The vast majority of the Russian military is old equipment and poorly trained troops. They’re a poor country. That being said, the VDV (their airborne troops) are some of their better trained and equipped troops. Ukraine has killed a whole bunch of them on the transports that got shot down, and that certainly seems to be some of who Russia initially put in trying to take airports and then lost when none of their other forces got anywhere near the airports and Ukraine retook them.
Also seeing some unconfirmed reports on twitter that Russian artillery/rocket fire may have hit a nuclear waste storage facility outside Kyiv.
Just found out a college friend of mine had flown home a week ago to convince his family to leave. They are all stuck there now… no idea what has or is happening with them.
This is an interesting thread worth reading. From what he's saying, there's a lot of corruption, misreporting, and arrogance on the Russian side that made the brass think their fighting force is better than it is and Ukraine's is far worse than it is.
Apparently the russkies were expecting a cakewalk. They may score a win but at a far greater cost than they anticipated. Then there is the matter of holding Ukraine with a populace that despises them.
I sincerely hope this doesn’t escalate and I hope your son isn’t in harms way if it does. And I appreciate the fact you have skin in the game with this situation so your opinion and viewpoint carries significant weight. God speed to your son and his mates.
I have no doubt we are sending them satellite and signal intelligence in real time. But UAS carry a risk that I don’t think this government is willing to accept. Drones are great in a counterinsurgency, but not so much in a conventional war against a near-peer threat. They are vulnerable to being shot down, and then the Russians would have the evidence they need.
Also Russians trying to block some social media to control more of what their people see. Anonymous hacked some TV networks and was broadcasting feeds showing the war in Ukraine.
From CNN live "Six-year-old boy killed in Kyiv clashes, several more Ukrainian civilians wounded From CNN's Tim Lister in Kyiv Heavy gunfire in a western district of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Saturday evening killed a six-year-old boy and injured several other people, according to a local hospital. Serhii Chernysuk, a doctor at Kyiv's Okhmatdyt hospital, said the injured included two teenagers and three adults."
What do you think of the info that the Russians did not use elite units for this first wave? Overconfidence or reserving elite units for the next plan?
I’ll give it some thought. It could be total BS. I suspect much of what we’re reading is total BS. We all want Ukraine to be doing well, and that’s what we’re reading, so we believe it. But — to use an old cliché — the first casualty of war is the truth. We won’t learn what’s actually going on for some time, I’m afraid. Edit: I do seem to recall that a typical Russian tactic is not to lead with its best troops. I know this was true in Finland (1939), Afghanistan (1979), and Chechnya (1994). But I only recall those as examples, because the Russians got embarrassed in all three cases. No idea if that’s what happened here. Hope so.
