A Never-Ending Supply of Drones Has Frozen the Front Lines in Ukraine (msn.com) 202
"In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill" because of "rapid innovations in drone technology..." according to the Wall Street Journal. "Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line."
And drones "now bring everything from food and water to ammunition, power banks — and, in at least one case, a fire extinguisher — to the front, sparing soldiers trips through the most dangerous part of the battlefield where enemy drones might pick them off." Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed — and fast. Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas. Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads.
Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters.... A cheap and simple tweak made the so-called wedding drones deadly. Tech buffs realized that a simple claw-like contraption, created using a 3-D printer, could be activated from the radio controller by turning on the drone's light, causing it to release a grenade. The explosion could wound or kill a soldier or even detonate an armored vehicle if dropped through its hatch. Over time, soldiers experimented with ways to add more explosives, for example by melting down explosives garnered from Soviet-era munitions and pouring them into new, lighter plastic casings.
No innovation has had a bigger impact on the war in Ukraine than first-person-view, or FPV, drones. With explosives strapped to them, FPVs fly directly into their targets, turning them into low-cost suicide bombers. Though FPVs don't deliver as much explosive punch as rockets, they are far more accurate — and the sheer volume that Ukraine has manufactured means they can be deployed to similar effect... Sitting in a bunker several miles behind the front, a drone pilot slips on FPV goggles to see the view from the drone's camera and fly it into an enemy position or asset. The Russians have since adopted FPVs en masse. Their abundance has played a central role in slowing down the movement of the front line. Anything within around 12 miles of the contact line can now become a target for FPVs. They are so cheap to make that both sides can expend them on any target — even a single infantryman.
Because they are so small and fast, FPVs are difficult to shoot down. The main defense against them has been electronic jamming systems, which disrupt the communication between the drone and the pilot. Though most drone innovations in the war have come from the Ukrainian side, the Russians pioneered the most important adaptation for FPV drones — the addition of a fiber-optic cable connecting the drone to the pilot that can overcome jamming.
Benjamin Franklin once predicted flying machines might "convince sovereigns of the folly of war... since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions..."
And drones "now bring everything from food and water to ammunition, power banks — and, in at least one case, a fire extinguisher — to the front, sparing soldiers trips through the most dangerous part of the battlefield where enemy drones might pick them off." Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed — and fast. Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas. Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads.
Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters.... A cheap and simple tweak made the so-called wedding drones deadly. Tech buffs realized that a simple claw-like contraption, created using a 3-D printer, could be activated from the radio controller by turning on the drone's light, causing it to release a grenade. The explosion could wound or kill a soldier or even detonate an armored vehicle if dropped through its hatch. Over time, soldiers experimented with ways to add more explosives, for example by melting down explosives garnered from Soviet-era munitions and pouring them into new, lighter plastic casings.
No innovation has had a bigger impact on the war in Ukraine than first-person-view, or FPV, drones. With explosives strapped to them, FPVs fly directly into their targets, turning them into low-cost suicide bombers. Though FPVs don't deliver as much explosive punch as rockets, they are far more accurate — and the sheer volume that Ukraine has manufactured means they can be deployed to similar effect... Sitting in a bunker several miles behind the front, a drone pilot slips on FPV goggles to see the view from the drone's camera and fly it into an enemy position or asset. The Russians have since adopted FPVs en masse. Their abundance has played a central role in slowing down the movement of the front line. Anything within around 12 miles of the contact line can now become a target for FPVs. They are so cheap to make that both sides can expend them on any target — even a single infantryman.
Because they are so small and fast, FPVs are difficult to shoot down. The main defense against them has been electronic jamming systems, which disrupt the communication between the drone and the pilot. Though most drone innovations in the war have come from the Ukrainian side, the Russians pioneered the most important adaptation for FPV drones — the addition of a fiber-optic cable connecting the drone to the pilot that can overcome jamming.
Benjamin Franklin once predicted flying machines might "convince sovereigns of the folly of war... since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions..."
human safari (Score:5, Informative)
ruzzian orcs use drones to murder individual civilians, including children [kherson24.com]. This is different from simply carpet bombing, to murder a 1 year old in this case they had to hunt him down specifically, find him and blow him up individually.
This is the face of the ruzzian 'soldier' today, putin or not, it is the individual people who are making every day decisions. AFAIC ruzzians are now all legitimate targets, every one.
Re:human safari (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I've seen two documentaries about the Human Safari in Kherson. Here's the one I was able to find again [Content Warning!]. [youtube.com] It strikes me that it's unrealistic for the Russians to be able to retake Kherson (given how hard they've been struggling even to take Pokrovsk, one of the much easier and higher-priority targets) yet they've still been trying to drive civilians out of Kherson with pure terrorism. And these tactics aren't limited to Kherson, they're just concentrated there.
