This war, sorry "special military operation that totally isn't an invasion or war despite Putin referring to it as a war sometimes" has really highlighted how militaries can use "non-military" technology to their advantage. In particular, how effective that has been against a country like Russia with both ancient technology (they're resorting to hardware that was produced as far back as the 1940's) and a completely dysfunctional command and control structure, if you can even call what they have that.

Everyone knows how devastating Ukraine's use of consumer drones and other homemade stuff to deliver ordinance has been but they've also used those small drones to effectively map enemy forces and do other recon. Modern armies aren't really prepared to handle this, much less an army as antiquated as Russia's. This isn't some hot take by the way - even Russia's propaganda arm acknowledges this was a gap in capability.

2/ "One has to deal with commentators who say that Russia overslept the UAV revolution, that Russian generals did not prepare the army for such a massive use of drones. I want to support all such whiners - yes, they overslept, but they were not preparing for such a war."

— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) March 27, 2023

But the use of modern technology by Ukraine in this war goes far beyond drones. They've also generated a wealth of intel from modern communications systems because, again, Russia simply doesn't have the command and control or logistics to communicate effectively with their forces. Time and time again we've seen Russian forces rely on easily snooped cell phones or other channels and Ukraine is all over this stuff. It's not clear to me that the Russian military has any ability to change this on the fly, so I expect that this will continue to be to Ukraine's advantage.

An interesting post by a Russian volunteer reveals how 🇺🇦listen to radio/cellular comms. It alleges 🇺🇦 hear almost everything and can act on it very effectively:

Quote: "This post applies primarily to the mobilised and their relatives. There are people who will continue chatting… pic.twitter.com/ypHzu9l51o

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) March 28, 2023

Finally, Ukraine is taking advantage of hacking (both through social engineering and otherwise) to glean valuable intelligence. Below is just one recent small example that has come to mind.

After hacking into the email of a Russian airforce colonel, the hackers, posing as an officer in the unit, then convinced the colonel’s wife to coordinate photos of all of the unit’s wives posing in uniform jackets showing all medals. This revealed names and service details https://t.co/mUbt5lcfwQ pic.twitter.com/oAhDEAz6Jc

— Michael Bond (@HelloMrBond) March 28, 2023

Overall, Ukraine has demonstrated that being able to operate at consumer technology speed, vs military technology speed is critical to their defense. This is obviously magnified by the fact that Russia is a corrupt kleptocracy with a military primarily focused on policing the Russian population first, and falsely projecting strength to the world second, but this is something that the US, China and other nations with actual 21st century militaries are surely paying attention to. It's going to be interesting to see how the US adapts strategy over the next few years with all of the learnings from this war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is putting men over 50 years old on the front like in Bakhmut. I guess the 20-somethings are getting ready to fly 50,000 drones into Crimea, Soledar was a mirage, and ammo is unneeded in modern wars bc NATO will control the narrative. Gotcha.

You've drunk the Koolaid.

Unit2Sucks said:

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This war, sorry "special military operation that totally isn't an invasion or war despite Putin referring to it as a war sometimes" has really highlighted how militaries can use "non-military" technology to their advantage. In particular, how effective that has been against a country like Russia with both ancient technology (they're resorting to hardware that was produced as far back as the 1940's) and a completely dysfunctional command and control structure, if you can even call what they have that.

Everyone knows how devastating Ukraine's use of consumer drones and other homemade stuff to deliver ordinance has been but they've also used those small drones to effectively map enemy forces and do other recon. Modern armies aren't really prepared to handle this, much less an army as antiquated as Russia's. This isn't some hot take by the way - even Russia's propaganda arm acknowledges this was a gap in capability.


But the use of modern technology by Ukraine in this war goes far beyond drones. They've also generated a wealth of intel from modern communications systems because, again, Russia simply doesn't have the command and control or logistics to communicate effectively with their forces. Time and time again we've seen Russian forces rely on easily snooped cell phones or other channels and Ukraine is all over this stuff. It's not clear to me that the Russian military has any ability to change this on the fly, so I expect that this will continue to be to Ukraine's advantage.

Finally, Ukraine is taking advantage of hacking (both through social engineering and otherwise) to glean valuable intelligence. Below is just one recent small example that has come to mind.

