***Russian - Ukraine War Tactical and Strategic Updates*** [Warning on OP]

9,514,873 Views | 52770 Replies | Last: 2 hrs ago by Who?mikejones!
mike0305
How long do you want to ignore this user?
So China is selling a more "calm" world order while supplying 90% of Russia's drones. You can't make this stuff up. I always read about how other countries do this to us, I hope we are returning the favor.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/18/xi-jinping-china-using-iran-war-challenge-trump/

"China and Spain are both principled countries that value justice, and are willing to stand on the right side of history," he continued, in a thinly veiled jab at Donald Trump's assault on Iran, which has engulfed the Middle East in war for the past 50 days.

2wealfth Man
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
China (those in charge) would do anything to make a buck and get some leverage
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Waffledynamics
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Who?mikejones!
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rossticus said:




Hmmm
richardag
How long do you want to ignore this user?
https://www.reuters.com/world/fire-breaks-out-oil-terminal-southern-russias-krasnodar-region-officials-say-2026-04-17/
  • fire broke out at an oil terminal in southern Russia's Krasnodar region, prompting a large firefighting operation, the region's emergency operational headquarters said early on Saturday.
  • Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syskyi, said this week that Ukrainian forces were seeking to reduce Russia's offensive capabilities by keeping up a high pace of strikes on military, defence-industrial and other facilities.
No mention of a drone attack.
We really need to rewrite our laws concerning libel and slander.
Touchless
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
In the event Ukraine did kill Putin via a drone or something, any thoughts on what Russias response would be? Straight to nukes or some other sort of retaliation?
PJYoung
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Touchless said:

In the event Ukraine did kill Putin via a drone or something, any thoughts on what Russias response would be? Straight to nukes or some other sort of retaliation?


Their response would be to wind this war down as quickly as possible.
MaxPower
How long do you want to ignore this user?
PJYoung said:

Touchless said:

In the event Ukraine did kill Putin via a drone or something, any thoughts on what Russias response would be? Straight to nukes or some other sort of retaliation?


Their response would be to wind this war down as quickly as possible.
I'm not so convinced. Some of the potential successors are pretty badly making money hand over fist via the MIC. I doubt they are too mean to give it up
Who?mikejones!
How long do you want to ignore this user?
panhandlefarmer
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Wow!
txags92
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Who?mikejones! said:



I hope it is windy.
TRM
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Apparently, Ukraine struck it 4 days ago and they barely extinguished the fire only for it to burn again.

Sq 17
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Those guys and the MIC will make money replenishing everything that got destroyed
javajaws
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
TRM said:

Apparently, Ukraine struck it 4 days ago and they barely extinguished the fire only for it to burn again.

It must have been a special firefighting operation!
PJYoung
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
This is a good point



Quote:

There are still people who in 2026 think that Russia isn't fully committed in Ukraine...

The Russian army has gone from 900k men to 1.5M, the Russian army in Ukraine from 160k to 750k in 4 years.
100% of Russian armies are deployed on the Ukrainian front and the vast majority of divisions, brigades, and regiments are also present there
The Russian defense budget represents about 10% of GDP, expenditures (including hidden ones) 30 to 40% of the budget, estimates at 130-160B...
The Russian economy has shifted to a war economy, 30 to 40,000 men are recruited each month to head to the front, replacing losses.
The majority of Russian aviation is engaged on the Ukrainian front, particularly bombers and helicopters, more than a hundred sorties daily.
Russia strikes Ukraine every night with its available production of drones and missiles (~6k drones and -1000 missiles produced per month)
The Russian army needed 10,000 North Korean soldiers to help it in Kursk, as well as 8 to 12 million North Korean shells and thousands of Iranian drones.
Russia (contrary to propaganda) doesn't care about "preserving a Slavic brother"; just look at the destruction of all the villages and towns along the front and the fate reserved for Ukrainians under occupation.
In 1500 days of war and especially since the end of the maneuver phase, Russia has failed to occupy a single regional capital, a city of more than 100k inhabitants, or more than 2% of Ukrainian territory (1.3% of Ukrainian territory has been taken since November 2022)...