And this new reality where the landscape is covered in fiber optic cables is kind of expensive and autonomous AI targeting comes next. [youtube.com] We were warned in 2019, people! [youtube.com]
Re: human safari (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2019? No, in 1953. Philip K. Dick, "Second Variety".
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news... [aljazeera.com]
Moderators: Not off topic, illustrates international double standards
Re:human safari (Score:5, Informative)
Show me a single Russian video that illustrates how a Russian drone lead a Ukrainian soldier who surrendered to safety.
There are several documented cases of Ukrainians doing just that for Russian soldiers.
On the other hand it is well documented at this point that Russian forces often kill Ukrainian soldiers who surrender. And the ones imprisoned face abuse and torture.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org]
Also you are comparing the wanton killing of a toddler to the fate of soldiers, who signed up to serve in a war of aggression. Take a look in the mirror, pal, and ask yourself what the heck you are doing here.
Re: (Score:3)
On the other hand it is well documented at this point that Russian forces often kill Ukrainian soldiers who surrender. And the ones imprisoned face abuse and torture.
They kill their own soldiers who surrender sometimes too.
Re:human safari (Score:5, Informative)
Browse X or 4chan and you'll get all the clips you want, like in /chug. Both sides are doing it, but my point is OP is retarded for only blaming "Russian orcs." Also nothing of what you said excuses the war crimes I'm referring to, especially executing POWs for sport.
>soldiers who signed up
Both sides commit atrocities, that's true of every war in history. But the difference is that on the Ukrainian side atrocities are the exception, while on the Russian side they're standard operating procedure.
I mean there's literally videos of Russians shooting their own soldiers for the crime of retreating from certain death in human wave assaults.
lol. Tell me you know nothing about the war without saying you know nothing about the war
You just did.
Re: (Score:2)
both sides are not the same
Re:human safari (Score:5, Informative)
>But the difference is that on the Ukrainian side atrocities are the exception, while on the Russian side they're standard operating procedure.
False, not from what I've seen.
Multiple reporting since the start of the war has shown that war crimes are far worse coming from the Russian side.
Have you seen the videos of POWs exchanges where the Ukrainian exchanges look like they're coming out of a concentration camp? Did you miss the widescale slaughter of civilians in places like Bucha?
There's no question that the level of warcrimes is disproportionately coming from the Russian side.
>I mean there's literally videos of Russians shooting their own soldiers for the crime of retreating from certain death in human wave assaults.
True
Have you seen the same from Ukrainians? If not, then in that aspect at least, one side is acting worse.
>You just did.
"I know you are but what am I." The level of discourse and comprehension I'd expect from someone with an opinion as uninformed as your own.
Except in your case I actually justified it.
War is nasty, folks will do nasty stuff. It's not hard to find the occasional video of war crimes to amplify. It's really hard to get a good sense of the level of war crimes on both sides just by cruising social media.
Also note that Russia has been caught repeatedly manufacturing evidence of war crimes. The lead up to the war had them staging fake atrocities, not to mention their repeated attempts to blame Ukraine for their own atrocities. I'd have extremely low confidence that a video of Ukrainian atrocities coming from a pro-Russia source is actually what it claims to be.
Re:human safari (Score:5, Informative)
I'd have extremely low confidence that a video of Ukrainian atrocities coming from a pro-Russia source is actually what it claims to be.
He's probably talking about things like the video of the Russian soldiers surrendering who come out of a building and lie on the ground and then get shot by the Ukrainian soldiers. The thing is, in that case, the Russians did not all surrender and at least one Russian soldier comes out of the building firing and the surrendering Russians basically get killed in the crossfire. There have been a number of cases like that, with Russians "surrendering" as part of an ambush. In that particular case, I don't think that the Russians on the ground intended an ambush, but at least one Russian soldier did. Definitely sad for any Russian soldiers who really did mean to surrender, but not really reasonable to blame the Ukrainians who found themselves in an ambush.
Basically, those with an anti-Ukrainian bias look at videos like that and equivocate and say that the Ukrainians are just as bad. Obviously though, the example there was in the heat of battle, whereas the Russian executions are clearly not and they are outright murdering soldiers who are hors de combat.
Re: (Score:3)
All you have is infantile both siding when one side started it and has a clear record of targeting hospitals and civilians - especially kids - unforgotten the targeted attack on the theater in Mariupol.
You lack any moral compass.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
Re: human safari (Score:2)
Re: human safari (Score:2)
Oooh. I found the crypto-Nazi!
