[Macros]

18 months ago.

That's truly awesome planning.

How does Putler paint this as anything other than evidence that Russia is losing?

[Mentalist]

Macros, on 01 June 2025 - 07:18 PM, said:

18 months ago.

That's truly awesome planning.

How does Putler paint this as anything other than evidence that Russia is losing?

"we still have 66% of our long range planes. Ukraine has zero (because they gave them to us in the 90s after we promised never to invade them). So we are still winning"!


Medinsky refused to comment to orc TV in Istanbul today. "Tomorrow, tomorrow"
Sure will be hard to deliver an ultimatum to Umerov (the head of UA MoD), when (reportedly) all the Tu-95s that were gearing up for a massive strike on Ukraine tonight and were loaded up with cruise missiles already, got exploded on the runway.

[Werthead]

Ukraine isn't holding back, there's a massive drone attack going on right across south-western Russia. Lipetsk Airfield is under attack, multiple targets in Kursk Oblast, AA fire over Voronezh and Ryazan, something being hit in Rostov city, huge explosion in near Kursk city (unconfirmed report of a military stockpile going up), Borisoglebsk Airbase is under attack (some reports Russian fighters rapidly scrambled to avoid being destroyed on the ground), naval drones operating off Crimea. This is a very heavy attack.

[Mentalist]

Meanwhile, presidential election in Poland is gonna be real close.

Another nailbiter, for sure.

[Chance]

 Mentalist, on 01 June 2025 - 08:47 PM, said:

"we still have 66% of our long range planes. Ukraine has zero (because they gave them to us in the 90s after we promised never to invade them). So we are still winning"!

Should be the largest loss of strategic air power since WW2 for just about anyone I guess.

[Mentalist]

Still waiting for hi-rez satellite imagery of the hit airbases, so tally counts are very preliminary and somewhat speculative.

The Instanbul talks happened. More prisoner swaps- "all for all" for heavily wounded and aged 18-25, and 6k bodies swap. Ukraine also presented lists of abducted children.

Potentially next meeting by end of June.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 02 June 2025 - 04:57 PM

[Werthead]

Initial report suggesting that 3x Tu-95 destroyed, 1x Tu-95 damaged possibly beyond repair, 4x Tu-22M3 destroyed at Irkustk alone.

1x Tu-95 appears to have been destroyed at Ukrainka Airfield in Russia's far east.

Total Russian inventory in 2023 was 56x Tu-22M3 and 47x Tu-95., which obviously can be knocked down to 52x and 43x respectively. But not all of those are airworthy, with several apiece believed to have been cannibalised for spare parts in the face of the sanctions regime. That's also not counting the damage from the other airfields, which was considerable.

Today's discussions in Turkey apparently saw a provisional agreement for both sides to swap all wounded soldiers and all under the age of 25. Russia has also apparently accepted to return 339 Ukrainian children "rescued" from the combat zone by Russian forces (vomits). Russia has also said it will return the bodies of up to 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers recovered from the battlefield (these are currently listed as MIA in the Ukrainian casualty rolls).

Apparently the operative who masterminded the operation on Russian soil was code-named "Artyom." This is likely a reference to the protagonist of the Metro trilogy of video games (Metro 2033, Metro Last Light and Metro Exodus), created by a Ukrainian studio based on the novels written by a Russian dissident.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 02 June 2025 - 05:31 PM

[Cause]

Ukraine is punching so far above its weight. When the war is over Ukraines officers are going to be highly sought after by allied nations for training (they are the only combat hardened troops of a modern peer to peer combat). Spiderweb will be a movie one day.

Billions in damages, shattering troop moral, deep penetration into ‘safe’ Russian territory and deeply embaresssing for Putin. Also stategic bombers as in nuclear triad strategic bombers? I have always seen the bombers as likely the least useful part of the triad if not outright obsolete but I have no idea what the current military thoughts on this are. Still major loss.

At this point Putin seems to be running this war purely on emotion rather than reason. Somewhere between 1-7 billion in losses I read (is there any precedent for something like this?). Just more losses on top of a pile of losses and now a million casualties. I hope this brings him closer to the negotiating table but also wonder if it won’t do the opposite.

If this thread didn’t exist and I wasn’t a member of this forum I would also hear almost nothing about this war other than its ongoing. It shouldn’t take something on this scale to break through the noise.

[Lady Bliss]

 Cause, on 02 June 2025 - 05:58 PM, said:

Ukraine is punching so far above its weight. When the war is over Ukraines officers are going to be highly sought after by allied nations for training (they are the only combat hardened troops of a modern peer to peer combat). Spiderweb will be a movie one day.

