Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[Ghostse]

The threat of more sanctions after 50 days is not a sufficient deterrent for Putin to reconsider war aims. Sanctions have harmed Russia's war-making potential but had no effect in pressuring Russia to end the invasion.

Puck might be a good naval officer, but he's a terrible economist. Those aren't sanctions on Russia, those are sanctions on nations that do business with Russia.

America has gone from supporting Ukraine with weapons to making money selling them. This is roughly the bare minimum Trump can do without screwing over domestic military industry.

Not a word from him about EU doing loans on Russian held assets. I'll also say the weapon sales are weird given the all-important mineral deal since US aid counts as contributions to the fund.

This is a signal of future policy. America's direct support for Ukraine has ended.

Ukraine is still getting red-carpet treatment at LockMart. A lot of the glass cabinets are open, which is big deal

As for the sanctions, obviously the war is not going to end in the next 50 days, so the only question is whether Trump follows through or TACOs. If I had to guess, I'd predict some token actions but nothing like the heavy secondary sanctions being previously proposed.

I'll tell you what happens: countries cuck or 100% tariffs go in, but exceptions you can sail a shadowfleet through are put into place somewhere on the pipeline.
i.e. You aren't allowed to sell explosives to Russia anymore but nitrates for fertillizer are obviously ok. You can buy a certain amount of oil from Russia and the firm of Lol Trust Me Bro will be ensuring compliance. Or the good ol' French-Iraqi "these V-12 engines that are the same in the T-72 are also for farm tractors' and these 'rifled 125mm irrigation pipes just have better flow dynamics'.

Thought I agree with the end analysis as I said when they came out: They won't end war outright even if Russia gets fully cut off. Russia will zombie on for a year minimum. Its very good odds Putin does the needful to keep the wheels on until 2029, and weasels whatever cutthroughs are needed to keep the oligarchs funded and vital supplies coming through. Russia is better able to control the pace of the war.

After that White House debacle Zelensky learned to bite his tongue and kiss Trump's ass to get what his country needs to survive, whereas Putin has consistently been... Putin.

Given the spat with Bibi is said to have been fake and just a work to distract from the B-2 strike... I dunno, maybe the cope about the fight with Z-man being all theater has something to it.

I still say this was always the plan if the hail-mary to get Russia to stop being slavs failed before NATO and the Dems gave him what he wanted.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Given the spat with Bibi is said to have been fake and just a work to distract from the B-2 strike... I dunno, maybe the cope about the fight with Z-man being all theater has something to it.

Most likely with Trump and Zelensky while Vance is a question mark. As to whether Vance even knowing the interview was a work or being in on it. If Vance was in on the interview being a work, they took a huge chance on Vance being the (baby)face or heel* of the shoot. *Depending on the viewers being either pro-Ukraine or pro-Putin.

 

[3-2-1836]

Ok I've been checked out of this for like a year, has anything noteworthy happened since Ukraine finally got ejected from Kursk and they in return shoahed half of the Russian nuclear bomber force?

 

[National Defense Advocate]

Ok I've been checked out of this for like a year, has anything noteworthy happened since Ukraine finally got ejected from Kursk and they in return shoahed half of the Russian nuclear bomber force?

Trump maybe possibly back-pedaled on Russia again, now we sell Ukraine weapons and countries have no limits on what they send them anymore.
I think the war will be winding down soon honestly.

 

[3-2-1836]

Trump maybe possibly back-pedaled on Russia again, now we sell Ukraine weapons and countries have no limits on what they send them anymore.
I think the war will be winding down soon honestly.

How many square meters of farm land has Russia gained the past 3 months?

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

How many square meters of farm land has Russia gained the past 3 months?

Not much, unless they're going to be farming scrap metal, corpses, & unexploded ordnance.

 

[Skylavijas]

On the Russian speaking internet there has been a recent wave of news in regards to Putin's declaration that the Whatsapp app is on the chopping block of western social media to be banned. Now that is shocking news to many, since that site has around 100+ million Russian users, commonly used by both the young and poor, the poor and privileged. It's supposed to be replaced with Russian homebrewed alternative "Max". Not only that, but there have been cellphone internet shutdowns in certain regions in response to Ukraine's "spiderweb" operation, leading to something as basic as ATMs becoming inoperable for a while.

