This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
I watch these and some of the orcs running from the tanks and it reminds me of turning over a pile of wood and watching rats run away.
SIAP
Sitting in his Virginia home, weather expert and US Air Force veteran David Helms has one question on his mind about far away Ukraine lately: "When does mud season stop?"
The weather there is just one more thing that troops in the trenches at the front lines have to battle. In an effort to ease the burden, retired meteorologist Helms analyzes weather that might affect the war and publishes his forecasts on social media under the hashtag "#NAFOWeather," a likely reference to the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, an online anti-Russian propaganda movement.
For the front in Ukraine, Helms has the following prediction: "The loss of moisture from the soil really picks up by May 1st and beyond," he wrote in his analysis for DW.
In southern Ukraine, the soil will be dry from around mid-April, then two weeks later in the Donetsk region, and from mid-May in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region further north, he explained.
Should the prediction turn out to be correct, it could have significant strategic meaning. While Russian tanks are still stuck in the mud in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army could begin a counteroffensive in the south toward the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol.
Helms is one of many digital volunteers worldwide who are supporting Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion.
"To me, it's just people interested in and supporting Ukraine, trying to do whatever they can to do exactly that," he said.
He writes, for example, about when there will be "optimal optical satellite intelligence opportunities." When clear skies allow for the best photos from space, other activists then use donations to order satellite imagery from private vendors like Maxar, passing it along to Ukrainian commanders on the front lines.
www.dw.com
Ukraine counteroffensive: When will the mud season end?
Sitting in his Virginia home, weather expert and US Air Force veteran David Helms has one question on his mind about far away Ukraine lately: "When does mud season stop?"
The weather there is just one more thing that troops in the trenches at the front lines have to battle. In an effort to ease the burden, retired meteorologist Helms analyzes weather that might affect the war and publishes his forecasts on social media under the hashtag "#NAFOWeather," a likely reference to the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, an online anti-Russian propaganda movement.
For the front in Ukraine, Helms has the following prediction: "The loss of moisture from the soil really picks up by May 1st and beyond," he wrote in his analysis for DW.
In southern Ukraine, the soil will be dry from around mid-April, then two weeks later in the Donetsk region, and from mid-May in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region further north, he explained.
Should the prediction turn out to be correct, it could have significant strategic meaning. While Russian tanks are still stuck in the mud in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian army could begin a counteroffensive in the south toward the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol.
Helms is one of many digital volunteers worldwide who are supporting Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion.
"To me, it's just people interested in and supporting Ukraine, trying to do whatever they can to do exactly that," he said.
He writes, for example, about when there will be "optimal optical satellite intelligence opportunities." When clear skies allow for the best photos from space, other activists then use donations to order satellite imagery from private vendors like Maxar, passing it along to Ukrainian commanders on the front lines.
Ukraine counteroffensive: When will the mud season end? – DW – 04/01/2023
Kyiv plans to launch a counteroffensive against Russia this spring. A former US military meteorologist has taken to Twitter to provide valuable predictions as to when ground conditions will be right.
www.dw.com
Juuuuust about time for a bridge missile redux. 😎
- Sep 13, 2002
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The couldn't get the map to work, lol. Losers.
I think there was a truck bomb on one part and a missile on the other part. Couldnt remember which was which. Maybe I’m wrong too. Car bomb redux it is!
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Armed Forces of Ukraine strike two Russian control points – General Staff
On 4 April, the Armed Forces of Ukraine struck two Russian control points and an electric warfare station of the Russian occupiers. Source: the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Details: Aircrafts of the Defence Forces launched 7 attacks on the areas of concentration of the occupiers...
I think something that is lost on most people is how relatively cheap it has been to completely destroy and dismantle Russia’s army without dropping a pint of American blood.
As crass as it is to say being that so many Ukrainian lives have been lost and the country torn apart. Ukrainians chose to fight for freedom over being Russia’s sock puppet and have their country dismantled and their whole people treated the way the people in the Donbass have been treated. Horribly.
This spending is an incredible bargain defense spending wise to decimate Russia’s ability to project military power and threaten their neighbors and our Allies. They won’t recover from this for a decade or more. Of course the oligarchs may have to part with some of their looted billions which may never happen. Why the Russian people aren’t stringing up their Oligarchs by their balls by now is beyond me. They are a thoroughly delusional and cowardly people.
