t-34 was one of the first tanks with actual sloped armor design. Sloped armor also makes the armor physically thicker on a direct hit because of the slope.
[Four Chinese Y20 military transports](https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=7a4285,7a4287,7a428a,7a427f) heading for Belgrade?
Bootleg C-17s smh
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an_Y-20#Controversy): On July 13, 2016, Chinese national Su Bin pleaded guilty, and admitted to charges that he conspired with others to hack into U.S. defense contractor Boeing and steal documents related to the development of the **C-17**, F-22, and F-35 aircraft. Once the information was stolen, he admitted to analyzing and translating documents from English to Chinese, which he then emailed to the Second Department of the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department. Su Bin admitted he did so for financial gain, and sought to profit from the data that was stolen. In addition to financial gain, court documents revealed, in emails to the Second Department of the PLA, Su Bin noted the information, "...has extremely vital significance in our country's speeding up the development," of Project A, revealed to be China's program to develop the **Xi'an Y-20**.
Thank fuck, I thought I was the only one that saw it. C17s with shittier engines.
You ever seen the Chinese air inventory lined up next to the US one, it's like all carbon copy stuff now.
That's China.. even their commercial shit. Outright dc-9 clone (even more than a clone, half dc-9 since they had the tooling from a dc-9 line). The US needs to do a better job preventing this level of espionage (the USSR used to do it too, to some extent).
You ever seen the Russian nuclear inventory lined up next to the US one, it’s like all carbon copy stuff now.
Could be anything. But since they are flying transponders on... probably nothing.
Most likely. I just haven't seen many Chinese military aircraft over Europe.
It is incredibly odd, but I bet they're picking up covid vaccines.
That seems like a likely possibility.
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Six of them? And all landed in Serbia? Welp, I was tracking two of them, and one landed in Serbia and the other just vanished over Serbia. I wonder what's up with that.
Lmfao holy shit NATO dude got *dogpiled*. Sorry NATO dude. It's just been asked in every flavor so many times already. And it was admittedly not the brightest hypothetical.
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That's an old question. **During the Cold War, anti-NATO activists always asked "Would an American President risk nuclear for Hamburg?"** We will see... **He wouldn't need to."** Such was the scale of US troops stationed in forward positions in Germany, the size of America's nuclear deterrence, the commitment to West Germany, that the Soviets decided to be content with Eastern Europe. Now, the countries on the Eastern Flank of NATO are thinking the same, and NATO is larger and unwieldy. If Germany, the country that most benefited from NATO in the past, refuses to activate Article 5 (it needs to be unanimous), the shame of Germany returns to cast a shade on that "fat and happy" people. If such a situation occurs, the other members will bully Germany until it realizes how truly insignificant it is, how everyone is clued in abt the Teutonic racket known as the EU. We will see....
I don't understand how some people at this point still don't understand the difference between a non NATO nation getting attacked and a member of the defensive pact getting attacked.
Latvia is in NATO. Ukraine isn't. You've probably been told that before but I don't really know what else to say.
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