Ukraine war mega thread

[sabang]

4 Ukrainian airplanes, including 3 Su-24 and 1 Su-27, 3 Mi-8 helicopters with paratroopers on board, and 1 Mi-24 helicopter have been shot down in the air while repelling the attacks near Zmeiny Island.

Oh snub, the paa-iiin. Not such a good PR coup that one. Oh well, lets just leave it unmentioned. Ignore those people that access the official Russian reports, e'hh.

[bsnub]

Ignore those people that access the official Russian reports, e'hh.

Because it is all BS, lies that you swallow like a lemming. It is not too surprising that they would push lies on Victory day. Too bad, you are too big of a clown to realize something so simple.

The video I posted shows a Ukrainian Bayraktar drone blowing up a Tor anti missile system on Snake island, as well as two Ukrainian fighters bombing Russian positions on the island as well. They did not get shot down. The drones also sunk to more ships as well. I thought they were all destroyed in the first three days of the war?



It is all there on the video I just posted. It blows your propaganda lies out of the water.

[sabang]

Yes, of course the Russian Defense Dep't just released a load of bollocks- Ghost of Kiev/ Snake Island martyr type stuff. it never happened
Anyway, enuff fun for one morning.

[bsnub]

More bad news if you are Russian. The daily battlefield update is in...

[harrybarracuda]

Yes, of course the Russian Defense Dep't just released a load of bollocks- Ghost of Kiev/ Snake Island martyr type stuff. it never happened
Anyway, enuff fun for one morning.

Don't forget the chef burning the fried eggs on the ship that *wasn't* hit by a missile.

[David48atTD]

Don't forget the chef burning the fried eggs on the ship that *wasn't* hit by a missile.

Any update on that ship?

The Admiral Makarov ... I've seen nothing written

[David48atTD]

This clip oddly came up when I was looking at something else.

War Gaming the current situation.

"If Denmark Loaned F-16's To Ukraine, Would They Be Effective Against Russia? (WarGames 45) | DCS"

Lot's of bla bla till the 8.30 mark.

[bsnub]

In Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Started The War With Eight ‘Raptor’ Patrol Boats. It Might Have Three Left.

10 weeks of fighting, Ukraine’s TB-2 drones and anti-tank missile teams have wreaked havoc on the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s patrol boat flotilla. Especially around strategic Snake Island.

The fleet reportedly had eight of the 55-foot, gun-armed Raptor-class boats when Russia widened its war on Ukraine on the night of Feb. 23. Today it might have just three Raptors left.

In March, a Ukrainian missile team in Mariupol—a historic port on the Sea of Azov that today is mostly under Russian control—damaged, if not sank, a Raptor. But the losses really piled up a month later.

Ukrainian navy TB-2s starting in late April blasted four of the boats as part of Kyiv’s ongoing aerial campaign targeting Russian forces on strategic Snake Island, 80 miles south of Odessa in the western Black Sea.

At 110 acres, Snake Island is tiny. But whichever country controls it also has a legal claim on the resources of the western Black Sea. It’s not for no reason the Russians seized the island, then assigned the bulk of its regional fleet to holding it. There also is a reason the Ukrainians relentlessly are attacking those same forces.

The Black Sea Fleet has lost other ships to Ukrainian action, most notably the 610-foot missile-cruiser Moskva, which sank on April 14 with potentially scores of her 500 sailors after catching two Neptune anti-ship missiles on her port side while sailing between Odesa and Snake Island.

And on March 24, Saratov, a 370-foot landing ship belonging to the Black Sea Fleet’s reinforced amphibious flotilla, burst into flames while pier-side in Russian-occupied Berdyansk in southern Ukraine. It seems an accurate hit by a Ukrainian army Tochka ballistic missile started the blaze.

Rumors in early May that the Ukrainians also struck the Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Makarov appear to be baseless.

The sinkings were turning points in the war. The Saratov blaze, which also damaged two other landing ships moored nearby, apparently convinced Russian commanders that an amphibious assault on Odessa was naval suicide for the nine or so intact landing ships.

Moskva’s destruction three weeks later peeled back the Black Sea Fleet’s main air-defense. The cruiser, with her 64 S-300 surface-to-air missiles, in theory could engage targets 60 miles away—twice as far as the fleet’s three frigates with their 24 Buk SAMs can do.

