Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

calodo2003 said:
Apologies if posted earlier. Beats a Canadian shot iirc but without the advantages of thinner air & elevation. This shot was done over flat terrain...


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The folks in the comments don't seem to think this is real.
 
stefan92 said:
Putting aside Ukraine for the moment as a result of this war we have seen Finland and Sweden moving towards NATO membership and Armenia and Kazakhstan moving away from Russia as a strategic partner/leader. Even if Russia should conquer the whole Ukraine it would still have lost strategic influence in Europe and Asia.
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Hard disagree. Relationships and influence can be repaired pretty quickly. Or countries can be cowed into submission in the event of a Russian victory. Who would help Kazakhstan if Russia turns her gaze on it, in the aftermath of a Russian victory in Ukraine? No one. So within a 10-20 year period, Kazakhstan will come begrudgingly back to the fold.

On the other hand land gains are very hard to reverse. Russia would have massively increased its area (Ukraine is the second biggest country in Europe after Russia), it would have massively increased its populace by more than 25%, reversing years of demographic decline, and will be in control of the biggest grain producing/exporting area in Europe.

There is no sugar coating it. Russia subjugating all of Ukraine will be nothing but an unmitigated disaster. Everything else would be just empty words to make us feel better.
 
calodo2003 said:
Apologies if posted earlier. Beats a Canadian shot iirc but without the advantages of thinner air & elevation. This shot was done over flat terrain...


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almost 4 kilometers... hey could assassinate any high profile politician with the appropriate positioning
 
Raoul said:
His argument on Russia and Ukraine is incredibly flawed. He claims Putin is acting on insecurity because he fears NATO expansion, which completely ignores the deeper issue that Putin is acting based on insecurity because he fears a strong, Democratic Ukraine on Russian borders would animate Russians to overthrow him so they could live in a similar system. This is why Realism has its limits when analyzing international politics. Its all state centric and ignores the motivations of specific individual actors (which can generally only be assessed through constructivism).
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And the invasion of Ukraine has given a new life to NATO. Everyone realizes again why it's good to be in it. Finland and Sweden felt compelled to join because of the invasion.

Putin would have been better off remaining low-key and spread the word that NATO is irrelevant in this day and age, while propping up anti-NATO parties in Europe.
 
MadMike said:
Hard disagree. Relationships and influence can be repaired pretty quickly. Or countries can be cowed into submission in the event of a Russian victory. Who would help Kazakhstan if Russia turns her gaze on it, in the aftermath of a Russian victory in Ukraine? No one. So within a 10-20 year period, Kazakhstan will come begrudgingly back to the fold.
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I don't see this. Which country that left "the Russian fold" since the collapse of the Soviet Union really returned? Almost all of the eastern European states are now members of EU and NATO, Kazakhstan is obviously looking more towards China, Armenia has been assisted by the US to broker peace with Azerbaijan and won't look back at Russia, possibly only Georgia has become more Russia-friendly again after it's flirt with NATO membership and the war they had a decade ago.

Of course that doesn't mean that Russia has lost all its influence and it also doesn't mean that they can't regain that, but they will have to pay a price for that. It's pretty obvious that sanctions for high-tech equipment didn't stop Russia from getting stuff, but it also looks like the countries supporting Russia now know that Russia depends on them and that lets their confidence grow when dealing with Russia.
 
This guy's death was posted a few pages ago. More on apparently why he was killed.

 
For those interested, the channel Hromadske often puts English subtitles on their videos. All you need to do is put the subtitle setting on. The interviews with frontline soldiers are raw.

I want to remind you that we are not at war with the Russians. We are at war with beasts in human form.
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They (Russians) tortured him, cut off his genitals, chopped off his fingers with an ax, tortured him as best as they could in front of his wife and children. His wife was raped. And what, are they not beasts in human form?
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To be honest, they hate us, and we hate them.
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If not for the volunteers, we would be fecked here.
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The Russians are all drinking. They also shoot at eachother. At five in the morning I hear "feck you, no feck you!" 70 meters away, we can hear them.
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We have few patriots left. Very few.
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VorZakone said:
For those interested, the channel Hromadske often puts English subtitles on their videos. All you need to do is put the subtitle setting on. The interviews with frontline soldiers are raw.

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It was an excellent video. Thanks for sharing.
 
Raoul said:
The counteroffensive continues.



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It looks like Ukraine may have established a permanent foothold on the opposite side of the river, all well and good, can't help but feel this offensive will grind to a complete halt very soon too though, as every other front has.

It takes time to move things across water, Russia has plenty of time to dig trenches and place mines literally everywhere.
 
The BBC ran a similar story to the above a few days ago:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67452832


"Fatigue is the main thing, and it kills any motivation," explains a soldier with a mortar crew in the Zaporizhzhia region.
He's fighting with the 46th brigade in an area where Russian defences are at their strongest.
"We've killed many Russians, but lost no fewer," says the soldier. "Anyone who complained was removed from their position."

And elsewhere on the front:

From his position, as a rank-and-file soldier on the front line, Denys has seen a horrifying human cost on his own side of the incremental breakthroughs in recapturing territory. "The commander throws anyone - cooks or drivers - into the furnace. They simply die there in their hundreds."
"Those commanders will have to be arrested and tried after the war," he says.
 
Civilian death toll in Ukraine tops 10,000

GENEVA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, with about half of recent deaths occurring far behind the front lines, the U.N. Human Rights Office said on Tuesday.

