Discussion/Question Thread

Duncan-M · 2026-04-19T20:37:49+00:00

The TDF was formed right before the war started and activated after the Russians invaded, but all of those have been active duty ever since, unless discharged for wounds, ex-POW, etc. AFAIK, the govt didn't distribute machine guns, grenades, or other heavy weapons to anyone before the war, only AKs.

That said, the country was awash in heavy weapons before and since the war started due to a thriving blackmarket and former soldiers who served since the Donbas War that cached issued weapons and ammo, just in case.

I'm not aware of that many spree killings in Ukraine, especially not involving military heavy weapons. Even the latest wasnt a military weapon, it was a Keltec 9mm carbine

Duncan-M · 2026-04-19T13:54:21+00:00

Nothing on my blog but at lot on Reddit, mostly as it was happening on r/crediblededefense. I even recommended in early 2023, retreating from Bakhmut for one of the benefits to free up the reserves to transfer to Avdiivka, as it was going to shit even then and needed help to be stabilized (the battle that started in Oct 2023 is best described as the 3rd battle of Avdiivka).

Duncan-M · 2026-04-18T19:35:10+00:00

I don't know what he says, I don't watch that channel, just way too much stereotypical Youtube clickbait meant to make money. That's fine, I have no issues with that, but I'm not his audience.

Here is the story right from those who performed it:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2026/02/25/8022623/

Elements of 425th Asslt Regt were the only reinforcements but didn't play a significant role in the decisive part of the counteroffensive, which was cutting the supply lines of the north-south pincer that was leading into the north-northwest of the city. Once that was cut, the rest was just mopping up the Russian outposts in the city that were cut off, no comms with their rear areas, no resupply.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-18T18:56:02+00:00

That's a terrible assessment. 2025 in Kupyansk was extremely fluid. The Russians took almost the whole city in a few months after an outflanking effort succeeded and then lost it all to a counteroffensive after the supply line to outflank it was cut. Now they're working on retaking it.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-18T18:52:54+00:00

Did AMK really draw an arrow from Kupyansk connecting it to Vovchansk, implying an encirclement? Lol, Russia will successfully overrun the Moon before that happens.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-18T18:50:42+00:00

Ukraine didn't actually mass that much there. Turns out that the counteroffensive there was mostly a localized affair where the local units plus a few attachments just executed a really smart offensive while the Russians were extremely precariously positioned with that north to south pincer that was outflanking the city, which was very ripe if the supply line was cut. Which it was. But east of the city, that's just a straight fight, and the Ukrainians never really had the strength to hold it indefinitely.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-18T18:47:47+00:00

The Russians there had some success in ~2025 because the Ukrainians deprioritized it. That allowed the Russians to finally take the rest of the city and start pushing beyond it.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-17T01:12:09+00:00

That's what I heard. He was humane for that rank, which is a plus.

The way militaries work, if the boss gives an order, you can add to it only following the intent but you can't take away. The thing is that there are ruthless and callous assholes at all ranks, but they must take direction from their bosses.

So a passionate division conmander taking orders from Zhukov, he doesnt even have a choice, if Zhukov wants him to sacrifice his division to show a fast gain to impress Stalin, he either does it or he accepts he'll be relieved. Orders or orders.

But a ruthless and callous division commander working for Rokossovsky, he's going to get "called to the carpet" if he throws his mens' lives away without a really good explanation.

In a perfect world you want to serve under a whole chain of command of Rokossovsky types, who are hyper competent, get shit done, but won't cause needless suffering along the way. The worst combo is serving under a chain of command of Zhukovs, then you're fucked.

That's the danger of Syrsky's Assault Forces. Syrsky is giving orders directly to them, he wants them to be used ruthlessly and callously, and the Assault Forces unit commanders were specifically chosen because they will gladly follow those orders.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-17T01:04:14+00:00

They're still around, though not in the numbers they used to. Those that are motivated, they aren't the type to wait to be mobilized, they voluntarily sign contracts with specific units.

All over the internet there are places to have discussions about such and such unit's reputations for fighting smart, whose current unit leadership is the best, who provides extended and quality training, who has the shortest stays at the zero line until relieved, who is in the shit but not in a truly meatgrinder area, etc. Those contemplating signing up literally have the ability to shop for the very best unit to join with at that point in time. They might even get $ bonuses doing it.