Some suspect that this potential new wave of crackdowns on the internet is all part of the plan to re-introduce conscription, by forcing the country's population to use only Russian monitored social media, where all dissent and negative opinions from such decision would be deleted and erased. Now this seems like a realistic enough scenario, but I've also heard some stating that these new conscripted forces will be used to assault the Suwalki gap, instigate an entirely different "special military operation". Now the probability of that I find to be way more dubious, considering we're living in the world where even Trump is losing patience with the Kremlin regime, but what do you folks think?

 

[Ghostse]

Ok I've been checked out of this for like a year, has anything noteworthy happened since Ukraine finally got ejected from Kursk and they in return shoahed half of the Russian nuclear bomber force?

Ukraine still has a toe-hold in Kursk from an invasion of a different section that's less vulnerable to cut off, Russia's gains in Sumy and their foot-assault near Kharkiv are getting rolled back. Russian bombers got shoahed and this has all but cut off their air support.
Russia confirmed a million dead & serious wounded since the war start. Russia is importing a million Pajeets to try to keep their economy going. Ukraine managed to lose another F-16 (likely by shooting down a drone and flying through the debris).
Trump has signed approval for the transfer/sale of 17 full patriot batteries to Ukraine and has pledged 100% tarrifs on any country doing trade with Russia in 40-some days now - the precise details (or if trump will go through with it) are not yet known.
Trump as also removed limits on weapons sold to Ukraine and has declared the US will sell Ukraine anything we export (delivery timeline TBD) as long as we're paid for it.

How many square meters of farm land has Russia gained the past 3 months?

I'm not gay so I haven't kept up with the meter-by-meter progress of the Russian army, and I'm not sure about the past three but over the past month and a half since spiderweb I believe Russia is over all in the red. No strategic bombers = no rapid response glide bomb spam. Meaning Russia's already harried artillery now has to defend the entire front and can't be grouped up anymore.

Some suspect that this potential new wave of crackdowns on the internet is all part of the plan to re-introduce conscription, by forcing the country's population to use only Russian monitored social media, where all dissent and negative opinions from such decision would be deleted and erased. Now this seems like a realistic enough scenario, but I've also heard some stating that these new conscripted forces will be used to assault the Suwalki gap, instigate an entirely different "special military operation". Now the probability of that I find to be way more dubious, considering we're living in the world where even Trump is losing patience with the Kremlin regime, but what do you folks think?

As to the second part:
I would not believe the expansion of the SMO to Poland for the simple reason that Russia has virtually no spare armor left, no strategic air arm, no low-observability fighter/bmber and the S-400 has been proven vulnerable to F-16s and the S-300/S-350s in Iran has been proved utterly cucked by the F-35 and ineffective against the full B-2 cover ops.
Russia has utterly gutted all NATO-ward border defense to try to provide meat for the cubers in Ukraine.
In short, Russia would have to spend months/most of a year building forces and that will be noticed by the CIA glowsats. Which adding that depending on where they'd try to mass, Ukraine might just be able to say "Oh hell naw" before they are even close to ready.
But its Russia and if they didn't do retarded self-destructive things that treated the lives of its citizens and soldiers as utterly worthless, we wouldn't have a SMO in Ukraine.

To the first part:
What are you talking bout comrade? Only the Ukrainians with Russian accents on streets that can't be geolocated to any place in Ukaine are doing conscription and snatching men off the streets. Mighty Russia is stronk and totally cucking the west and would have no need of conscripts. Heading into year four of the conflict was always Putin's plan, the cauldron isn't full yet. That is complete nonsense.

Also, your sources are inaccurate: Russia has had conscription since I think all the way back to the Empire, definitely since the Soviets. Just now most of the conscripts are in territorial commands where they muster like once a year if even that. The Federation military says it needs X soldiers, and calls up the numbers it needs from these 'national guard' units.
Just currently by Russian law conscripts cannot be sent outside of the territory of Russia - hence the fake & gay votes in the Donbros and annexation, but sending recruits there is still legally dubious. they prefer to use citizens of the Donbros, criminals, and retards who check the "Just cube me up, Bro" box on their paperwork at the recruitment office.