Russia, Russian society, the Russian army are already in a total war against Ukraine and indirectly against Ukraine's allies. The Russian army is already at the maximum of its potential and cannot hope for a major military victory unless it forcibly mobilizes at least another million men, condemning its economy in the long term. I often hear "Russia is only using a small part of its potential." Yet that's false; the only additional step is its nuclear arsenal.

I want to be clear: Russia is absolutely not a threat as long as it is at war. The day the war ends, the Russian army will be able to stockpile in one year 100,000 strategic drones, 8 million artillery shells, millions of FPV drones, enough to crush many European armies under relentless fire...

PJYoung
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
benchmark
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
PJYoung said:

I want to be clear: Russia is absolutely not a threat as long as it is at war. The day the war ends, the Russian army will be able to stockpile in one year 100,000 strategic drones, 8 million artillery shells, millions of FPV drones, enough to crush many European armies under relentless fire...

Scary thought for 45 million people living in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
5Amp
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Ukraine's robotic and drone advancement over the last year has been a game changer. Their technology is battlefield tested and continues to only get better. Their technology is literally taking back territory and capturing trench soldiers with unmanned ground machines, losing no one during these maneuvers.

They are also selling this technology to the Saudis and others. Robots and swam drones are fast becoming the future battle fields.

Naveronski
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I am so glad to be out of the military before having to fight drone swarms.
IED's were bad enough.
Nagler
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
IED's weren't fun enough. Now you get IED's in the air. What a time to be unalived..
PJYoung
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
PJYoung said:

This is a good point



Quote:



I want to be clear: Russia is absolutely not a threat as long as it is at war. The day the war ends, the Russian army will be able to stockpile in one year 100,000 strategic drones, 8 million artillery shells, millions of FPV drones, enough to crush many European armies under relentless fire...




Same idea this morning
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/russia-drones-putin-ukraine-war.html

Quote:

First, Russia made unmanned systems and A.I. a national priority, building a coordinated ecosystem. By 2030, the Kremlin has projected, one million specialists will be working in the unmanned sector. It also wants to increase the number of A.I. specialists graduating annually by more than 400 percent and ensure that 95 percent of priority industries reach "readiness for the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies." Civilian industries generate data, talent and software that flow into defense applications, and the military provides a continuous testing ground for them.


Quote:

Second, Russia experiments relentlessly and prioritizes only what survives contact with the battlefield. The Shahed drone is a good example. My research has found that, after acquiring the design from Iran in 2022, Russia made more than three dozen major modifications in less than three years, adjusting navigation, communications, payload and tactics. These changes came not only from professional engineers but from students working at a production site near Yelabuga, in Tatarstan, around 620 miles east of Moscow. The factory there is effectively a school and the school is a research and development lab. The line between education and weapons development has deliberately blurred.

This logic extends to autonomy. Ukrainian intelligence suggests that Russia is deploying drones capable of operating without external communication navigating, autonomously identifying targets and striking independently using onboard computing. These systems, known as V2U drones, seem to have transitioned from remotely piloted or programmed weapons into fully autonomous ones that function even when enemies jam the signals coming from soldiers controlling them.


Quote:

Third, Russia avoids abstraction. Rather than pursuing all-encompassing architectures like the U.S. military's combined joint all-domain command and control concept intended to connect branches of the military on one network, but still largely unrealized after years of development Russia builds software that solves immediate battlefield problems. The clearest example is Glaz/Groza. Glaz software extracts target coordinates from drone footage with a single click and passes them instantly to Groza, a fire-control hub can be operated from a laptop or tablet. This compresses the time from target detection to artillery impact from hours to mere minutes. The system is now taught at Russian military academies and deployed by frontline units.


74OA
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
"In a first, Ukraine's drone force launches an interceptor drone from a USV to destroy a Shahed.

According to experts, the success of this new sea-air integration setup will create further headaches for Russian kamikaze drones."

FIRST
Rossticus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
2wealfth Man
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Rossticus said:


man, he is living in a fantasy land of some sort
PJYoung
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG


The envoys also approved the bloc's 20th sanctions package against Russia.
Teslag
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
People wanted Europe to carry the load and they look to be doing so.
Who?mikejones!
How long do you want to ignore this user?
People or govt? There is a difference
First Page Refresh
Page 1508 of 1508
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.