Ukraine

Some reports suggesting………

You were told this?, or you viewed it online?.

If online then post the link to the report, otherwise I’ll state that some reports are saying that Han Solo and the millennium falcon have joined the war against occupation

Does this mean The Sith are going to become involved or is this speculation?

Guardian now covering the story  (cluster munitions) have printed the following

• Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by the Russians after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said the missile, that carried shrapnel warhead, was in fact a Russian rocket. The Russian and Ukrainian claims cannot be independently verified.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-attack-british-troops-feared-dead-b2035555.html

Fears that three British ex-special forces troops have been killed by a Russian attack in Ukraine are being investigated.

It is understood UK authorities are investigating reports that three Britons were among dozens killed in a missile strike close to the Ukrainian border with Nato member Poland on Sunday in the most westerly attack yet by Russian forces.

There has been no official confirmation of their deaths.

More than 30 missiles targeted a training facility in Yavoriv, less than 15 miles from the Polish border, according to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region. More than 130 people were injured.

If online then post the link to the report, otherwise I’ll state that some reports are saying that Han Solo and the millennium falcon have joined the war against occupation

Ukrainian authorities have denied accusations by the Russians after a Ukrainian missile allegedly exploded

Interesting use of the word ‘allegedly’ there. Perhaps they’re worried about getting sued by someone who insists it didn’t explode

A very brave person.

A protester burst onto the set of the live broadcast of the nightly news on Russia’s state-run Channel 1 on Monday evening. She yelled “Stop the war! No to war!” and held up a sign that said: “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” The state-run Tass news agency said: “Channel 1 is investigating an incident with an outsider in the frame during a live broadcast.”

The 9 pm news on Channel 1 in Russia tonight: "Stop the war. Don't believe the propaganda. They're lying to you here." via @meduza pic.twitter.com/K2yJ87JP7S

— Anton Troianovski (@antontroian) March 14, 2022

Incredibly brave. I wonder if she will ever be seen again?

This woman is amazing.

! Russia's main propaganda "news program" tonight. pic.twitter.com/lrRVnF8LoW

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 14, 2022

My thoughts are with anyone standing up against this invasion, and prepared to speak the truth about it, in a country where doing so is illegal (and where once lost in the legal system, anything can happen to you).

Ahh, too slow.

I hope she is seen again.

Amazing bravery.

Very hunbling. A very brave woman.

Apparently an employee, so as a minimum that will be the end of her career. Who knows what else will happen to her.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’ve been checking out Fox News, where the lead few stories are all attacking Biden, articles on Ukraine itself being well down the page.

Not today, I went to their website and apparently there’s a nasty war being prossecuted by Putin in Ukraine. Who knew?

Serioisly, they’ve gone full nuclear war, armageddon, WW3 etc. Obvioisly related to the Russian directive to start using clips from Tucker Carlson in State propoganda (mentoned by others earlier).

The contrast in tone with that which they have been trumpeting last few days is extrodinary, unrecognizable even.

CNN as it happens

Possibly related to the fact that a Fox News journalist was shot by the Russians today

ceepers
Full Member
Possibly related to the fact that a Fox News journalist was shot by the Russians today

I did not know that.😟

“Possibly related to the fact that a Fox News journalist was shot by the Russians today”

Probably doesn’t help but the story hasn’t made the Fox News site yet, so I would attribute the tone change to the Tucker Carlson thing and how it casts Fox News in a traitoristic light (something I don’t think Fox ever thought could happen,) rather than shifting their entire editorial stance due to an injury to an individual journalist.

American right wing media has taken the country to Quannon levels of absurdity and it was hard to see how the descent into madness could be arrested, hopefully this is the curve ball that brings the U.S. back from the brink of insanity.

Well here’s hoping….

Sure you’re right, given fox’s “murrica first” stance, it must be pretty embarrassing to be exposed ( finally?!) as a part of the Russian propaganda machine!

I spend a bit of time on an American surfing forum. People here would be genuinely appalled by the lack of world view or empathy for non-American situations espoused by otherwise seemingly normal people……… and a lot of the posters are Californian which is generally a more liberal outward looking state!

Are you referring to Brent Renaud? He was working for Time Studios on a global refugee project, formerly worked for NYT.

