Some 70 Ukrainian terrorists have been eliminated. According to the latest data, no civilians have been killed as a result of the sabotage group’s actions and 12 people were injured. An elderly woman died during evacuation.

  • @Shrike502
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    210 months ago

    Well it has arguably shown issues with Russian border defences. Defences, that were supposedly upgraded and enhanced last year

    • @KommandoGZD
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      710 months ago

      Why would anyone be willing to get themselves killed for that though is what baffles me. Like in their last moments on this earth, shells crashing around them, were these guys thinking “I gloriously died showing some issues with Russian border defence. I fulfilled my fate”? It’s such a nonsensical way to throw away your life. At least go die defending some trench or assaulting a village or whatever, even if it turns out to be a suicide mission too. There’s some heroism and purpose in that. This stunt was none of that. It’s just nothing but pointless and dumb.

      • @Shrike502
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        710 months ago

        Good question. I don’t know. Either it was copious amounts of propaganda and outright lies, but even then I’m not sure what they expected to accomplish. Perhaps they thought they could attack and retreat back, kinda like the North Caucasus militants did back in the day.

        Or maybe it’s drugs. There’s been rumours regarding the boatmen who were attempting to attack Zaporozhye plant. Supposedly they were just firing in front of themselves, glass eyed

    • @cfgaussian
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      10 months ago

      Not sure what issues you mean. As far as i can tell this was dealt with very professionally. It was cleaned up within 24 hours. Or did you expect Russian troops to be lined up along the physical border in trenches or bunkers or whatnot and trying to stop the Ukrainians from entering a single meter past the border? That’s not how you defend a border this long.

      For illustration purposes:

      It’s the difference between a Great Wall of China and a Roman Limes type of border defense. One is brittle the other is elastic. The latter allows you to be much more efficient with less resources, to preserve your own manpower since they are out of range of the enemy until the actual attack, and to maximize enemy casualties as you draw them into a cauldron.

      This article gives a good summary of what happened: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-52423-uas-desperate-belgorod

      • @Shrike502
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        410 months ago

        Or did you expect Russian troops to be lined up along the physical border in trenches or bunkers or whatnot and trying to stop the Ukrainians from entering a single meter past the border?

        Obviously not. I understand that the border is just too long to be entirely picketed. But I did expect this to be foreseen and adjusted for - i.e. that the main potential vectors would be mapped and appropriately controlled (infrared sensors or whatnot. We’re in the XXI century, not Roman empire). Most importantly, I expected the enemy to be detected before they stated shelling civilians. This time it was a relatively small group (with two tanks). Tomorrow it might be those 14 leopards Germany sent, with some chemical weapons on top (remember that AFU is actively using those). Perhaps it is idealistic of me, believing such matters to be simple. But there’s been mentions in the news that this particular area was supposed to be reinforced, quite expensively too. And the Ministry of defense main job is, well, defense. It’s bad enough that AFU can shell civilians within Russian border seemingly with no comeuppance, but now they can roll a tank in? I’m old enough to remember when terrorists in Caucasus would pull similar stunts, attacking towns. They did so with apparently less support from other countries. You’d think our generals would have studied those lessons.

        • @cfgaussian
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          10 months ago

          If even the terrorists in the Caucasus with much less help, much less equipment, and without the intel and recon capabilities of NATO behind them could pull off stunts like this what makes you expect that Ukraine cannot? At some point you just have to be realistic and not expect the Russian armed forces to perform miracles. The correct response is what matters when perfect prevention is not possible. As for what the Russian media claims, a lot of it is sensationalist. After all, they have an interest in generating controversy and getting clicks/viewers. Picking up on the smallest oversights or mistakes and exaggerating them into big blunders creates outrage, which is good for ratings and is to be expected.

          Anyway, it is virtually impossible even with modern technology to completely prevent all physical penetration of front lines that are this long. What deters the enemy is the certainty of failure and massive casualties. If someone is truly suicidal they will always find ways to cause chaos and do harm, but at least they can only do so once. In situations when they are desperate for a morale boost the Ukrainian leadership may be willing to make such sacrifices, but this is not a viable long term strategy, performing PR stunts to “humiliate” Russia and harm a few civilians at the cost of precious equipment and trained manpower that they are already struggling to replace.

          The main job of the Russian military is to defeat the enemy. These sorts of actions by the Ukrainians are ultimately self-defeating. They are also not exactly swimming in munitions at this point and as horrible and cynical as it sounds, in the military calculus every shell expended on civilian targets is one less shell used to degrade the opponent’s military potential, to attack or defend against the actual enemy army. Terrorism is simply counterproductive, it may be politically beneficial for Ukraine and embarrassing for Russia, but militarily it is useless, provided it does not provoke the enemy into doing something stupid.

        • @cfgaussian
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          10 months ago

          I think part of the problem and what creates these unrealistic expectations of invincibility is paradoxically the fact that Russian forces have been so incredibly effective and overwhelmingly dominating the Ukrainians on the battlefield. And it’s true that the level of military power is disproportionate but it’s not that disproportionate in a historical context. When the US engaged in its wars its enemies were way weaker relative to them than Ukraine is to Russia. And they have the huge advantage of waging war from across an entire ocean so their actual territory is protected.

          And yet they still got 9/11’d. And during their invasion of Iraq there were instances when Iraqi forces managed to penetrate much deeper into the invading alliance forces’ lines, and they did it with worse equipment, far worse intel, and with their enemy having complete, oppressive dominance of the skies.

          I sometimes try to imagine how these same Russians who are today getting so hysterical over every little Russian misstep, over every perceived loss, over every retreat of their own forces and every attack by the enemy on Russia itself would have reacted if they were alive during the Great Patriotic War. Hell, even during the German bombings of London after it had already become clear that they were going to lose the war. If the panic mongers and the doomers had been allowed to be as free as they are in today’s Russia it would have been mass hysteria. That alone shows you how much of a mountain is being made of a molehill here.

          And i am not in the slightest discounting the harm, injury and tragic loss of life to civilians that these terrorist attacks cause. All of that is awful, and all efforts should be made to mitigate that. And i also know it’s easy for me to say this living in a country that is not engaged in a war with a terrorist, fascist regime (unfortunately we are aiding said regime which is truly sickening…), but if you want to win wars you need to think rationally and not emotionally.