Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Sunday, October 12, 2025 07:00
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 339599
PAGE 182 of 182

Friday, October 10, 2025 10:26 AM

Keep it real please

All the bullshit put forth by comrades kiki and signym blaming others for what Russia did is exposed. Just as history will expose the rest of his war crimes.

T

Putin says Russian air defenses caused the 2024 Azerbaijan plane crash

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 10, 2025 10:37 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

#Rootin4Putin

--------------------------------------------------

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 10, 2025 10:58 AM

THG

Keep it real please

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

#Rootin4Putin

No surprise there Gilligan. You're what we call, white trash.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 10, 2025 1:44 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
All the bullshit put forth by comrades kiki and signym blaming others for what Russia did is exposed. Just as history will expose the rest of his war crimes.

Dood, not a war crime. Russians were shooting at Ukie drones. Russian missiles are set to explode if they miss their target, unfortunately it exploded near the plane.

Not only do you have TDS bad, you've got PDS too. You're a mess, man.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 10, 2025 2:51 PM

THG

Keep it real please

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

All the bullshit put forth by comrades kiki and signym blaming others for what Russia did is exposed. Just as history will expose the rest of his war crimes.
Dood, not a war crime. Russians were shooting at Ukie drones. Russian missiles are set to explode if they miss their target, unfortunately it exploded near the plane.

Not only do you have TDS bad, you've got PDS too. You're a mess, man.

Too funny... Both you and Putin are still blaming Ukraine. If Ukraine wasn't using a drone Russia would not have shot down the plane. And, waited years to admit it was a Russian missile.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 11, 2025 6:07 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The European Parliament has called for lifting restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons against military targets on Russian territory, according to a resolution adopted on October 9 in Strasbourg.

Western governments have long limited Ukraine’s ability to strike inside Russia, citing fears of escalation, NATO entanglement, and retaliatory attacks on Europe. These limitations have constrained how Ukraine can respond to Russian attacks launched from inside Russian territory.

Most EU member states permit Ukraine to strike Russian military targets near the border using supplied weapons, but deeper strikes into Russian territory remain largely prohibited - forcing Ukraine to rely on domestically-produced long-range drones and missiles for attacks on refineries, military installations, and ammunition depots hundreds of kilometers inside Russia.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/09/european-parliament-backs-ukrai
nes-right-to-strike-military-targets-inside-russia-with-western-weapons/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 11, 2025 6:10 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine’s European partners continue to allocate aid to Ukraine and deepen cooperation with the Ukrainian defense industrial base (DIB). The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on October 10 that it signed an agreement with the German MoD to provide financial support for key projects that support the digitization of Ukraine’s defense sector, including Ukraine’s DELTA battlefield management program, Army+ and Reserve+ systems, the DOT-Chain Defense Marketplace, and strengthening Ukraine’s cyber defense.[25] German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall announced on October 10 that it will supply Ukraine with an unspecified number of additional Skyranger 35 mobile ground-based air defense systems based on the Leopard 1 tank chassis and that the contract is valued at hundreds of millions of euros, which an unspecified EU member state will finance using frozen Russian assets.[26] The United Kingdom (UK) announced on October 10 that the UK recently delivered hundreds of Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMM) to Ukraine five months ahead of schedule.[27] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on October 10 that Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on joint drone production.[28]

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-october-10-2025/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 11, 2025 6:21 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Putin Flutters His Eyelashes and Trump Swoons (Melania Too)

A Catechism To Understand The Reality Of Trump, Russia and Ukraine

By Phillips P. Obrien | Oct 11

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/putin-flutters-his-eyelashes-an
d

If you can, turn your mind back to almost two weeks ago, not long after Trump started talking, once again, about helping Ukraine and hammering Russia. His rhetorical flourishes such as calling Russia a “paper tiger”, depressingly caused people to again lose their mind and start fantasizing about the USA sending masses of weapons to Ukraine. Yes, we were told Tomahawk missiles would soon be sent and Trump would definitely authorize Ukraine to fire them into Russia. As always the narrative was spread far and wide by that extraordinary self-deceiving group that claims to support both Trump and Ukraine. Sadly, the Ukrainians even seemed to fall for this line.
. . .

