Russian Troop Movements Reported Near Ukraine

[spicyparsnip]

Special Ops Heaven.
Not only have you got a $40 billion dollar blank cheque for Gucci kit, but it's all easily justifiable !

"300 Electric motorcycles, fitted with dual NLAW launchers and sniper rifle carrying boots, as requested"
"Great! We can really use those. Now, got any Aston Martin DB5s with ejection seats and machine guns?"
"You really need those?"
"Oh, yah"

"..ooh, and personal jet packs?"
"I'll see what I can do"
"By Tuesday, thanks"

Thing is, have you seen some of those bloody E-Bikes that *CAN* do a bloody mad speed, and silent too? Only one fault though while OOOps is where are you going to charge the bloody things? Or are they thinking along the lines of kamikaze attacks or get as close as possible and just off while said bike goes hurtling off towards target?

I am a little surprised a little niche company isn't knocking up a shed load of DIY drones made of square section ally mated up to a couple of ally sheets where you then have some standoffs for something called a ArduCopter, some decent motors and fibre glass props. Bang in a LiPo 5300Mah battery and whoosh! They are capable of holding a fair bit of weight as well, think 15 min range with the weight of something Canon DSLR sized. You'd get a lot of *BANG* if you swapped said camera for something a bit more, well, you know what!

And the cost? Not a lot as the late Paul Daniels would say.

Fair enough, said little drone would be saying bye bye but imagine a load of these being knocked up and just being precision flown towards t'bad guys.

BOOM!

 

[Dave-the-rave]

Great video , Russians in their metal box of their own death. Hope they never made it back.

The whole video is here. The guy with the camera was captured by Uke forces.

 

[Aolain]

Two other notorious contrary arrseholes.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/us-ukraine-aid-rand-paul-senate

As an American, Trump is a disgrace. But he is The Messiah to his followers.

 

[Cable_Ties]

Reading this from the Express,

"Vladimir Putin has reportedly sent General Rustam Muradov, known as an "experienced punisher", to lead reluctant Russian troops into combat in Ukraine.

General Mustov, the Deputy Commander of the Southern Military District, steered a joint Russian force in Syria. According to Ukraine’s SBU security service, he has been tasked with restoring order to Putin's units after troops caused an uproar over their hesitance to fight Ukrainian defenders.

A message from the SBU on Telegram on Thursday, May 12, read: "Russian occupiers are afraid to clash with Ukrainian defenders, so riots in the enemy army are becoming widespread.

"In order to somehow curb them, Moscow is sending 'experienced punishers' to Ukraine."

In an intercept of a conversation between a Russian soldier and his father disclosed by the agency, the soldier was cited as saying: "Well, Muradov came and arranged a show trial because no one wanted to advance.

"The company commanders did not want to send their soldiers to their deaths.

"And the guys themselves were not ready.

"He [Muradov] theatrically punished the company commanders yesterday, stripped them, they emptied their pockets, he tied their hands behind their backs, loaded them into trucks and took them away."

Disproportionately large losses among Russia's military and evidently slow advances in the country's invasion of Ukraine call into question whether Putin has considered reassessing his war ambitions."

( Yes I do read an array of publications!)


Flogging one's troops into battle has to be a serious indication of desperation!

An excellent way to motivate your troops because, obviously, things are going so well you can afford to arrest your OC's.

Sometimes I feel like I've slipped into an alternate reality when I read about the latest Russian shenanigans.

 

[Lardbeast]

Commander In Ukraine Wants Quiet Electric Bikes For His Sniper Teams U.S. special operations forces have eyed electronic motorbikes to swiftly sneak up on enemies and now Ukrainian forces are following suit.

Yup. Clearly they have the infrastructure in the battle zone to support it. Might be for urban ops. Not sure I'd want to be dragging battery dead weight around in the shateen. There's mountain bike off road and then there's patrol area denial off road. Guess which one is easier to ambush.

 

[whatnow?]

This could get interesting very quickly.

Invade Poland ....are they mad ...if they didn't have nukes I think the poles would have started east after seeing the Russian gong show in Ukraine.

 

[Whining Civvy]

Invade Poland ....are they mad ...if they didn't have nukes I think the poles would have started east after seeing the Russian gong show in Ukraine.

I suspect NATO membership has reined the Poles in very well, if they weren't in the Polish Army would have been in Ukraine quite early on and the war would either be over or immeasurably larger in scale than it is now.

 

[whatnow?]

Reading this from the Express,

"Vladimir Putin has reportedly sent General Rustam Muradov, known as an "experienced punisher", to lead reluctant Russian troops into combat in Ukraine.

General Mustov, the Deputy Commander of the Southern Military District, steered a joint Russian force in Syria. According to Ukraine’s SBU security service, he has been tasked with restoring order to Putin's units after troops caused an uproar over their hesitance to fight Ukrainian defenders.

A message from the SBU on Telegram on Thursday, May 12, read: "Russian occupiers are afraid to clash with Ukrainian defenders, so riots in the enemy army are becoming widespread.

"In order to somehow curb them, Moscow is sending 'experienced punishers' to Ukraine."