Do I get a prize?
fiber litter (Score:5, Funny)
well they're certainly laying fiber faster than american ISPs
If drones are doing all the work (Score:5, Funny)
R&D for everyone else (Score:3)
It's easy to speculate that many outside of the two combatants are using the death of thousands of young men as an informational gathering research and development for their own military and are helping one or the other side to get more research information.
Re: (Score:3)
Your comment is designed to encourage a particular, political view of their actions by using words that require mental states not in evidence.
The difference between: ...
"...using the deaths of thousands of young men..."
and:
"... making the best of a bad situation
is entirely in the mind of the researcher.
Your wording implies evil in the mind of the researcher without any such evidence.
You could similarly say the same thing, word for word, about the Body Farm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Can the soldiers just work from home?
They would, but the Russians keep shelling them.
Re: (Score:3)
The US tried that in Afghanistan. They had drone pilots in nice air conditioned offices in the US, flying over Afghanistan. Some of them got PTSD, made worse because when a soldier is on the battlefield they at least feel like killing is justified to ensure their own survival, or as revenge for what the enemy did to them and their comrades. Sat in an office thousands of kilometres away though, it's harder to rationalize.
The Afghans started to put big pictures of children on the ground near civilian targets
Lasers vs drones (Score:2)
Can't the cut the fiber optic spool with a laser? Or F it, can't they take down the drones with laser turrets? A kilowatt laser ought to be enough.
Just fucking use lasers.
Re:Lasers vs drones (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So, a giant death robot with LOTS of lasers!
Re: (Score:2)
I intended the giant death ray to be used to help man, not to harm. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
"Datalink" technology, something that Russia doesn't have and Ukraine only has extremely limited use of compared to most Western militaries, is going to become the showstopper with both invasions and drones. Kind of hard to find a hole through defenses if they're li
Re: (Score:2)
Not a problem. I'll give you a shark with a frickin laser beam attached to its head and you can use it to shoot down a drone no bigger than a pizza box moving at 40 mph in a non-linear direction.
Re:Lasers vs drones (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't the cut the fiber optic spool with a laser?
A drone can fly just a few meters above the ground, out of LoS of the turret. There's talk of using laser turrets against drones themselves, though.
But there's even more, Ukraine now launches "carrier drones" that can autonomously fly for about 300 kilometers deep into the Russian territory and release a swarm of smaller attack drones. And this contraption costs less than 1 HIMARS missile. It can even be remotely controlled through cellular Internet, Russia is trying to combat this by literally switching off all the mobile networks if these drones are detected. Not that it'll help in the long run, it's trivially easy to stick something like a Starlink antenna on the carrier.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, enter China. No surprise there.
China’s Silent Hunter: The Laser Weapon Powering Russia’s Drone War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Just fucking use lasers.
These lasers require minerals that are in short supply right now, especially rare earth metals. In spite of the name rare earth metals aren't exactly rare, but they are rather difficult to refine. This has lead China to a near monopoly on rare earth metals, because they have cheap energy from coal and don't much care about polluting the environment with the toxic chemicals used to extract these rare earth metals.
It appears that there is some legislation in the works now in the USA to improve domestic rare
Drones and Rare Earths (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
These lasers require minerals that are in short supply right now, especially rare earth metals. In spite of the name rare earth metals aren't exactly rare, but they are rather difficult to refine.
That is just nonsense.
They are rare, the lazers, because they are complex systems. You have to track the target. To kill shells you need multiple lasers targeting the same shell. The electronics use simple chips. As long as they can make phones, they have enough rare earths for what ever they want.
The lasers are in
Re: (Score:2)
As I replied to the poster who suggested cutting the fiber optic cables with a flamethrower...
Using a laser is a fine idea. It is a workable solution to cutting the cables. You just have to flesh out the idea by also explaining how you locate the cable and get the laser in position to cut it.
Re: (Score:2)
Lasers: no have. ... it is not one with a black plastic "protection" around it.
A fibre is super thin
You probably never see it.
A 1kW laser is likely not enough anyway. But a few that concentrate fire would do it.
Keep in mind this is mostly because (Score:3, Insightful)
It is extremely impressive though what Ukraine has done here. Even with all the corruption Russia does still have a hell of a lot of weapons and a hell of a lot more people. Although it is telling that they keep pulling North Koreans and I think now people of Laos into The fray rather than risk a full-scale draft for this useless war.
Remember all failing empires eventually try to expand their borders in order to fill their emptying coffers caused by incompetence and corruption. America will be there eventually. When it happens you can expect a draft.
Fully autonomous (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wait until these little bastards have on-board AI that visually identifies targets and kills them autonomously. That is the next step. The jamming of radio remote control has already lead to the use of fiber (they literally carry miles of fiber optic line that unspools as they fly, making them impervious to RF jamming, at the cost of reduced range). The next logical step is to allow them to function without any human input - that gives them both range and immunity from jamming.