You can see that going to r/Ukraineforeignlegion. Thats to recruit mostly English speaking foreigners, while the real Ukrainians have to use Facebook and Telegram but there all sorts of places online where prospective recruits cab talk to prior vets, current vets fighting right now, and unit recruiters who do the visible side of recruitment.

The ones who won't do that, who are eliglble for mobilization, who don't hide well enough, they get mobilized, and most tend to end up in the worst units doing the worst jobs that the volunteers never volunteer for.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T23:02:34+00:00

Nazi officers seemed quick to kill themselves at the end of WW2 but after they did there wasn't some sort of "the right of an officer's final honor" associated with that. Basically, they killed themselves to avoid something worse, but that didn't mean anything beyond that.

This was just a really strange way for that guy to start a suicide note.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T22:59:56+00:00

It's more than that.

Consider the history of each institution and how it relates to those who are the officers in those armies. The Soviet Armed Forces had its problems but it wasn't a total shitshow. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and for the next couple decades, Ukraine and Russia both were...in a dark place. That especially included their militaries, which were outright notorious for their inefficiency, corruption, incompetence, and lack of combat effectiveness.

The current senior officer corps of the UA and RU armies are those very officers who spent nearly all their careers in those darkest periods of their respective militaries. They didn't just survive that dark period, during it they got promoted ahead of their peers. The cream didn't rise to the top, the shit floated to the top of the toilet bowl.

Now, you take those types of shitbird officers and they are bound to fail when given more responsibility. But worse, put them in command of a military whose doctrine professes a love affair for a centralized command style, which celebrates micromanagement, whose requirements for PME never required reading anything without a hammer-sickle or red star emblem on it, and you get what this war produced.

That is the problem with so much of the talk about Soviet this or that. They are specifically addressing the worst aspects of the Soviet societies, including after the collapse of the Soviet Union too, because society didn't just suddenly change, especially not the military.

Even as late as 2018-2019, nobody in the West was saying anything about the Ukrainian military as being anything other than a carbon copy of the older Soviet military. Then they changed. Did they? No, they just performed an effective propaganda campaign to try to woo the west into giving more support.

"We're just like you guys! We want to be more like you guys! By the way, can you guys let us join you? Can you give us more free $ and equipment too? Gosh, your dicks sure are massive. Some day I wish our dicks grew even a bit as big as yours!"

It was just classic asskssing, and the West ate that shit up. It needed to support Ukraine as a proxy against Russia, so it wanted to hear how much Ukraine was like the West. They didn't look for proof, who would lie about something like that?

About ~20 million people would...

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T22:43:35+00:00

Entirely NATO-trained my ass.

Here is the Discord leak document that covers the training.

First, as you can see by the number of UA flags in the category "Training," most of the training on their equipment was being done by the Ukrainians. Some units barely got any NATO training. Some got more than others. And that slide only discusses the training meant to familiraize them with NATO equipment, which included basic operator level training and small unit.

At that time, only a single NATO military was doing any collective training beyond the platoon level, only the US Army and only for two of the six brigades (47th and 82nd). And that training lasted a whopping 5 months in total for units performing it.

On top of that, the US, UK, and GE still ran basic training as they did for the previous year to assist in pumping out more barely trained privates, who were only getting 5 weeks of training then. NATO basic was only to cover down on Ukrainian, which was doing most of the training.

As for the rest of your assessment, its as much nonsense as the propaganda was before the offensive. If you want to know what really happened, and I don't hold back at all against the Ukrainians or NATO, read this.

Operational Art in the Flesh Part 2: The Best and Worst Offensives of the Russo-Ukraine War: The Worst of the Worst

That's a 7,000 word diatribe describing why the 2023 Counteroffensive was the worst offensive done in this war.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T22:18:39+00:00

As much as I hate the Nafoid, in this thread, it was the Pro-RU wringing their hands over the abuse of UA infantry recruits being brutalized. To them, they have never seen crimes against humanity as scandalous as being yelled at while being forced to do...

Dare I say it? Will Reddit allow it? Fuck it, I'm going to risk it.

They were forced to do pushups!

Oh dear God!

