Totally agree. He didnt say whether they were being used for combat or training so it could be either. Seems to be some discussions of using older tanks in an indirect fire role which they might be fine at. Just don’t expect them to go up against enemy tanks and anti tank systems.
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While it’s difficult to ascertain what each side is using for tanks as both the Ukrainians and Russians are fairly tight lipped about it but there are some known factors.
-The Ukrainians have stated and has been verified that the older style tanks that they use or capture tend to be used as artillery in stationary points as they are more effective than in actual tank to tank battles.
-Ukrainian forces have recently been seen showing off captured Russian WW2 and Korean War anti aircraft systems and old outdated radar systems that they say the Russians have been using.
-it has been documented that Russia has been seen moving WW2 era T34 tanks on trains from storage to military bases throughout the western part of Russia. As of yet none of these tanks have been seen on the front lines but reportedly as many as 400 T34s have been removed from storage.
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What is known is nobody really knows how many tanks either side have remaining in combat although it is suspected that Ukraine has an advantage in tactical superiority over Russian tanks with several estimates putting Russia losing as many as 10 tanks to one Ukrainian tank.
The other big unknown is how Ukraine will use the western supplied tanks with them receiving around 80 tanks in the last 2 weeks. If they choose to use them in a localized front along with the AFVs they’ve received it is very possible they can achieve a very deep penetration into russian occupied territory. However if they choose to use them over a broader front success will likely be varied and localized.
Basically everybody from the western powers to the Russian and Chinese forces are waiting to see what the Ukrainians will do with the supplied tanks and AFVs. One thing is certain though Ukrainian forces have so far used unconventional tactics with great success thus far.
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No Jets, no MBTs but very sober about how to save lifes in Ukraine:
The T34s used for the victory parades in Moscow had been North Korean tanks, as far as I know. There has not been Soviet/Russian T34s in storage. North Korea is the country that operates T54/55s and has T34s in service or in storage.
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Putin is genociding Ukrainians and you once again try to turn the situation around entirely. Extraordinary to what depths of utter dishonesty you are willing to stoop in order to justify Putin’s ethnical cleansing of eastern Ukraine.
And here’s another one. The Russian Federation is the only one violating an actual existing international agreement cq treaty. They said they’d respect Ukraine’s borders, and they’re not.
I guess it isn’t surprising since you probably defended Serbia’s attempt to ethnically cleanse large tracts of Bosnia with a view to seizing the territory for Serbia. Ethnic cleansers stick together, eh?
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Unlike you, I have provided documents to support my claims. There are many more documents of past few decades that clearly show that artificial creation of Ukrainian nation is taking place through genocidal processes on Russian and Russian speaking population.
Interestingly, twenty years ago Ukrainian president Kuchma has published a book in Russian (because he couldn’t write proper Ukrainian) in Russia, claiming that Ukrainian nation doesn’t exist, that it only needs to be created. It’s hard to commit a genocide on the nation that doesn’t exist, but it is clear that Russians didn’t stand in the way of Ukrainian identity. Not until the moment they started threatening Russia and Russians.
“We have created Ukraine, and now it is time to create Ukrainians,” Kuchma said, emphasizing that Russia has nothing to fear from an independent Ukraine.
“Russia will always have its representative in Kyiv,” Kuchma said. “Any Ukrainian president will be Russia’s man, because Ukrainians won’t stand for anything else.”
Kuchma described the subject of Ukrainian-Russian relations as a “mine of information” about which thousands of books could be written.
Flanked by Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Kuchma explained that he had written the book in Russian.
“I still can’t write freely in Ukrainian. I can speak fluently, but not in the kind of Ukrainian that our writers curse me in,” Kuchma said.
Kuchma’s book was issued by Moscow’s Vremya publishing house, which agreed to pay the author a 10-percent royalty.