This is not good.
Re:Fully autonomous (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Those have already been deployed. They are flown to the front by the operator, who will in most cases also designate the target, after which the drone will engage it autonomously.
Costs of such drones, at least for now, is substantially more expensive. In a war of economic attrition, which is what is happening in Ukraine, that matters a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
Costs of such drones, at least for now, is substantially more expensive.
A Raspi with 1 core and 512MB can recognize ~500-2000 different objects. It's no longer expensive to build autonomous assassins. I've been saying for years here that the future of war is toy technology, and here we are.
Re: (Score:3)
A Raspi with 1 core and 512MB can recognize ~500-2000 different objects. It's no longer expensive to build autonomous assassins. I've been saying for years here that the future of war is toy technology, and here we are.
An while the recognition part is slow, something like the Pi is more than capable of realtime tracking of objects within the field of view of the camera. Once the object is identified, you keep it in the field of view. The drones already have gyros so small twitchy movements of the drone are
Re: (Score:2)
And that's how you get SkyNet.
Thanks, Russia. Here come the death robots.
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait until these little bastards have on-board AI that visually identifies targets and kills them autonomously. [...] This is not good.
Agreed, that is a scenario straight out of a Terminator movie.
That said, it won't happen (much) until they get the energy budget of all that AI down to something that can be powered by a drone battery for a sufficient period of time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is the scenario predicted by Slaughterbots [youtube.com].
It was dystopian science fiction then, but not all that far out there, and I think we're slowly watching it come true now.
If we're lucky it'll prove impractical to have that level of AI on a drone that small, but I doubt we'll be that lucky. Otherwise? I don't really see how we can stop it.
Ukraine exploited as a weapons testing ground (Score:2)
some doubts: (Score:4, Interesting)
according to the Wall Street Journal
Meanwhile, some reports from the frontlines [warontherocks.com] indicate that while drones are ubiquituous, they aren't the game-changer the tech-industry wants them to be.
tl;dr essential bits: a) most drone strikes could have been done by other, cheaper weapons. b) drones are an unreliable weapon due to jamming, dependency on weather and light and many technical failures.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, but there's a little bit missing which would be interesting to know: the author compares the $500 drone cost to a $100 unguided shell. What we don't get is the hit percentage. Russia has been firing literally millions of artillery shells per year: the hit rate isn't high at all.
It seems all options suck, but you have to do something.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia has gained less than 5,000 square kilometers since January 2024. If we are generous and assume 5,000 square kilometers gained in 18 months, this equates to Russia capturing roughly 0.6% of Ukraine per year. That's not enough to matter in terms of determining the outcome of the war, since Russia's economy can't sustain this long enough to accumulate meaningful territorial gains at that pace. The war will end, however it ends, based on other factors.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Lines aren't frozen. (Score:2)
Russia can afford it because they remain one of the biggest exporters of oil and gas in the world. China and India in particular are paying for Russiaâ(TM)s war.
Re: (Score:2)
That is why the EU price cap is so important.
China and India get a nice deal but Russia gets significant less revenue, while the world oil marker remains well supplied keeping our gas prices in check.
And natural gas export mostly relies on pipelines and they have none that go to India or China. And interestingly the latter does not seem to be terribly interested in building one. Russia's natural gas exports cratered.
Re: (Score:2)
Well,
Russia wanted to make sure in the first Afghanistan war that the pipeline to India and China gets built. But failed.
USA made sure in the second Afghanistan war that the pipelines never get build. So far they succeeded.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia's economy can't sustain this long enough to accumulate meaningful territorial gains at that pace.
And yet, it doesn't end.
Re: (Score:2)
Due to the Russian armies corruption and culture of "zeroing own" the kill ratio at this point will be 5:1 or better.
https://en.zona.media/article/... [en.zona.media]
The attacker always suffers more loses against a well entrenched defending force, but Russia's "meat assaults" are taking this to an entire new, absurd level.
Vatniks pretended that "Russia already won" for the entirety of this war. It's getting old.
Re: (Score:2)
Vatniks pretended that "Russia already won" for the entirety of this war. It's getting old.
Well, if Russia "already won", then there shouldn't be anything preventing Putin from declaring victory and going home. I await his proclamation and the parades of returning troops in Moscow. /s
Re: (Score:2)
That's some impressive copium.
Re: (Score:3)
It makes me laugh that all the defeatists and pro Russian shills try to frame Ukraine winning as only being possible when Ukrainian tanks are rolling down the streets of Moscow.