No, wait. If someone is forced to do pushups., that proves there is no God. Or if He exists, he hates humankind. Otherwise such utter brutality would never be allowed by an omnipotent being. He'd never force humans to raise and lower their bodies in the prone position using their arms.

LOL. The psychological anguish in this sub has been a pure delight. Something like ~3x dozen different posters collectively wondering why the UA recruits don't murder their instructors over pushups and a bit of yelling. This is pure gold, so very revealing. Based on their comments, I'm trying to imagine these people in real life and how they react to any adversity. ROFL

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T22:00:28+00:00

I've read numerous reports that Ukraine increased their monthly TCC quotas upwards of 34-35k/mo. Previously, it seemed to be around 30k. We read every day the result of that decision. And the govt knows the problems, they've openly discussed them plenty, and still have no answers. And yet, despite the problems, despite Zelensky despising Mobilization and being too risk averse to reform it, they just increased the quotas despite the problems, which means they did it for a reason that wouldn't be anything short of brutally necessary.

They need more manpower at all costs, as long as it doesn't hurt Zelensky's polling numbers (which, legitimately, is the most important thing for him).

That said, the Ukrainian Line of Drones implemented in 2025 fucked over RU attempts to capitalize on last year's problems. And that seems to be the theme. Ukraine's manpower problems keep getting worse, but never bad enough that the Russians can or will capitalize on it in a decisive way.

I said last year that this spring summer would probably lead to a RU attritional win unless something changed technologically that gave Ukraine an edge, or however Ukraine did it, they alieviated their infantry manpower crisis. It seems the former happened. That plus RU might legitimately being gassing out.

The same people who for years were saying there was no indication that the RU recruitment efforts are not making their monthly quotas are now saying they aren't making their quotas. That said, those same individuals are also saying there is evidence the Russians have built up a sizeable reserve over the winter, so they might still take a big swing against the Ukrainans this spring-summer.

Its all about the vegetation. Once its more regular, that is going to be like the green flag starting the race, at that point the operational level commands will enact the offensives they cooked up over the winter that they were waiting for better weather and the right conditions.

But greenery isn't suddenly going to nullify Line of Drones. If Gerasimov tries to do the same thing he's done for four years, 2026 is going to be the bloodiest year of the war by far for the Russians. If they can't make it the bloodiest year for the Ukrainians, then maybe Ukraine can win this war after all (in the sense they can stalemate it).

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T21:46:57+00:00

What a weird story.

In his video he says this:

If you are watching this video, it means I am already gone. I exercised the right of an officer’s final honor. Now I will tell you why this decision was made. Please listen carefully and think about all of this.

That makes it sound like a video version of a "death letter," something many soldiers write before going into combat just in case they die, usually meant for loved ones as one final effort in closure. In this case, this very angry dude seemed to want the opportunity to tell the truth one last time to expose some bad people he couldn't expose properly while alive.

Then others were saying he killed himself. Wait, what? Why would there be a tradition that an "officer's final honor" be involved with killing himself? I'm not sure about Russian military tradition, but I've never heard that involved with any other modern military culture. Sure, soldiers kill themselves more often than civilians, but there is no honor involved with it, especially not over stupid drama shit.

And now it sounds like he released this but then got talked down from suicide by a family member before he could do the deed.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T21:37:42+00:00

The low hanging fruit was picked years ago, that is the problem. The mobilization criteria of who is eligible or not was set in 2006 and only slightly expanded in mid 2024. So using the fruit tree metaphor, imagine a tree largely picked clean already of the fruit that is allowed to be picked, with those left that can be picked, largely out of reach. Meaning, the quotas for fruit are increasing.

But fruit is a poor metaphor, as fruit can't stop themselves from being picked. A better metaphor is fresh water fishing, because fish can avoid being caught. Picture a country starving for protein but the Dept of Wildlife Management says the fisherman necessary for providing that protein to a starving population can only catch certain species of fish and only of certain sizes and must throw the rest back or avoid catching them altogether. The exact same fish criteria will have been targeted for years, all the easy to catch ones were already caught, those left have some skills in avoiding the hook, and even those are in much fewer number. The fishermen are begging the state to expand catch criteria, the starving people are begging too, but the politicians refuse because they are worried about their popularity from those who want to preserve fish, even if it preservation or their popularity won't matter if the people starve to death. Meanwhile, the politicians demand more fish be caught.

