Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. Sit down around the fire place, if you have fire wood, please place it on the rack beside the fire. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
We have our own Matrix homeserver at https://genzedong.org; you can make an account with any Matrix client (e.g. Element). We also have a GenZedong Matrix room (see the sidebar for more information), and there’s a general Lemmygrad Matrix room at #internationale:genzedong.org.
Join our Discord if you are so inclined
Short reading list for new MLs here. To find theory (and other books), you can use z-lib, libgen, or Sci-Hub (for scientific articles). If an article is unavailable, try the Wayback Machine.
IIRC most of those nicknames came from Western media and defectors, and Surovikin seems quite proud of them (but they weren’t his own invention). Brutality-fetishizing seems to be very prevalent in the West, just look at how they nickname the new Sarmat missile “Satan II” or the “Son of Satan”
Those aren’t conscripts, those are reservists. They already have had training before; one does get rusty, but no one completely forgets. Even if there are issues with supplies and whatnot, they can simply supply some units first while delaying the deployments of the other units.
To put things in perspective, 300,000 is literally 150% of the original invasion force. If 200,000 soldiers, even with high-level blunders, can take 20% of Ukraine while inflicting a 10:1 casualty rate in favor of themselves, 500,000 soldiers will completely smash what’s left of the AFU
The Ukrainians ATM are so undersupplied its beyond ridiculous. Iskanders, Kalibrs, Geran’s, Krasnopols falling left and right, the power grid is down, the trains aren’t working, railway junctions are rubble, highways are subject to attacks by drones, etc. Russia will win even without the new soldiers, even without advancing. They were ALWAYS winning, from the very beginning, simply because they trapped Ukraine in a position of attrition that favored themselves. At times, Ukraine had the momentum, but when we look back in the history books 100 years from now, the “Kharkov counteroffensive” probably won’t even be mentioned.