Only good nazi: 99 nazis were killed in a single day

QuoteWagner forces started using much bigger assault units and captured several new positions by overwhelming Ukrainians with the sheer number of troops. However, Ukrainians came back on tanks and, within minutes, obliterated more than 6 buildings that Wagners used as major fortifications. As a result, Russians had to create several teams of loaders to collect their dead after the fierce raid.

Couldn't have happened to nicer people.

I went to bed last night with Ukraine bracing for another missile barrage, I woke up to news that all the missiles had been shot down in the Kyiv area and they shot down 15 out of 18 cruise missiles (what a relief!), I get back from work and the find out a missile strike hit a railway hub called Pavlohrad and 2 were dead and 40 were injured.  :'(

I get annoyed with the news sometimes because I get bombarded with little snippets of info in trashheaps of extraneous details and advertisements.  Hell, a lot of the articles reference the friday attacks, giving the misleading impression that Ukraine is being bombed left and right (3 cruise missiles in one night is bad, but it's not bombed-to-the-stone-age bad)  On the other hand, I get reassurance that most of the cruise missiles were shot down, which is also true but also misleading.

Honestly, I wish I could get the news in a more condensed, fact-based way.

Fact: Russia shot 18 cruise missiles at Ukraine overnight
Fact: 15 out of 18 were shot down by Ukrainian forces
Fact: 2 Ukrainian civilians were killed, 40 were wounded

Quote from: Hydra009 on May 01, 2023, 07:17:09 PMHonestly, I wish I could get the news in a more condensed, fact-based way.

That's why I enjoy your posts here so much! 👏👍🖖

Quote from: Unbeliever on May 01, 2023, 10:10:59 PMThat's why I enjoy your posts here so much! 👏👍🖖

I have to warn you that my posts are slanted quite a bit.

First and foremost, I want people to believe that Ukraine has a fighting chance for victory and to support Ukraine's war aims (the expulsion of invaders from Ukrainian land - including Crimea - and re-linking of said territory with the elected government of Ukraine)

Naturally, I also want to cultivate hope that Russian forces can be defeated and therefore I highlight notable Russian defeats and blunders.  Especially infighting or significantly embarrassing developments like civilians capturing a Russian soldier and going on a road trip with him to Ukrainian custody while singing patriotic Ukrainian songs, Ukrainian tractors hauling away defunct Russian tanks, Russian soldiers moronically camping out in an obviously radioactive forest near Chernobyl, a Russian POW calling his wife only to find out that she's cheating on him with another man, a Russian plane somehow accidentally bombing a Russian city, Russian air defense firing on itself, and of course the gold standard, the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet Flagship Moskva, especially given the obvious falsehood that it was sunk due to careless smoking and that everyone on board lived through the experience.  There's a reason why it is illegal under Russian law to spread the idea that the Russian military is pathetic and worthy of scorn - because in some ways it truly is pathetic and the realization of that fact would undermine Putin's war effort.  Happy to oblige.

In truth, I practice propaganda in the encyclopedic definition of the word - an attempt to persuade and promote an idea - namely that Ukraine can and likely will win this conflict, that aid to Ukraine is a morally-justified and productive act that will help not only Ukraine but also the West in time, and that Russia's influence across the world should be actively resisted.

If I were to give a more accurate picture of the war - report every battle and every causality, the ensuing sorrow and grief would be overwhelming.  It would likely provoke an outpouring of unnecessary anger, panic, or despondency.  Ukrainians are suffering, some horribly and enduring hardships that would pale most people - and this has been going on every single day for over a year now.  But I do not want people reading my posts to sink into bottomless despair - I want them to see just enough that they fervently wish the invaders gone and support whatever policies will most swiftly bring this war to an end in Ukraine's favor.  And then I want to tell them that Ukraine has won - in part due to outside help which is in some small way due to their pressure on said governments.  I want them to remember forever the lesson learned - that democracies across the world banding together in righteous cause can crush any army, topple any dictatorship, and preserve any country.  With any luck, that lesson won't have to be taught again for a very long time.

Ukrainian soldier takes a break for a slice of pizza:

Russians install cope cages on their MLRS

Unlike the tank cope cages, which failed to counter Stinger missiles, these are primarily meant to counter kamikaze drones.  No idea if these are effective against that, but why change a winning strategy?

In the meantime, Russian artillery is a lot easier to find and risks getting snagged on stuff every time it moves.

Over last five months, Russian casualties top 100k

20k dead, 80k injured

That's ~1k dead and ~4k injured per week.

