ODD AVATARS THE rIGHT CHOOSES:

In one of their deadliest attacks yet on Russian forces, Ukrainians used American-made rockets to kill dozens -- and perhaps hundreds -- of Moscow's troops in a New Year's Day strike behind the lines, prompting outraged Russian war hawks to accuse their military of lethal incompetence. [...]

None of the claims could be independently verified, but even the lowest number would represent one of the worst Russian losses in a single episode in the war, and an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. He has vowed repeatedly to correct the glaring errors and weaknesses in his armed forces that the war has exposed, and in a New Year's Eve speech filmed at a military base, Putin told the families of soldiers killed in the fighting, "I share your pain with all my heart."

Pro-war Russian bloggers and some government officials said the debacle was caused by the military's own repeated and costly mistakes, like garrisoning troops in a dense concentration within range of Ukrainian artillery, placing them in the same building as an ammunition depot, and allowing them to use cellphones, whose signals the Ukrainians can use to zero in on their target.

"Our generals are untrainable in principle," wrote Girkin, who has used the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov.

Tweet   @brothersjudd