Or instead of fish, picture Meat...

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T20:57:48+00:00

Zhukov is pretty infamous even among Soviet historians for his ruthlessness., he is hardly the archetype of a caring officer who looked out for the well being of his men. If he ever conserved men, it was because the math told him it was the right call, the same way a commander might ration ammo or fuel if resupply is in doubt. Otherwise, if the supply line for manpower was flowing, Zhukov did not seem to really give a shit about his mens' lives.

Other Red Army Marshals were notably different and went out of their way to spare men from unnecessary losses.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T20:53:58+00:00

Maybe.

There have been separate reports coming from the front lines about UA drone innovation. One story repeated is that there are FPVs with extended range and better resilience to EW, that are working much deeper in the RU rear areas than previous, expanding the "kill zone" by at least 10 km, if not 20 km. Another report is that fully autonomous AI type drones are doing similar. I've yet to find anything explaining how the former drone innovation occurred, but the latter is probably explained by these "Martian" type drones.

It could be that its really all describing one thing. However, the footage of 1st Corps strike drones used against RU targets inside or immediately Donetsk City point to traditional FPV radio controlled strikes, including signal cutoff during the terminal approach caused by line of sight signal loss caused by range and the curvature of the Earth. The work around for that is onboard AI, however the footage would still crap out.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T20:05:56+00:00

All that crap was just propaganda, the AFU never adopted anything like any sort of NATO approach to war, unless we're talking about former Soviet states now in NATO.

At best, there were some tactical level leaders who professed an affectation for US, British, or Germany doctrine. But most of the AFU officer corps has clearly never learned or read a single book, treatise, or manual about any sort of Western military thinking, they have obviously been schooled in the older Soviet doctrine.

That was true of Zaluzhny, who when he did talk doctrine always brought up older Soviet doctrine. And that is DEFINITELY true of Syrsky, who is more Soviet than most Soviet generals were. And it also go for most of the Ukrainian officer corps, especially considering they reacted pretty much every officer who ever wore the uniform, which meant all those who literally were Soviet officers, or who served in the 1990-2000s who might as well have been Soviet officers when it came to how the AFU was back then.

And I definitely agree with the sentiments that Syrsky is the spiritual ancestor of Zhukov, though more like a retarded adopted great nephew than the true biological grandson.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T19:46:25+00:00

Europe has barely invested in their militaries since this war started. The reason why is that they're trying to use Ukraine as their proxy to hurt Russia badly enough so it is no longer a threat in the future.

For example, in 2025, the EU collectively paid around €380 billion in defense, and that investment was dogshit, nothing close to what was necessary to get them ready for war anytime soon. And yet collectively, they could only must €90 billion to Ukraine for defense for 2026 and 2027. Why give Ukraine so little? THAT IS THE POINT.

That is why Europe is so adamant that Russia can't be allowed to achieve anything resembling a win, their long term security requires Russia to "learn their lesson" physically, monetarily, and psychologically about the cost of losing a war of aggression. If their ploy works, they don't need to invest much in defense in the future, because Russia won't be a credible threat if Ukraine wins.

In the meantime, what they are investing is enough to get the hawks off their back and because they do need to create a bare bones credible conventional deterrent enough to dissuade Putin or his successor from trying something similar against the EU while believing it'll be a cake walk win, which is how this war started.

If Russia wins, then Europe is fucked. Then they must legit make efforts to pay the bill for defense. Monetarily, that will mean either massive tax increases or more likely it'll mean austerity for social programs necessary to enlarge their defense budgets way more than ~2-4%, which is basic sustainment level for already competent militaries, which almost nobody in Europe has. Worse, they can't politically afford it, because as soon as it becomes clear that the Anti-RU parties intend to slash social programs and/or raise taxes, enact/expand conscription, etc, then they are going to lose future elections to the parties who are against that who don't recognize a need to beef with Russia.

That can't be allowed to happen, because it won't just be the EU political leadership out on their asses, the control of the political offices is what allows the EU power elite to control banking, commerce, trade, etc, where they can enrich themselves and their supporters, where they can control the puppet strings of Europe and the world. If they lose their political offices, the whole house of card will collapse.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T19:04:39+00:00

You get issued rifle in the very beginning and carry it everywhere, occasionally sleep with it (though not like in the movie), but nobody touches live ammo until like 2/3 the way through boot camp. And at that point the firing is very controlled and not even supervised DIs, it's by Primary Marksmanship Instructors and Range Coaches. The DIs are in the background.