IIRC to be able to send conscripts outside of Russia, it would require a declaration of war. And official war would really introduce some fuckery.
(Or more likely, ammending Russian law to declare the SMO as a case where its totally legal to just feed any and all conscripts into the cuber)

 

[No. 7 cat]

Puck has a new video on the recent actions by Trump:

In short, he is negative:

• The threat of more sanctions after 50 days is not a sufficient deterrent for Putin to reconsider war aims. Sanctions have harmed Russia's war-making potential but had no effect in pressuring Russia to end the invasion.
• America has gone from supporting Ukraine with weapons to making money selling them. This is roughly the bare minimum Trump can do without screwing over domestic military industry.
• This is a signal of future policy. America's direct support for Ukraine has ended.

Puck makes good points, but I find the last a bit too pessimistic. Trump is balancing the interventionist, isolationist, and pro-Russia factions in his base. He could be (perhaps unintentionally) boiling the frog by going from minimal support to indirect support and later back to direct support. Trump is hard to predict, but his former fondness for Putin seems to be genuinely eroding. Also, American policy can change with every election, and I don't just mean the 2028 one. The GOP might get hammered in next year's midterms (as often happens to the president's party), in which case he'll have to negotiate policy with a Democratic Congress.

As for the sanctions, obviously the war is not going to end in the next 50 days, so the only question is whether Trump follows through or TACOs. If I had to guess, I'd predict some token actions but nothing like the heavy secondary sanctions being previously proposed.

I think so too. The attacks on Moscow which shut down its largest airport, plus other attacks like a Crimean substation serving a rail link, suggests that Trump's throwaway about attacking Moscow seems to hold and a later throwaway apparently withdrawing that notion seems not. Still Anders 'abundance of caution' Nielsen is probably a more reliable than some robo click bait saying Moscow is in flames. While there is a degree of erratic moves on Ukraine, Trump's autocratic 'l'Etat c'est moi' manner has its advantages. Biden's Ukraine policy was masterminded by the cautious to a fault attorney Jake Sullivan and that was surely as big a factor as Sullivan and fmr Chancellor Scholz's fraidy cat response to cheap Russian threats.

[Audio-Fixed] On July 20, 2025, Ukraine launched its most disruptive drone strike on Moscow to date—shutting down all four major airports. More than 134 planes were rerouted, passengers were stranded for hours, and fires broke out in the suburbs of Zelenograd. In a shocking turn of events, the strike exposed critical weaknesses in Russia's air defense system, overwhelming radar and jamming networks once considered impenetrable. This was not just a failure of hardware—but a collapse in confidence. The implications of this exposure are enormous: flights grounded, public panic, and regime isolation. Ukraine’s evolving drone tactics are rewriting modern warfare, forcing Russia to spend exponentially more defending exponentially less. And as Moscow struggles to adapt, each drone strike chips away at Putin’s psychological stability—and at his ability to protect Russia’s capital. In this video, we’ll delve into the full strategic impact of the July 20 attack: the type of drones used, how they bypassed Russian defenses, and the growing economic and military consequences of Kyiv’s long-range drone strategy. This is psychological warfare fused with precision engineering. Every strike costs Ukraine mere thousands, yet forces the Kremlin into million-dollar overreactions. Putin’s paranoia is no longer rumor—it’s operational fact. Bunkers, armored trains, and total digital lockdown define his regime. And this campaign is no accident. It’s designed to bankrupt the illusion of Russian invincibility—until the entire system collapses under its own weight.

Jason Jay Smart on YouTube

While Russia seems effective at churning out the Geran-2 drone, its name for the shaheed drone, Ukraine remain very nimble regarding drones. Liberating Crimea is essential for Ukraine, otherwise Russia have a base for striking the heartland of Ukraine.