Russia is nearing 200k KIA as we speak.  It goes without saying that these sorts of losses are unsustainable.

I've always wondered what that would look like.  This is of course an idealized example.  Plenty of footage just has Humvees pull up somewhere, disembark, and then they're shooting down the side of a trench and throwing grenades at anyone firing back.

There's been a lot of hullabaloo about the explosion over the Kremlin.

The Kremlin says it was an assassination attempt, but the Kremlin says a lot of things.  They say a broken clock is right twice a day, but they don't say that it's wrong literally every other time.  The chances of it being right and being wrong are highly unequal.

Although the Ukrainians have been known to make the occasional raid within Russian borders, they've almost always hit logistics targets like oil depots or military targets like airfields.  Wasting valuable drones on the Kremlin - which fortified itself with awkwardly-mounted rooftop mobile AA months ago - seems impractical and there are much more pressing targets to contend with in and around Ukraine.

Another reason I doubt that this is a Ukrainian attack is that if it was an assassination attempt, the Ukrainians wouldn't half-ass it.  Let's just say that Putin's mistresses and illegitimate children would have great difficulty identifying the body.

In the past, when Russian provocations have been initiated, they usually:
1) rely heavily on audience interpretation to fill in gaps (an explosion happens or shots ring out from persons unknown and the audience imagines the guilty party)
2) very little - if any - real damage or death actually happens (e.g. a checkpoint is blown up, but there are no bodies)  Provocations are designed merely to provoke a reaction, they don't cause grievous harm for the simple fact that Russia typically does not want to pay a large cost to create a provocation.

This case conforms with both observed traits of provocations.  We'll see if it has any merit, though my early guess is that it is not something worthy of much attention.

Ukrainian military stronger than US leaks indicated

While the US has had some good intel (warning the world of an imminent attack on Ukraine, which did in fact come to pass) it has also made some somewhat incorrect predictions (anticipating a rapid fall of Ukraine to the point of offering to evacuate President Zelenskyy which he famously declined, training Ukrainians in insurgency operations as if predicting military defeat, and just overall underestimating Ukrainians while overestimating the Russian invaders)

And while it's important to hedge your bets due to the high cost of underestimating your enemy compared to the low cost of overestimating them, there is such a thing as being overly cautious and incurring significant opportunity costs which hamper the war effort as a result *coughMcClellancough*

I expect that when the Ukrainians launch another major counterattack, they might not make the sort of extremely rapid progress that they did in Kharkiv, but they will still make significant progress.  Although there aren't as many Western tanks and IFVs in Ukraine as the Ukrainians would like, there are significantly more of them now than there were during the Kharkiv offensive and with Ukrainian troops possessing the best training that the West can provide that they also previously did not have.  I have confidence that they will surprise us nearly as much as the Russians.

Quote from: Hydra009 on May 03, 2023, 07:28:54 PMThere's been a lot of hullabaloo about the explosion over the Kremlin.

Plenty of Russians getting fed up with Putler. And they can't really talk about. That will lead to more and more acts of frustration. It does highlight that the Kremlin has crappy air defenses, LOL.

Quote from: Cassia on May 04, 2023, 08:53:54 AMIt does highlight that the Kremlin has crappy air defenses, LOL.

Yeah, it's either a false flag and Russia is lying to the world (not the first time) or Russia really does have horrible air defense, even in highly defended areas.

Lately, casualties have been fairly low compared to earlier attempts to assault Bakhmut and running up ~1k KIA/day because of it.

Since then, Russian casualties have dropped significantly mainly due to a lack of assaults and the adoption of a defensive stance in preparation for the looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

They've jumped up recently, likely due to increased Ukrainian bombardment to "shape" Russian troop concentrations in preparation for the counteroffensive.  Today is an interesting mix of a lot of different things.  Basically everything on the ground took a hit.

650 troops kia
5 tanks
17 armored vehicles
16 artillery / 3 mlrs
4 antiair
18 drones
21 vehicles
7 special equipment

At this rate, they'll hit 200k kia less than two weeks from now.

In not so great news, Russian forces have started storing explosives inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

I had hoped that after a long period of seizing the plant without some sort of nuclear disaster, they would simply give it up and work out some sort of deal to hand it over peacefully.  Unfortunately, they appear more determined than ever to trigger some sort of nuclear disaster - a suicidal move, but Z-invaders are not known for their brains.

Hopefully, Ukrainian forces will figure out some sort of way to get them to leave without damaging the reactor.  Maybe if Russian lines elsewhere were pushed back sufficiently, they'd be forced to evacuate.