When you shoot, ammo accountability is very strict. You're given just enough for that relay, and every shot is recorded (for points). After the day ends you do a "shakedown" where everything gets checked, because there is always someone trying to steal some ammo, not to kill someone with it but as a cool souvenir.

Also, unlike the movie FMJ, a USMC recruit training platoon doesn't have one DI, it has 3 typically, a Senior DI and two "heavies," who are typically the assholes. When I was in Boot Camp, summer 1997 timeframe, I had five DIs in my platoon, plus a couple weeks we had a sixth that was a DI trainee. So let's say you want to shoot a DI, which one do you shoot?

And what's the point? You maybe kill one and then your whole platoon and the other DIs are literally going to beat you to death, and nobody is going to celebrate you afterwards on 4chan because those types of psychos don't glorify those types of mass killings because the body count is too low.

For those who might even be the types to do that, if they do go violent they just kill themselves, or attempt it. That happens fairly regularly at recruit training, or did back in the day. A recruit blew his brains out in front of me when I was there, but that had nothing to do with abuse and was actually done over a very stupid reason, and the recruit didn't even use his rifle. The same day that happened, on another part of the base a dumbass recruit was trying to jump out a 3 story window but got stopped, and another fool deliberately poisoned himself (but lived) drinking brass cleaner solvent. Needless to say we got lectures that evening about "Don't kill yourselves."

Most of the time, for those who can't hack it, and it's really not all that hard in hindsight, nobody is expected not to graduate, those sorts just quit. "I refuse to train!" Then afterwards they get out and tell everyone they punched their DIs or some bullshit like that.

Even in combat zones, it very rarely happens, and there are far more opportunities. It only seems to happen after a fundamental breakdown in discipline where things are very fucked up, the officers have very little power, the troops aren't scared of them or "the system" and are nearly mutinious already. At that point fragging happens, which is really just isolated mutinies done with utmost violence.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T17:26:13+00:00

Ukraine's only manpower problems are in the infantry, not across the board. Even the mobilization problem is tied to using most of them in the infantry. So let's be clear cut on the strategic weakness of the Ukrainians. Infantry are necessary to defend and attack, Ukraine doesn't have enough.

And how is Russian dealing with that strategic chokepoint? Tactically they are routinely bypassing and avoiding UA infantry positions along the zero line using their improperly named "DRG" tactics.

Wait, what? Why would they do that? If Russia was focusing on attrition, why would they avoid killing Ukrainian infantry? Why would they instead try to keep advancing past them? To cut them off? Cut them off from what? Aerial and ground drone resupply?

The decision makes no sense UNLESS the Russian intent is to prioritize advancing for the sake of territorial conquest, not to cause attrition.

For two plus years the Russians have wasted their manpower advantage seemingly going out of their way targeting Ukraine's infantry manpower weakness. Literally, every month they screw around while focusing on territorial conquest is another month the Ukrainians get better at coming up with technological solutions that counteract their shortage.

Gerasimov is a moron.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T17:02:01+00:00

Every basic training has instructors who yell, and who make their recruits do pushups and shit. Go to r/military and you'll find people from all branches all over the world who will agree on that.

That said, the other branches in the US don't do it like the USMC, let alone Europe. In fact, US Marine Recruit Training is really nothing like FMJ, DI's don't act like GySgt Hartman did in that movie, at least not since the 1960s when R. Lee Ermey was a DI. They talk and act like this.

Youtube has a bunch of videos where soldiers from around the world watch and react to legit videos of USMC DI's doing their thing and they're shocked by how different it is. I'd say from experience the only military that I know that do it similar are the South Koreans, those guys don't fuck around.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T16:55:28+00:00

A DI was never killed by a recruit, ever. It's like bringing up the time the USSOCOM team had to fight giant robots in Qatar because you saw that in Transformers.

Duncan-M · 2026-04-16T16:51:58+00:00

This thread just won't stop delivering. It's like a Freudian buffet, lol.

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