Putin's Own Goals: Russia is supplying NATO with 'free chicken'

[speak easy]

What would take years and years for the intelligence community to find out ...we’re getting free every day.

Gleaning Russian military tactics as easy as ‘free chicken,’ U.S. official says

A U.S. defense official spoke of efforts that began last fall to assess Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and position its forces to best utilize sophisticated weaponry and tactics against a larger opposing force. Ukrainian Stinger operators are continually being trained in Germany, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the Defense Department.

The U.S. defense official described a bonanza of information the American military has gleaned about Russian “tactics and procedures” by watching “how they perform in combat” since the Feb. 24 invasion. “We call it ‘free chicken,’” the official said. “What would take years and years for the intelligence community to find out [about] how they do things, we’re getting free every day,” allowing the military to “create profiles that will help us for years and years.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/27/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-22UHY5S6QFC5PJY54NPCPEWKCU

[jcgoldie]

1. Putin has certainly exposed his soft underbelly in Ukraine...

[speak easy]

3. 'Soft'? RT : Supple, sexy, and irresistible :)

[Johnny2X2X]

2. It's both good and a tragedy

So this is clearly a proxy war right now and NATO is threading a needle on how much support to give. NATO wants to give enough for Ukraine to defend themselves successfully, but not so much as it is a rout and Russia will then lash out at a NATO country and start WWIII. And for Ukraine, it's good in that they are getting the weapons and training they need to not lose, but also bad in that NATO and the US are basically using Ukraine right now both as a test case for battle with Russian equipment and as a way to weaken and diminish the Russian military threat.

And this is all being enhanced by the bubble Putin lives in. If his commanders were giving him the truth about how the war is going Russia would already have went home or attacked NATO. But they keep lying to him and he thinks he's winning, so he's marching more and more of Russia's military might to destruction. By the time Putin learns the truth, his military might be 80% spent.

[speak easy]

4. What would constitute a rout?