In an intercept of a conversation between a Russian soldier and his father disclosed by the agency, the soldier was cited as saying: "Well, Muradov came and arranged a show trial because no one wanted to advance.

"The company commanders did not want to send their soldiers to their deaths.

"And the guys themselves were not ready.

"He [Muradov] theatrically punished the company commanders yesterday, stripped them, they emptied their pockets, he tied their hands behind their backs, loaded them into trucks and took them away."

Disproportionately large losses among Russia's military and evidently slow advances in the country's invasion of Ukraine call into question whether Putin has considered reassessing his war ambitions."

( Yes I do read an array of publications!)


Flogging one's troops into battle has to be a serious indication of desperation!

 

[retread2]

This case and any to follow would be a supreme test for the Ukraine justice system. It's very welcome that the ICC have opened their own extensive investigation, but Ukraine (being the State where the alleged crime took place) has the primary jurisdiction. [There is a potential legal argument about whether jurisdiction passed when an "invasion" becomes an "occupation", but that might not be a strong argument in this case.]

This will bear very close watching, I agree. You may turn out to be right, but it would be interesting to know what basis you have for assuming that "all checks and balances" are not "open to scrutiny" if the case proceeds in Ukraine.

I'm conscious that there are also "reprisal" arguments against proceeding now, in other words that Russia may retaliate by bringing trumped up charges against Ukrainian POW in their hands. That however isn't a "justice" argument.

Ultimately, as with other crimes the primary reason for prosecution of war crimes is to deter their commission - to make potential perpetrators aware that they may face detection and punishment
- which is an argument for not delaying prosecution if there is clear prima facie evidence.

Just my initial comment on a potentially complex subject; I appreciate that other views are available on what is, so far, fairly limited information. Let's see how this develops.

There are two issues from my (personal) perspective: justice and Ukraine's ongoing info ops campaign. They have to be seen (by the world) to be scrupulously correct. Why not invite Russia to provide a defence lawyer? They certainly wouldn't provide one, they may not understand what one is, but it’s the optics that matter. Perhaps a lawyer from a neutral country? I might earlier have suggested Sweden, but they are moving away from neutrality.

I've read somewhere that the accused has blamed the orders he was given, so perhaps he's pleading guilty and relying on that as mitigation.

Obviously it should be a completely open trial with the reptiles of the world's media invited. Perhaps observers from the ICC as well.

 

[ThunderBox]

Invade Poland ....are they mad ...if they didn't have nukes I think the poles would have started east after seeing the Russian gong show in Ukraine.

Wow, if Poland support Nazis then it must be a NATO issue, institutional naziism?

The dangerous thing with claiming everyone else is a Nazi, then no one is, thereby diluting the extreme far right danger.

 

[Tricky1982]

Invade Poland ....are they mad ...if they didn't have nukes I think the poles would have started east after seeing the Russian gong show in Ukraine.

If the Russians think they're having it tough in Ukraine, they have no idea what fresh hell would await them if they tried it in Poland...

 

[ThunderBox]

If the Russians think they're having it tough in Ukraine, they have no idea what fresh hell would await them if they tried it in Poland...

NATO air power for a start, I think it’s safe to say they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it, would be surprised if they got 100 meters from the start line!

You would then see the difference from ‘invest in drones’ to the 80 SDB dropped from one B-2 Bomber! That’s where quality in quantity has a class of its own.

 

[HectortheInspector]

As an American, Trump is a disgrace. But he is The Messiah to his followers.

But he isn't the Messiah.He's just a naughty boy.

(Apologies to Life of Brian, but "naughty" isn't enough for 'malignant, narcissistic infantile half wit.")

 

[HectortheInspector]

ISW report reckons the Russians have thrown in the towel at Kharkhiv, and are extracting their forces, leaving their wretched separatist auxiliaries to hold the line.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-13

 

[Grownup_Rafbrat]

That is typical Russian tactics, doing exactly the same thing again and again where they had been handed a severe kicking. The Germans noited this in wqw2, Ivan would attack the same point of a line again and again, same time of day etc, this clearly produced some horrendous casualty lists.

Let's hope Ivan keeps it up, it is looking like it!

Colonel Melchett Walts!

 

[Grownup_Rafbrat]

But he isn't the Messiah.He's just a naughty boy.

(Apologies to Life of Brian, but "naughty" isn't enough for 'malignant, narcissistic infantile half wit who knew that Germany wasn't meeting its obligations to NATO and told them to get a grip.")

 

[PuriPuriManTumas]

Nice bit of trolling by the Antipodeans

Wow, that's an original thought, isn't it ... must be the time difference, hey!

 

[Jacl]

This is turning into a top month for moon howling weirdness

That is a classic post for the God Botherers thread.

 

[HectortheInspector]

Wow, that's an original thought, isn't it ... must be the time difference, hey!

The Aussies are losing their touch.
They could have gone for
"Russian Embassy, go F#@# yourselves Street."

 

[Funbaby]

What are these?

I’ve seen pics of troops on both sides in the current unpleasantness rocking similar ass pads.

I assumed it was a personal cushion for riding in an a bare metal APC; but why would artillerymen be wearing them in action?

Ballistic bum protector?

Enquiring minds need to know.