No. And I will explain all the facts in this thread ๐งต:
Yesterday the @nytimes published an article about the dead russians in Makiivka... and didn't bother to ask a single military expert, officer, weapons expert, or Ukrainian.
1/n
Instead they went to an Assistant Adjunct Professor for Epidemiology at UC Berkeley, who is quoted: โIt looks like most of them were shot in the head,โ Dr. Rohini Haar, medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights, said in an interview.
Wrong. And a military expert would
2/n
have told the NY Times that this is nonsense.
First: here are the videos of the before and after of the incident. Video 2 in the linked tweet is before and Video 3 is after.
Here is a screenshot from Video 2.
There is a Ukrainian machine gunner on the ground (red circle). I added his line of fire in yellow.
We can also spot a toy car and a tree trunk. Those are important later.
There are two additional Ukrainian soldiers in this video, but they 4/n
will move before the next video so I did not mark them. Here is a video taken by a Ukrainian soldier that participated in the events.
Now let's analyze this video. 5/n
Here is the machine gunner from earlier. He uses a PKM machine gun. The machine gun is level with the heads of the dead russians later. His job is to keep the surrendering russians in check.
And again we see the toy car. 6/n
The toy car, a children's swing and to the right another Ukrainian soldier (which the NY Times forgot to count).
And this Ukrainian soldier doesn't have his rifle up. He is not expecting any resistance. 7/n
Two more Ukrainian troops. One with his foot on the aforementioned trunk, the other to the side behind the machine gunner. Both with their rifles pointing down. They too aren't ready for any shootout.
So we have five Ukrainian soldiers, with one filming, three having their 8/n
rifles down, and only the machine gunner ready to fire.
If we add those four Ukrainian soldiers to the overhead shot we see that only one had a clear shot of the russian (green circle) that came out last and attacked the Ukrainians. And that the filming soldier (blue circle) 9/n
was the attackers target (he is the injured soldier at the end of his video).
This is the approximate view of the machine gunner and his line of fire in yellow. Also note the wall section, the position of the 10th russian soldiers, & the hands of the first russian soldiers. 10/n
If we add the position of the Ukrainian troops and their lines of fire over a screenshot of the aftermath video, you can see that two Ukrainian troops and the machine gunner had the russians on the ground in their line of fire. Only one Ukrainian soldier had a clear shot of 11/n
attacking russian. Once this russian attacks, the soldier filming drops to the ground injured and the soldier, who had his foot on the trunk moves forward to engage. And you can hear the machine gun starting to fire - but more of that later. 12/n
After the shooting.
Bullet holes have appeared on the wall behind the dead russians. How did these get there if the russians were "shot in the head"?? 13/n
And if the russians were shot were they lay, how come that the 10th did move behind the wall?
14/n
"shot in the head", but the helmets didn't move? I can show you videos from the war in Syria and the Armenia-Azerbaijan war: a headshot with a Kalashnikov at that range and the helmet flies off with half the skull and most of the brain. 15/n
These russian were hit by the much more powerful bullets of the PKM machine gun. How powerful?
Well, the first russian soldier's left hand got hit by one of the machine guns' 7.62ร54mm bullets...
The destructive power and rate of fire of the PKM machine gun alone was enough 16/n
to kill all these russians. It was not an execution, it was not a war crime.
It was a team of 5 Ukrainian troops, four of which weren't doing their job but fooling around, who tried to take 11 russian prisoner. One russian decided to rather die than surrender, and the only
17/n
Ukrainian soldier ready to fire did as is expected in such a situation. The soldier filming goes down = the machine gunner fires to neutralize any threat. That's it.
If the NY Times had asked a military or weapons expert instead of epidemiologists and lawyers, they wouldn't
18/n
have provided the russian propaganda with this gift.
If you still have doubts: here is a PKM machine gun being fired, and after that I added three times the audio from the last second of the Ukrainian soldier's video.
You be the judge what we hear in that last second.
19/end
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Today Germans found out that raising and stationing a Panzerbrigade in Lithuania will cost up to โฌ11 billion...
