- Ukrainian forces took out more than 100 Russian soldiers with an ATACMS missile, per OSINT analysts.
- Four ATACMS were used to target the group, one analyst said.
- The soldiers would have been out of reach of Ukraine’s shorter-range ATACMS missiles.
A Ukrainian ATACMS long-range missile strike killed more than 100 Russian soldiers in an occupied region 50 miles from the front line, according to OSINT and military analysts.
Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military training area some 50 miles behind the front line in the occupied Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, per an assessment by The Institute for the Study of War.
According to two aerial geolocated videos posted on Wednesday by X user Osinttechnical, an account affiliated with the Centre for Naval Analyses, Ukraine appeared to strike the training area with three US-supplied M39 ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.
Missiles are dumb, war is dumb, killing 100 people is dumb
They’d be alive today if Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine.
Sure. And they’d be alive today if they were slightly to the left or right of the blast zone. But their deaths won’t bring us any closer to Putin not invading Ukraine.
We’re going to see a hundred dead Ukrainians in a retaliation strike. And then another hundred dead Russians in a retaliation for the retaliation. Etc, etc, etc.
All this death isn’t achieving its end goals. Its just piling up more and more corpses.
But their deaths won’t bring us any closer to Putin not invading Ukraine.
The only way for Ukraine to win this war is to destroy Russia’s ability to wage it. This means destroying Russia’s troops, destroying Russia’s vehicles, destroying Russia’s factories, and destroying Russia’s oil and refinery production.
Destroying the invader demonstrably brings Ukraine closer to ending Putin’s invasion.
The only way for Ukraine to win this war is to destroy Russia’s ability to wage it.
The Ukrainian economy is utterly exhausted. Its operating entirely on the credit from its western allies (who are - incidentally - keen on carving up and selling off what’s left of Ukraine once the war is over). At best, Zelensky can stop the bleeding of territory to Russian creep. But unless they want to fight this war for the next 20 years (a la Vietnam / Afghanistan / Iraq) they’re not going to end a country 10x their size. Certainly not when the MIC they’re relying on demands giant profit margins for every rocket launched and bullet fired.
Destroying the invader demonstrably brings Ukraine closer to ending Putin’s invasion.
Not when Ukraine is cannibalizing itself in the effort.
Then tell us what Ukraine and the west should do.
If it is giving up and letting Russia seize control of the entire nation, then you I have fundamentally different world views.
If it is negotiating with Putin, we are again in disagreement. We don’t bow down to bullies. When we do, they end up taking our lunch money again and again.So really: please tell us what the best alternative is.
Then tell us what Ukraine and the west should do.
Broker a ceasefire, to start, as that ends the immediate loss of life. Begin negotiations for a permanent peace settlement. Establish terms for repatriating land to displaced refugees and compensation for death and destruction of property.
Then hold elections in Ukraine to establish a new postwar government that can continue the peace process.
letting Russia seize control of the entire nation
The only way to prevent Russia from furthering its march into Ukraine is to establish a ceasefire.
Ukrainians had that chance in 2022 and they choose counteroffensive. It failed and they lost territory.
In 2023, they tried again and failed, and lost more territory.
Now Kyiv is under regular bombardment from fortified Russian positions in the North and the entire Donetsk line is under unsustainable pressure.
Either Europe enters the war to bail out Ukraine, Russia accepts a ceasefire and begins a peace settlement, or you’re looking at another big line collapse and retreat, with commensurate territory loss all through the East and South.
Begin negotiations for a permanent peace settlement.
Ukraine is willing to end the war today, unfortunately Russia actively rejects returning Ukrainian lands. Until Russia is prepared to accept peace, the only path forward is to destroy Russia’s ability to wage war.
Ukrainians had that chance in 2022 and they choose counteroffensive. It failed and they lost territory.
??? In 2022, Ukraine pushed the invader away from Kiev, out of Kharkiv, and out of Kherson. Ukraine holds significantly more of their own land today than they did before their counteroffensives in 2022. The entirety of the green shaded area is land Russia once occupied that Ukraine liberated.
Western allies (who are - incidentally - keen on carving up and selling off what’s left of Ukraine once the war is over)
Da, komrade. It will be sad day when
glorious ruzziaNATO breaks up and redistributes land once this war is over.Private Sector on the Frontlines of Land Reform to Unlock Ukraine’s Investment Potential
Not even a secret. USAID is advertising the land grab.
As you note, Afghanistan beat the Soviet Union, there is no reason to believe Ukraine cannot beat Russia. It is also unlikely to take 20 years given how deeply Russia is expending their Soviet inheritance. We are actively watching Russia drain this one-time resource as their storage yards deplete every month. We have watched the Black Sea Fleet sink and the remnants relegated to the furthest coasts of Russia while Ukrainian grain shipments have recovered. This war is winnable, and Ukraine intends to do just that.
Afghanistan beat the Soviet Union, there is no reason to believe Ukraine cannot
Afghan Taliban fighters had big mountain ranges to hide in and retaliate from. And the USSR had no real objective in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a frontline of conflict in the Cold War, just an expensive distraction.
Ukrainians have nowhere to hide. They’re defending cities not hiding in rural highlands. And they’re not fighting the USSR for religious reasons, they’re fighting a turf war for economic reasons.
They’re in the same position as Germany at the end of WW2, defending thousands of miles of flat muddy countryside against layers of mobile artillery.
We are actively watching Russia drain this one-time resource as their storage yards deplete every month.
Russia has the world’s second largest arms industry. They aren’t working off a one time resource, any more than America was in the South Pacific in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
Okay, but what if I told you the missile guys were the Good Guys and the dead guys were the Bad Guys?
Maybe I could even establish that Good Guys got more points, so they are now Winning?
Are you against Good Guys Winning?
Good guys and bad guys are dumb
Go ahead and say that again, dirtbag.
I really hope we’re giving them Block 1A or later, because those have a max range of 170-186 miles, which is juuuuuust enough to reach the Kerch bridge from behind the front of battle.
What’s the significance e of the Kerch bridge
It’s one of Russia’s main supply arteries into Ukraine. They built it after they invaded Crimea back in 2014.
You want to move the most expensive western missiles into range of the cheapest Russian artillery?
Oh, you’re right. Wouldn’t want to use any of that nice military hardware - OPFOR might scratch it.
Ideally, you use the very expensive long range artillery at long range.
You don’t run it right up to the front line so the opposition can hit it with a big rock fired out of a catapult that costs a fraction as much.
I mean, yeah, ideally, but war is anything and everything but ideal. Even moreso when your logistics are as constrained and inconsistent as what Ukraine’s been dealing with for the last 6-8 months due to political fuckery.