Ukraine will win or lose this war based on Russia's decision to keep fighting. If they win they will win the same way the Afghans have won at least 3 major wars, the Vietnamese beat us, we beat the British, and countless other smaller powers have beaten larger over the years. It will be by wearing Russia down and making the fight too
Re: (Score:2)
Five Eyes is so last century.
What Western country will at this point still share critical intelligence with DC?
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia's progress has not been speeding up. It's been slowing down. They are not currently capturing 500 square kilometers per month and growing. Between December 31st, 2024, and June 11th, 2025, a period of slightly more than half a year (192 days), Russia captured 1,845 square kilometers. This is an average of 292 square kilometers per month. With their progress slowing, there is no reason to believe that they will double their rate of advance in the next ten months.
Russia has indeed significantly increased their Shahed production capacity, and will expand it even farther in the future. Ukraine, on the other hand, has been ramping up their interceptor drone production capacity in response.
Ukraine's economy is (and has been) kept on life support via funding from allied countries. This is sustainable indefinitely as long as the allied countries are willing to do so. Russia's economy is beginning to show signs of severe strain. Eventually, if the war doesn't end, and allied support to Ukraine doesn't stop, Russia will be forced to significantly reduce their military expenditures. Which I don't think would result in Russia capitulating, but simply result in overall lower operational tempos. We've already seen this in specific areas. Russia ran out of missiles. That didn't result in the end Russian use of missiles, it simply resulted in their consumption rate matching their production rate. The same thing will soon happen (if it hasn't already) in a number of armoured vehicle categories, as Russia has largely burned through the soviet-era stockpiles that can be reactivated.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Gee, it almost sounds like you're actually rooting for Russia...
I must be misinterpreting your words. You couldn't possibly be such a disgusting piece of shit, could you ?
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia had NATO at their border for twenty years when the Baltic republics joined. A ballistic missile can reach Moscow from there as quickly as from Ukraine and get much faster to Saint Petersburg.
Also Putin is not a complete idiot, and only a complete idiot would have not foreseen that Finland will join NATO after a full on Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Clearly it was never about NATO.
By listening to what the Kremlin spouts rather than analyzing what they do, it is you, my friend. who falls for propaganda.
Re: (Score:2)
That is purely propaganda.
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that Russia is bad and Ukraine is good is propergander in itself.
And we're just gonna stop right there, because I'm pretty sure that none of the following drivel is going to convince anybody that the country which annexed part of the other country 10 years ago, has been stirring shit ever since; until finally conducting a half-assed and botched military invasion, completely unprovoked, followed by indiscriminate bombing of civilians and children isn't "bad".
Solve for that, somehow, and we'll see what's next.
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason people are dying is because Putin is dropping bombs on them. It is not NATO's fault, or the US's fault, or Europes's fault.
The fault lies solely on Putin, his criminal family, and all the fucking shills like you who support him. You have the blood of every dead ukrainian civilian man, woman, and child on your hands.
Whether Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the US, etc, was right or wrong is irrelevant. When conflicts arise, adult, mature, decent human beings sit around a table and negociate. They talk to each other. Mass murdering psychopaths drop bombs on civilians.
I have nothing more to say to you, you mass-murdering piece of shit. Burn in Hell.
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Informative)
You are just spouting Russian propaganda verbatim.
Pretty much everything you are writing is a blatant lie.
Yanukovych could have served out his term and accept responsibility for his crimes and corruption, but he rather decided to flee to Moscow. At which point the Ukrainian parliament had no other choice as to impeach him. BTW almost all members of Yanukovych own party voted for his impeachment as well.
The "civil war" was instigated by the Kremlin, pretending that Russian speakers are automatically "ethnic Russians". There is no such thing they are all Slavs and the Soviet Union force Russification an all its territories. So even Zelensky's first language is Russian.
The fact that Russian troops were active in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 is overwhelming, as well as the evidence that Russia is responisible for the downing of MH17.
https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/... [icao.int]
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think they will stop at Ukraine?
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point. An army that sees all others as subhuman and sees only the next death is one that has to keep fighting. It has no choice. It's the only thing it knows. It can keep conquering more territory outwards, or it can slaughter its own government inwards. History shows those are your two options.
Whether or not Russia conquers Ukraine, it will attack other countries - vast numbers of bored, underpaid soldiers would seek entertainment elsewhere if they didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think they will stop at Ukraine?
Russia might have all kinds of ambitions, but they failed miserably in Ukraine, why do you think they will do better against NATO?
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Both can be true, actually. As an aside, Russia truly lost in Ukraine in the first six weeks; most of their goals failed. Even if they were to take all of Ukraine, it would be so Pyrrhic as to not be a "win".
