• DamarcusArt
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    7 months ago

    Looks like the western press is going for the “Ukraine is losing because they are incompetent Asiatics” right on schedule. This is the first wave of that stuff, they’ll be actively blaming them for being cowardly and lazy within a few months.

    • Addfwyn
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      7 months ago

      “Who could have known that Ukraine was so corrupt!? If only they were as brave and hardworking as us western Europeans, Russia would have surrendered already”

      • DamarcusArt
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        7 months ago

        Damn, you could write for WatPo with prose like that.

    • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Shit, anyone remember how mad they got over the Afghani puppet gov’t not continuing to send men to die fighting a war even their master intended for them to lose?

      We’re seeing how the media would have reacted if they decided to reach the same outcome while sacrificing an entire generation of young men (and now women).

  • Tommasi [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Everyone who wanted to volunteer for war came a long time ago - it’s too hard now to tempt people with money. Now we’re getting those who didn’t manage to escape the draft. You’ll laugh at this, but some of our marines can’t even swim.

    Harrowing stuff, I can’t even imagine being put into a situation like this against your will.

    I’m starting to doubt if Zelensky is gonna last another year. He’s seems to be getting more and more criticism, from higher up the chain of command too. I guess that’s unavoidable as the war goes on, but his response is always to claim it isn’t true and keep begging nato for bigger guns, which I can’t imagine is great at placating unrest.

    • lil_tank
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      7 months ago

      This kind of scenario reminds me of WWI. I wouldn’t be optimistic for a progressive revolution given the state of ideology but maybe we’ll have an anti-west coup in Ukraine which would be one step

  • HaSch
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    7 months ago

    I wonder who of these strategists had the brilliant idea to drip-feed amphibious landing parties into a fully manned frontline in an area under complete enemy surveillance in the middle of losing a war of attrition

      • cfgaussianOP
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        7 months ago

        I’m not sure it was the US’s idea. Same as with Bakhmut i think they were telling Ukraine to stop throwing away resources on other fronts and just put everything they have into attacking in Zaporozhye to cut the land bridge. (Which is also bad advice since that was the most highly fortified and mined section of the front as we saw, and concentrating assets like that just makes them easier targets for Russian artillery, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

        I think the Dnieper crossing gambit was a British idea, they are enamored with these sorts of flashy special forces operations whereas the Americans favor simpler brute force solutions (usually involving just bombing everything from the air, something which cannot be done against Russian AD).

        • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          7 months ago

          I was just listening to the trashfuture episode on the Falklands war, and fuck me if it isn’t exactly the same thing.

          Like, this shit

          From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paraquet

          On the next day, the 15 men of Mountain troop, led by Captain Gavin Hamilton, were airlifted onto Fortuna glacier by two Wessex helicopters. They were immediately confronted with extreme conditions including 100 mph winds and freezing temperatures. Deep crevasses slowed the advance, and when the men attempted to set up camp and wait out the storm, their tents were swept away by the wind. Finally, after 15 hours on the glacier, Captain Hamilton requested evacuation, with the message “Unable to move. Environmental casualties imminent.” Three Wessex helicopters were dispatched from the Task Force: two Wessex Mk5s from Tidespring and one Mk3 from Antrim. After one failed attempt, they managed to locate and embark the stranded SAS men, but in whiteout conditions, one pilot became disorientated and his aircraft crashed. The passengers were loaded onto the two remaining helicopters, but soon afterwards one of these hit a ridge and crashed, though once again without any serious casualties. The last Wessex, Antrim′s Mk3, after having offloaded its troops on board the destroyer returned to the glacier and after two failed attempts managed to retrieve the downed SAS and aircrew, though their equipment had to be abandoned. The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Ian Stanley, managed to nurse his overloaded aircraft back to Antrim and make an emergency landing on her flight deck, for which he was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order.[9][10]

          They’re so desperate to do special forces stuff, they are so absolutely obsessed with a squad of elite supersoldiers doing what no one else dares, overcoming all odds through grit and determination by being superior heroic individuals. And then, when all that failed, the Royal Navy bombarded the hills opposite the Argentinian position and they surrendered immediately with no further shots fired.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    they knew exactly where to find us

    Gotta wonder if the US-privately-owned-and-operated intelligence systems are fatally compromised or simply selling info, Catch-22 Milo Style, to highest bidders.

      • cfgaussianOP
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        7 months ago

        That and Russia just has a good ISR complex. Everyone thinks only the Americans have satellites watching and know how to listen to other people’s comms. It’s not that hard for a country like Russia to do the same. Don’t know why they are so surprised by this.