The U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine, which has dozens of monitors in the country, said it expects the real toll to be "significantly higher" than the official tally since corroboration work is ongoing.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...tops-10000-un-human-rights-office-2023-11-21/
 
stefan92 said:
I don't see this. Which country that left "the Russian fold" since the collapse of the Soviet Union really returned? Almost all of the eastern European states are now members of EU and NATO, Kazakhstan is obviously looking more towards China, Armenia has been assisted by the US to broker peace with Azerbaijan and won't look back at Russia, possibly only Georgia has become more Russia-friendly again after it's flirt with NATO membership and the war they had a decade ago.
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I mean, you literally provided the example case in your comment. Georgia did. And it’s quite probable same would happen to Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus in failing to escape Moscow’s orbit, should Russia win.

I would argue from your original examples that Finland, already an EU member, joining NATO makes zero difference. It was already out of Moscow’s orbit for a long time. Sweden wasn’t ever even in it. And the Baltics will have been in NATO for 20 years next year.

I really cannot see how Russia is more weakened and isolated, should it win. It’s make-believe stuff. It might not gain any new friends (although it very evidently does, in Africa and S.America) but it will certainly tighten its hold on existing satellite states. Which would be stopping a negative trend for them, of over 30 years.
 
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VorZakone said:
First public protest in Moscow apparently.

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It’s certainly not the first since the invasion (I’ve participated in a few myself) but probably the first more or less public protest since the new laws were introduced.

It’s important to notice that they were a part of a different demonstration (by the Russian communist party) that had nothing to do with the war and weren’t protesting the war directly (only wanted their husbands to be sent back — they agitate for rotation, not for the end of the war). But I’ll take it, it’s better than nothing.
 
Almost 3 months since Prigozhin got killed. It's been quiet on the Russian side without his rants. Girkin detained so his voice is silenced too.
 
Rajma said:
Nonense, in Mariupol alone tens of thousands burried under ground which UN won’t ever be able to verify, thus will be parroting this propaganda figure.
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They're acknowledging that the real toll will be significantly higher. So...what's your beef here?
 
VorZakone said:
They're acknowledging that the real toll will be significantly higher. So...what's your beef here?
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The beef is with the very misleading headline figures provided by the UN as this is what most people will be taking away when in fact the actual figure is several factors larger. It should have the “confirmed” in it.

However, when it comes to Gaza, UN are quite happy to use HAMAS figures without any verification whatsoever in their official statements, when at the same time they’re ignoring the realistic estimates from the UN Ukraine office.
The most corrupt organization imaginable.
 
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Such a weak administration, unfortunately, we’re not spoiled for choice in terms of choosing the leaders in the west. “We continue to be concerned”.
 
Rajma said:
The beef is with the very misleading headline figures provided by the UN as this is what most people will be taking away when in fact the actual figure is several factors larger. It should have the “confirmed” in it.

However, when it comes to Gaza, UN are quite happy to use HAMAS figures without any verification whatsoever in their official statements, when at the same time they’re ignoring the realistic estimates from the UN Ukraine office.

The most corrupt organization imaginable.
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To be fair, Ukraine doesn’t have control on the ground in Mariupol, sadly, unlike Hamas — hence the wording (75000 are feared dead). Even though it’s obvious that the toll is much, much higher than 10k (in Mariupol alone, let alone the rest of Ukraine) and probably close to that 150k estimate. Is “confirmed” that different than the term “official tally” that they use, which basically means the same?
 
harms said:
To be fair, Ukraine doesn’t have control on the ground in Mariupol, sadly, unlike Hamas — hence the wording (75000 are feared dead). Even though it’s obvious that the toll is much, much higher than 10k (in Mariupol alone, let alone the rest of Ukraine) and probably close to that 150k estimate. Is “confirmed” that different than the term “official tally” that they use, which basically means the same?
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True, but Hamas shouldn't be treated as a trustworthy source (they released images of sites "just after strikes" along with numbers of dead that just don't match if you simply count the visible bodies, besides being a terrorist organization anyway that is claiming excessive numbers as part of their propaganda war to deny Israel support from other countries). And even if we believe this to be true it is still outrageous to claim that the killing of civilians in Gaza is "unparalleled" during Gutierres time in office. We also have significant numbers of dead in the Ethiopian, Myanmar and Sudanese civil wars, even if we ignore Ukraine. Ignoring all these conflicts to just focus on Israel is truly shameful.
 
stefan92 said:
True, but Hamas shouldn't be treated as a trustworthy source (they released images of sites "just after strikes" along with numbers of dead that just don't match if you simply count the visible bodies, besides being a terrorist organization anyway that is claiming excessive numbers as part of their propaganda war to deny Israel support from other countries). And even if we believe this to be true it is still outrageous to claim that the killing of civilians in Gaza is "unparalleled" during Gutierres time in office. We also have significant numbers of dead in the Ethiopian, Myanmar and Sudanese civil wars, even if we ignore Ukraine. Ignoring all these conflicts to just focus on Israel is truly shameful.
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How many civilians do you think have been killed?
 
stefan92 said:
Low five digit numbers for all I mentioned, only Ukraine probably in six digit range by now.
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I think it’s widely believed that civilian deaths in the Tigray war are well into the hundreds of thousands now.
 
stefan92 said:
Low five digit numbers for all I mentioned, only Ukraine probably in six digit range by now.
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So the 'figure from Hamas' is made up but is also in the low five figures? So the figure that's currently out there?
 
Rajma said:
Such a weak administration, unfortunately, we’re not spoiled for choice in terms of choosing the leaders in the west. “We continue to be concerned”.
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It's one of those rare cases where I would happily trade all of those dumb cnuts currently working for National Security and the Pentagon (Sullivan, Kirby, Singh, etc.) out and then re-hire John Bolton in return. There is a need for a more aggressive approach in supporting Ukraine here.
 
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