Of course, because if you devastate your military for 30 years and create gaps in personnel, materiel, etc. it costs MORE to rebuild than it would have cost to 1/5
maintain your military. Germany between 1989 and 2024 reduced its battalions (active and reserve) by the following %:
CBRN Defense -63,64%
Artillery -92,68%
Reconnaissance -45,45%
Paratroopers -66,67%
Signals -66,67%
Air Defense -100,00%
Gebirgsjรคger -25,00%
Panzer -91,76%
2/5
Army Aviation -70,00%
Light Infantry -96,98%
Logistics -83,70%
Panzergrenadier -82,81%
Engineers -83,33%
Medical -84,00%
Bridging -92,86%
Total: -87,47%
Disbanded the units, paid to have the equipment and materiel scrapped, sold of the bases, and retired the people with the 3/5
People have forgotten the insane density (and cost) of NATO's Cold War SAM belts.
In Germany alone the HAWK belt consisted of (from North to South):
โข 24ร German
โข 12ร Dutch
โข 8x Belgian
โข 35ร US Army
โข 12ร German
1/8
HAWK sites, each of which was filled with radars and missile launchers. (Photo: the Dutch HAWK site on Velmerstot in Germany).
Between the SAM belt and the border mobile radars, and short range air defense systems like Gepard, Roland, Chaparral, VADS, etc. as well as mobile 2/8
Javelin and Stinger teams covered the units operating there.
And behind the HAWK SAM (Surface to Air Missile) belt followed a second SAM belt, with long range NIKE HERCULES missiles, which carried nuclear warheads. All this was backed up by German, US Air Force, British 3/8
On April Fool's Day the head of the German Navy's Naval Aviation the #Marineflieger joked that the Marineflieger would finally get fighter jets again...
This should NOT be a joke.
This should be a high priority investment for the Bundeswehr.
A thread about ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ช๐ซ๐ฎ๐ต๐ฑ๐ฌ๐ง:
1/17
During the Cold War the West German & Danish navies' tasks were to:
โข prevent the Soviet Baltic, East German & Polish fleets from transiting the Skagerrak
โข prevent Warsaw Pact amphibious landings on the Danish isles
For this the German forces in Schleswig Holstein & the
2/17
Danish military were assigned to NATO's Allied Forces Baltic Approaches (BALTAP) Command.
To defend the sea approaches BALTAP had 30 submarines, 56 missile boats, some 60 mine layers, and land based Harpoon missile batteries (which were transferred to Ukraine in June 2022).
3/17
The Soviet Union was losing the war against Germany.
Only the ๐บ๐ธ US industry saved the Soviets.
In 1941 in seven months of war in the East the Wehrmacht suffered 285,400 irrecoverable losses vs. 3,137,673 irrecoverable Soviet losses. A ratio of 1 to 11 (!). 1/6
In the 12 months of 1942 the Wehrmacht suffered 500,700 irrecoverable losses vs. 3,258,216 Soviet irrecoverable losses. A ratio of 1 to 6.5.
BUT from 1941 to 1942 Soviet average monthly losses decreased by 176,700 troops... because US Lend/Lease materiel began to arrive. 2/6
Especially helpful were 312,600 American trucks (which incl. about 187,900 Studebaker US6). This allowed the Soviets to motorize their rifle divisions and vastly improved Red Army logistics. (The Soviet Union only produced 150,000 trucks during the entire war). 3/6
During the Cold War the British Army was the smallest of the four big (๐ฌ๐ง๐ซ๐ท๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ๐น) European NATO armies.
The British Army fielded 13 brigades (+ the Royal Marines' Commando brigade), while Germany fielded 38 and Italy 25 brigades. 1/6
France fielded 12 divisions, which each had the strength of 2ร standard NATO brigades.
But no one complained, because at the time the Royal Air Force was the biggest air force on the continent with some 800+ fighters & bombers. Only France fielded a comparable air force. 2/6
And the Royal Navy was the second biggest navy in NATO with more ocean-going ships than the French, German and Italian navies combined (!).
But after the Cold War, and especially under the Tory governments since 2010, the British Armed Forces have been wrecked. 3/6
Air Force reductions in Europe 1989 - 2024
A look at ๐บ๐ธ๐ฌ๐ง๐ฉ๐ช๐ซ๐ท๐ฎ๐น๐ง๐ช๐ณ๐ฑ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ด๐ธ๐ช๐ซ๐ฎ๐จ๐ฆ๐ต๐น๐ช๐ธ
Let's start with fighter bases in Germany:
โข left 1989
โข right 2024