To protect them, fleet commanders reportedly pulled back the frigates, away from the coast and whatever Neptune missiles Ukraine has left. But that left Snake Island, which Russian forces led by Moskva captured on Feb. 24, open to aerial assault.

TB-2s starting late last month bombarded the island and any boats or landing craft approaching it. The drones knocked out air-defense guns and SAM launchers and even blew up a landing craft and an Mi-8 helicopter offloading reinforcements on the island. Ukrainian air force Su-27 fighters streaked in to drop bombs on the battered survivors.

The TB-2s also struck four Raptors around the island, likely destroying them. It’s apparent the Black Sea Fleet was leaning heavily on the patrol boats—with their three-person command crew plus gunners for three crew-served weapons—to guard Snake Island.

Now there might be just three undamaged Raptors left in the whole Black Sea. The Russian navy before the war had 16 boats of the class. Eight Raptors that belong to other Russian fleets in theory could replace the ones the Black Sea Fleet has lost.

But they can’t get there. Turkey controls the Bosphorous Strait, the only waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Ankara hasn’t let in any warships since the wider war began.

First the Ukrainians stripped away Snake Island’s air-defenses. Then, its sea-defenses. Every Russian vessel the Ukrainians damage or destroy advances the date when Kyiv might liberate the occupied island.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gradsof...h=f059f7237218

[David48atTD]

This one is good for understanding the Russian mindset, the PUTIN mindset.

How Russia needs a 'buffer' to feel safe and how Ukraine is/was that buffer

From the 5.15 min mark

[bsnub]

About the authors: Phillips Payson O’Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II. Edward Stringer is a retired Royal Air Force air marshal and a senior fellow at Policy Exchange.

Airpower should have been one of Russia’s greatest advantages over Ukraine. With almost 4,000 combat aircraft and extensive experience bombing targets in Syria, Georgia, and Chechnya, Russia’s air force was expected to play a vital role in the invasion, allowing the Russian army to plunge deep into Ukraine, seize Kyiv, and destroy the Ukrainian military. But more than two months into the war, Vladimir Putin’s air force is still fighting for control of the skies.

The Russian air force’s failure is perhaps the most important, but least discussed, story of the military conflict so far. Ukrainian forces showed surprising strength in the air war, and adapted as the fighting progressed. But either side of this war could still gain air supremacy—and fundamentally change the course of the conflict.

Airpower is potentially decisive in any war, but difficult to wield effectively. Air forces are dependent on an array of technologies that require highly trained personnel who can quickly set up what amounts to an airborne military ecosystem: airborne radar stations to provide command and control, fighters to protect and police the skies, refueling aircraft to keep everyone full of gas, electronic-warfare planes to keep enemy defenses suppressed, and a range of intelligence-gatherers and attack aircraft to locate and destroy enemy forces. These sorts of combined operations involve hundreds of aircraft and thousands of people in a tightly choreographed dance that takes a lifetime to master. But when managed correctly, these overlapping operations allow a military to dominate the skies, making life much easier for the ground or naval forces below.

Unfortunately for the Russians, the recent modernization of the Russian air force, although intended to enable it to conduct modern combined operations, was mostly for show. The Russians wasted money and effort on corruption and inefficiency. Though much was made of the flashy new equipment, such as the much-hyped SU-34 strike aircraft, the Russian air force continues to suffer from flawed logistics operations and the lack of regular, realistic training. Above all, the autocratic Russian kleptocracy does not trust low-ranking and middle-ranking officers, and so cannot allow the imaginative, flexible decision making that NATO air forces rely upon.

All this meant that when the invasion started, the Russian air force was incapable of running a well-thought-out, complex campaign. Instead of working to control the skies, Russia’s air force has mostly provided air support to ground troops or bombed Ukrainian cities. In this it has followed the traditional tactics of a continental power that privileges land forces. Focusing on ground troops can work if you have almost endless numbers of soldiers and are prepared to lose them. But so wedded is Russia to its history of successes on the ground that it fails to understand the importance of airpower.

“Russia has never fully appreciated the use of airpower beyond support to ground forces,” David A. Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, told us. “As a result, Russia, in all its wars, has never conceived of or run a strategic air campaign.”