Billions in damages, shattering troop moral, deep penetration into ‘safe’ Russian territory and deeply embaresssing for Putin. Also stategic bombers as in nuclear triad strategic bombers? I have always seen the bombers as likely the least useful part of the triad if not outright obsolete but I have no idea what the current military thoughts on this are. Still major loss.

At this point Putin seems to be running this war purely on emotion rather than reason. Somewhere between 1-7 billion in losses I read (is there any precedent for something like this?). Just more losses on top of a pile of losses and now a million casualties. I hope this brings him closer to the negotiating table but also wonder if it won’t do the opposite.

If this thread didn’t exist and I wasn’t a member of this forum I would also hear almost nothing about this war other than its ongoing. It shouldn’t take something on this scale to break through the noise.

Agreed on the last. The news channels are leaving us in the cold.

This post has been edited by Lady Bliss: 02 June 2025 - 06:55 PM

[Chance]

 Cause, on 02 June 2025 - 05:58 PM, said:

Also stategic bombers as in nuclear triad strategic bombers?

Yepp one of the reasons it is notable. They are also currently irreplaceable since they have been out of protection for a long time, kept flying by cannibalizing other airframes.

[Abyss]

 Cause, on 02 June 2025 - 05:58 PM, said:

...Spiderweb will be a movie one day. ..

Honestly, the visual of trucks stopping, false cargo tops pulling back, and hundreds of AI drones rising up into the air and dropping on Russian airbases... it's pretty wild.

[Werthead]

Whilst they are nuclear-capable bombers, more to the point they are the only Russian aircraft large enough to carry long-range cruise missiles. Otherwise they have to rely on shorter-range missiles fired from fighters or similar missiles fired from ships, but between Ukrainian AA defences and Ukraine establishing dominance over the western Black Sea (despite not having a fleet to speak of), these options are severely more limited for Russia.

[Mentalist]

Interesting things happening in Crimea. SBU's Malyuk clearly got jealous of all the Budanov memes, so SBU's been one-upping HUR something fierce.


More sat footage from airbases, and also some comments about "unreleased footage" showing even more significant damage to the bomber force. UA to brief Congress committee on operation Spiderweb soon, so expect US press leaks.

[Werthead]

Massive explosion at the Kerch Bridge. Ukraine smuggled up to 1,000 pounds of explosive onto a barge they placed right next to one of the main support pillars and detonated today.

Russia initially said the explosion did no damage and reopened the bridge, only to close it again hours later and rushed in inspectors to take a second look. Some demolitions experts saying the explosion may have gone off a bit too far away to shatter the pillar, but likely cracked it, and they'd want a thorough repair job before even thinking about reopening the bridge. Ukraine has blown the deck a couple of times, but that's easily repaired, replacing a whole pillar would be a massive, massive job.

[Werthead]

Ukraine is carrying out a huge attack on Russia using drones. Melitopol's power supply was disrupted, Rostov's air defences have engaged. The Millerovo Airbase has taken multiple hits. Kherson has been hit by drones and long-range cluster munition strikes.

Both Pope Leo XIV and Trump have spoken again to Putin, with limited success in convincing him to pause the war.

NATO intelligence believes that Russian forces poised to attack Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk may have been diverted to Kursk, Belgorod and other areas of the front. They anticipate the main thrust to continue at and around Pokrovsk, with a smaller effort in Sumy and a medium-level effort in Kharkiv. Russia may be planning a southern thrust through Sumy and western thrust through Kharkiv to encircle Kharkiv City, but this would require their biggest and most rapid advance since February 2022 and maybe much more than that, through much thicker and fiercer defences, with much less manpower available.

Some grumbling on Russian channels that Russia is wasting resources in Sumy and Kharkiv instead of direct all resources through the Donbas, which is where they are having more success, if at a slow clip.

Updated tally of at least 6 aircraft destroyed at Olenya and 8 at Belaya, with 22 aircraft in total across four airbases destroyed and 19 further damaged.

For the first time, the US will not participate at a NATO Ramstein meeting or a Ukraine-NATO Council meeting over the next day or so.

Russia wants to deploy 10,000 troops to Transnistria. It's unclear how they'd get there.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 04 June 2025 - 09:40 PM

[Werthead]

Russian forces have been declaring a breakthrough in Sumy Oblast, although that appears to be a gross exaggeration. The actual frontier is not well-suited to reinforcement, so Ukraine constructed defensive lines a few kilometres back. When Russia crossed the border after retaking most of Kursk Oblast, they ran into Ukrainian blocking forces, who have promptly managed to hold up the Russian advance into Sumy for weeks despite not being the main (or any kind of) defensive line. After battering themselves bloody, Russian forces have finally managed to push back the blocking forces and are now stuck on the main and more formidable defensive line. There's been some attempt to sell this as a breakthrough when what actually happened is they never made it to the front line in the first place.

