- Ukraine downed a Russian Su-34 fighter jet over Kursk amid an ongoing territorial push.
- The Su-34, worth around $36 million, is Russia’s most efficient fighter bomber with advanced tech.
- Ukraine has previously held long kill streaks with Russian Su-34s.
Ukraine is showing remarkable restraint by not razing the villages and not kidnapping Russian children. Slava Ukraini!
It requires no restraint if you’re not a monster.
Yeah was gonna say… Russia has abducted and moved native populations as part of their imperialism, for most of their history. Ukraine presumably doesn’t want to take over Russia so they have no need for such inhumane tricks.
They are liberating Russia
Right on, this isn’t about Ukraine’s restraint, it’s about Russia’s psychopathy.
one of several reasons why looting is banned in all sensible armies is that looting slows advance
If you have a proper supply chain and logistics you don’t need to rely on taking civilians stuff. The russian military and the members who loot the villages are just despicable
Ukrainian soldiers are leaving Google reviews on local shops as they travel through. I don’t think they are looting, but they are definitely stopping for snacks.
not only that, they’re delivering humanitarian aid to civilians https://news.sky.com/video/ukrainian-military-have-been-delivering-humanitarian-aid-to-those-who-were-reportedly-abandoned-in-the-kursk-region-13197067
if i’ve seen this headline two weeks ago i’d think that i’ve gone crazy
Why would you think you’d gone crazy? Ukraine’s troops have conducted themselves very well throughout the whole thing haven’t they?
“we’re three years into three-day special operation. NATO equipped forces are distributing humanitarian aid in Russia” sounds like ncd shitpost if you had no idea that Ukrainians were able to pull off Kursk incursion. like, they lost so badly that they’re taking aid from most probable adversary. this is desert storm levels of losing
you need proper supply chain anyway, the only thing civilians can provide you with is at most food, fuel, and maybe some vehicles. civilians don’t have any ammo, radios or any practical communications equipment in general, firearms, mines, grenades, bulk explosives, fuzes, drones, medical supplies, spare parts, and fuckton of other things that you have to supply either way. this is not napoleonic era warfare
Looting happens because people like to steal unusual or valuable stuff. For example, when wristwatches were popular, they were a common item to be looted, because they had a lot of value for their size and weight. It’s not about being supplied with necessities.
looting happens when your army consists of undisciplined cavemen. it further strains logistics, that has to run both ways now; takes valuable time that could be used doing literally anything else; sets local civilians against you - maybe there are spotters or informants or insurgents now that weren’t there before; makes unit in question vulnerable to some of these civilians’ antics - there were multiple reports of poisoned food being served to russian soldiers by now and i think it could be over 50 fatalities total; not to mention that it’s a war crime
It’s all tied to the old military thinking.
Russian soldiers are not fighting for Russia. Russian soldiers are fighting for their generals. Similar to how Roman armies worked, or… well, really like any army worked until we got to the nationalism level that eventually lead to WWI. One of the most effective ways the generals got their troops to follow them was allowing them the “spoils of war”. Good ol’ raping and pillaging.
By comparison the Ukrainian army is unified in their fight for Ukraine. They’re not fighting for a person, they’re fighting for their people. All the fighting happening inside Russian borders isn’t to secure loot, it’s to end the war so they can go home.
With proper supply chains you can loot more efficiently. Care packages sent back home from the front lines fit nicely on empty supply trucks heading back to restock.
Do they, though…? Or is it still the classic Russian “wait until the guy in front of you is killed and then pick up his rifle” sort of thing…?
russians are at very least supplied with small arms ammo
If I were ukraine I’d take the children for the sole purpose of exchanging them for the ones Russia kidnapped.
russians are razing entire villages now because they can’t advance in any other way (currently). they didn’t do that in first days of the war, or in 2014. that’s because they can’t use maneuver effectively now for combination of reasons (loss of skilled personnel, armoured vehicles, constant surveillance, contested airspace) (unlike ukrainians now in kursk)
The Russian (and the Soviet) army was never great at maneuver warfare. That requires field autonomy from commanders. Autocrats can’t keep a strong, smart, well-trained and somewhat autonomous army since they always fear coups.
That’s why historically Russia has been victorious by obliterating cities via massed artillery and air bombardment. This doesn’t work so well unless the enemy stays put or assaults your fortified lines.
I wonder what Ukraine’s long-term game is with Kursk, taking territory this way they proved they can but keeping it is a whole other story. It certainly keeps their enemy off-balance and forces them to spread while making them look even weaker.
that’s only half of the problem. the other half is that maneuver warfare requires encrypted radios, EW equipment, spotter drones, night vision, good sensors on tanks/APCs/helis, everything has to be mechanized or portable, in other words - lots of expensive kit, and importantly it also requires thorough training to use that kit effectively. russians don’t have that. saudis have the kit but no training and their army is crippled by extremely limited agency of field commanders resulting from coup-proofing and petty office politics
russians were able to move freely using deception and surprise against the 2014 ukrainian army. all that training ukrainians have undergone now pays off
that’s a good question that only maybe 30 people in the world know answer to. kursk oblast has several interesting things, all of which can be used as bargaining chips by ukrainians:
all of this comes with a massive caveat that everything we know comes from russian telegram channels, because ukrainians maintain very tight opsec and let out only very little specifically cleared information
oh cool now ukrainians have surrounded korenevo. expect shenanigans today
Oh yeah, I forgot about the coms gear. Unlike Russian troops relying on cell phone towers during the invasion (while simultaneously knocking the towers down). The EW gear would make it even harder for an already ill-equipped and disorganized defense force to coordinate.
And I bet Ukraine is getting some nice up-to-date intel from NATO assets (satellites, SIGINT, HUMINT…) which helps them decide where to attack and when to evade.
ukrainians have their own capable humint. remember, lots of ukrainians can speak russian at native speaker level. russians can’t do the same
after capture of sudzha train station, and maybe before that, ukrainians have all the frequencies used by russian trains. i bet they can make good use of their EW capabilities there
Listen-in and cause confusion. So many possible hijinks.
Bucha masacre happened in March 2022. The war started on the 24th of February.
News of civilians shot, raped started flowing in since the start of the war.
russians were doing this while swaths of them were indoctrinated into thinking they will be welcomed with open arms. As saviors.
Stop whitewashing russia.
this is not what i’m talking about. these cases of wholesale destruction and ethnic cleansing happened after russians controlled territory, not as a prerequisite to advance. it’s also quite possible that these units were explicitly ordered to do that, and it’s not a result of poor discipline or anything like this