And what has Ukraine received in concrete terms lately from all this pivoting? Nothing. Indeed even during Trump’s most extreme moments of vocal pivot no new sanctions were placed on Russia, no weapons were rushed to Ukraine, the material changes were non-existent.

And most likely nothing will happen, unless Putin again drastically miscalculates and offends Trump so much that the US president feels so broken-hearted that he needs to go all Mean Girls on the Russian dictator.

With all this in mind, I thought I would write a short catechism of points, so help subscribers understand the reality of the Trump-Putin-Ukraine relationship.

1. Trump desperately wants to work with and gain the respect of Vladimir Putin. Putin might push him too far, but always has in his back pocket the possibility of bewitching the US president.

2. Trump hates Zelensky, wants the Ukrainian president to be out of power and would like Ukraine to be ruled by someone who will cut a deal that would hand over much of Ukraine to Putin. Trump views Zelensky as an enemy (thinks a Ukrainian version of James Comey) who betrayed him about Hunter Biden. When Trump acts like he favors Zelensky, it is a lie.

3. Trump has no emotional interest in helping Ukraine or the Ukrainian people. He would be more than happy to see Ukraine wiped from the map.

4. Trump has materially reduced the support to Ukraine from the USA since being president and will keep doing that unless Putin messes up. For instance, Trump starved Ukraine of air defense during his first 7 months as president, which is contributing to the terrible attacks Russia is inflicting on Ukraine now. He has cut back intelligence sharing, has slow-walked deliveries of aid. He has weakened Ukraine greatly in comparison to the Biden Administration.

5. Trump has materially protected Putin. Since becoming president he has put no new sanctions on Russia and loosened some on Belarus. These moves have clearly helped Russia evade certain restrictions more and more efficiently. At the same time his one move made supposedly to punish Russia (putting high tariffs on India) have had the direct opposite affect and increased Indian purchases of Russian oil and pushed India to cooperate more with Russia strategically. That indeed might have been the plan all along.

One final point. All this fantasizing about Trump helping Ukraine is dangerous. Not only does it provide false hopes, it acts as a brake on European states who want to do more for Ukraine. Many of them are still desperate to appeal to Trump and, worried about keeping the US president on side, have not given Ukraine the support they could. They need to realize that Trump’s first love is and always will be Putin—and European leaders need to look after Europe’s interests on their own.

They do not have the option of batting their eyelashes and have Trump come running. Vladimir Putin does (and just has). That is the difference.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 11, 2025 10:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

THUGR, here is a lesson in critical thinking:

O'Brien's article is fact-free mind reading. It attributes all kinds of motivations to Trump and Putin. It is framed in emotional language, how they "feel" (as opposed to what they "think"), appealing to emotion-based people like you.

But in that whole diatribe, there's only one verifiable fact:

The flow of weapons to Ukraine. Why the flow slowed to a trickle is, of course, explained by how Trump "feels" (an unverifiable statement), not to real world constraints like ...

Oh, say, LACK OF INVENTORY. Apparent uselessness of weapons already provided, such as tanks, artillery, the F16, and the Patriot, which has a poor record of shooting down Russian missiles in addition to being expensive. Since the USA has other commitments besides Ukraine, it can't afford to hemorrhage its entire arsenal into one war. (FWIW the last USA weapon still effectively in the fight is the HIMARS.)

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 11, 2025 10:10 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Watch: MSM Interview Covers Up Ukrainian Fighter's Swastika Tattoo

Saturday, Oct 11, 2025 - 08:05 AM

In another embarrassing and revealing moment for Western mainstream media and its many puff pieces on Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Regiment, Canadian national broadcaster CBC has aired a news report this week from "an elite training facility" of its 3rd Assault Brigade in Kiev, featuring a fighter with a swastika tattoo on his arm.

