The War in the Ukraine

Remains of an Ukranian Mi-8 in Zaporozhye


Remains of an Ukranian Mi-24 in Mikolayiv. Unless it didn't burn when it crashed, that wreck has been there for a while now

In a deleted video posted to her twitter, Ursula Von del Leyen claims that more than 100.000 ukranians officers have been killed so far. Maybe she meant soldiers. That would put the count at an average of 359 ukranian soldiers killed per day.

If she was correct and indeed meant only officers, then the overall Ukranian KIA must sit at around 300.000 or 1075 soldiers per day



T-90M spotted near Bakhmut

Temstar said:

I went onto aliexpress to check out the bullet proof plate thing and yeah sure enough they're selling like hot cake:

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Check out all those 5 star reviews at the bottom from Russians.

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If that is true it really does show how far the Russian MIC has fallen that Russian citizens are buying plates from China. Surely something relatively low tech can be domestically produced to meet demand.

There is no good solution, keeping

tankphobia said:

If that is true it really does show how far the Russian MIC has fallen that Russian citizens are buying plates from China. Surely something relatively low tech can be domestically produced to meet demand.

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By the feedack those are bought by everyday guys, not for military use.

And generally, I know a chap whom custom make gears for military use, and even prior of 2022 every soldier was keen to buy gear for himself, just to give a hair thin edge.


At the end of the day, if the chap won't spend his money for his survival then what is the point of the sallary ?

Mobilizing 300,000 people put considerable strain on the logistics. Russia had barely equipped its standing army with Ratnik and now you basically ask the industry to double the amount of kit in service. When it took like 5 years to make the prior equipment. It is just not going to happen in a month or two. Prior to the war they were making like 60,000 Ratnik sets a year. They probably had like 420,000 sets when the war started.

sheogorath said:

In a deleted video posted to her twitter, Ursula Von del Leyen claims that more than 100.000 ukranians officers have been killed so far. Maybe she meant soldiers. That would put the count at an average of 359 ukranian soldiers killed per day.

If she was correct and indeed meant only officers, then the overall Ukranian KIA must sit at around 300.000 or 1075 soldiers per day

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Video has been reuploaded and they shoddily edited out the part about the losses.

tankphobia said:

If that is true it really does show how far the Russian MIC has fallen that Russian citizens are buying plates from China. Surely something relatively low tech can be domestically produced to meet demand.

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Russians can make steel plates just fine but apparently only 3 countries has the technology to independently make UHMWPE plates from start to finish and they are US, Netherlands and China. In fact it wasn't that long ago that .

That particular Russian guy's video who went viral was at first dismissive towards the Chinese plate he bought online because it felt light and flimsy compared to Russian plates. But over the period of a month it saved him twice, first from fragments of 120mm mortar round and then again from a 5.45mm round. Hence why he then made another video saying he was wrong about the quality and it's in fact very good. It went viral and became ad for Chinese made plate.

Maybe that's why Russians were at first complaining about inferior Chinese plates - because they're not used to the lightness of UHMWPE compared to ceramic or steel.

WarAndPeace said:

Not every civilian is going to drive a redneck pickup. In this regard, China does a good job giving Russia a helping hand with mainstream civilian cars.

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You like redneck pickups? China's got you covered

People have noticed the edit

tankphobia said:

If that is true it really does show how far the Russian MIC has fallen that Russian citizens are buying plates from China. Surely something relatively low tech can be domestically produced to meet demand.

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Nothing new here, soldiers and their families were purchasing non-standard weapons and equipment for their own use during WWII and even the Vietnam War.

The Ukranians have gone in full damage control after Von der Leyen's slip up