Edit: Benjamin Hall was hospitalsied as a result of his injuries.

Possibly related to the fact that a Fox News journalist was shot by the Russians today

Oh’s sister works in a US hospital.
Granted it’s Tennessee but she was quite shocked that most of her colleagues view was “why should we care? The Ukrainians are Nazis anyway”.
She, being British tends to watch the UK news.

This was fairly early on in the war. I’ve not asked if anything has changed but I must admit it wasnt what I was expecting.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who had been deployed in recent weeks to cover the war in Ukraine, has been hospitalized after being injured while reporting near Kyiv, the network said on Monday.

“We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds,” Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott said in a memo to employees.
“The safety of our entire our entire team of journalists in Ukraine and the surrounding regions is our top priority and of the utmost importance,” Scott added. “This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone.”

Scott said Fox would provide further updates when the network knows more.

Hall’s injury comes one day after Brent Renaud, an award-winning American journalist, was killed in the Ukrainian city of Irpin.

Andriy Nebitov, the head of the Kyiv region police, said that Russian forces shot Renaud, adding that “the occupants cynically kill even journalists of international media, who’ve been trying to tell the truth about atrocities of Russian military in Ukraine.”

Another journalist, Juan Arredondo, was also wounded in Ukraine on Sunday.

Press freedom groups have denounced the violence journalists are facing while covering the war. The Committee to Protect Journalists, after the death of Renaud, called on Russian forces to “stop all violence against journalists and other civilians at once.”

Above from CNN Live Updates page. Can’t link directly….

Finland knows where Putin is eyeing up next

"Should #Finland join #NATO?"

YES 62%
NO 16%
#Turpo #Russia #Ukraine #Ukraina #Venäjä pic.twitter.com/kcG1AaOMmT

— Antti Eskelinen (@eskelinen_antti) March 14, 2022

Marina Ovsyannikova is the brave woman working on the Russian state TV news channel. Remember her.

Marina Ovsyannikova

We should clone her and replace every head of state with a clone. The world would be in a far better state.

If online then post the link to the report,

Cheers for the link, I’ve now read it elsewhere as well.

The number of visually confirmed losses of Russian equipment is pretty staggering

The Ukrainians claim about 30-40% more, which you’d assume is propaganda, but it might not be that far off

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

“Oh’s sister works in a US hospital.
Granted it’s Tennessee but she was quite shocked that most of her colleagues view was “why should we care? The Ukrainians are Nazis anyway”.
This was fairly early on in the war. I’ve not asked if anything has changed but I must admit it wasnt what I was expecting.”

Be interesting to hear what their views are in a week or so, I bet if you asked them now their brains would melt! Theyve been instructed on how to think for decades by Fox News and it might take them a few days to get on board with the new message coming from the channel, which is now ‘Russia bad, Ukraine good.

Whereas previously all they knew about Ukraine was that Trump witheld military aid because Zelinsky wouldn’t fabricate dirt on Joe Biden. Or rather we knew that, Fox’s audience probably thought the secret to how the election was stolen was hiding on Hunter Biden’s Laptop. Oh, and Jewish space lazers.

ITV reported that Russia is estimated to have lost 10% of its aircraft. 10%.

Obviously they have a lot of aircraft left but that’s a huge loss in 3 weeks.

I spend a bit of time on an American surfing forum. People here would be genuinely appalled by the lack of world view or empathy for non-American situations espoused by otherwise seemingly normal people……… and a lot of the posters are Californian which is generally a more liberal outward looking state!

Yeah but surf’s up dude.

And so am I

ITV reported that Russia is estimated to have lost 10% of its aircraft. 10%.

Obviously they have a lot of aircraft left but that’s a huge loss in 3 weeks.

What’s interesting is that, if you check in on the link kimbers posted above, the Russian airforce had a terrible day last week but then went for a week or so without losing any aircraft. Notably, they didn’t lose any helicopters. I think what has happened is they pretty much stopped flying support missions because the Ukrainian AA missiles are too deadly.