I have already explained that Serbs are the only nation in ex-Yugoslavia that were not allowed self-determination. Ethnic cleansing of Serbs was going on for the whole existance of Yugoslavia (Serbs are the only ones that had state before WWI - actually two states, Serbia and Montenegro), since the end of WWI. It was especially intense during WWII when when Ustashe in Coratia and Bosnia and Albanian Balists in Kosovo-Metohija and Albania.
You can re-read previous post on the same subject, repetition is mother of learning:
I have also posted before about similarities of US’s actions in causing both civil wars, in Bosnia and Ukraine. In both cases sides have already had signed agreements on peaceful solutions, only to get intervention of US that mislead one side into believing that they can get more, only to lose what they had at the end.
Interesting recordings of what happened in Bucha. Caution, not for everyone’s taste.
Watched both videos entirely. No subtitles so no context to understand. Looks peaceful. Got more context from the few comments in English. Basic propaganda is their side bad our side good. Believe 1/2 of what you see and none of what you hear and you will be as close to the truth as ever.
How many bodies did you count laying on the streets?
Not enough to raise any red flags. It was a war zone.
Bucha massacre - Wikipedia.
To be honest, I can’t identify it as Bucha because I can’t read the signs or understand the talking. If something bad happened there it has been cleaned up. I saw no where near 78 bodies. I’ll take your word it’s Bucha but it could have been one of 100 towns across Ukraine or Georgia or Armenia.
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The part about how the Russian disinformation is working and has worked in the US and Europe is very well explained:
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Those are Ukrainian sources. First video is of camera following “Nacional Police” special force unit “Safari” published on 3rd April 2022. Second video is by Ukrainian war reporter who used video by Ukrainian Military Headquarter (Генеральний штаб ЗСУ) from 2nd April 2022.
Me think that both of those would not fail to show dozens of bodies on the streets as reported in following days.
Things just don’t add up.
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Hmmm … what he says is that Russians have finally learned form the West. Too late for many Western victims.
Interesting that there is no explanation WHY would Russians (or Chinese) do all of that? There, apparently there is no ideology beyond it.
Usual Western failure to understand concepts beyond competition.
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Well, So far business not morals seem to be the number 1 goal. While the Western newspapers except for the financial newspapers have been quiet about about the failure of sanctions India and other Countries get frustrated about this hypocrisy.
Instead of lecturing ex-colonies it would be a good idea to either sanction Russia or be open about it. This is not new, just after the war started Bohmermann pointed out that Germany was still buying tons of oil from Russia.
Well the West still does so effectively the West is financing both sides of the war with industry profiting from cheap materials AND selling weapons to the Ukraine. Oh and Germany which likes to boast how pro-Ukraine they are (after their Putin puppet policies) is now number 2 behind China in buying fossil fuels from Russia.
And this is not Russian desinformation, just very hypocritical policies which just lead to bigger profits. So less deference to the leadership and asking questions like gee? why don’t the sanctions work? might be in order.
Gravitas : The hypocrisy of Europe’s sanction regime | EU yet to sanction Rosatom - YouTube
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I see the Kremlin’s disinformation troll is still trying to sow the seeds of doubt.
So how is it going for neofascist Putin and his Nazi legions like the Wagner Group? This being day 431 (!) of the 3 day ‘special operation’.
On another note, it might be time to address your denial of Serbia’s attempts to ethnically cleanse parts of Bosnia (and Croatia) during the socalled ‘Yugoslav civil wars’. So on account of admitting the truth you are already starting out at 0 for 2.
You sure seem to be an apologist for ethnic cleansing and a willing propagandist for the neofascist regime in Moscow.
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Hmm I think the criticism of Germany for buying oil is a bit unfair. I thought the EU sanctions allowed to purchase Russian oil from ships as long as it didn’t exceed the price caps? Am I wrong? If so sorry but the question would be better asked is why are the EU sanctions worded to allow this? Sanctions are working against Russia just not well and I don’t think they were ever intended to keep the Russian economy shut down because no one expected the war to last like this.