But, for the two statements: First: Russia cannot win in Ukraine. "Winning" is defined by history. There are lots of ways to end the war that will have Putin apologists claiming 100% victory, the best victory, everyone walks up to him and talks about his great victory, he's so powerful! So Russia is unlikely to take large amounts of Ukraine now; they have already taken the easy parts and are stuck on the medium parts. But if you change the "win" condition, he can easily win just by claiming victory (and having enough gullible fanatic to parrot his lines).
Second: Russia (well, Putin) will not want to stop at Ukraine once he declares victory and finds a few more Georgian votes. That seems likely, but he may have to stop, since Russia's military and economy is in terrible shape (as always happens after a long war). Putin is old, his allies in Russia are unhappy with the war, and his ability to wage war is far less than it was before he invaded.
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Interesting)
Russia has more than enough nuclear weapons to hold up against the USA.
Do they?
Every weapon has a shelf life, a time it can sit without maintenance before it is considered unreliable. With a nuclear weapon this can be decades but it has been decades since both the USA and the former Soviet Union built up their nuclear arsenal. Then is the shelf life of the delivery systems. With the USA I can recall there is a periodic launch of old missiles, with the warheads removed, to prove to themselves and the Russians/Soviets/whomever that the delivery systems are still functional. I don't recall if each spent missile is replaced but I do recall efforts in the USA to build new missiles and reinstate some kind of nuclear weapon testing and restoration to make sure the weapons are functional. Have the Russians been keeping up with maintaining their ICBMs? Given how poorly other military equipment has been maintained there's a suspicion that Russia is no longer capable of holding up their end of "mutually assured destruction" if there were to be a nuclear war.
I want to be absolutely clear on this point. While there is a high probability that the Russians no longer have the ability to pose a nuclear weapon threat to the USA that is not something to be relied upon for making any decisions in dealing with Putin or any other person in leadership in Russia. We must assume that Russia is capable of mutually assured destruction.
Now, assuming that mutually assured destruction is still a threat we do have Putin threatening use of nuclear weapons, which is an indication that maybe Russia is lacking in conventional forces. Which gets to your next point...
The current bunch think nuclear weapons are a big bluff. We better hope they are right, because they seem intent on calling it.
Who in this is threatening to call a bluff on mutually assured destruction? It is not the USA. It is Putin and other leaders in Russia.
The USA demonstrated the ability to strike highly protected bunkers unopposed with their recent strike on Iran. The USA doesn't need nuclear weapons to bring down Russia. They have B-2 Spirit bombers and GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs to hit any place that Putin and his lieutenants could be hiding. Then is the very tight net that the USA has in detecting and intercepting missiles launched from Russia into the USA. Russia must know that the US Navy has destroyers and aircraft capable of intercepting anything launched against the USA. Does Russia have the same kind of capability? I have my doubts given how Ukraine has effectively grounded the Russian air force. Ukraine has also force the Russian navy to stay in port, and Ukraine doesn't have much of a navy of their own.
In truth, Putin's plan seems to be to prevent NATO from becoming an immediate threat. He made several efforts to negotiate a neutral Ukraine with both Ukraine and NATO. But the neo-cons thought they could defeat Russia.
What I've seen and heard is that Putin has no intent on reaching any kind of negotiations for ending hostilities in Ukraine. Ukraine has no desire to become a Russian puppet state. How has NATO been a threat to Russia? NATO has a collective defense pact, but no pact on collective offense. Poland isn't about to invade Russia, and if they did then there's no obligation under NATO to aid Poland in this. This is a very one sided threat, Russia is threatening to take territory while NATO merely wishes to keep the national borders where they are.
Biden made the comment after the invasion "Putin has already lost." The assumption was that Russia would collapse. It didn't. It doesn't look like it will. Instead of a weakened Russia, NATO is now faced with a powerful neighbor with the capacity to challenge it militarily and the potential to challenge it economically in the future.
Russia is losing men and material faster than they can replace both. It might be true that Russia has already lost, but it will take time for Putin to believe it. If this were a real fight between NATO and Russia then I'd expect a very quick defeat of Russia, but Putin has been very careful to not cross lines drawn by NATO to trigger a collective military response. Russia can lose slowly by having national resources consumed with this NATO backed war in Ukraine, or face a more immediate loss by triggering a full on military response from NATO directly.
If Putin dares to launch nuclear weapons then I'm not sure there would be nuclear weapons used in response. NATO would not have to in order to bring Russian military forces to their knees. Their air defense appears to be pretty weak, not likely to hold up to an attack by stealth aircraft like the F-35, F-22, B-2, or even ancient F-117.
