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What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

reuters.com

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Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#571

Post by sharikous »

ashwagary wrote: post #455
AlexandrB wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory is that, in addition to (1), Putin believed his own propaganda and thought that the Ukrainian people (and even parts of the Ukrainian military) would welcome Russia with open arms. This is somewhat backed up by Putin urging the Ukrainian military to perform a coup on the second day of the war[1]. [1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/putin-urges-ukraine-military-to-o...

According to reports on French news channels, Zelenskyy is considered a puppet by a large % of the population in eastern Ukraine and they are welcoming a Russian invasion. Years ago, I was also suprised to hear people in Crimea celebrating post-Russian take over. This topic was never covered (at least I had seen no mention) in American media during the Crimean invasion.

If you want to understand a topic you have to hear all sides.

Yep there is substance in some Russian points

- Ukraine is, somewhat, artificial as a country (bear with me)

- In Crimea a lot of people celebrated the takeover. The referendum was rigged but there was a tangible popular support

- In Donbass some people are not really fans of the Ukrainian government. I know people from Donetsk that prefer the Russians

- People in Donbass suffered from continuous shelling from Ukrainian forces (I don't want to emphasize the "Nazi" affiliation of the Azov brigade because it's a propaganda point but yes, there have been incidents and civilians suffered). Donbass reminds me of Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and I can see both sides

- Yes EU and the US pushed for bringing Ukraine into the West and funded their people there

- There is definitely a very high level of corruption in Ukraine, especially in the political echelon. Some EU-friendly policies have been obtained by corruption

That said I agree with most of the criticism of Putin's regime too. And of course invading a country that is becoming more democratic precisely because they want to defend themselves from you is a crime.

And Ukraine is a bit artificial (not 100% artificial but it's not a country with an established culture and identity) but it's exactly those events, like this war, that make it more and more real. The Ukrainian identity is becoming stronger and stronger hour by hour.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#572

Post by stjohnswarts »

dogleash wrote: post #499
vintermann wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm pretty sure the stuff we "web software pukes" have to work with would drive all those old-timer Real Engineers crazy in its own way. It's a bit like how a middle school teacher doesn't necessarily have an easier job than a prestigious professor.

Preface: I used to work in embedded control systems, now I shovel ads for a living. nah fam, we've got it so much easier. You should kick up your feet and enjoy it, or you'll drive yourself crazy.

Yeah digging through 2000 page reference manuals and looking for 1 bit differences with nothing other than a serial port/memory debugger is a lot harder than putting up a web page. Now backend stuff at scale is similar complexity. I still do embedded, but I also help/design on the web front ends for said devices :)

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#573

Post by paulmd »

nomel wrote: post #104
blast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known. And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent. There's an active war. If history has taught us anything, psyops is as sure as death, in war.

> And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent.

Definitely. You're not going to hear about the encounters where the Russians smoke the Ukrainians and they have serious loss of life/equipment or don't come back at all.

Not that there's not a lot of organic sentiment around the world, but Ukraine seems to have a very good PR corps pushing news of their victories and memes about the situation. And unlike a lot of these attempts, they aren't "how do you do fellow kids" type shit where it's super obvious.

Exhibit A: the Ghost of Kiev. Regardless of whether he exists or not, he's a great case study in propaganda.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#574

Post by phkahler »

jnwatson wrote: post #445
lmohseni wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have footage of cluster bombs striking civilian apartment buildings in Kharkiv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZuKEwuZznw

It is important to distinguish between strategic and tactical decisions. Russia has made a strategic decision to avoid heavy bombers due to the high likelihood of civilian casualties. Some platoon commander launched a rocket barrage for whatever reason. Command discipline isn’t perfect, especially among new recruits, so individual deviations are to be expected.

Don't forget, every media outlet that isn't Russian is going to show those incidents to the world to make that bad guys look bad. We're also not likely to see any wins against Ukrainian military targets for both political and practical reasons. So it's very hard to tell from these reports what the overall picture really is.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#575

Post by tapas73 »

foverzar wrote: post #211
watwut wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They expected to win quickly and easily - and are shocked it did not happened. Whether they pull the punches will be seen later. Historically, there was not much holding back punches between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading about Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as genocide or not. For that matter, historically, Russia holding punches was not exactly the thing. Not even toward Russians. Th…

> Historically, there was not much holding back punches between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading about Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as genocide or not. This is such a demagogy and a narrow-sighted view of history. It is always brought up only for the purpose of pouring more oil on the flames and turning up nationalistic tensions. Holodomor has nothing to do with Ukrainians or Russians.…

Some proof would be nice.

Wikipedia mentions that it is contested if it is intentional or not.

Personaly for me, intentionality doesn't seem far fetched, given gulags, forced relocations to siberia without supplies and liberal presentation of history/facts (ussr guides said that kaliningrad is russian from olden times).

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#576

Post by Bayart »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #437
Cd00d wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suzerainty You can't just lob a hundred dollar word out like that! I spent several moments trying to figure out what your typo was before allowing the possibility that you didn't have one. a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy

suzerain (n.) "sovereign, ruler," 1807, from French suzerain (14c., Old French suserain), noun use of adjective meaning "sovereign but not supreme," Sovereign but not supreme is a good way to remember it, it’s like a baby name of ‘supreme’ :)

Using Anglo-Saxon etymons it would be "overlord", I guess.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#577

Post by nacs »

redisman wrote: post #418
saiya-jin wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy - imagine massive, gargantuan corruption. On all levels, including the very top and going all the way to the lowest soldier. Heck, they were selling gas to Belarus civilians from their own machines while waiting just across the border during February. And then they ran out of it in Ukraine. Can you imagine US or western Europe soldiers doing something similar en masse? And its not just that - heavy drinking,…

China won’t invade anyone. They haven’t had any battles in a long time. They can just take over with soft power since Russia is in a extremely weak position in a few months.

> China won’t invade anyone

Except Hong Kong (and the "expansion" of the South China Sea).

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#578

Post by Bayart »

rendall wrote: post #553
Cd00d wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suzerainty You can't just lob a hundred dollar word out like that! I spent several moments trying to figure out what your typo was before allowing the possibility that you didn't have one. a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy

Are the States of the US suzerains of the Federal government?

The other way around. In feudal terms (where "suzerain" belongs), the US States would be vassals to the US governement.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#579

Post by pydry »

jopsen wrote: post #509
vintermann wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start draining the country immediately. Also, assuming any of the responsible thought about this beforehand at all (which IS an assumption), they probably expected further economic sanctions of SOME sort from invading. Rebuilding costs money. Rebuilding things like high-tech fighter aircraft costs truly ridiculous amounts of money. There were plenty of reasons…

> There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be able to do this all on a modest budget. Indeed NATO certainly expected Ukrainians to just surrender. Which is probably why they didn't get a no-fly-zone, strategic ambiguity, or other things like that from the US and friends.

That might have had more to do with the threat of nuclear war.

The west isnt going to sacrifice itself to save kyiv.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#580

Post by Karsteski »

jihadjihad wrote: post #374
Cd00d wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suzerainty You can't just lob a hundred dollar word out like that! I spent several moments trying to figure out what your typo was before allowing the possibility that you didn't have one. a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy

It's an exquisite word. I too was ignorant of its existence until I played Civilization VI, where you can become the suzerain of a city-state.

I also only know the word suzerain from Civ VI haha. Certainly learnt a lot more history and gained a lot more interest in historical texts after playing Civ, far more so than school ever did....
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