Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to eastsideTim :
Zelenskyy has stated that Crimea is considered to be Ukrainian territory and they will be taking that back, too.
Yup, that's why I made the "extraordinarily accommodating" comment.
Ya'll hear that Russia attacked Germany*?
*technically, at least
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/strikes-hit-building-that-houses-german-consulate-kyiv-germany-says-2022-10-10/
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I just pulled this off my shelf to confirm my recollection of the cover photo. If anyone has an interest in the insidiousness of Stalin's USSR, this is a great book to track down.
In reply to 02Pilot :
That's how socialism always goes. Anyone who thinks any other possibility exists is dishonest. The ideals cannot overcome human nature.
aircooled said:O2, I suspect you have watched The Death of Stalin? I have heard it is pretty good and reasonably accurate even though it's very much satire? Any thoughts on it?
It's a great movie. It is impressive how they managed to get the important historical details right, while not getting hung up on little stuff. To say the satire is biting is a considerable understatement. The more you know about Stalin's rule going in the more you'll appreciate the skill of the filmmakers, but there's something for everyone (at least everyone with a dark sense of humor).
Watching it now. It's pretty good, and as noted probably pretty close to might be going on soon.
Vasily Stalin: [watching his ice hockey team] When we play Hungary, are we allowed to use guns?
Ice Hockey Coach: Comrade General, these are the best I could find since the plane crash.
Vasily Stalin: What plane crash? There was never a plane crash.
[to Tarasov]
Vasily Stalin: Was there a plane crash?
[Tarasov shakes his head]
Vasily Stalin: Soviet planes do not crash, and Stalin's son does not f up.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to 02Pilot :
That's how socialism always goes. Anyone who thinks any other possibility exists is dishonest. The ideals cannot overcome human nature.
There have been dictatorships under every sort of economic system though. Is there something about workers owning a factory together that causes dictatorships?
To my point of the pressures Putin is facing from hardliners, this BBC piece offers some evidence.
More random E36 M3 coming from the Kremlin https://www.newsweek.com/american-states-that-wish-join-russia-will-considered-says-duma-member-1750336
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In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
Cool, can they take California and New York and maybe Chicago?
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:More random E36 M3 coming from the Kremlin https://www.newsweek.com/american-states-that-wish-join-russia-will-considered-says-duma-member-1750336
OK is that real? It's silly, even by Russian standards.
bobzilla said:In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
Cool, can they take California and New York and maybe Chicago?
No, but Indiana and Florida are in negotiations.
bobzilla said:In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
Cool, can they take California and New York and maybe Chicago?
I'm not sure we'd want to give them the 6th largest economy in the world where a big chunk of our food comes from.
Updates (the last one is VERY Russia):
The October 10 Russian attacks wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces successfully completed the mission of striking Ukrainian military command centers, signal infrastructure, and energy systems in Ukraine.[12] Social media shows that Russians instead hit a children’s playground, a park, a German consulate, and a business center among other non-military targets.[13] Ukrainian air defenses also shot down half of the Russian drones and cruise missiles. Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid will not likely break Ukraine’s will to fight, but Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts.
z31maniac said:bobzilla said:In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
Cool, can they take California and New York and maybe Chicago?
I'm not sure we'd want to give them the 6th largest economy in the world where a big chunk of our food comes from.
Besides, we've already sold it to China.
I dream for the say when interstate rivalry is about actually, genuinely awful things states have done to each other. Like Texas stealing New Mexico's water and such.
In reply to aircooled :
Hitting the German Consulate is like, Russia playing chicken with Article 5. And I'm pretty sure they didn't even mean to, their missiles are just THAT E36 M3.
Online sources say most power and water was back in 3-4 hours. The Zaphorista nuclear plant is still on emergency generators and is still under Rashist control, god knows if that's another pressure cooker or not.
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.
I was thinking this morning that Ukraine is a shining example of a country having the right leader at the right time.
The October 10 Russian attacks wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces successfully completed the mission of striking Ukrainian military command centers, signal infrastructure, and energy systems in Ukraine.[12] Social media shows that Russians instead hit a children’s playground, a park, a German consulate, and a business center among other non-military targets.[13] Ukrainian air defenses also shot down half of the Russian drones and cruise missiles. Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid will not likely break Ukraine’s will to fight, but Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts.
I continue to be confused by this. Instead of hitting primarily military targets, the Russians hit civilian targets. I am not any kind of military strategist*, but even I can see that this is a waste of munitions.
*I am bad at WOW and WOT so my opinion means nothing.