A Chinese diplomat was quoted as a saying "Europe is a bunch of small countries who don't know they are small." What is happening here is that the age of Europe is coming to an end. Take the US out of NATO and it becomes a poorly prepared military rival of India at best. Which is not a huge problem, unless you are leaders of countries used to having veto power over worldwide decisions. And a place at the head of the table.
But NATO does have the USA, that means that Europe is hardly powerless to hold up to an attack by Russia, or China, or even both.
If we assume that somehow the USA was removed from a war in Europe then we'd still have some of the largest economies and militaries in the world up against second-world nations like China and Russia. Any long range mission into Europe will require heavy aircraft like bombers, tankers, and AWACS to support fighter jets and helicopters. Russia just had a bunch of them destroyed by Ukraine, and little to no chance of replacing them any time soon. China is also lacking in ability to bring a fight to Europe, or anywhere beyond a short distance from their shores.
UK and France have a place at the table as permanent members of the UN security council. They have veto power on a lot of world decisions. As will other European nations with non-permanent seats on the council.
Europe is hardly powerless against Russia and/or China. Putin threatening use of nuclear weapons is something of a tip of his hand that he fears his conventional forces would not be enough. Or perhaps that Putin is not playing with a full deck, that he's lost his fear of triggering nuclear war and so would be willing to test the rest of the world on mutually assured destruction.
Re: (Score:2)
Then is the very tight net that the USA has in detecting and intercepting missiles launched from Russia into the USA. Russia must know that the US Navy has destroyers and aircraft capable of intercepting anything launched against the USA.
Talk of a hypothetical "golden dome" aside, the US definitely does not have the ability to intercept the hundreds of nuclear ICBMs and SLBMs Russia has in inventory. Detect them and respond with a MAD-level retaliation? Yes. Shoot them down? No.
Re: (Score:2)
All the nukes from the west are guaranteed to work. Russia's? Doubtful considering how badly their army was 3 years ago.
Nukes need to be maintained every 15 years! The chance that that actually happened and the higher ups did not pocket the money, is not that big.
Most of the last ICBM's they launched did not even make it off the launchpad before failing. And their bombers: well Ukraine destroyed a decent portion of them.........
Re: (Score:2)
My guess would be that Putin has a few working nuclear weapons by chanc, as in some of them have survived the degradation. There is no way they have been doing proper, expensive stockpile stewardship without corruption creaming off what budget there is. Potential nukes are part of MAD, if Putin demonstrates that he doesn't have them, then no one has any reason to pay any attention to his blustering. Plus if you start a MAD war and turn out to not have the M part, that's bad.
How has NATO been a threat to Rus
Re: (Score:2)
Russia has been making slow and steady gains every day for several months, increasing more each day.
Not increasing more each day, in fact.
Re: (Score:2)
they want nato and the west to stop fucking around
What does this mean and why? There is no world that exists where NATO attacks Russia unprovoked so what threat are they to Russia if Russia has no aggression towards the nations around it?
Re: (Score:3)
- expanding nato eastward against promises and common sense
Meaningless, no promise was made with Russia, that quote was about East Germany while the USSR existed. Also NATO doesn't recruit, nation groups like Vilnius lobbied for years to get in (wonder why?!?!)
- proclaiming that georgia and ukraine would be part of nato (bucharest 2008)
Not even picking apart that claim which is out of context but does Russia own Georgia and Ukraine? If they mean no aggression towards them whats their business with who makes defensive pacts with who?
- funding ngo and media to sow dissent (usaid and ned)
Oh noes NGO!!!oh my god the NGOs! Like Russia hasn't engaged in this for decades. Come on.
- funding and arming extremist groups (azov et al)
NATO doesn't fund A
Re: (Score:3)
Mearsheimer is well past his use-by date. A fossil stuck in Cold War thinking.
Russia had NATO at their border for twenty years when the Baltic republics joined. A ballistic missile can reach Moscow from there as quickly as from Ukraine and get much faster to Saint Petersburg.
Also Putin is not a complete idiot, and only a complete idiot would have not foreseen that Finland will join NATO after a full on Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Clearly it was never about NATO.
It's about Russia not accepting a sovereign Uk
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't you a ray of sunshine.
Re: (Score:2)
"My script of talking points has reached it's end. Good day sir!"
Re: (Score:3)
yeah and all you points are is "i bleive in a 19th century world of great power politics. Russia is allowed to attack Ukrain, a sovereign noation because they are a great power and great powers will just attack people and we should let them."
That's Mearshimer's argument. That's all you are saying, they can attack because they are stronger and they want someting and we should all recognize that. Ukraine's borders, agreements, treaties, sovereignty, none of that matter because "Russia strong".
If you're an
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Insightful)
His provocation theory is nonsense, it does not surmount the challenge that Ukraine and Russia are two sovereign states and Russia attacked that state with paramilitary in 2014 and with real military in 2022 for political reasons. There is no justification for war, everything else is propaganda pageantry, it's a show.