Russian aircraft are instead left flying their straightforward missions, many of which use single aircraft without the mutual support from combined air operations that would be expected in an advanced NATO air force. The pilots are given a target; fly in quickly to attack it, in many cases relying on unguided munitions to try to hit their target; and then fly out and try to not get shot down. They are not allowed to act flexibly within their commanders’ intent to achieve a mission. They have task orders and they execute them, come what may. Even Russia’s vaunted intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities seem surprisingly weak. Rarely do Russian forces seem capable of identifying possible Ukrainian targets and deploying air assets to attack them swiftly enough to make a difference.

Of course, the most important reason for the failure of Russian airpower, and the evident caution of Russian pilots, has been Ukrainian opposition. Unlike their enemy, the Ukrainians have developed a coherent concept of air operations, one that has allowed them to block what looked like an easy path to Russian air dominance.

The Ukrainians have integrated a range of air and anti-air capabilities to stymie the much larger Russian air force. Starting with cheap, handheld, portable surface-to-air missiles, the Ukrainians have been able to restrict Russian airpower to a few eastern and southern areas, greatly limiting Russian freedom of maneuver. The addition of much more potent, and longer-range, S-300 missile systems from Slovakia makes the Russians even more vulnerable. The threat of the S-300s forces individual Russian aircraft, which generally lack refueling, electronic-warfare, and command-and-control support, to fly low to the ground to screen themselves from attack. This, in turn, makes them more vulnerable to the handheld surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine cannot target every Russian aircraft, but it has cleverly used what it has to ensure that Russian pilots worry they might be targeted anywhere, forcing them to behave more defensively and reducing their effectiveness.

Ukraine’s ability to contest its airspace has not only provided protection to its own forces but also allowed it to occasionally go on the offensive. Early in the war, the Ukrainians were able to use Turkish-made Bayraktar drones to attack some high-value targets. The Ukrainians have also used drones to identify and destroy Russian ground-to-air missiles, making Russian ground forces more vulnerable to attack from above.

The Ukrainians have also shown a far greater ability than the Russians to use their limited airpower resources creatively. The sinking of the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva, which stunned the world, seems to have come about through a clever double punch. Ukrainian officials have claimed that they used an unmanned aerial vehicle to distract the Moskva’s anti-air capabilities, then launched their homegrown Neptune anti-ship missiles before the confused Russian crew could react.

This inventive use of airpower reveals that the Ukrainians might even have a more sophisticated understanding of air operations than even many NATO countries, which take their dominance of the air for granted. What the Ukrainians have done—contesting the skies against a richer, more powerful enemy on the cheap—is extremely difficult. The West has much to learn from Ukraine’s successes, Deptula told us. “We have become so dominant in the air that we have never had to think through how we would use airpower if we were the inferior force,” he said. “Ukraine is posing us some very interesting questions that we should seriously consider, if only to understand how a clever opponent would take us on.”

The coming weeks will reveal whether the Russians have the capability to learn from their mistakes and take better advantage of their still-massive numerical superiority in aircraft. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, will soon see their offensive air capabilities grow. Their newest drones may be enabling better long-range artillery targeting. On April 30, Ukrainian artillery fire seemed to come close to hitting General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of the general staff, while he was visiting the front. The Ukrainians are receiving even more advanced systems, including new Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost drones, which have the capability of lingering over enemy positions for some time before being used to destroy vehicles.
As long as the airspace over the field of battle remains contested, the Ukrainians will be able to improve and expand their use of airpower. They may not win the war outright. But they’ve already revolutionized how the next ones will be fought.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar..._source%3Dfeed

[David48atTD]

^ Another good article.

Have read this many times ...

"Unfortunately for the Russians, the recent modernization of the Russian air force, although intended to enable it to conduct modern combined operations, was mostly for show.

The Russians wasted money and effort on corruption and inefficiency.

Though much was made of the flashy new equipment, such as the much-hyped SU-34 strike aircraft, the Russian air force continues to suffer from flawed logistics operations and the lack of regular, realistic training.

Above all, the autocratic Russian kleptocracy does not trust low-ranking and middle-ranking officers, and so cannot allow the imaginative, flexible decision making that NATO air forces rely upon."

[bsnub]

"Unfortunately for the Russians, the recent modernization of the Russian air force, although intended to enable it to conduct modern combined operations, was mostly for show.

This is the case across the board as well, and not just confined to the air force.