Scott
Noddaz said:The October 10 Russian attacks wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces successfully completed the mission of striking Ukrainian military command centers, signal infrastructure, and energy systems in Ukraine.[12] Social media shows that Russians instead hit a children’s playground, a park, a German consulate, and a business center among other non-military targets.[13] Ukrainian air defenses also shot down half of the Russian drones and cruise missiles. Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid will not likely break Ukraine’s will to fight, but Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts.
I continue to be confused by this. Instead of hitting primarily military targets, the Russians hit civilian targets. I am not any kind of military strategist*, but even I can see that this is a waste of munitions.
*I am bad at WOW and WOT so my opinion means nothing.
Scott
You could say it's colleteral damage, except it appears they aren't even trying to hit anything remotely strategic. It's like they are skeet shooting with a sawed off shotgun.. If their strategy is to terrorize Ukrainian citizens into suing for peace, well, it hasn't worked so far and it isn't likely to anytime in the future.
Noddaz said:I continue to be confused by this. Instead of hitting primarily military targets, the Russians hit civilian targets. I am not any kind of military strategist*, but even I can see that this is a waste of munitions....
As I mentioned before, this seems to be a very "emotional" response to being embarrassed by the bridge attack. His primary goal was likely showing insiders that he is "doing something" and hitting notable targets, but there is clearly a tint of spite in there by hitting things that will shock the public (but likely just piss them off and motivate them)
It's likely they did target infrastructure (electrical grid seems to be their popular target recently), but those don't make the news as much, and as noted, many of the missiles where intercepted and those areas may be better defended (because of the likelihood of attacks)
Translation: It's like in WOT or WOW if another player calls your mom a whore and you launch an attack to blow up his Pikachu statue that he loves. 
(yes, I realize that's not a thing)
There's also the targeting aspect to consider. Ukraine's intelligence services have been busy rooting out people who may have been providing targeting information to Russia earlier in the conflict, and Russia's drones don't seem particularly effective, nor do they have a high survival rate. I don't know a lot about their real-time satellite intel capabilities, but they certainly lack anything like the US Rivet Joint or other advanced battlefield reconnaissance airframes. Long story short, cities, power plants, rail yards, etc. don't move. If you need to hit something to keep the hardliners content, but you don't know where there's anything especially militarily valuable to target, you default to stuff that's easily targeted. At least you can say you hit the city you were aiming at, instead of making a big crater in the field you thought might have a had a HIMARS in it last Thursday.
Yahoo.com: Belarus to transfer military personnel to 17 km from border with Ukraine
Quote: "According to our information, in Yelsk (Gomel region, Belarus) exercises will be held near the buildings of the local traffic police and the district executive committee, in the coming days". (Right next to a music school.)
I bet a million bucks that somehow, those troops get blown up in Poopin's next false flag operation.
So in terms of the targeting- lets say that they were targeting infrastructure and at the same time didn't care what so ever that they hit civilians. It's not as if they were not targeting apartments and whatnot in the past.
This is really curious- and kind of shows that vlad isn't a terribly good historian.
Back in WWII, Germans, British, and Americans all bombed civilian targets. With intent, I should point out.
The Germans hoped that the BofB would demoralize the English. In fact, it had the opposite effect.
Where it gets weird, when the British and Americans bombed Germans- they actually knew that happened. And it did happen to the Germans until the bombing got so bad that it really did affect thing very badly. But took a LOT, and much of that collateral damage was the morale of the troops worrying about home.
But that's a very different discussion.
The important part is that strategic bombing of civilians typically hardens the population against the attackers instead of making them want to give up. It's terribly tragic that civilians are being killed, but vlad and his buds are just making Ukrainians more mad at him, and may make more of them sign up to boot them out of their country.
Let alone a waste of useful weapons against military.
Ukraine seems to have had a significant impact on the ability for russia to continue this war, and russia has done more the opposite of what they intended- making it even harder to win. BTW, one of the U of T channels got their power back in Kiev while they were filming the update. So the infrastructure damage wasn't that bad.
In reply to alfadriver :
The idea of bombing civilians to impact morale dates back to Giulio Douhet's 1921 book The Command of the Air, which was quite influential. Of course, it proved quite incorrect when tested in WW2. US bombing against Germany was targeted against quite specific target sets, mostly aimed at disrupting key logistics nodes. Trouble was, the Norden bombsight was a lot less accurate than the advertising suggested, and it turned out that a lot more bombs were needed to actually hit the target; the ones that missed tended to hit the often-adjacent cities. US bombing of Japan, and UK bombing of Germany, were more about expressly destroying civilian populations ("It made sense to kill skilled workers", according to one USAAF general speaking on the bombing of Japan).
I recommend Robert Pape's Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, if you have an interest in the effectiveness of bombing in achieving political objectives.
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