Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Don't Kill Bill said:
The UK spends billions every year on the intelligence services which predicted and published freely to all exactly the scale of the problem Ukraine and Europe was facing. Only to be told by everyone we were fear mongering or panicking.

The reason the displaced people even have a chance at escape is because of the immense bravery of Ukrainian service men using in part British supplied weapons we flew in around the German no fly zone and the training UK soldiers gave to them which has helped to stop the Russian advance on Kyiv.

Do I wish the UK govt did more for the refugees, yes I do. I have never voted conservative and never will.

I think you have a memory like a sieve and chip on your shoulder.

The Russians have made it quite clear that it is the UK who they feel is most responsible for their pain and who they will be looking to respond against first/most. To me that says it all.
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Oh, how dare I question the great UK government.

And since you love the UK intelligence services, what do you think of Johnson overriding them on adding Lebedev to the House of Lords? Or is that the chip on my shoulder?

What about all those donations for the Tory party by Russians far and wide connected to Putin? And what a coincidence a lot of them are not on the sanctions list?

Finally, funny how you justify the UK being the big bad guy for Russia based on what Russia has supposedly said publicly. As if that's worth the ink it's written on nowadays.

Make no mistake, I am not only blaming the UK, it's all Western governments. I just have the best view on the UK.
 
Cue the sound of someone desperately trying to save their own skin. I’ll believe it when I see it, and once the Home Office actually have the capacity to make the policy meaningful.

 
Seen so many images of children being killed today. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Putin needs to be taken out.
 
Rightnr said:
Oh, how dare I question the great UK government.

And since you love the UK intelligence services, what do you think of Johnson overriding them on adding Lebedev to the House of Lords? Or is that the chip on my shoulder?

What about all those donations for the Tory party by Russians far and wide connected to Putin? And what a coincidence a lot of them are not on the sanctions list?

Finally, funny how you justify the UK being the big bad guy for Russia based on what Russia has supposedly said publicly. As if that's worth the ink it's written on nowadays.

Make no mistake, I am not only blaming the UK, it's all Western governments. I just have the best view on the UK.
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They were right and predicted the invasion. I love people who are right on important matters like that rather than those who said the invasion wouldn't happen. That is not you is it?

There is no supposedly about it. It has been explicitly stated. It doesn't fit into your agenda so you can't bring yourself to admit it.
 
Rightnr said:
It looks dodgy as hell but then this is yellow pages information, so I thought it's mostly public knowledge.

If it's bollocks, I'll remove the post.
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Most likely, aside from the affair with Kabayeva itself, which is more or less public knowledge.
 
nimic said:
The end of WW2 didn't turn into WW3, Korea didn't, Vietnam didn't, Hungary and Prague didn't, Sputnik didn't, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't, Afghanistan didn't, etc. I doubt this will either.
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I hope you are right, but in few of those instances only luck and small details resulted into peaceful resolution. What is happening right now is very, very scary.
 
Interesting thread from a former Foreign Minister of Russia in the 90s. He doesn't think Putin is irrational or that he will use nuclear weapons.

 
Siorac said:
Depends on how they'd do it - if it's North Korean-style then yes.

Tor could still work. But I don't believe they'll do it anyway.
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Tor wouldn't work if they've severed all connections with the internet. As far as I know, Tor is basically like a VPN anyway, just with more nodes (and less logs).

But yeah, no way it happens.
 
sglowrider said:
According to the translated version of the FSB whistleblower -- they never planned for such a scenario.
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I wonder how much China making Russia wait for the Olympics to end hurt Russia's attempted blitzkreig. It let the Ukrainians prepare and get intel in advance. Foolish of Putin to assume China would be ok with that distraction, he should have sent the army over a day after the closing ceremonies
 
sglowrider said:
According to the translated version of the FSB whistleblower -- they never planned for such a scenario.
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Some selected extracts:

"With regards to Russian military losses: I don’t know the reality – no one does. There was some information the first 2 days, but now no one knows what is happening in Ukraine. We’ve lost contact with major divisions. (!!) ... even at our command no one knows. But probably closer to 10,000 Russian soldiers killed. And we are not counting losses at DNR & LNR.

... Infantries already tried to enter cities – out of 20 paratrooper groups, only one had 'provisional' success.

... To siege? Over the last decades in Europe – Serbia being the best example, cities can remain functional under siege for years. Humanitarian convoys from Europe to Ukraine is only a matter of time.

Our conditional deadline is June. Conditional because in June there will be no economy left in Russia – there will be nothing left."
 
Klopper76 said:
Putin wants control or at least some say over what happens with the natural gas supply in the Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian control of that threatens Russia’s monopoly as a natural gas supplier for Europe (they currently provide 50% of Germany’s natural gas supply), and therefore the Russian economy.

I think that and the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO (therefore surrounding Belarus on three sides) are what drives him with this. That and the fact that he’s seemingly a bit unhinged.
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this.
 
atkar83 said:
I wonder how much China making Russia wait for the Olympics to end hurt Russia's attempted blitzkreig. It let the Ukrainians prepare and get intel in advance. Foolish of Putin to assume China would be ok with that distraction, he should have sent the army over a day after the closing ceremonies
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Agent Xi? Or Putin could have waited another year instead of fighting during the Mud season.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Some selected extracts:

"With regards to Russian military losses: I don’t know the reality – no one does. There was some information the first 2 days, but now no one knows what is happening in Ukraine. We’ve lost contact with major divisions. (!!) ... even at our command no one knows. But probably closer to 10,000 Russian soldiers killed. And we are not counting losses at DNR & LNR.