Ukraine used a drone aircraft carrier to hit Russian targetsFundraiser mentioned for those interested and able: https://donorbox.org/prestonforukraineToday we're looking at a new tactic out of the Ukrainian military in the Black Sea where they used an unmanned surface vessel (USV) to carry bomber drones closer to Crimea where they were launched against sensitive Russian air defense targets. We're fortunate to be joined by 'Horus', the intelligence officer of the Ukrainian 73rd Naval Special Operations Center who helped plan this mission. Horus talks through the operation, why they prefer bomber drones and how Russia struggles with intercepting these smaller munitions.

source Preston Stewart on YouTube

 

[Skylavijas]

In short, Russia would have to spend months/most of a year building forces and that will be noticed by the CIA glowsats

Oh fuck, that's actually a really solid point. CIA warned Ukraine about SMO days in advance before the invasion would actually begin, so any plan to directly attack a NATO country would be decoded similarly early, if not earlier like a whole month before such operation would begin, making a surprise ambush virtually impossible. I agree that still may not stop them, they might still do it as a last ditch attempt to recover the losses in Ukraine if that would get particularly bad, just organize a random, unplanned ambush and bet on at least one of the baltic states acting retarded and giving up early. And if those forces get decimated, just pit the blame on one of your generals going rogue Prigozhin style and clean your hands of any responsibility "it's not our fault one of our commanders decided to launch rockets into NATO territory. He was operating completely against our will".

Also, thanks on clearing up on how the conscription process in Russia works.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Propaganda video of a Russian Shahedzavod somewhere:

 

[Snekposter]

Not much, unless they're going to be farming scrap metal, corpses, & unexploded ordnance.

You act like those aren't considered valuable commodities inside Russia.

Oh fuck, that's actually a really solid point. CIA warned Ukraine about SMO days in advance before the invasion would actually begin, so any plan to directly attack a NATO country would be decoded similarly early, if not earlier like a whole month before such operation would begin, making a surprise ambush virtually impossible. I agree that still may not stop them, they might still do it as a last ditch attempt to recover the losses in Ukraine if that would get particularly bad, just organize a random, unplanned ambush and bet on at least one of the baltic states acting retarded and giving up early. And if those forces get decimated, just pit the blame on one of your generals going rogue Prigozhin style and clean your hands of any responsibility "it's not our fault one of our commanders decided to launch rockets into NATO territory. He was operating completely against our will".

Also, thanks on clearing up on how the conscription process in Russia works.

Considering what a clusterfuck their Ukrainian invasion was the CIA could probably stop a second one from starting just by providing funding for the Poles to buy up all the stored diesel from the Russian field commanders so they can ship it to Ukraine as a donation from their Polish brothers in arms.

 

[Ghostse]

Oh fuck, that's actually a really solid point. CIA warned Ukraine about SMO days in advance before the invasion would actually begin, so any plan to directly attack a NATO country would be decoded similarly early, if not earlier like a whole month before such operation would begin, making a surprise ambush virtually impossible. I agree that still may not stop them, they might still do it as a last ditch attempt to recover the losses in Ukraine if that would get particularly bad, just organize a random, unplanned ambush and bet on at least one of the baltic states acting retarded and giving up early. And if those forces get decimated, just pit the blame on one of your generals going rogue Prigozhin style and clean your hands of any responsibility "it's not our fault one of our commanders decided to launch rockets into NATO territory. He was operating completely against our will".

Also, thanks on clearing up on how the conscription process in Russia works.

Now I do feel its worth pointing out a few things:
1) Russia's rail network is no joke. Western analysts said it would take Russia over a month, optimistically, to move the 155th from Russia's pacific coast to Ukraine theater - something Russia completed in 3 days.
(Now, the caveat here western analysts did not run their predictions through a soviet mind virus victim, because they did utter cucked effeminate faggot shit like assuming "moving logistics units not just combat arms" and "also moving armor to support the mechanized infantry units because BMPs are thin-skinned death traps if used as assault spearheads" would happen instead of just chucking troops and combat vehicles into the rail depots with things like fuel transports replaced by "LOL Smekalka comrade")
However, if Russia began running a massive number of conscripts through their training bases, or even Belarus' training bases, that will draw attention. Even if the plan is a massive infantry zerg rush, 100-200,000 men (and more realistically 500,000 to a million for a fight with NATO) is not something you can do quietly. And because Russia is under the microscope already due to Ukraine, there is virtually no hope of catching the glowies sleeping - so the Five Eyes would see something was up and as long as the president isn't cucking out, there would be a counter response. Hell, even if the president cucks out Poland very likely wouldn't.

