None of them seem to understand that Russia can stop these attacks at any time by leaving Ukrainian territory.

It is also reported that the pilot died

That's maybe the best part. The list of people willing to fly over Ukrainian territory must be getting pretty short.

This indicates that Ukrainian efforts at attrition warfare have delivered over the summer, and that they're well positioned to start up manoeuvre warfare again.

It's worth saying that these elite Russian forces are about as well-equipped and trained as Ukraine's offensive brigades. There were some fairly well researched reports from last year by the ISW about how these air assault divisions have been getting badly beaten up since the start of the war, and have taken significant losses on multiple occasions against regular Ukrainian troops. Not to write them off completely, but the Ukrainians are perfectly capable of taking on these guys.

“I see nothing special in their return. Wagner is no longer a powerful force. Those who returned are far from being in a good fighting mood, as they know what to expect here,” Cherevatyi said. “Furthermore, they are now under the control of the Defense Ministry.

That's pretty important. It seems like Wagner had an effective command structure that allowed for successful offensive capabilities. The Russian military will just mindlessly march them into Ukraine's meatgrinder.

I've stopped advocating for PC gaming after about 15 years of being a PC enthusiast. It's just too expensive these days. I think the Steam Deck is a good entry point, but not everyone wants a handheld console. I can 100% respect anyone who looks at the price of a gaming PC and just picks up a Playstation/Xbox for $500 instead.

Hideo Kojima's games are bad.

For context, when I was 11 my friend told me that MGS was incredible, so I went to his house to play it. It was fucking tedious. I spent hours shuffling around grey corridors, interspersed with painfully long dialog and cut scenes that were mostly about nothing.

Then, years later I decided to go back to MGS V and give the series another try. I had the exact same reaction to it as the original game. Endless waffle about characters and situations that meant nothing to me, uninspired modern military aesthetics, and boring locations.

They were clearly very well-made games, and I appreciate that people have massive regard for them. I just don't like them at all.

Since cluster munitions were used, a wide area would have been peppered with shrapnel. I'd argue that anything that wasn't destroyed is badly damaged enough that they're no longer fit for operations without repairs and maintenance.

So all of those assurances from Western leaders about supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes were completely disingenuous.

PSA Carly Rae Jepsen is lowkey one of the greatest popstars of all time. Every album she's released since call me maybe has been absolutely brilliant. More people need to listen to Carly.

Reports are saying there are 40000 reserves being sent to Avdiivka, so it looks like the numbers are going to stay high for a while. Appearently they've also run out of armour, so it's just infantry assaults now. What a horror show. I didn't think Russia had any reserves, since there's no rotation happening.

Call Me Maybe (2011) composer: Josh Ramsay, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Tavish Crowe. Lol, yes she did.

Nice! I love seeing Ural trucks getting turned to scrap. They're the backbone of Russian logistics, and every one they lose means a unit somewhere isn't getting any food or ammo that week.

It's going to take a lot of brave people and a lot of money to demine Ukraine. Luckily, Ukrainians are very brave and they have some extremely rich friends.

Strongly worded retaliatory measures from the Kremlin are incoming!

Appearently this class of ship is being used to do supply runs to Svastopol. Another big loss for the occupier's logistics in Southern Ukraine and Crimea. Hopefully more will be joing the Moskva soon!

Even better! Each one has 4 engines. So they'll need to start working on 16 replacements. I'm sure that'll be no problem at all with all of those sanctions and their currency becoming worthless. These daily humiliations are getting expensive.

My armchair general take is that Russia is just flinging whatever resources they have left at the Ukrainians. They've lost their professional army, their artillery stockpiles, KA-52s, Wagner. Now all they have left are T-72s, BMPs, and bodies, so they're just hoping for any kind of win with that. It's not working out, and I'm really curious how long it'll be before they run out of soviet era armour and suicidal idiots, and what will happen next if they do.

Western media has become completely defeatist about Ukraine's prospects because Russia is still able to project strength. I honestly think that these tactics are a sign of desperation, and that things could start to fall apart quite suddenly for Russia. If for example, the US and EU pass more aid for Ukraine in early 2024, and Russia runs low on materiel, then it's not difficult to imagine. I'm hoping that the new ATACMS variant will knock out the Crimean bridge soon, and that a surprise offensive across the Dnieper could isolate Crimea and create a strategic disaster for Russia.

People who understand Putin say that he's a gambler, not a strategic genius. He's made so many bad bets since 2021, and I'm starting to hope that this latest roll of the dice using meat wave attacks could be the last time he's able to double down without serious consequences.

I really hope that this insane tactic will come back to bite him in the near future. There's no way these losses can be sustainable.

People and the media keep disparaging Russian tactics in places like Avdiivka and Bakhmut. But it has worked for them in the past, and I'm starting to think Avdiivka might get surrounded. Avdiivka is described as being 'like a fortress' which is exactly what they said about Bakhmut a year ago, and that fell to the same strategy. They'll just keep throwing more and more men into the meat grinder for as long as it takes, chipping away at Ukraine's defences every day, and eventually after a few months potentially take the town.