The footage, released Thursday, blurred out the swastika tattoo of one of the main military trainers interviewed, but failed to do so in the video’s YouTube thumbnail. Comments were turned off, with a note attached in the YouTube description which reads: "A tattoo of an offensive symbol has been blurred in this video." Watch (officer with tattoo starts at :16 mark)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 12, 2025 6:39 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

1. Russian forces have been increasingly targeting Ukrainian logistics routes and positions in the near rear using mothership unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly motherships based on variants of the Orlan and Molniya fixed-wing drones, since at least August 2025.

2. Russian developers are integrating fiber-optic cables into cheaper drones to scale Russian forces’ ability to conduct drone strikes at farther ranges.

3. Russian forces are trying to scale the production of fiber-optic UAVs to increasingly intercept Ukrainian heavy bomber drones.

4. Russian developers reportedly introduced fiber-optic FPV UAVs that can function as repeater drones for other strike and reconnaissance UAVs, extending Russian tactical drone ranges to up to 60 kilometers.

5. Russian forces are pursuing moving targets in the near rear with Shahed (Ceran) and Cerbera UAVs with integrated cameras and radio control capabilities.

6. Russian developers are fielding new countermeasures against Ukrainian drone interceptors, chiefly via newly integrated radio detectors.

More details at https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-force-gen
eration-technological-adaptations-update-october-9-2025/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 12, 2025 7:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Weekend Update #154: The Strategic Air War And The Approaching Winter

Russian Attacks, Ukrainian Options for Defense, and F-16s

By Phillips P. Obrien | Oct 12, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-154-the-strategi
c

The Strategic Air War And The Approaching Winter

Part 1: The Russian Campaign To Make Ukrainian Life Unbearable

The war this winter will to a large degree be determined by how the ranged campaigns by both sides progress—and this last week there were some signs of just how intense and destructive that war will be.

The Russians used much of their strategic air power to go after Ukrainian energy supplies and power generation. For those who are relatively new to following the strategic air war, attacking Ukrainian power generation—especially with winter approaching—has been a favorite target of the Russians for a few years. Oddly, they had some real successes attacking power generation during the winter of 2023-2024, though last winter the attacks did not seem so effective. It might have been that the Biden Administration helped Ukraine prepare its air defense better for last winter and for most of the time Ukrainians had access to power and heat.

Unfortunately, Ukrainian air defense is clearly coming under greater strain this Autumn—precisely as the Russians are once again going after power generation. Remember, the Trump administration cut off Ukraine off from any new US military aid for the first 7 months of the year, and actually at one point put a freeze specifically on crucial anti-air elements such as Patriot missiles and other equipment. In other words, the Trump administration for much of the year has worked actively to help the Russians in their campaign. Its worth noting that only in the second half of September did the Trump administration agree to its first PURL order to sell Patriot ammunition to Europeans to send on to Ukraine.

The Trump administration, as such, has helped Russia a great deal until now.

And this attempt to weaken Ukraine meant that Ukrainian anti-air capabilities were less strong this summer than it should have been—and it has stresses the system. Ukrainian anti-air now is weaker than it should have been if the USA had stood by it—and they are coming under great strain now.

This last week, for instance, the Russians seemed to ramp up attacks on power generation targets and had some real successes. Bloomberg reported that the Russians might have taken out approximately half of Ukraine’s natural gas production—before the war Ukraine met almost all of its needs in this area.

Then on Thursday night, the Russians launched a massive attack on power generation with a focus on Kyiv. According to President Zelensky, about 450 Russian UAVs and 30 missiles were fired at “everything that sustains normal life, everything the Russians want to deprive us of.” He then went on to elaborate:

“It is precisely the civilian and energy infrastructure that is the main target of Russia’s strikes ahead of the heating season,”

And these big attacks are just part of what seems to have been a regular series of attacks for weeks. This is one area where Ukraine’s partners need to do far more. Maybe they were lulled into a false sense of security by the Ukrainian defense last year when the Biden Administration was providing billions of dollars in air defense equipment. However, this winter is not last winter. Russian production of UAVs is much higher now and the assumption must be that these attacks will go on in mass for the foreseeable future.

And this is the key point—Ukrainian air defense needs to be built up in layered mass too. Ukrainian interceptions of different air defense systems continues, percentage-wise, at a relatively high pace. According to General Syrskyi, Ukrainian forces are intercepting about 75% of all systems fired by the Russians. However, if the Russians are firing hundreds, maybe even thousands, of systems per week, that means that hundreds are reaching their targets.