2) NATO recognized the Russian build up outside of Ukraine and while they passed on warnings and Ukraine made moves, NATO was largely caught flat-footed. The reason for this was the war games with/in Belarus, per invited observers, were a complete cluster fuck. Everything you saw happen in the opening days of Ukraine: zero coordination, VDV getting deployed to entirely wrong LZs, armor and mechanized units running out of fuel - all that happened in the wargames. So the Western response was largely "This is a bluff, there is no way they'd send the balloon up because anyone can see their shit is completely retarded and they are not ready". So NATO might see a build coming but draw the wrong conclusions.
But that's somewhat unlikely given then are in active conflict.

But just in general, Russia already can't win against Ukraine and I don't see action against any other country going any better, with the bonus of triggering Article 5 because other than Ukraine now their entire western border is NATO, for obvious reasons.

If Russia was going to try some sort of retarded hail-mary so that Russia can claim a win as they cuck on Ukraine, they'd need to go south not west:
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia. I would put Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan at the top of the list followed by Armenia, Georgia and Mongolia dead last.

Spoiler: Hearts of Smekalka IV

Any action in Mongolia would likely piss off China; they aren't exacly friends with Mongolia but that would be a direct attack on Chinese influence.
Georgia is completely cucked by Russia right now so there isn't a strong cause for action. They might try it, but it'd be a bad look to topple your own cronies.
Armenia would piss off Iran, but that might not matter that much if Russia is going to stop chimping after, and it would be a suitable "punishment" for Armenia leaving the CSTO. The major issue is they have very weak territorial claims, and occupation of Armenia would put them into further conflict with Azerbaijan - or more accurately, Azerbaijan's patrons Turkey and Israel, potentially enough for something to be done.

Azerbaijan might be likely due to issues re: Chechnya. But they again have very weak claims and Azerbaijan has very strong patrons. However, those patrons aren't exactly wedded to Azerbaijan - if Russia could pull off a blitzekrieg they might be able to get Turkey to just accept it, especially if Russia gave Turkey some tribute. Israel is too far away to do anything overt on their own, but I wouldn't want to a Russia occupation soldier.

But I think the strongest case for a "wag the dog" would be Kazakhstan. There is a soviet-transplanted Russian speaking areas in the north of the country and this has already become a sore point in Russo-Kazak relations. However, right now pipeline tolls for moving/refining Kazak oil is a big source of sanctions-exempt income for Gazprom right now and naturally invading Kazakstan would put that money at risk.

 

[Dana scully]

What stopping Ukraine from going after their oil fields?

 

[ToEnsureVerification]

What stopping Ukraine from going after their oil fields?

There are more pressing uses of weaponry. Making some oil fields light up (if it's doable, and it's not under permafrost) is not going to slow down the offensive, in the way that hitting HQs, logistic and fuel depos, and troop concentrations can.

 

[East_Clintwood]

What stopping Ukraine from going after their oil fields?

Partly distance, partly because there's no real practical and effective way to do it with the weapons Ukraine has, but mostly because hitting the infrastructure like the refineries is much much easier for them, and almost as effective.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Partly distance, partly because there's no real practical and effective way to do it with the weapons Ukraine has, but mostly because hitting the infrastructure like the refineries is much much easier for them, and almost as effective.

Hitting the oil infrastructure and refineries are exponentially more effective than hitting the oil fields. As refineries, the most important components are custom made, very expensive, and made to order parts that can't just be stockpile somewhere. The distillation columns and associated components being the picture book example of ludicrously high value, difficult to replace targets.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

I would put Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan at the top of the list

Azerbaijan is also literally sandwiched between Russia and Iran and has been causing headache for both countries.
On their eastern flank, they have a fucking inland sea.
On their western flank, they have their bitter historical rivals (Armenia).

 

[thx1138]

This is a little off topic but what's what that fake and gay aircraft carrier of theirs these days? I heard they finally retired the shitheap.

Also, up thread, is that photo saying "Stalin's DNA is in you" - is that for real?

 

[East_Clintwood]

This is a little off topic but what's what that fake and gay aircraft carrier of theirs these days? I heard they finally retired the shitheap.

Officially there's been no decision. Unofficially there are reports that they finally stopped working on it a while ago and that they're about to officially pull the plug. There have been rumours about it's imminent demise for years, but to me at least, the fact that even government fellating rags like Izvestia are covering it, suggests they might finally be serious about it.