Above all, the autocratic Russian kleptocracy does not trust low-ranking and middle-ranking officers, and so cannot allow the imaginative, flexible decision making that NATO air forces rely upon."

Yes, another key point that carries over across their entire military. I posted another article in the other thread that also discusses this.

[harrybarracuda]

Any update on that ship?

The Admiral Makarov ... I've seen nothing written

They covered up the damage from the "burnt fried eggs" and it limped home where it's safe from Ukrainian attacks.

[bsnub]

The Ukrainian Air force is still alive-seen here are two Ukrainian Su-27 striking Russian facilities on the famous Snake Island in the Black Sea, in remarkable footage filmed by a TB-2 drone.

[bsnub]

This is an incredible video. Ukrainian journalists go to the front lines in Izium and meet with members of the 93rd Independent Kholodnyi Yar Mechanized Brigade. The video is in Ukrainian, but if you turn on closed captions, the subtitles are in English. One of the best ones I have found and no gore...

[harrybarracuda]

Vlad's "Victory" Parade.

[misskit]

^What a sad looking bunch that is.

[misskit]

Germany to provide full support to Ukraine in solving Russia's war crimes - Baerbock

Germany will provide full support to Ukraine in investigating and prosecuting perpetrators of war crimes in Bucha and other cities in Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said this on her Twitter account, Ukrinform reports.


"We will gather evidence as an international community. I have assured Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova of Germany's full support in solving the war crimes: politically, financially and in terms of personnel," the minister wrote.


She noted that Bucha has become a symbol of unimaginable crimes, torture, rape, and murder.


"The arbitrariness is stunned. We cannot take away the pain of the survivors, but we can do everything we can to ensure justice: no one must believe that they can commit crimes without consequences," Baerbock warned.


Baerbock visited Bucha on May 10 and will hold political talks in Kyiv.

Germany to provide full support to Ukraine in solving Russia's war crimes - Baerbock

[Backspin]

This is exactly what isis did in Syria. Whenever a highly strategic area would fall to the Syrian govt , they'd find the thinnest line of defenses of the front and attack there.

They do this for one reason. To water down the other sides win.

Ukraine just lost the most important territory in the war (Propasna) but they watered it down with this ridiculous meaningless attack. And Bsnub and all his brOSINT retards are falling for it hook line and sinker.

[Backspin]

The US can now send anything it wants other than nukes

But there's 2 things that Ukraine needs most. Soviet shells and fuel. The 2 things that the US cannot provide

[Switch]

The US can now send anything it wants other than nukes

But there's 2 things that Ukraine needs most. Soviet shells and fuel. The 2 things that the US cannot provide

I have accused you of being stupid, gullible and childish, mostly without reply.

Your posts are fast becoming face palm material that proves your stupid, gullible, childish approach to a very serious topic.
Your most recent posts on here have proven to be even more valuable than any reply ever could.

What a monumental thundercunt you have become.

[Backspin]

While the whole western media was gloating about a meaningless diversion somewhere around Karkiv, the republican militia took the most heavily dug in and fortified place in the Donbas. Here they are sifting through some Ukraine generals belongings.

[misskit]

Putin ‘likely’ to impose martial law in Russia to support war effort: US intelligence chief


President Vladimir Putin is expected to become more unpredictable and could order martial law in Russia to support his ambitions in Ukraine, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Tuesday.


Putin’s aims are greater than Russian military capabilities, and that “likely means the next few months could see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory,” Haines told a Senate hearing.


“The current trend increases the likelihood that President Putin will turn to more drastic means, including imposing martial law, reorienting industrial production, or potentially escalatory military options to free up the resources needed to achieve his objectives,” she said.


Haines also said Putin is not likely to order the use of nuclear weapons unless the Russian homeland faces an “existential threat.”

Putin 'likely' to impose martial law in Russia to support war effort: US intelligence chief - Insider Paper

[misskit]

‘They Can Fuck Off With This War’: Putin’s Troops Finally Realize They’ve Been Hung Out to Dry

Nearly three months after Vladimir Putin unleashed his “special military operation” against Ukraine and a day after his less-than-triumphant Victory Day speech, a series of intercepted phone calls and radio traffic suggest the “idiocy” of his war is finally becoming too much to bear for even his own troops.