... Infantries already tried to enter cities – out of 20 paratrooper groups, only one had 'provisional' success.

... To siege? Over the last decades in Europe – Serbia being the best example, cities can remain functional under siege for years. Humanitarian convoys from Europe to Ukraine is only a matter of time.

Our conditional deadline is June. Conditional because in June there will be no economy left in Russia – there will be nothing left."
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June seems to be the month mentioned a bit. JP Morgan did an analysis that the economy would have shrunk by 35% come June too.
 
ExoduS said:
I hope you are right, but in few of those instances only luck and small details resulted into peaceful resolution. What is happening right now is very, very scary.
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It’s another proxy war in a long list of proxy wars that’ve been fought throughout the Cold War. The West’s mistake was believing the Cold War ever ended.
 
MTF said:
Amazing that they assess that both sides still have majority of their air defense assets, from the perspective of Ukraine still having them!
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This may be because the Ukrainians don't have the resources to go after Russian SAM launchers and the Russians haven't been successful in neutralizing Ukrainian manpad systems, which are easy to hide and are also getting replenished from the outside.
 
Raoul said:
This may be because the Ukrainians don't have the resources to go after Russian SAM launchers and the Russians haven't been successful in neutralizing Ukrainian manpad systems, which are easy to hide and are also getting replenished from the outside.
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But I think what's implied in the statement (although I could be reading too much into it) is that Ukraine still has a majority of its fighter aircraft and more advanced AA capabilities, not just manpads.
 
MTF said:
But I think what's implied in the statement (although I could be reading too much into it) is that Ukraine still has a majority of its fighter aircraft and more advanced AA capabilities, not just manpads.
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When they say "air defense systems" that usually refers to the ability to shoot down enemy aircraft.
 
nimic said:
Yes.

I guess I don't really buy that they're going to do it, though.
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Well they could set a great firewall like the China does. It would help promote their propaganda to brainwash their people for sure.

You know in the eyes of billions of Chinese people, it is the Western propaganda (those we feed into everyday) which is evil. No kidding, majority of Chinese people there are in support of the Russian, and thinks NATO is the cause of the whole Ukraine war mess, while war crimes against civilians are mostly committed by Ukraine soldiers (Neo-Nazi) in order to gain global support. So it works for them, no matter how twisted it sounds to us.
 
BBC (March 7th, 2.15am):

"UK defence officials have said they believe Russian forces made minimal gains over the past 48 hours, with its troops remaining bogged down by stiff Ukrainian resistance and poor logistical support.

In a daily intelligence report published by the Ministry of Defence, officials said it is "highly unlikely that Russia has successfully achieved its planned objectives to date".

But they added "a high level of Russian air and artillery strikes have continued to hit military and civilian sites in Ukrainian cities" over the past 24 hours.

"Recent strikes have targeted Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Chernihiv, and been particularly heavy in Mariupol," the assessment said.

It comes as the Chief of the UK's Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, told the BBC that Russian troops had been failing to operate "in a competent fashion", and this was "impacting on morale".

He added that "those that have been leading the fight for Russia have suffered just terrible losses" since the invasion began."
 
nimic said:
The end of WW2 didn't turn into WW3, Korea didn't, Vietnam didn't, Hungary and Prague didn't, Sputnik didn't, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't, Afghanistan didn't, etc. I doubt this will either.
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Good post.

It's worthwhile taking a step back and embracing some context. We've teetered much closer to nuclear war with Russia than this in the past, of all of these occasions I'd say the closest was the Cuban missile crisis when the steadfast actions of a Russian naval officer was all that stood in the way of Russia opening a thermonuclear exchange. Then there was the 1983 false alarm, where once again a single Soviet general made the call not to launch ICBMs in response to a perceived western attack.

So we look at the current situation, Russia has invaded Ukraine and NATO has repeatedly ruled out getting involved. It's horrible, but it's not the same. Putin's nuclear rhetoric is just that. Literally nobody wants to see Ukraine being mutilated, annexed and/or made a Russian vassal, but western governments don't want WW3 either.
 
Mad Vlad appears to be running out of Russian conscripts and is now resorting to all kinds of mercenaries.

 
nimic said:
The end of WW2 didn't turn into WW3, Korea didn't, Vietnam didn't, Hungary and Prague didn't, Sputnik didn't, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't, Afghanistan didn't, etc. I doubt this will either.
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Depends how you see it. We are very close to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, literally one button away - the Soviet captain had ordered to fire the missile, Moscow and Soviet deputy political officer had authorised it, and its up to Soviet commander to press the button to launch it, but he is rational, kept his cool and did not press the button, and the rest is history.
 
Raoul said:
Mad Vlad appears to be running out of Russian conscripts and is now resorting to all kinds of mercenaries.

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I don’t understand this. If Ukrainian figures are to be believed then Russia have lost 10,000 troops, but that still leaves 190k. Why would they already be at the point of desperately needing more?
 
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