this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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Man, I don't want to see Donkey's being blown up. Fucking Russia. Just go away.

The US Army still maintain a mule corps. It's how we got a lot of supplies to the inland hurricane victims last year.

That said, I'm surprised that hay and clover is cheaper than gas to make this at all efficient.

[–] nomoredrama@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

Nice, will they use dogs and cats next?

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 points 7 hours ago

"China is supplying the farms with equipment to harvest food for the donkeys which are being used for war. Let's sanction China"

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Very similar to Russian soldiers except the donkeys usually aren't drunk.

[–] Tuxman@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago

"The war is going so well, we don't even need all this 1980's futuristic technology! We are so good we can literally go medieval on these guys!"

I can't wait to see the russian knights in chainmail armor next week, that'll show Ukraine, right?

Naming a drone Donkey Punch just got a little more likely.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 16 hours ago

Worked during WWII, I guess… Anyway, the dipshit leader of my country is now trying to bribe Ukraine for aid. Cause that's what "aid" means.

[–] addie@feddit.uk 80 points 1 day ago

Brainless, foul-smelling and hateful creatures, who can't be trusted not to shit wherever they stand. And the noise that they make is really offensive as well. The donkeys next to them are quite cute, though.

Heartbreaking that those critters will die because the Russians are assholes. I bet the thought is that the soldiers can eat them if they have to so its a one way trip for those poor things.

[–] Grabthar@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wonder if they could use drones to manoeuver them into delivering the ammo to Ukrainians instead.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 12 points 16 hours ago

Drone with a carrot dangling from it.

[–] misophonium@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Man I'm not looking forward to the footage of a drone flying into the ammo donkey that sees it coming before the orcs around it

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I look forward to the drone with a carrot suspended from it marching the ammo laden donkey over to UA lines for use against the orcs.

[–] TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

Only problem I see is you don't want the donkey to associate the drone with danger. So you would have a carrot drone ready once the donkey reaches the front before it finds out what an FPV is.

[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago

High accuracy rifle equipped baba yagas to deal with the orks, then send in the carrot mavik for the donkey.

[–] Carmakazi@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The Third Reich used lots of beasts of burden for their logistics as well. Makes sense when you want to save your oil and steel for fighting vehicles ~~because your industrial base ain't all that~~.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oddly enough, when the nazis were fighting russia, everyone expected a quick swift blow to moscow to seize the city early, and take the nation.

What shocked everyone is that they instead went south, and ignored russia. Which didn't make a lot of sense at the time. But now we know it's because hitler had ordered them to reroute to some fuel refineries and oil pumps in the middle east. Basically, they had enough fuel to reach moscow, but not much else. And by that I don't mean the squad marching to moscow, I mean the entire nazis offensive. The whole country was out of oil. If they had marched to moscow, they'd be stuck in moscow, because thats all the fuel germany had.

So they rerouted south to go hijack some fuel. Which in context makes sense. But it also caused just enough of a delay that when they got to russia, the winter had come. So now they're burning fuel just to stay alive. But still stuck in russia, because WWII german tanks don't roll in snow.

Basically to preserve fuel they would have had to go straight to moscow and win early. But to get fuel they had to reroute and cause delay which burned a lot of the fuel they just stole.

Turns out, leading a massive army across land as big as russia burns a lot of fuel. Turns out it's a logistical nightmare.

Which is funny, because NOW we know russia to be less of a country, and more as a gas station cosplaying as a country.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Hitler also got sidetracked trying to deal a morale blow by capturing Stalin's namesake city. But instead, that army got cut off from supplies, encircled, and destroyed/captured after running out of ammo and gas entirely.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 day ago

hitler wanted to conquer russia. he needed to conquer Ukraine

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Germany had huge shortages of metal and fuel all throughout the war. Russia has resources, they’re just apparently awful at logistics.

Or maybe for some unknown reason, it seems there are less workers than there used to be.

Apparently containerisation is still not widespread in Russia, and most of their (civilian and military) shipping is breakbulk like it’s the 1930s.

[–] Majorllama@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Or they could just.... Go home. Russia's economy is going to be feeling the sting of this stupid war for a long time. The social implications of wiping out an entire generation of men is also going to have knock-on effects for a long time.

I feel bad for the Russian people who wanted nothing to do with the war in the first place.

I hope Putin accidentally falls outta a window on the top floor of the Kremlin after accidentally shooting himself in the back of the head twice.

[–] nuke@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

NCD really needs to get its shit together. Once again outjerked by reality.

[–] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's weird that they let Putin's mother and wife be used for military purposes

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 day ago

what a horrible thing to say! these donkeys don't deserve such slander

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

What a bunch of jackasses

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Either it's a sign of waning resources or they are just more efficient?

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hmmm..... I think this might be a adaption to constant drone surveillance.

Supply vehicles are a major target for drones and artillery. They also leave tracks in the mud/snow that can easily be seen from the air. This gives the drone operators a fast way of locating where to search for enemy positions even if they miss the truck. The fresh tracks give them a region to search.

Now if they drop the supplies 5-10 miles from the positions and use donkeys to haul it to the final position using treelines etc the tracks will be very hard to follow. It would take a IR camera drone and a bit of luck to spot them.

[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I hope this is a sign of faltering Russian logistics, but I'm not certain.

If I'm trying to move heavy cartons across uneven, partially frozen, partially muddy ground I think a donkey/ mule is a very convenient^*^ solution. Unlike an ATV you can get it right into the foxhole, and with a rope you don't need to be in the "red mist" zone of any exploding cartons.

*I say that, having never mucked out a stable or anything.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

A donkey needs to eat. Grass is free in summer but limited. You need a lot of land to grow that grass. the donkey needs to eat even when you don't use it. Oil in modern cars are a lot cheaper for the amount of work you get. Acoup.org has a lot more details on how hard horse logistics are.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Or treat it as a delivery of ammo plus a delivery of meat.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That is an option, though troops on the front lines processing meat are sure to die as they are not moving and thus become an easy target.

Donkeys also are hard to produce - I don't know enough details of their breeding cycle that say much here, but the limits should be obvious.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, it might be a bad plan, but that doesn't rule it out as the plan.

Unless Putin is secretly up to something else and is ok throwing away hundreds of thousands of people plus all the military equipment they've lost, this whole thing looks like a bad plan.