Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[BeBMan]

It's called basic map reading skills...

The Ukrainians have captured land in a sparsely populated backwater of a backwater region, while jeopardising and degrading their best units and equipment...

Meanwhile, the Russians have been making accelerated gains in a relatively built up and industrialised, strategically significant portion of the Donbas - one of their key strategic goals...

But hey... 🙄🤷♂️

Lies! Russia does not have any backwater regions

[BeBMan]

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/09/03/who-wants-to-live-forever

IIRC DS9 had an episode about anti-aging

[Geronimo]

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/09...o-live-forever

IIRC DS9 had an episode about anti-aging

Perhaps Putin is aware of individual(s) whose mortality and age may soon catch up with them who are so vital to the well-being of the Russian Federation that it would collapse without them! This would make the aging process an existential enemy to the federation! A national project to combat it may be the only hope for the future viability of Russia!

[N35t0r]

I would also add that politically it lets Putin use his conscripts against Ukraine without the need for the politically toxic groundwork of legally allowing such use. it's already permitted under Russian law within Russia itself. However, the presence of Ukrainian military occupying any part of pre-conflict Russia may be so politically damaging to Putin along with the fallout of using (legally or not) the conscripts in a war he may be perceived as responsible for that Putin may be brought back to negotiating. That is probably what Ukraine was gambling on.

It's also true that the Russian salient pointing towards Pokrovsk doesn't have any serious natural barriers to protect it and Russia will not realize the strategic benefit of the advances in that area until it captures at least enough of Pokrovsk to deny its functionality as a logistical hub for Ukraine. Perhaps Ukraine is preparing a devastating counterattack? I think the time to call Ukraine's Kursk offensive foolish is not yet ripe. We'll have to see what Russia actually has when their offensive culminates or at least wait until they have decisively denied Pokrovsk as a hub for Ukrainian operations.

There were already conscripts captured by Ukraine in Kursk, and it led to Russia actually agreeing to a POW swap directly with Ukraine (previous ones were negotiated by Turkey)

[pchang]

They have conducted the 2nd POW swap since Kursk a few days ago.

[Dinner]

Pchang, that is actually a good thing as for at least the last year Putin has been refusing to engage in prisoner swaps. So, for Ukraine, it is good he has finally been forced to relent.

[The Mad Monk]

Especially considering he is trading mostly hardened soldiers for mostly untrained kids.

[BeBMan]

Not bad for a country that Putin thinks doesn't exist to get him to negotiate POW swapses.

[The Mad Monk]

Meanwhile, in a clearly unimportant backwater nowhere near a line between Moscow and St. Petersburg, something went BOOM.

[The Mad Monk]

Estimated 1 kiloton blast, btw. The Beirut fertilizer blast of 2020 was 1.1 kt.

[Dinner]

Meanwhile, in a clearly unimportant backwater nowhere near a line between Moscow and St. Petersburg, something went BOOM.

It is funny how Russia keeps experiencing "smoking accidents". That is the excuse Putin kept blaming for drone strikes blowing up stuff in Russia.

[Dinner]

Estimated 1 kiloton blast, btw. The Beirut fertilizer blast of 2020 was 1.1 kt.

Sounds like quite the party.

[The Mad Monk]

Two more BOOMS have occurred. A second ammo dump 10 miles from the first one, and a third near Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia across the way from Crimea.

[BeBMan]

Just as Putin tries the good old nuke scare again, this kind of BOOM is undermining the whole exercise somewhat:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/24/russias-new-sarmat-missile-suffered-catastrophic-failure-researchers

[The Mad Monk]

One good test waaaaay back in 2018, all BOOMs since.

[Geronimo]

One good test waaaaay back in 2018, all BOOMs since.

I wonder why this is difficult after so many earlier reliable rocket families.