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As long as the bridge goes boomie💥 either is quite ok 🙂
This is not remotely unimportant. What many people would view as our greatest rival in world politics has been entirely neutered without us losing a single US soldier. We can't say that about much of anywhere else that we've been so successful.
However, I don't think that your assessment of the Russian people is entirely correct. They have only known misinformation and political manipulation for their entire modern existence. As much as we all thought of them as a free society post the fall of communism, they've really been much more of an autocracy, with heavy influence by the government and little true, factual information in dissent of the government's positions. They are basically suffering from Fox News on steroids, and show a pretty grim reality of what society becomes under that form of rule.
Belarusians know their government’s full of shit. They’re scared of their government, and they can’t openly support Ukraine, but they’ve taken some real steps to stay out of this thing.
I’m sure there are Russians who have taken action, but overall, they seem to support this mess. Common sense be damned.
Fitting that NATO expands on the day Trump is brought in to court on criminal charges.
Belarusians were an occupied republic, like Ukraine. They obey due to fear. The Russians are the occupiers. They consider themselves better than these former republics. They only know what the gov tells them.
While this may be true, they are being led like lambs to Ukrainian artillery slaughter and UAV target practice. They are communicating to relatives back home and reporting back the circumstances. We have the phone call receipts.
Ukrainians have hacked Russian state TV time and again and played Zelensky addressing the Russian people telling anyone watching precisely what is going on.
Typical 20-30 something Russian knows how to get information and know this special military operation is effed. The prisoners being inducted into Wagner etc likely have no idea what is going on. They should be shooting their commanders in the face and surrendering en masse.
We did?
True, but that doesn’t make them any less delusional for believing the regime.
People still have the ability to reason and think for themselves. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had wild propaganda machines, but people could still see how poorly things were going.
Lukashenko will fall with a slight nudge. This is why Putin had to send in troops 18 months ago. That country will revolt as soon as weakness is sensed.
It is disappointing to believe and sort of hopeless to say but Russia and Russians have proven for 500+ years that this is what they are and who they are. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationality.
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Actually, it's even worse than that. This is a country that went pretty much directly from feudal serfdom, to communistic serfdom to oligarchy. There is literally ZERO democratic tradition in Russian culture and history --- they have always been under the boot of one strongman and group of lackeys or another.
- Sep 13, 2002
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- Sep 13, 2002
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- 204,138
- 113
Putin Presses the Nuclear Nerve Again
Russia’s latest moves are useless, stupid, and provocative.By Tom Nichols
The Iskander-E missile launcher on display at the International Military Technical Forum outside of Moscow in 2022 (Getty)
APRIL 3, 2023, 5:22 PM ET
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is once again trying to manipulate nuclear weapons to compensate for the ongoing Russian military disaster in Ukraine. These new Russian moves are dangerous but not a crisis.
You can always tell when things are going badly on the battlefield for the Russians in Ukraine, because Vladimir Putin starts talking about nuclear weapons. For weeks, the Russians have been pounding the city of Bakhmut, but so far, Bakhmut remains in Ukrainian hands, despite repeated Russian—and Western—predictions that it would fall. (The Ukrainian high command recently said that the situation is “being stabilized,” which is mostly good news.) No matter what happens next, however, the cost to the Russians has been immense: Russian commanders are now reportedly using “human wave” tactics, sending poorly armed men into battle merely to absorb Ukrainian ammunition and die so that the next group of attackers can get closer to the lines.
Putin knows that there will be no triumphal breakthrough. Even if Bakhmut is eventually taken, the Russians will be planting a flag on a pile of their own corpses. And so, in his desperation to change the narrative both at home and abroad, Putin has returned to taking nuclear gambles. Putin told Russian television on March 25 that he intends to station Russian tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a country that borders both Ukraine and NATO. Yesterday, the Russian ambassador to Belarus doubled down on Putin’s threat, announcing that Russia plans to deploy those weapons in the western part of Belarus—near the border with its NATO neighbors.
This is both more and less than it seems, but first, we should review some definitions.
There is no particular technological characteristic to a “tactical” nuclear weapon. In practice, tactical nuclear weapons are usually intended for delivery at short range (roughly less than 500 kilometers) with smaller warheads, and they are aimed at battlefield objectives such as concentrations of enemy forces or bases in the rear. “Strategic” weapons, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles or strategic bombers, traverse far greater distances and are primarily aimed at enemy strategic nuclear weapons (such as silos, bomber bases, and submarine pens), infrastructure, industry, and, in the most horrific instance, the enemy’s cities. These major targets are meant to affect the overall outcome of the war.
