For four months, Russian troops have been trying to seize the eastern Ukrainian village of Synkivka. On a map, this looks easy. Their forward position is on the edge of a forest. It is a mere 500 metres away from the Ukrainian frontline and a shattered collection of cottages.

Every few days the Russians attack. Their forays across open ground end in the same way: complete disaster. Armoured vehicles with men perched on top, speed across a landscape of moon-like craters and splintered trees. Soon it goes wrong. Some blow up on mines; others panic and reverse. The Ukrainians pick off fleeing infantry with drones and artillery. Typically, all the Russians die.

“It’s really fucked up down there,” Gleb Molchanov, a Ukrainian drone operator said, showing video he took from above the battlefield four miles north-east of the city of Kupiansk. The images are gruesome. Bodies can be seen lying in a zig-zag trench and frozen hollows. Nearby are the burnt-out carcasses of BMP-1 fighting vehicles, at least 10 of them. Despite this, the Russians keep trying.

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  • @ShittyBeatlesFCPres
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    11 months ago

    Good for the Russians for not giving up. Sometimes, life gives you little setbacks and you have to just keep trying. I tell my kids all the time not to be discouraged when they make a mistake. Practice makes perfect and all that.

    Edit: /s in case people didn’t know I was mocking the Russians for failing repeatedly.

    • @Jimmyeatsausage
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      1111 months ago

      I always tell my kids never to enter a land war in Asia.

    • gregorum
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      811 months ago

      The alcoholics like to say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 

    • @doublejay1999
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      -611 months ago

      Lemmy can be extraordinarily stupid

      • DreamerofDays
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        811 months ago

        Eh, there’s also a decent chunk of non-native English speakers who might have a harder time with written sarcasm, and Poe’s law, I don’t doubt, accounts for more.

      • @BangelaQuirkel
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        411 months ago

        Every place mostly populated by people is bound have a lot of idiots.