Ukraine

Was it a bag or something falling back down from the explosion of the tank- a body?

A human torso, apparently. I haven’t watched the video in detail to check, but that’s what I heard.

Was it a bag or something falling back down from the explosion of the tank- a body?

Yup, body. Longer clip elsewhere showing a second tank being attacked behind the first one.

Most likely the torso got flung there as the guy was climbing out and the tank got hit.

Quite a detailed “review” of the footage on reddit.

I recon Putin is insincere with his demands for “peace”.

Of course he’s insincere. “Negotiations” are just a gambit to stall for time.

Ukraine is winning the war in the sense that they aren’t being overrun the way we assumed they would. Ukraine has the sympathy of the world and will receive regular weapons shipments and economic aid. Russia is basically bankrupt and its troops are starving and burning through equipment fast. Ukraine now looks to have a good chance of routing the Russian forces so they won’t be in any mood to concede anything in negotiations. The only settlement that Ukraine will be interested in is all Russian troops out of Ukraine, including Crimea. There may be a ceasefire or frozen conflict if Russia withdraws its forces back to Russia but keeps fighting for Crimea. That would be a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Ukraine is not going to sign a peace treaty that cedes any territory to Russia. On top of that, Ukraine will not sign a treaty without an enforceable guarantee that Russia will not invade again. In reality, the only organization that can enforce that guarantee is NATO, so Ukraine is not going to accept any Russian idea that Ukraine should declare neutrality and trust in Russia’s good intentions.

I don’t know if this Twitter account has been posted before – Kamil Gallen

Kamil seems to cover a lot of relevant Russian & Ukrainian subjects and seems well informed.

A Russian colonel-general has given an interview to the tabloid KP. It's horrific, but gives insights on Russian goals.
Says police, FSB and prosecutors should follow troops into Ukrainian cities. And undertake "necessary" but "unpleasant" filtering to achieve "de-Nazification". pic.twitter.com/vu1ked3kld

— Joanna Szostek ??? (@Joanna_Szostek) March 15, 2022

If true, grim. Bearing in mind most of the Nazi slander is propaganda to justify actions.

Would also make rolling over and accepting occupation a non starter for many.

On Neo Nazis

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51236915

A video posted online in March 2019 shows Nazzaro in Russia wearing a t-shirt bearing an image of President Vladimir Putin along with the words “Russia, absolute power”.

We traced Nazzaro and his Russian wife to an upmarket property in central St Petersburg purchased in her name in July 2018 – the same month to which the FBI dates the creation of The Base.

Here’s a slightly different perspective:

It’s a weird time for Leftie anti US imperialists. Your whole adult life defined by the fact that it’s almost invariably the US being a shit to anyone and everything, It must be pretty disorientating that other countries can be just as imperialistic and shitty to their neighbours, and perhaps somehow worse when it turns out to be the Russians

It’s fair to say that somewhere in the rubble of every flash point and conflict the dead hand of US state officials is almost by default (money) present. They have some hand in it somewhere that one can point at and exclaim “A-ha, I knew it”. But here, this war I think in all honesty you can fairly lay the blame at the feet of a mafia autocrat who’s nose was put out when NATO sent him a rude note about his invasion of Ukraine, and his puppet leader was sent packing by the public mob. It’s no more complex or dastardly than that.

This line in that article :

The first U.S.-backed soft coup in Ukraine occurred in 2004, when Western-backed presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko lost the election.

Is an interesting one, and while is totally true, fails to mention anywhere the attempt on his life by Dioxin poisoning – One of most heavily reported aspects of the whole election campaign (let’s pause for a moment and reflect on which world leader is famous for preferring to use poisons to eliminate people they don’t want around), Which you have to agree is a somewhat lax bit of reportage, and fails to mention also that while the US and EU supported Yushchenko, the Kremlin heavily supported Yanukovych (who the article stretches credulity a bit by calling “neutral”)

It’s already being reported as happening in Kherson and other ‘liberated’ places. The nazis called these groups ‘einsatzgruppen’. They would come in after the combat troops to do the dirty work of pacifying the civilian population. In the nazis case they also engaged in mass murder, but I think the Russians will be more about control, and possibly detaining the senior local leaders, who they will replace with their own.

It feels as if talk of peace is to allow the Russian army to regroup. The most sensible suggestion I’ve seen so far is they want to push down from Kharkiv and up from Mariupol to cut off a big chunk of Ukraines army in the East. Ukraine I think remains in a very perilous position.

Can anyone explain why Russia is not using cruise missiles to take out Government buildings in Kyiv? Especially as Zelensky appears to be working from there still.

Can anyone explain why Russia is not using cruise missiles to take out Government buildings in Kyiv?

Apparently Kyiv is actually older than the Soviet Union and to demolish it would go down badly back home.

I kinda doubt Zelensky is in his usual office.

Can anyone explain why Russia is not using cruise missiles to take out Government buildings in Kyiv? Especially as Zelensky appears to be working from there still.

They are, launched from aircraft within Russia

Not far from the children's hospital in #Kyiv, a 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missile was shot down by Ukrainian air defense.

Fragments of the rocket fall on the attic and the upper floors of one of the residential buildings.#StopRussiaAggression #UkraineWar pic.twitter.com/FUwC1NciVw

— Anonymous Operations (@AnonOpsSE) March 16, 2022

More Kalibr cruise missiles fired towards Kyiv at dawn this morning. pic.twitter.com/olEZgkjFTP

— Kyle Glen (@KyleJGlen) March 16, 2022

Apparently Kyiv is actually older than the Soviet Union and to demolish it would go down badly back home.