The capitalist tendency is to make profit off of anything. We have no business lecturing anyone as they need to act in their own interest. China and India need to do business but neither are they ramping up military production to support Russia.
I believe there are no good guys in this war but one really bad guy who waged war whenever he thinks he can get away with it. NATO has decided Ukraine won’t be allowed to lose but cannot win by fighting the way Nato would fight. Deep strike is off the table. If Ukraine chooses to make peace I support them but they will not keep all of Ukraine without victory and that is up to them. I’m not sure they can get that victory and the war goes on.
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The sanctions are working, not by ending Russian exports but by cutting down the profit. The WION piece was very well made disinformation by using very selective time periods. And starting with the statement that “The West” demanded India to stop all trade with Russia. Then proving that “The West” is not boycotting Russia, but has only selective sanctions in place that may harm Russia more the “The West”.
The situation:
Ok, I thought the WION report to be quite slanted. For example, the diesel import numbers were from December and January. The refined products sanctions kicked in on February 5th, 2023.
The comments on food were stupid as all along everyone said food would be untouched. No one wants to endanger anyone’s food security.
As for metals, there is probably an argument there but Russia is such a big player to cut that out of our economy totally might be impossible.
I think comparing it to Joes Blogs is interesting because Joe goes to excruciating lengths to give you graphs and charts letting you know month by month the status of things. by comparison WION was picking and choosing what they wanted you to see.
Are sanctions working? About as good as you would expect. Is their room to improve them, for sure but which side gets hurt worse? I don’t see that profit is bad thing. Europe had many of the same issues with Iranian sanctions. Violating sanctions is as old as sanctions. Do I like it? Absolutely not but like ain’t got nothing to do with it.
I also notice that WION criticized only Europe, not the US. I do not believe it to be an oversight so consider them to be just as biased as any other outlet.
By the way, look at Joes latest which details how much money many companies have lost.
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WION is Indian state media, they are not biased but targeted. The US is the only potential ally of India that matters.
Today the Russian military announced that they had destroyed 4 Gepard’s and multiple Bradley fighting vehicles in several drone attacks over the past 3 days. It was confirmed one Gepard was hit by a drone but was damaged not destroyed and no other Gepard’s have been reported as being hit according to both German and Ukrainian military sources. Also the US military confirmed none of the Bradley’s Ukraine has been destroyed or damaged by enemy fire. Basically Russias propaganda machine is at work with misinformation as per usual.
On the other hand Russia has a huge problem with lack of trained crews to man tanks, AFVs and APCs and it has been confirmed through pro Russian bloggers there have been several incidents of friendly fire of Russian tanks hitting other Russian tanks and armoured vehicles and crews being so poorly trained that they can’t even function even as independent tank crews or even as a coherent formation.
A couple of days ago Ukrainian forces captured a group of 18 soldiers all of which were mobilized. The captured soldiers said their commander abandoned them and fled to the rear and it was shown of the 18 soldiers only 2 had proper body armour(which they said family had purchased for them) and the rest had various pieces of equipment taken from equipment that had been piled at a staging area often still wet with blood from the previous owner. Not only are most poorly trained they are also poorly equipped and some even complained their rifles were non functioning and were told to take fallen weapons on the battlefield by their commanders.
While it is not known how many Russians are POWs it is thought that as many as 5000 have been taken as POWs in the past month with many of the Russians willingly surrendering to Ukrainian forces. Many of the captured POWs tell stories of being abandoned and being told they would be shot if they retreated or ran from battle. Around half of the POWs have suffered injuries that were poorly treated or not treated at all due to a lack of medicine, trained medics or being sent back to the front if still able to walk and hold a weapon without being medically treated.
So much for a three day special operation. Much of Russia’s trained forces have been killed or wounded, their special forces are decimated and they are running short on modern equipment and trained crews.
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