They wanted Ukraine to join their trade pact thing and their ally in leadership screwed the pooch when the people protested against it, I mean pretty bad. There is no evidence of a CIA plot, there was no risk to Russian interests, the interim and future governments both said Russia's Sevastopol lease or whatever was always valid and would remain so. So what's the justification? "Feeling threatened" and "sphere of influence", "buffer zones" this is all pre-20th century shit. "Just the Russian areas" is all bullshit, that's not how borders work.
Russia wants Ukraine for power, for resources, for Putin's legacy, whatever you want to say they're all bad reasons. Russia is the aggressor. They should leave and borders go back to agreed upon borders from Budapest Memorandum.
There's a reason all those countries lobbied to be in NATO. Estonia and Latvia are feeling pretty justified. Finland even got on board. When Russia wants to stop fucking with it's neighbors then maybe we can take their feelings into account.
Re: (Score:2)
Also absolutely ZERO of what you said justifies the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, one who gave up their nuclear weapons with an agreement on both borders. None of it. You literally tripping over your own shoes to justify something unjustifiable. Russia is in the wrong here, all ways til sunday.
Re: (Score:2)
- expanding nato eastward against promises and common sense
Russia invades its neighbours. Then complains when it's neighbours join a defence pact to prevent invasion, then whines about the defence pact existing. You know how Russia could prevent NATO expansion? Not invading its neighbours. They even managed to persuade an incredibly reluctant Sweden and Finland to join NATO, something it seems that everyone except Russia has been unable to do.
proclaiming that georgia and ukraine would be part of nato (bucha
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon guy you know Gaddafi and Hussein don't have nukes, that's the only reason more boots aren't on the ground right now in Ukraine.
What rebellion? Are you saying if Putin sends troops into Kiev to put down Euromaidan? Buddy that's called an invasion. Would you not consider that an invasion?
The internal relations of sovereign nations is not justification to invade another sovereign nation. Since Canada elected Carney should Trump be able to invade Canada?
There was no threat to Russian from the new governm
Re: (Score:2)
So, if you're just going to say in your post that you're train0987, why bother posting AC?
In any case, you clearly have a rich fantasy life (I mean, with Donald Trump in office, the US economy could be in trouble, but that's about the closest you got to reality).
Re:I think its hilarious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which part of people flying FPV (first person video) drones into the enemy wasn't clear? They're not delivering to a GPS coordinate. They're being flown.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that you're dealing with the kind of person who thinks that the solution to people sneaking bombs onto aircraft is to have them pass individually through a chamber that contains a device that causes bombs to detonate (yes, this is a thing I have heard people suggest).
In other words, someone whose grasp of technology is based on badly written fiction.
Re: (Score:2)
What part of this article, pertaining to fiber optics, did you not read?
Re: (Score:2)
Drones are controlled via fiber optics. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Which reminds me, almost never should you write a serious response to what at first appears as a genuinely clueless AC.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that what you're missing is that you have a poor grasp of real world spatial relationships. Otherwise you would understand that the problem is not the method that you're suggesting for cutting the fiber-optic lines, but the issue of accessing the locations the lines are running in and locating them to cut them in the first place.
Flamethrower is just fine as a way to cut them. You have to give a full solution though, how do you get the flamethrower in position to cut the lines in time to do something
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to paint yourself as a massive IR target then sure flame away. That much easier to drop a bomb on you.
Re: I think its hilarious... (Score:5, Interesting)
What even more hilarious is the idea that a keyboard jockey on the other side of the planet thinks they have an idea what hasn't occurred to the people that are actively engaged in the fight.
There are electronic warfare emitters all over the front line, jamming gps and glonass (Russia's equivalent) and various frequencies used for fpv video transmission. There are also drones attacking those emitters, and drones using frequency and band-hopping to maintain connection despite interference, and drones using spools of fiber to stay connected in ways that are not vulnerable to RF interference. And of course there are artillery and rockets attacking drone teams, infantry, and EW emitters.
The front line is a complicated place. The easy stuff has already been tried.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who actually has some idea of what is going on knows that electronic warfare systems are already in heavy usage on the front lines. If you're the original AC who wrote:
I think its hilarious... That nobody has thought to scramble the airwaves yet and block out GPS signals. 500$ worth of hardware could literally create a 20 mile deadzone. EASILY.
Then you clearly don't understand that plenty of people have thought of this and such ideas are being implemented.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What's gained here? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is B.S. What purpose does it serve?
It serves the purpose of the Ukrainian people remaining free. It's easy to call bullshit on other's freedom when yours is not at stake.