The above would seem to be the up to date situation (though there are reports coming in that the UA have now moved South and taken Shandryholove, further pressuring Lyman).
Anyone else see some similarities (a massive, engorged similarity some might say) with maps from the early stages of the UA counteroffensive in Kharkiv?
Looks like the US is going to sign of $12 billion in thr next aid package
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congress-negotiators-set-12-bln-new-ukraine-aid-2022-09-26/
Hard to see what Russia has left to counter this.
Do we think they will resort to nukes? Have bio or chemical weapons been kind of downgraded by the US make sure clear threats if nukes are used?
Don’t they have form for chemical weapons in Syria?
UN Human Rights update on Ukraine
Investigating cases related to sexual and gender-based violence present specific challenges. The Commission has found that some Russian Federation soldiers committed such crimes. These acts amounted to different types of violations of rights, including sexual violence, torture, and cruel and inhuman treatment. There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes. In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years.The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.
A swing south east above Nove down to the river, coupled with a push up from south of Lyman would trap any RF forces left
The river forms a natural barrier to the east. Bet there is a huge amount of hardware within that area.
Take days to safely clear any pockets of resistance and harvest any apc, tanks or ammo thats left behind.
Hard to see what Russia has left to counter this.
Do we think they will resort to nukes? Have bio or chemical weapons been kind of downgraded by the US make sure clear threats if nukes are used?
Don’t they have form for chemical weapons in Syria?
Posted 36 minutes ago
I doubt Russia will resort to nukes or chemical weapons as they'll not win the war for Russia, would certainly lose all support Russia has from any allies and would probably result in Nato countries if not Nato itself actively getting involved.
I've read somewhere that the US/Nato have been talking via back channels with Russia about retaliation if Russia uses nukes and that they're left the threats purposely ambiguous. I've also read, on twitter so it could be pure lies, that Nato has threatened to sink the Black Sea fleet and destroy Russia's navy bases using Nato air power if Russia use nukes.
Link for that here @wheeliedirty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/25/us-russia-ukraine-war-nuclear-weapons-jake-sullivan
Jake Sullivan is the current National Security Advisor to Joe Biden
This conscription office shooting in Ust-limsk is so sad. "We will all go home now". Just a normal person faced with an insane choice- go fight in a futile disastrous war, without the support or gear you need, and with no guarantee of ever being allowed to muster out even if you survive, and also even if you do it turns out you might just get re-conscripted again... The price of accepting is so insanely high that alternatives stop looking insane.
That's the only shooting we know of, but apparently 20 recruitment centres have been torched. And who knows how many suicides have happened or are happening. Someone on the news said people were being radicalised, but that's not it at all. Radical action has been sensibilised.
UN Human Rights update on Ukraine
Horrifying reading.
Extremes seem the normal among Russian soldiers.
Every person helps.
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/edward-snowden-granted-russian-citizenship-by-vladimir-putin-12705918
The Snowden thing is odd a man who campaigns for open free speach (collection of data ECT) lives in a controlled media/,data state.
Meh
Give Snowden a rusty AKM, a day's basic training and a truck ride to Lyman now he's a citizen.
Heard today a leaked documents put the number of potential conscripts to be 1 million.
Investigating cases related to sexual and gender-based violence present specific challenges. The Commission has found that some Russian Federation soldiers committed such crimes. These acts amounted to different types of violations of rights, including sexual violence, torture, and cruel and inhuman treatment. There are examples of cases where relatives were forced to witness the crimes. In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years.
Reminds me of some of the accounts of soldiers in Vietnam. Not saying it makes it alright but just that in brutal wars that **** people up, ****ed up people do ****ed up things.
Pk
Because if he leaves there he will end up in a us jail for life.
Thats his choice. Russia or life in a us jail
The while Snowden thing, yeah. He's stuck there for life basically.
Putin giving citizenship is just about poking the US in the ribs. A completely impotent Acton from an increasingly impotent leader.
Re: Edward Snowden, as TJ says he's still wanted.
TLDR: Snowden massively damaged spying by countries friendly to the US when Russia and China decrypted a million+ files taken by him.
Russia has said that he won't be conscripted because he doesn't have military experience
He's applied for asylum all over the world and alleges that in 2013 Vice-President Joe Biden put pressure on those countries, including Ecuador who issued travel documents and then withdrew them.
The case is complex because in 2015 bulk collection of US calling records by the NSA was deemed illegal, which is why Snowden is often referred to as a whistleblower.
In 2019 the US issued civil proceedings against him for ignoring his non-disclosure agreement with the CIA and NSA
Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, believes that the sacrifice made by RF who die in the war "washes away all the sins that a person has committed."
A lot of Russians don't want to be drafted....
https://twitter.com/AlexKhrebet/status/1574429338153340929?t=2oT6gSdUV_Nf5hMHkSSYyA&s=19
Millions of cubic metres of gas have leaked into the Baltic Sea in Danish waters from the unused NordStream 2 pipeline. This war is affecting so many on so many different levels; the environmental disaster from building the unnecessary pipeline is now compounded
I’ll subscribe to that if Pooootin applies. I’d like to see him absolved of his sins in such a manner.
I don’t blame them - it’s not their war - it’s the war of a nutcase. I think the culture there is so different to what we know it’s hard to blame the Russian people for who their leader is. From a political perspective they’ve effectively had dictatorships for a long term - enforced by military / fsb type arrangements from what I read.
Reminds me of some of the accounts of soldiers in Vietnam. Not saying it makes it alright but just that in brutal wars that * people up, * up people do **** up things.
