The Ukraine war thread

[jon-nyc]

Ugh.

[George K]

@jon-nyc I saw that yesterday. It's clearly a residential area of no military value, other than being a potential spot for snipers.

The White House actually said "War Crimes" yesterday.

The link from the New York Times I posted earlier talks about Russian soldiers "clearing" residential areas.

[Mik]

Dresden.

[Klaus]

I don't think it is comparable yet to Hamburg or Dresden or London in WW2, which were bombed over extended periods of time and where the destruction was more or less total. But it is of course pretty bad.

[Doctor Phibes]

I work with a guy who's wife has twin sons of military age in Mariupol. He managed to get the older folks out, but they're staying...

[Renauda]

@Doctor-Phibes

I can’t imagine the anxiety.

[jon-nyc]

A joke from Moscow: "According to Putin the special military operation is really a conflict btw Russia and NATO about World dominance. Whats the situation now?" "Russia has lost 15000 troops, 6 generals, 500 tanks, 3 ships, 100 planes and 1000 trucks. NATO hasn't arrived yet."

[Renauda]

@jon-nyc

That sound exactly like the Radio Yerevan jokes that circulated over there during Soviet times.

[Copper]

Do you like to eat?

Maybe Russia isn't so evil.

https://www.foxnews.com/

[George K]

@Copper

[Copper]

Maybe I'll head over to the supermarket tomorrow to watch the panic.

[George K]

Duds:

Russian missiles in Ukraine have failure rate of up to 60%, U.S. officials say

Russian precision-guided missiles are failing up to 60% of the time in Ukraine, three U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the issue told Reuters, a possible explanation for the poor progress of Russia's invasion.

Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia has failed to achieve basic objectives such as neutralizing Ukraine's air force despite a vastly larger armed forces.

The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information, did not provide evidence to support the assessment and did not disclose what precisely was driving high Russian missile failure rates.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the figures.

Though Reuters could not determine what a standard failure rate would be for air-launched cruise missiles, two experts interviewed by Reuters said any failure rate of 20% and above would be considered high.

U.S. defense officials told reporters this week that the Pentagon assesses that Russia has launched more than 1,100 missiles of all kinds since the war began. The U.S. officials have so far not said how many of those hit their targets and how many failed to do so.

Citing U.S. intelligence, three U.S. officials said the United States estimated that Russia's failure rate varied day-to-day, depended on the type of missile being launched, and could sometimes exceed 50%. Two of them said it reached as high as 60%.

One of the officials said the intelligence showed that Russia's air-launched cruise missiles had a failure rate in the 20% to 60% range, depending on the day.

[George K]

That ship that was blown up?

It appears on Russian TV "News" two days earlier:

Link to video

Best comment: "This ship is so sophisticated. Allegedly it can also become a submarine."

[Mik]

It's well on its way to doing so.

[George K]

Updated with some new calculations - on the far right is a column showing the relative losses of Ukrainian vs Russian equipment.

Also losses per day since March 16.

[George K]

[George K]

"Those really are survivability ratios at par with World War II, before the advent of modern medicine."

[Renauda]

@George-K

Multiply both those number by 4 and you’ll have a fairly accurate number. Approaching the same numbers the Pentagon and Brits are estimating.

[George K]

@Renauda I saw a story (I think it was on Forbes) that the Ukrainians have more, yes MORE, tanks now than they did at the beginning of the "special mission." Despite their losses, they have captured more abandoned tanks than they have lost. I think Forbes said they are up 49 tanks overall.

[George K]

Interesting thread.