Overall, Ukraine has demonstrated that being able to operate at consumer technology speed, vs military technology speed is critical to their defense. This is obviously magnified by the fact that Russia is a corrupt kleptocracy with a military primarily focused on policing the Russian population first, and falsely projecting strength to the world second, but this is something that the US, China and other nations with actual 21st century militaries are surely paying attention to. It's going to be interesting to see how the US adapts strategy over the next few years with all of the learnings from this war.

---

This reads like a late 1990s article from Fast Company or Wired magazine.

Ukraine can hack into Russia's networks at will, yet it can't even track 70% of its weapons that get "lost" on the way to the front, finding their way to the international black market... This tells you how disconnected with reality that stuff you wrote above really is.

Ukraine is the poorest, most corrupt, oligarch -run country in Europe. It started out as the richest, most advanced, most industrialized state in the USSR but by 2020, even before the war, it was three times poorer than Russia per capita.

Ukraine's economy is on the verge of complete collapse and hyperinflation, while the corrupt kleptocracy of Russia somehow is sputtering along with an expected growth rate of 2% next year. Ukraine's economic collapse would suit many of its backers just fine, as Blackrock, Monsanto, Cargill et al would just snap up its wealth for pennies on the dollar.

movielover said:

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Colonel Douglass McGregor today - his sources say Bakhmut has fallen.

CDM: The next 48 hours may reveal if the remaining Ukrainian forces surrendered (hopefully), KIA, or other.

---

The Wagner troops are about to take the main square and city hall, but the city as a whole has not fallen yet. However the Ukrainians have been taking heavy losses on their main reinforcement lines into Bakhmut as well as in the north of town, in their attempt to break the encirclement, these lines being under heavy Russian shelling. So I think what MacGregor meant was that the outcome is not in doubt, but the battle is still raging.

The background here might be that NATO brass is upset at Zelensky pouring his military resources into Bakhmut instead of building up reserves to mount a Spring offensive, they would rather Ukraine concede Bakhmut, which already is in an operational encirclement situation.

At Biden’s “Summit for Democracy,” US allies in Europe demanded that Facebook censor “false narratives” and news that would “weaken our support to Ukraine.”

Facebook agreed.

This is totalitarianism.https://t.co/SwkuQMwZOt

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) March 30, 2023

I find Zelensky's recent statements on Bakhmut to be really interesting. With Kremlin propaganda, you pretty much know what you are going to get, but Ukraine messaging is quite different.

I think in large part that's because Zelensky is both managing expectations and using his comms to generate a certain response from supporting nations - with a primary focus on increasing the material support.

So that might cause him for example to publicly claim that a loss in Bakhmut would be problematic but his recent statement goes a bit beyond that.

Quote:

---

If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, their president, Vladimir Putin, would "sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran," Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

"If he will feel some blood smell that we are weak he will push, push, push," Zelenskyy said in English, which he used for virtually all of the interview.

---

Based on this, you would assume Zelensky is confident Bakhmut won't fall any time soon but it's possible that he's just sandbagging and knows Bakhmut's fall is imminent and wants Russia to revel in the success so that Ukraine's upcoming offensive will be more successful.

Setting aside the "imminent" fall of Bakhmut, which Russian trolls have been promising would happen within a few days for several months now, there is a lot of reason to believe that Russia's failure has been compounding.

First - their "winter offensive" has been an utter failure. They have made almost no progress and have sacrificed an inordinate number of men to take Bakhmut. The trolls told everyone that Russia was building a massive invasion force and that we just needed to wait to see what would happen when it was unleashed. Is anyone surprised that it didn't work out the way they said it would?

Second - they haven't done anything to degrade Ukraine's chances of success in their upcoming offensive. Ukraine has taken a lot of it's A players out of the game to train on new equipment and they will be redeployed when Ukraine mounts its offensive, whenever that is. The Russian trolls point to the age/inexperience of the UFA forces holding Bakhmut without understanding why both of those things are bad for Russia. Russia is failing to defeat those forces, to say the least, and doesn't appear to understand why UFA is doing what they are doing.