In perhaps the most dramatic audio to emerge, Russian crew members on board a Raptor-class landing assault boat near Snake Island in the Black Sea appear to have been caught in radio transmissions desperately lamenting their lack of air support as Ukrainian forces bombarded them from an armed Bayraktar drone.


The audio, released on Telegram by the investigative news outlet InformNapalm, purportedly comes from open radio traffic during battles in the Black Sea that took place over the weekend, when Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed three “enemy” boats that subsequently wound up “on the bottom of the sea.”

“Where is air support? Where is air support?” a man, identified as a Russian crew member, can be heard saying frantically amid what sounds like sirens in the background.


“This Bayraktar is already pissing me the fuck off,” the man says, before apparently becoming more desperate as he says “they have fired a fourth missile at us! A fourth missile!”


Despite the man’s pleas, the Russian service member on the other end simply promises to “pass along” the information to military leadership. It was not immediately clear if the man in the recording was on any of the three boats that Ukrainian authorities say they sank.


But the frustration in the recording has been echoed in other intercepted communications that purportedly capture Russian service members serving in other parts of Ukraine.


Ukraine’s Security Service released a minute-long recording Tuesday that it said was an intercepted phone call between a Russian soldier based in the Kharkiv region and his father back home. The soldier could not hold back his anger at his own commander, who he claimed had abandoned the fight to let the men in his unit serve as cannon fodder.


“They’re standing there, they’re under fire, and the commander just goes, ‘Don’t back down!’ While he’s somewhere sitting on a couch, drinking, probably,” the young man says.


“They can fuck off with this war,” the soldier’s father replies, unleashing a stream of curse words over the “idiocy” of the war and the propaganda shown on Russian state TV.


“I can’t wrap my head around it,” he says, adding that “they tell us every morning on TV about these new weapons that all of Ukraine supposedly saw and got scared of.”


Advising his son to refuse to take part in the war any further, he rails against the “worthless rat” and “fucking scum” of a commander before the conversation ends.


The rapidly deteriorating morale among Russian troops has come to no surprise for many military experts, who say Moscow began the war with a flawed understanding of Ukraine’s military capabilities and an erroneous belief that nothing had changed since the Kremlin first seized territory in 2014.


Even a former Wagner Group mercenary who previously fought for Russia in Ukraine has spoken out to publicly call the war a “mistake.”


Marat Gabidullin, a member of the shadowy, Kremlin-linked mercenary group until 2019, told Reuters he was asked to rejoin the fight after the invasion on Feb. 24, but he refused because he knew it would be a mess.


“They were caught completely by surprise that the Ukrainian army resisted so fiercely and that they faced the actual army,” he was quoted saying, adding that Russian forces “did not learn how to fight for real.”

‘They Can Fuck Off With This War’: Putin’s Troops Finally Realize They’ve Been Hung Out to Dry

[misskit]

Putin’s Puppets Admit Their Army Has Been a Total Embarrassment

In his speech preceding the Victory Day celebrations across Russia on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin continued to promote the idea that his troops in Ukraine are fighting “to liberate their native land from the Nazi filth with confidence that, as in 1945, victory will be ours.” His portrayal of Ukrainians as Nazis rings so hollow that propagandists on state television have been struggling to justify the so-called “special military operation.” The description itself was meant to portray a nearly painless blitzkrieg, akin to the annexation of Crimea. Instead, it has turned into an ongoing bloody massacre and a slew of crippling sanctions.


Russia was so unprepared for this turn of events, both militarily and economically, that even the most pro-Kremlin propagandists have been forced to acknowledge the grim reality of a pariah state fighting a war of aggression.


During Friday’s broadcast of state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, military analyst Konstantin Sivkov argued that Russia’s “current economic market system is unfit to meet the needs of our Armed Forces and of the entire country under these conditions.” Instead, he pushed for what he described as “military socialism,” a set of wartime rules and regulations that would move all strategic resources–including land and factories–under the direct control of the government to better fund the war.


During the same show, host Vladimir Solovyov griped that Russia couldn’t compete with Ukraine’s seemingly endless supply of Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, which have been wreaking havoc on Russia’s troops and equipment. “They tell us from the frontlines: ‘Give us drones!’ People are crowdfunding crazy amounts of money. They bought up everything that was available in stores. Why can’t that junk be mass-produced in Russia?,” Solovyov fumed.