As military analysist have pointed out, that means is that Russian troops don’t have attack helicopter support for assaults and medivac helicopters to get wounded to hospitals. That will mean a lot of extra deaths among their troops. It also means that they can’t attack Ukrainian supply lines. Ukraine can still resupply with rail freight and trucks because Russian pilots don’t have precision guided weapons to attack from outside the range of MANPADS.

Russia hasn’t attacked Ukrainian railway bridges so Ukrainian trains are still running. Cruise missiles should be able to destroy the rail infrastructure, but that hasn’t happened. The theory about that is that Russia will need operational railways to supply their forces if they overrun the country so attacking the bridges would be an admission that their strategic plan has failed.

Whatever the case, the huge Russian superiority in aircraft on paper doesn’t seem to be of much use in reality. It seems like the Russian pilots are mostly too scared to fly.

FWIW Russia is huge and sparsely populated, with a chronically poor birthrate. Life expectancy is low, with a population of 145m, or eight and a half people per sq/km. Russia’s entire armed forces amount to 900,000 people in total.

For the size of their territory, their armed forces are stretched. Ukraine was meant to be a blitzkrieg but has quickly become bogged down. Russia shares borders with eighteen different nation states, a long running campaign of conquest and occupation is surely unsustainable?

The Ukrainians claim about 30-40% more, which you’d assume is propaganda, but it might not be that far off

It is incredibly hard to get accurate figures for kills, even big things like aircraft and tanks.
For example, soldier A and soldier B both engage a tank, which is destroyed, and both report a kill. Or soldier A damages a tank and reports a kill, then soldier B finds a damaged tank and destroys it and reports a kill. Easy double counting. Or a soldier damages a tank and reports a kill but then its recovered and repaired. Especially at long range, ‘I saw a tank, shot at it, and then it disappeared in a cloud of smoke’ Destoyed in an explosion or disappeared over the ridge while obscured from view? Too dangerous to advance further and check.
This has been a problem for ages. For example, the ‘Day of the Typhoons’ the British destroyed somewhere between 10 and 80 German tanks. That’s a huge gap! You would think it easy to count destroyed tanks but apparently not, especially in a war zone.
.
Anyway, point is, the figures are bound to be all over the place. Reported kills are likely to be much higher than reality.
Counting wrecks isn’t great either, that will usually under report, for example missing damaged stuff which retreated but was too far gone to be repaired or aircraft which crashed behind enemy lines.
And of course here both sides are using very similar equipment, which probably looks even more similar as a burnt out wreck. Even if you get the what was it right you then have the whose was it question too.
.
Plus deliberate misreporting/propaganda of course

a long running campaign of conquest and occupation is surely unsustainable?

Saw on the beeb this morning suspected new russian ballistic missiles which contain counter measures to stop them being shot down. If thats true, it supports the theory they were holding back some of the more advanced stuff in the early days.

Russia No1 presenter has been arrested.

As above, Russia is already an empire, really, but most of that is sparsely populated and was under-developed when it was annexed, as I understand it. Not quite the same thing as occupying tens of millions of people in already developed independent nations.

Anyway, point is, the figures are bound to be all over the place. Reported kills are likely to be much higher than reality.
Counting wrecks isn’t great either, that will usually under report, for example missing damaged stuff which retreated but was too far gone to be repaired or aircraft which

That’s my point the wreck counting figure is pretty close to the reported kills, so may well be accurate

“Sure you’re right, given fox’s “murrica first” stance, it must be pretty embarrassing to be exposed ( finally?!) as a part of the Russian propaganda machine!

I spend a bit of time on an American surfing forum. People here would be genuinely appalled by the lack of world view or empathy for non-American situations espoused by otherwise seemingly normal people……… and a lot of the posters are Californian which is generally a more liberal outward looking state!”

There’s a predominantly American/Canadian thread on PB where people are alleging that this whole thing was planned by Biden so he could push the green agenda.
Pretty scary how selfish and insular some folks are over there.

The “anti-net-zero” conspiracy stuff is going on in the UK as well. Stay of Social Media to keep your faith in people.

Nah, it’s just like going to the zoo, if the zoo was packed full of idiots. But morally feels less cruel to observe them than some nice animals.

The “anti-net-zero” conspiracy stuff is going on in the UK as well. Stay of Social Media to keep your faith in people.