Finally - it's pretty clear Russia has a structural manpower deficiency with their armed forces. This relates back to the point above about the fall mobilization. Russia is a totalitarian country that uses its armed forces domestically as a police force to quell dissent. That requires a massive commitment of manpower throughout the interior and makes it difficult for them to actually put forces to use offensively in Ukraine. Given how many casualties they have had, it's obvious that they haven't been able to deliver the men and munitions necessary to wage the war they want.

So now they are raising another 400k "volunteers." Does that really make any sense to anyone? We are a year in. If Russia has basically no casualties, as the disingenuous propaganda continues to claim on twitter and elsewhere, why would Russia continuously need to mobilize hundreds of thousands of new troops and yet not be able to make any impact on the battle field? There is a reason it doesn't make sense - because it's not true.

russia has 20 times the land mass than ukraine, it has to be protected, defended, and policed..
for russia to use that manpower he would have to strip both leaving the people to starve and riot.
a win for ukraine

— david D. (@secretsqrl123) March 28, 2023

offically there are over 600K in the russian police force... again can not really be stripped from russia for fear of civil unrest. "The latest data showed that approximately 600 thousand policemen operated in the country in 2017." wiki

— david D. (@secretsqrl123) March 28, 2023

so of the total.. thats over 1.3 million that can not be touched by the military for the ukr operations...
another 1.1-1.4 million can not be used from the military.. (air defense, rocket forces, navy, airforce, etc). they are in strategic forces that do not shoot rifles

— david D. (@secretsqrl123) March 28, 2023

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 30 March 2023.

Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/U2ty7b1e7h

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/QweoSriH6U

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 30, 2023

As to whether Ukraine's upcoming offensive is successful, I think we really need to figure out how to define success here. Ukraine's last big offensive was "successful" but did not repel Russia. I don't think anything Ukraine can end this war any time soon because Russia will continue to send men into the meat grinder and doesn't count its losses. They will coerce more people from the stans to march to their death and they will lie about it to their population. As long as they aren't conscripting rich white Russians from Moscow, they can get away with it for a while longer.

I don't pretend to be a military expert and have no idea what UFA is really going to try to accomplish but I think it needs to be splashy and embarrassing for Putin because the only way this war ends is when Russian people demand Putin end the war.

Finally, found this tweet funny and apropos to this thread.

Macgregor has said Bakhmut has fallen since July and Ritter is a child abuser twice convicted so no wonder he loves Russia, wonder if thats why you love Russia so much 🤔

— Mordor is Losing, Cope (@KSwaggest) March 28, 2023

Unsure. Zelensky has given mixed messages. He reportedly admitted to Japanese media that the efforts in Bakhmut have stripped the ability to mount a big offensive. Yesterday he admitted if Bakhmut falls, the pressure for a peace deal increases substantially.

The alleged surprise attack of 50,000 weaponized drones will be interesting. Can Russia defend against them, and is China playing both sides of the fence?

Things could get ugly when the ground solidifies.

Well done, Vlad.

BREAKING:

The Turkish Parliament just voted to approve Finland’s NATO membership application.

276 MPs voted for it, 0 were against.

All 30 NATO member states have now approved it. Finland is certain to join.

NATO expansion just became a fact.

🇹🇷🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/qOEvjbLpTj

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 30, 2023

sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

BREAKING:

The Turkish Parliament just voted to approve Finland’s NATO membership application.

276 MPs voted for it, 0 were against.

All 30 NATO member states have now approved it. Finland is certain to join.

NATO expansion just became a fact.

🇹🇷🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/qOEvjbLpTj

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 30, 2023

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Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

NATO can't even make shells.

dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

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Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

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Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

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So NATO is the big bad dominant global threat or . . . not?

Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

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Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

---

The world's authoritarian states are sympathetic to Russia. What a surprise.

So is the GOP - who are coincidentally the same group of people undermining American confidence in fair elections and democracy.

Things that make you go hmmmm

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

---

Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

---

Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

---

So NATO is the big bad dominant global threat or . . . not?

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Yes.

Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

---

Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

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Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

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No, they have not. This is very wrong. But that is what happens when you listen to russian media and nothing else. You are wrong. A lot.

Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

---

Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

---

Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

---

So NATO is the big bad dominant global threat or . . . not?

---

Yes.