State Duma member Semyon Bagdasarov chimed in: “Everyone is ashamed to talk about this topic. Volunteers, like our mutual acquaintances... are buying it all and transporting it over there. It’s a crying shame!” Solovyov proceeded to angrily complain about the restrictions that complicate the delivery of such items to Russian troops in Ukraine, adding: “It’s easier to bring it in through the Ukrainian Customs in Lviv. They let in any weapons.”


Bagdasarov then resorted to blaming the West for the Kremlin’s humiliations, claiming that recent sanctions were designed to provoke a popular uprising, akin to the October revolution of 1917 or the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, also known as the August Coup. To prevent the potential riots, Bagdasarov suggested the need for “purges” of current “management officials.” He claimed that Russia is in sore need for a figure like Lavrentiy Beria—chief of the Soviet secret police who was notorious for his serial rapes and bloody mass executions.


This attempts to whitewash odious figures of the past on Russian airwaves if nothing new., Shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, host of Vesti Nedeli Dmitry Kiselyov praised the likes of Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, among others for Russia’s nuclear capabilities.


During Friday’s live broadcast of 60 Minutes, retired Colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok made the stunning confession that even mass mobilization in Russia wouldn’t help alter the course of Putin’s stalled invasion of Ukraine. He admitted that Russia would be hard-pressed to replenish its mounting losses in Ukraine, and that sending masses to fight with outdated weapons would be counterproductive because Russia’s arsenal does not measure up to NATO’s top-notch weaponry.


“Let's imagine the drumroll, the sound of fanfare, and the mobilization is declared. How soon under this mobilization will we get the first fighter aviation regiment? We would get it by New Year's. We don't have the reserves, the pilots, or the planes so the mobilization would be of little help,” Khodaryonok said. “If tonight, we order new ships to be built, how soon will we get the first one? In two years! That's the deal with mobilization. If we set a goal of forming a new tank division, when would it be ready? I would say in at least 90 days. And it wouldn't be equipped with modern weaponry because we don't have modern weapons and equipment in our reserves.”

The retired colonel continued: “Sending people armed with weapons of yesteryear into a war of the 21st century to fight against global standard NATO weapons would not be the right thing to do. We need to replenish our losses, of course, but this should be done through industrial enterprises. Mobilization would not solve these issues."


In December of 2021, appearing on 60 Minutes, Khodaryonok flippantly said that Russia could destroy Ukraine in 11 minutes, but in the beginning of February—when Putin’s invasion seemed all but imminent—the colonel was much more clear-eyed. His sobering predictions, published in the newspaper Independent Military Observer, were remarkably accurate.


Khodaryonok contradicted many popular analysts, stating in part that “To assert that no one in Ukraine will defend the regime means, in practice, complete ignorance of the military-political situation and the mood of the broad masses of people in the neighboring state. Moreover, the degree of hatred (which, as you know, is the most effective fuel for armed struggle) in the neighboring republic in relation to Moscow is frankly underestimated. No one will meet the Russian army with bread, salt and flowers in Ukraine.”


Khodaryonok correctly predicted long and difficult battles, in addition to the extensive assistance the West would provide to Ukraine, writing in part: “There is no doubt that the United States and the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance will begin a kind of reincarnation of Lend-Lease, modeled after the Second World War.”

While open opposition to Putin’s war against Ukraine is outlawed, it’s clear that the Russian people are resisting in various unconventional ways. A series of fires have erupted at several military enlistment offices in recent days, as rumors of the impending mobilization unsettle potential conscripts.


Putin’s propagandists have apparently been enlisted to convince the public that the outcome of Russia’s invasion is a matter of life and death for all of its citizens. State TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov, who previously pleaded with Putin to end the war as soon as possible, returned to national broadcasts after a temporary absence with a drastically different narrative last week.


During three separate broadcasts of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, Shakhnazarov claimed that Russians would find “no mercy” from their adversaries should the country lose the war. He threatened opponents of Putin’s invasion, predicting they would face a future of “concentration camps, re-education and mandatory sterilization” imposed as a “final solution” for the Russian people sought by Moscow’s enemies. While some Kremlin propagandists begrudgingly admit that Russia can’t afford to fight this war, the prevailing narrative force-fed by the state media is that Russia can’t afford to lose.

Putin’s Puppets Admit Their Army Has Been a Total Embarrassment