The modern U.S. and NATO armies are built on lessons learned in Vietnam. NATO doctrine is to have professional soldiers who are well disciplined and do not follow a deliberate strategy of targeting civilians. Yes, you will have local breakdowns in discipline, and you will have civilians killed when they get trapped in combat zones, but the doctrine is to target enemy military targets, not to deliberately target civilians. In Ukraine and Syria, Russia has followed a deliberate strategy of targeting civilians purely as a terror weapon, with no military purpose. Big difference between the two approaches.
I doubt Russia will resort to nukes or chemical weapons as they’ll not win the war for Russia, would certainly lose all support Russia has from any allies and would probably result in Nato countries if not Nato itself actively getting involved
For me it depends on how much control Putin still has (or will have as they suffer more defeats due to UA counter-attacks). I can't see Putin surviving losing the war so he doesn't have a whole lot personally to lose by escalating - it's just whether those around him let him.
Chemical/biological weapons seem much more likely to be used than nuclear, they are far more deniable and part of Putin's playbook is implausible denials, he doesn't care how absurd the denial is as long as it creates enough doubt to allow China and others to continue their support and to deter NATO from taking action.
If he used tactical nukes then it's highly likely NATO would strike Russian military targets inside Ukraine and possibly declare a no fly zone, but they would probably hesitate if some previously unknown nerve agent was used and Russia denied any involvement, blaming it on a NATO false flag operation.
I'm intrigued about how employers are going to backfill all the jobs left behind by the latest conscripts. 300,000 is a lot of manpower, but talk of it being nearer 1,000,000 is insane. I guess a fair few are unemployed, and many others are in manual jobs? Maybe there's a queue of people lining up to take them?
A lot of Russians don’t want to be drafted….
I think the speed of reaction to the mobilisation maybe reveals that Russians have a better idea of whats going on than we've given then credit for. Obviously Putin controls the media and we get the sense the population doesn't know whats really going on, but I think people maybe don't feel free to say what they know is going on.
Listening to accounts of young Russians leaving the country, queuing for 70 hours at the border with one bag - its quite a big thing walk away from your home, job, possessions, friends, family with just one bag. I'd wager those people have known whats been happening and where its heading and that bag has been packed for quite a while.
Don’t they have form for chemical weapons in Syria?
TLDR: Officially, no, it was the work of Syria and ISIL according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
snip...some previously unknown nerve agent was used and Russia denied any involvement, blaming it on a NATO false flag operation.
Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush snr signed an agreement in 1990 to destroy CW stocks, stop production and support a global ban. In 1997 most countries signed an international agreement so that CW could only be used for protective research, e.g. suits, medication, etc
Russia has come unstuck a few times and was tasked to produce an independent report into who was responsible for one particularly unpleasant attack in Syria in 2013. The Russians told the UN that it was the work of Syrian rebels. Western intelligence suggested that Syrian rebels had never had CW and the report was shelved by the UN
Salisbury is another infamous example and the UK showed that the attack was the work of Russia rather than an individual Russian and thus was chemical warfare
Germany suggesting that there are issues on Nordstream 1 and 2 - and maybe deliberate...
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1574528767984377856?t=TKvL-unzxo-imVNyuGw6fw&s=19
I’m intrigued about how employers are going to backfill all the jobs left behind by the latest conscripts. 300,000 is a lot of manpower...
It's just talk. The declaration has the "numbers to be drafted" paragraph redacted.
The only protected jobs are in the military-industrial sector and does whiff of desperation that you'd strip every other industry. It also puts Russia's claim of 6000 RF soldiers killed in the Ukraine into context (the US estimates 20,000 killed)
Gerhard Schroeder must be crying in his beer 👍
Salisbury is another infamous example and the UK showed that the attack was the work of Russia rather than an individual Russian and thus was chemical warfare......
...... and continued to accept the political donations
A non-dramatic article here
https://www.voanews.com/a/denmark-reports-leak-in-gas-pipeline-in-baltic-sea-/6763758.html
.
Strange coincidence that there's significant 3 leaks on sub-sea gas pipelines on the same day. And an overnight reduction from 110 to 7bar in Nordstream 2 over that distance of pipe must be a bloody huge leak.
Russia demonstrating it's capacity for sabotage the day before the cross-baltic link to Poland is in operation? All very deniable I'm sure.
I thought it was switched off anyway?
I find myself feeling really sorry for those Russians conscripted. They are just normal people with normal lives now being shoved into the firing line
How would we have all acted if all of a sudden we had been drafted in to fight in Iraqi? Against a much more superior foe and on a very thin pretence of justification
I’d have said no way and found any way out of it I could.
I thought it was switched off anyway?
It was never switched on, Germany didn't certificate it. Russia stuffed 300mn m cu in in preparation
Are the russians closing the boarder crossings to men of fighting age or are they letting possible conscripts to leave the country?
Now that all tnose with money and power have got their sons & friends out I expect they will close the borders. Animal farm my a@@e!!!
The Nordstream 2 issue around the island off Denmark.... it will be interesting to see if it has been purposely damaged by some sort of attack as opposed to a rupture or failure of the pipe due to manufacturing defects.
It goes south of the Danish island Bornholm and the submarines from Konigsberg have to go somewhere unless a surface ship has done some damage...
5 mile shipping exclusion zone as the gas is absorbed in the seawater and could cause bouyancy issues or ignite on the surface..
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952?s=20&t=zXEpUVtWQYvMZ8fz_2WOMQ
Press release for that here https://www.forsvaret.dk/en/news/2022/gas-leak-in-the-baltic-sea/
^ some interesting observations from Danes, Swedes and Germans about such large leaks, something unprecedented by natural causes, and in NS1 and NS2 almost simultaneously....
Do we think Pooters is now throwing the toys?
A No Smoking sign needs placing nearby.
So even if the EU apologise and ask to buy more gas they can't? What economic threat does putin have left?
I'm waiting for Surging Lavatory to state it was done by a Ukrainian Submarine..