It reminds me of how Napoleon used to brag about how he could reliably recruit 15,000 men a week, which gave him confidence that he could keep waging war because France could sustain the losses. I wonder if something similar is being played out in Putin's calculations. Just keep recruiting and throwing away lives, and eventually you'll eek out a victory. It's fucking horrifying. Everyone expects Russia to run out of men and equipment at some point, but they never do. They seem to have an infinite supply of BMPs, men, and Kalashnikovs.

I love seeing incredibly expensive RU equipment getting ripped apart by a $50,000 HIMARS missile.

My entire D&D group. Thanks gang!

According to the internet, that's about $60-100m worth of airplane on fire.

I have no idea how Russia is sustaining these losses, or accepting them, but they are. I hope the US manages to pass a support package for Ukraine soon. Ukraine needs everything the West can send. I'd love to see EU countries up the ante too.

When I've been playing for 5 hours and needed a piss for 3 hours.

What a great deal. Ukrainian's democratic and human rites are being taken away by Russians in exchange for some bird food.

Am I right in thinking that the purpose of these types of attacks are to show the Russians where they're weak, so that they'll need to take resources away from the frontlines in order to better protect that area?

It has begun! Hopefully we'll see many new trophies added to Ukraine's armoury as they start to retake more territory.

There was such a funny quote from an officer during the Kharkiv counter-offensive last year: "we started off as an infantry brigade, but now we've become a mechanised brigade".

From the Russian point of view, Russian speaking Ukrainians are their fellow citizens. The Russians claim Ukraine is mistreating them and invade to protect "Russians" in DPR/LPR. It's total bullshit, but it fits Russian's desire to be seen as both victims and heroes in their own psychodrama about the war.

Really interesting analysis by Anders. I hadn't considered how risky it is for Russia to gamble on their forces being able to hold out for another 6 months. If my very limited understanding of battle fatigue from WWII is correct, the average soldier can be expected to last about 200 days without rotation.

I think Russia committed their last VDV reserves about a month ago to the Tokmak front. The mobiks have been complaining in videos about their lack of rotation and poor supplies recently. I'd say best case scenario for Russia, the paratroopers will be able to hold out, but the mobiks and regular troops will break. I don't think that's a very good situation for the occupiers to be in.

Since it's in Kursk, I would say they're not ATACMS due to the fact that Western supplied munitions are given to Ukraine on the basis that they won't be used on Russian territory.

I'm hoping that as soon as Runnia runs out of steam, the US will pass another $60 billion in military aid and flood the zone with bradleys, abrams, f-16s, missiles, etc.

These numbers are consistently strong for Ukraine. I'd say Russia is really over stretched by this point, and soon the hammer will drop.

I'll give that article a read, thanks! In addition to infantry losses, I've been really scratching my head about equipment losses. I get that Russia has a colossal amount of old soviet junk which they can throw at Ukrainian defences, but they must be running out. They can only have so many old T-72s in storage that they can get going again. Tanks, APVs, artillary; long term I just don't see how it will be possible to sustain an 800km long front line without armour or artillery support. Something has to give eventually.

One time when I was 11 we were given a tour of our city's zoo by two ladies, who were retired zookeepers. They showed us around the zoo's museum, and told us that the tiger pelt hanging on the wall belonged to their favourite animal, who they'd both looked after.

I put up my hand and asked why they'd skinned it and nailed it to a wall if they loved it so much. They both got really fucking mad, but I stand by what I said.

Did the Ukrainians switch on the explosive ammo cheat or something? Holy fuck.

I finally finished Assassin's Creed Valhalla, after nearly 300 hours. Holy fuck, there is so much video game in that god-damn video game. It just keeps going for so much longer than it needs to. Then on top of that they went and added several new features like raiding, and a roguelike game mode which I enjoyed.

It's a mediocre game, but it's a fun time if you're like me and just enjoy exploring big maps, collecting items, upgrading gear, etc. I enjoyed the DLC, but I'm not planning on picking up Dawn of Ragnarök because the mythical storyline just doesn't interest me.

Just based on DeepState's layout of Russian defence lines, this looks like they've reached the first defence line. Hopefully this is the big breakthrough we've been hoping for.

I looked it up, and a 6700XT costs the same price as a PS5/Xbox in my country. Add onto that all of the extra components you'll need to build a PC and it's way in excess of what a console costs. Sorry, but the cost of entry for PC just doesn't compare to consoles.

XCOM 2012 is my favourite turn based stratedy game, I really like the Long War mod. Saving earth from an alien invasion is such a cool fantasy.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey because I love Greek history and mythology, so being able to explore that part of the world is really appealing to me.

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War. It's just the best 40k game. I wish Relic would remaster it.

Sunless Sea. It's one of my favourite visual novels, and it has RPG elements. The writing is hilarious, and weird. It's like halfway between Charles Dickens and HP Lovecraft. Pilot a ship around a vast underground sea, fighting monsters and talking to Victorian wierdos.

Spelunky. I've been playing it for 10 years now, and completed it hundreds of times. I'd recommend it a lot.

STALKER Call of Pripyat. It's an alternative history first-person shooter set in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant. It's semi open world, and unlike any other game I've played for its story and atmosphere.

I doubt that distinction makes any difference to the Ukrainians who are defending their country from genocidal murderers.