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But how is this possible when Russia is lining up so much support from so many powerful nations? I don't understand.

Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

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Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

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Brazil condemned Russia.
https://t.co/PEFT8yxaHr

— Involution (@Involution88) March 25, 2023

Here is the bottom line, Brazil is stepping up its involvement in BRICS, taking a front role in the leadership of the newly created BRICS bank, to be based in Shanghai:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Dilma-Rousseff-Elected-President-Of-BRICS-New-Development-Bank-20230324-0016.html

Brazil also turned down military support of Ukraine, like the rest of Latin America:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-31/lula-rejects-weapons-to-ukraine-plan-proposed-by-germany-s-scholz?leadSource=uverify%20wall

https://mronline.org/2023/02/02/latin-america-refuses-to-send-ukraine-weapons-despite-western-pressure/

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

---

Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

---

Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

---

So NATO is the big bad dominant global threat or . . . not?

---

Yes.

---

But how is this possible when Russia is lining up so much support from so many powerful nations? I don't understand.

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Perhaps Jeffrey Sachs can help you here, he does a great job of explaining the Wolfowitz Doctrine that has been driving US foreign policy the last few decades, using his personal experience as an official adviser to several governments:



Sachs: "if you believe that the key is you have to be number one, then you look at any other success story as a threat. If you believe in an open cooperative world, then you celebrate the success of others, I am in the latter camp, but that's not the foreign policy of the United States."

I am in his camp.

Deutsche Welle, the PBS of Germany, on the current situation in Bakhmut:

Bakhmut: “Resources are so scarce that the Ukrainian commanders are forcing even the wounded to fight”
-> That’s a rough truth bomb for a German news outlet … pic.twitter.com/HcMvyvSjji

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) March 30, 2023

Ukrainian army losing 200 troops/day in Bakhmut (probably a conservative estimate), situation so critical that they are forcing the wounded to return to the front after 48hrs. Quoting a Ukrainian soldier, "we don't feel like human beings, we feel like meat".

"To the last Ukrainian"
Lindsay Graham.

Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

---

Putin is winning like Charlie Sheen

---

Russia has lined up China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, UAE, practically all of Africa and the Global South.

NATO has ...Finland.

---

So NATO is the big bad dominant global threat or . . . not?

---

Yes.

---

But how is this possible when Russia is lining up so much support from so many powerful nations? I don't understand.

---

Sachs: "if you believe that the key is you have to be number one, then you look at any other success story as a threat. If you believe in an open cooperative world, then you celebrate the success of others, I am in the latter camp, but that's not the foreign policy of the United States."

---

Too bad this wasn't the foreign policy of Russia either.

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Too bad this wasn't the foreign policy of Russia either.

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At the risk of repeating myself, Russia has its red lines, these were very well known, and deliberately crossed in a game of geopolitics - with Ukraine as a pawn.

Lindsay Graham is prepared to arm Ukraine
"until the last Ukrainian". pic.twitter.com/dHXpMGILc3

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) August 11, 2022

Beyond this, regime change in Russia, and the dismantling of that country and its resources (much like what was accomplished in the 90s) has been the main NATO policy objective for Russia, with the war in Ukraine being the main tool towards that purpose, as clearly outlined by Zbignew Brzezinski in his "Grand Chessboard" policy book.

sycasey said:

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Yugoslavia didn't exist 24 years ago. It had already broken itself up.

What NATO was doing there was trying to stop the Serbian genocide in Kosovo.

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Bingo.
Glenn Diesen is just another "puppet" for RT.

Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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dajo9 said:

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sycasey said:

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Well done, Vlad.

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Too bad this wasn't the foreign policy of Russia either.

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At the risk of repeating myself, Russia has its red lines, these were very well known, and deliberately crossed in a game of geopolitics - with Ukraine as a pawn.

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Nothing is Russia's fault, I know.

^Have you read a book in the last couple of years, that wasn't a Porsche user manual?

Perhaps I could recommend the one just cited above:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives



Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book The Grand Chessboard featured this map (also published in the CFR journal Foreign Affairs), illustrating plans to break up Russia.

Sorry bro.
I've been busy reading in the Wall Street Journal about how the Russian economy is going into the crapper.



Russia's Economy Is Starting to Come Undone - WSJ