Ukraine must be aided to increase this interception percentage markedly—and sadly the Trump administration once again seems to be delaying. Just last night Zelensky and Trump talked about the war. Apart from asking for Tomahawks (which Trump did not agree to do—despite all the hopeful headlines) it seems that Zelensky spent much of his time asking for air defense support. The Ukrainians, always, tried to put a positive spin on this and said Trump took their concerns seriously—but the White House offered no comment. For air defense (as for Tomahawks) Trump seemed to listen and offer little concrete.

And it is getting relatively late in the day for the USA anyway. We are now in the middle of October—this aid needs to be on its way very soon or it will get there too late.

Thankfully, at least, some European states are doing more to help. In the last week, there were a number of stories about different European initiatives that are actually underway to help Ukraine.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/10/11/8002298/
https://www.twz.com/air/entire-family-of-vampire-counter-drone-systems
-unveiled
https://kyivindependent.com/rheinmetall-to-supply-ukraine-with-additio
nal-skyranger-air-defense-systems/

Note—there are three different links above to different initiatives—things are being tried.

And the Ukrainians have been developing more and more systems of their own. With the Trump administration slow-walking support—this will be Europe’s fight with Ukraine.

Part 2: Ukraine’s Option For Response

One of the reasons I’ve been so impressed with how Ukraine has waged its war, is that it has tried not to commit the kinds of war crimes that Russia commits against it multiple times a day. The Russians regularly attack Ukrainian civilians in hospitals, nurseries and, of course, their homes. The Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants, which underpin the necessities of civilian life, are most probably war crimes. The Russians are supposed to take steps to mitigate the damage of such attacks on civilians. As it is—the attacks seemed designed specifically to make civilian life unbearable. That is the definition of a war crime.

Of course in a larger sense we are now in a world where the whole idea of there being “war crimes” is becoming increasingly meaningless. Not only are the Russians committing these crimes with impunity on a daily basis, but the USA is destroying boats on the high seas that represent no threat to US forces and which could be seized without their destruction and the death of their crews. By most estimates these American attacks are war crimes. And yet they continue unabated. With two of the UN’s Security Council members now openly committing such crimes, does the whole concept of their even being war crimes have any future?

Btw I have been thinking about writing a piece about the implications of this—we do seem to be entering an era where the idea of a war crime is being widely disregarded—and chances are this disregard will grow. This could have a massive impact on how wars are fought and what elements are targeted in the near future. It could change our whole discourse about war. Of course it would be as depressing as hell to write and read. Yet, maybe it must be written.

Notably, Ukraine, has until now gone to great lengths to wage war without committing such war crimes. Their campaign against Russian fuel refineries, for instance, does not directly impact civilian life in the way that shutting off the power to a large city would.

Note—the Ukrainians kept their campaign against refineries up this week, but on a smaller pace. They hit, on Friday night, a refinery 1400 kilometres from Ukraine in Ufa. I will catch up with this campaign in the coming week I am sure.

What the Ukrainians have not done is try to turn the lights out in Moscow or St Petersburg—in response to what the Russians have been doing for years to cities such as Kyiv.

And the Ukrainians could conceivably do this now—with their own systems. This week for the first time, President Zelensky claimed Ukraine had launched an attack with a small number of both its homemade Flamingo and Neptune missiles. He did not specify what was attacked, just said the attack was successful. However, if the Flamingo FP-5 cruise missile is actually on track production-wise, these kinds of attacks should now happen more often.

Remember, when the existence of Flamingo was first announced in August, it was said that the Ukrainians aimed to produce 7 per day by October.

And, btw, just two weeks ago a picture was released of a Ukrainian ranged attack against a target in Belgorod in Russia which, due to the large cavity it caused, would most likely have to be a Neptune or Flamingo.
The crater after the strike on the night of September 22-23 on the Frese plant in Belgorod. Photo from open sources.
Looks Like A Heavy Payload Attack

This is not the result of a lighter drone attack.