Tactical weapons are considerably less powerful because they’re intended for use close to the line of battle, and they pack only a fraction of the punch of a strategic warhead. (Dropping a city-buster bomb on a battlefield will indeed kill the enemy, but it will also kill your own forces and flatten everything else for five or six miles in every direction.) These tactical nuclear arms can be as small as 10 or 20 kilotons, or even just one, but “small” is relative in the world of nuclear weapons; the bomb America dropped on Hiroshima was about 15 kilotons. (A kiloton is the explosive power equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT.) Even a small weapon can do a lot of damage, kill a lot of people, and poison a lot of land.
Putin didn’t specify which Russian systems he would station in Belarus. There are a few options: He could place short-range missiles near the Belarus border, or he could store tactical warheads for use on Russian bomber aircraft. Russian forces, obviously, would guard and crew these systems, rather than transferring them to Belarus.
Putting nuclear weapons in Belarus is also strategically stupid, because it buys Putin more political trouble than it’s worth. Lukashenko has said he approves of the plan, but he almost certainly doesn’t want these things in his country, not only because it will emphasize that he’s merely one of Putin’s local gauleiters but also because it will create even more instability in Belarus itself. Lukashenko is hated by many of his own citizens, and he triumphed in the last election only by fraud and force. Making Belarus into a frontline nuclear target won’t help matters.
Perhaps even dumber is that Putin runs the risk of annoying the Chinese. The Russian president may be the stud duck in the Kremlin, but in Eurasia, he’s now a junior partner of the richer and more powerful Xi Jinping. As Mike McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, noted, the Belarus decision is a snub to Xi, who just issued a joint statement with Putin that included a call for “all nuclear powers” not to deploy their nuclear weapons beyond their national territories and to withdraw all nuclear weapons deployed abroad.
That passage was supposed to be a warning to the Americans. Putin, however, has stepped on that message by threatening to station nuclear arms outside of Russia for the first time since the end of the Cold War. (A Chinese diplomat on Monday gingerly deflected a question about the Belarus issue, referring to a previous statement by the five major nuclear powers that a nuclear war could never be won and must never be fought. That statement was also signed by Russia, so we might assume this answer was an indication of Chinese displeasure.)
Finally, Putin’s announcement is provocative, because it shows yet again how quickly the Russian leader will resort to nuclear threats. Putin, at this point, is likely frustrated that his mentions of nuclear arms no longer rattle Washington or Brussels, and he is trying to squeeze just a bit more juice out of the nuclear lemon by dragging another state into the fray.
Nuclear threats are never to be taken lightly, but for now, Putin’s announcement—and so far, it is only that, an announcement—is not a crisis that requires any direct response from anyone. (Well, the Chinese might like a word, but that’s Beijing’s problem.) U.S. and NATO intelligence analysts are, as always, continually watching to see whether Russia is taking concrete steps to use such weapons (for example, if they detect that warheads are being moved from storage to active units that could employ them), but so far, according to U.S. sources, none of that is happening.
Nevertheless, a foreign leader trying to extricate himself from a military disaster by making nuclear threats is more likely to make other foolish moves. As spring progresses, Russia’s position will likely become more dire, so we can expect Putin to try to press this raw nerve again and again—especially as the Russian body count continues to climb.
Whatever he ends up doing, this announcement is a trifecta of Putinist foreign policy: It is useless, stupid, and provocative all at the same time.
It’s a useless gambit, because moving tactical nukes to Belarus doesn’t really buy Russia any military advantage. It’s possible that Putin is doing this to lash Belarus’s strongman, Alexander Lukashenko, more tightly to the mast of Russia’s sinking ship in Ukraine. It might justify placing elite Russian forces in Belarus territory for years to come, but Russia already has plenty of ability to deliver tactical strikes on Ukraine and NATO.
I guess you didn’t hear… the EU Council, headed by Swiss diplo, Heidi Tagliavani, concluded that the Georgians were the aggressor. Washington of course, installed their puppet, Saakashvili, a Truman fellow. Try to keep up!
Maybe because you Ruskies waged war on them and stole half their land?
How was your tour at the front?
Re: your 2nd question, not nearly as exciting as the tour at your wife’s rear.
This is primarily an economic organization.
And India/Pakistan ain't exactly bedtime buddies.
NATO is not an economic organization, at all. It has one primary purpose: defense.