This triggered also a bold Russian claim that Russian forces are now 25km from Sumy city, which sounds foreboding until you realise Sumy city is only 27km or so from the Russian border anyway.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has expanded its front line in Kursk Oblast to the east south of Sudzha from a tiny toehold to a larger incursion around Guevo, whilst they also hold a chunk of territory in far NW Belgorod Oblast, just to the south-east. Ukraine's other incursion into Kursk Oblast to the west, around Tetkino, continues to resist Russian counter-attacks (some complaints on Russian Telegram that Russia diverted reinforcements from Tetkino to Sumy leaving Tetkino in danger of encirclement). Russia really needs to eliminate both the Guevo and Tetkino pockets otherwise Ukraine can withdraw them and use them to attack the Russian main force in Sumy. The number of Russian troops available also seems questionable in this endeavour (although I have seen speculation that Russia may deploy additional North Korean forces in this sector).

Ukraine located and destroyed two Iskander launchers and their missiles in Bryansk Oblast. They had been preparing to fire, most likely at Kyiv.

Several massive traffic jams near Russian airbases as spot checks are carried out on all trucks in the vicinity.

Canada has confirmed its armoured vehicle manufacturer Roshel has been operating a Ukrainian-based factory for several months now.

A Russian assault on Pokrovsk using electric scooters has been eliminated because this is not an optimal attack vehicle.

Quite a bloody engagement in Toretsk, with Ukraine destroying multiple Russian position using APCs and TM-62 antitank mines as makeshift explosives, but several Ukrainian troops were lost to Russian drones during the withdrawal.

Ukraine is considering likely targets for a Russian counterstrike to retaliate for the airbase attack. They seem to be most concerned about a conventional warhead attack using ICBMs on the government district in Kyiv. Russia has already destroyed the administration building Kherson city, the site of major celebrations when the city was liberated by Ukrainian forces.

Merz is being very smooth in his discussions with Trump. He presented Trump with the birth certificate of his grandfather, which Trump was very pleased by, and when Trump tried to make a joke about the anniversary of D-Day making Merz uncomfortable, Merz said how thankful he was that Germany was freed from Nazi dictatorship by the Americans.

Telegram may be banned in Russia under new legislation.

[Tiste Simeon]

I suspect the Russians really want a quick win after Spiderwebs I they'll definitely over inflate whatever they do.

[Werthead]

Ukraine has launched a huge missile and drone attack on Crimea, one Russian source hysterically claiming over 400 missiles and drones being launched in multiple waves.

It sounds like Ukraine has issued a stronger-than-normal shelter advisory for Kyiv and several other cities, some people are just heading down to the shelters for the whole night rather than waiting for the alarm.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 05 June 2025 - 08:08 PM

[Mentalist]

4 missile cruisers are out in the Black Sea, and supposedly 20 planes in the air, including some Mig-31s, that are likely to carry Kinzhals

The orcs sent a glide bomb at the Kherson Regional Admin building, and then they also launched a missile at it. It's totally demolished now.


We are getting footage of major explosions at Bryans'k airfield with secondary pops. Some early rumours another Iskander launcher was hit, hut it could also be a missile/ammo/drone dump.

Voenkors whining that there's about 60 VDV left in Tyotkino, and they are effectively surrounded. They are worried the UAF will be able to capture the large(ish) border town unless something drastic is done to relieve it.

[Werthead]

Ukraine has hit a Russian train on the move, destroying 12 tanks and over 100 IFVs and APCs. Russian sources are apoplectic. It definitely seems that the quality of Ukraine intelligence and targeting has improved dramatically in just the last couple of weeks.

A Russian Su-35 has been shot down, despite being well within Russian airspace. It is currently unclear how this was done, but some Ukrainian sources are theorising that an F-16 was able to engage undetected, despite having no stealth characteristics and the Su-35 being a newer, on-paper-superior plane. Others are saying this was the newly-arrived Swedish AWACS aircraft operating in conjunction with the F-16s, giving them a huge bonus in being able to engage enemy planes at very long range. There now seems to be growing confidence that Ukraine may have able to gain greater air superiority over Ukrainian territory, forcing Russian plans to start operating even further back inside Russian territory, reducing their effectiveness.

Wild claim that the attack on the Russian train was carried out by drones hidden inside the train that first targeted the engine, shutting it down, and then attacked other cargo carriages. Once the train was immobilised, drones launched from Ukraine directly attacked. Waiting for confirmation of that because that sounds a bit bonkers (how did they get out?)

This post has been edited by Werthead: 08 June 2025 - 07:17 PM