Moreover, it is unlikely that Russian air defense would be capable of protecting its own power plants. Russian refineries, for instance, are being hit with what looks like astonishing regularity. Indeed, often Russia seems to leave targets unprotected until they are attacked, and then tries to rush air defenses in place in a reactive way. If the Ukrainians decided to focus on power generation as well as on refineries, it would be an epic challenge for Russian air defense (which still has to try and protect its military forces in Ukraine itself).

So here we are—it's October and Ukrainian production of ranged systems is also ramping up. The debate the Ukrainians are almost certainly having is one of deterrence through punishment when it comes to power generation attack. As the Russians are producing in mass and will almost certainly go after Ukrainian power generation all winter, do the Ukrainians answer in kind? Remember, all the power plants that support Moscow and St Petersburg are easily in the range of Flamingos, let alone other systems that the Ukrainians have already been using for months against targets in and around those cities.

The Ukrainians have clearly not wanted to match Russia’s actions in this area until now. However, with the Russians repeatedly going after Ukrainian cities, and the US slow walking any support, they might decide they have no option.

We live in a time where all standards are collapsing before our eyes. This might be a terrible winter for both Ukrainian and Russian civilians—welcome to the new world.

F-16s And Ukrainian Air Defense

The last thing I wanted to do in this weekend review is encourage you to listen to, or read, this interview with USAF Lt general David Deptula (retd) and one of Ukraine’s leading F-16 pilots. For those who do not know Gen Deptula, he is one of the most important air force officers of the post-Cold War world, helped plan much of the air war for Desert Storm and continues to be one of the most engaged thinkers about air power from his present position as head of The Michell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ukraines-f-16-force-innovation-impac
t-and-resolve-in-the-face-of-aggression/

What comes out in this discussion is just how the F-16s have become vital to helping Ukraine defend its skies from Russian missiles and drones. The F-16s, now as much as the Patriots, seem to be a crucial layer in Ukraine’s capabilities to defend itself this winter. For instance, a story was recently released about one Ukrainian pilot shooting down 6 Russian cruise missiles in one flight.

The importance of the F-16 in this air defense role points out the hollowness of the arguments that were given for years about why Ukraine supposedly did not need this system or that. It was widely said by the analytical community at the time (as it was said about Patriots, ATACMS, etc) that F-16s would not be “game changers”, that Ukraine would never be able to use them properly, that training Ukrainian pilots would take too long, etc. Just one example, the Russian-sympathetic Responsible Statecraft think tank in 2023 combined many of these arguments in one steaming pile of crap piece—downplaying the importance of Ukraine getting F-16s. Btw, there were many others making similar arguments. I have them all.

At the time, Edward Stringer and I in The Atlantic argued that all these arguments were deeply flawed, not least because people were underestimating the crucial role the F-16 could play in Ukrainian air defense—gift link attached.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/ukraine-military-f-1
6-aircraft/674022/?gift=BQHDq1p24LRO8cUUEyLQ65GAm3aCTeE_LA-BH67rPbw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Having F-16s would broaden Ukraine’s ability to shoot down incoming Russian missiles and drones. During last year’s campaigns, the Russians relied on a wide range of attack platforms: relatively simple and inexpensive Iranian Shahed drones, repurposed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, more advanced Kalibr cruise missiles, and even Russia’s latest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. To shoot down just some of this weapony, the Ukrainians had to rely overwhelmingly on ground-based anti-air systems—to such a degree that rumors spread that Ukraine was or would soon be running short. Without an airborne defense—something F-16s would help provide—Ukraine is, to use a sports metaphor, defending on its own goal line. Instead of a systematic defense of its skies, the Ukrainians are fending off attacks on targeted infrastructure point by point. Any defense that relies on last-ditch saves is a notably poor one.

And here we are—more than 2 years later and Ukraine might not be able to defend its skies without F-16s. The next time an analyst assures you a certain weapon won't be a game changer, or that Ukraine will not need them, can’t use them, can’t operate them, etc—tell them to jump off a cliff.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

Thanks for reading Phillips’s Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE
second	10.12 06:39
second	10.12 07:00