You’d think Putin’s use of his (claimed) support of the Orthodox Church to bolster his own support would stop him flattening Kyiv… but we all know he’d happily level it to the ground, and blame everyone else for him doing so. Early on in the war there was very interesting footage of all the work the Ukrainians were doing to try and protect historical buildings and artefacts in the city.

The Kremlin is showcasing individual Russian soldiers it says fell heroically in battle. And it’s showing senior officials pinning medals on lightly-wounded troops in hospital.

But it isn’t saying how many Russian troops in total have been killed. pic.twitter.com/Fk9VaN4iWq

— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) March 17, 2022

Endless claims that Ukraine is led by neo-Nazis.

Sometimes cloaked as a history lesson (a lot of talk about Bandera, a Ukrainian ultra-nationalist who died in 1959).

But often it’d more blatant, like this clip claiming to show a Nazi flag in a captured Ukrainian base. pic.twitter.com/NY2O3muIYQ

— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) March 17, 2022

Having watched numerous drone videos of Russian tanks being destroyed by what appears to be artillery I’m starting to think that the Ukrainians are using their drones as forward observers. I could be (and probably am) wrong but even with a consumer drone, when flying you are shown the coordinates of where the drone is, if the drone operator is in contact with the artillery they could easily tell them “left a little bit, up a little bit”.

Having watched numerous drone videos of Russian tanks being destroyed by what appears to be artillery I’m starting to think that the Ukrainians are using their drones as forward observers

The drones are definitely being used for reconnaissance/guidance primarily with the PR videos being just a freebie on the back of it.

Ukraine I think remains in a very perilous position.

Yes despite the heavy Russian casulaties and KIA, the regular Ukrainian army is also suffering huge losses in fighting in the south and east. Some reports are suggesting that the Russian maybe in place to encircle them. That could a massive impact on Ukraine’s ability to continue the ground war. Some experts are likening it to France in the 1940s when a series of separate French Army collapses caused a domino effect to other armies that were in theory still in the fight. Other experts again have suggested that Ukraine doesn’t have that sort of morale problem, but the loss of a major part of their ground forces will almost certainly mean that they won’t be able to push the Russians out of South Eastern Ukraine.

Desperate times

How far into Russian and Belarusia do standard tv and fm radio signals travel?

People in places like St Petersburg and Kaliningrad must be able to tune in to outside signal. Or does Russia jam the signals.

I don’t know about TV but shortwave radio certainly can reach a long way into the country. For example, the BBC have resumed broadcasting the Russian language bit of the World Service on SW.
The BBC, CNN and I guess a few others gave instructions on how to access their content on the dark web before they were taken offline.
The content is there, it’s a question of who can access it and who of those then believes it

I suspect the Ukrainians are just setting ambushes and using the drones to observe when the Russians turn up. It will be obvious which routes the Russian vehicles will have to take so they’ll just set up concealed artillery for indirect fire targeted on a choke point, then use the drone to confirm when the Russian vehicles enter the kill zone.

Other experts again have suggested that Ukraine doesn’t have that sort of morale problem, but the loss of a major part of their ground forces will almost certainly mean that they won’t be able to push the Russians out of South Eastern Ukraine.

Desperate times

agreed

Putin seems quite happy to keep throwing men and equipment into this to grind down UA in a war of attrition, horrendous for the civillians caught up

……and horrendous for the “meat” in the grinder too. It’s WW1 style generalship.

Yeah, Insta and TicToc reels of successful anti-tank missions is one thing, but the Ukrainians have no real answer to endless artillery that’s both heavy and indiscriminate – and probably just as bad going both ways. Meat grinder indeed.

Fact check please: Is there any truth at all to the ‘Nazi’ thing Russia are propagating? It seems completely unbelievable that a Jewish leader whose family were killed by Nazis would have come to power if so.

Where does it fall on the scale of completely fabricated <–> partially true <–> totally accurate?

Americas latest arms delivery includes ‘kamikaze’ drones intended to take out artillery, whether it would be enough, im not so sure

Large columns of very heavy & fuel guzzling T80 tanks T80 heading in to Ukraine, but having to make the 15 miles by road will use a shit tonne of fuel

A column of reinforcements of russian tanks in Belgorod, Russia on the way toward Ukrainian border pic.twitter.com/HKMBD9Ljko

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) March 18, 2022

And mud season is starting proper in ukraine

Some Russian T80 battle tanks learn a painful firsthand lesson about alder tree swamps.

They have been desperately trying to avoid the main roads because armor is a slow moving target but this ended up being a death trap. Look how deep they’ve sunk … pic.twitter.com/LoWBXevHvW

— Queer Armorer (@QueerArmorer) March 17, 2022

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-russias-t-80-tank-total-disaster-13550

Fact check please: Is there any truth at all to the ‘Nazi’ thing Russia are propagating? It seems completely unbelievable that a Jewish leader whose family were killed by Nazis would have come to power if so.

Where does it fall on the scale of completely fabricated <–> partially true <–> totally accurate?

Is there right wing extremism in Ukraine? Yes.  Is there right wing extremism in the US, UK, Russia and every European country? Obviously yes.  The Ukrainians have had an issue with the Azov brigade and other right wing extremists in the past, but they seem to be increasingly marginalised.  In the case of Azov, they appear to have been incorporated into the mainstream UKr army which has undergone massive reforms and improvements since 2014 and are no longer allowed to be some kind of independent militia.  I understand in their last elections, extreme right parties polled around 5%

It was suggested earlier in this thread, that Eastern European nations generally seem to have higher levels of racism than Western Europe, particularly the former colonial powers.  Possibly due to having less culturally diverse populations. This sounds feasible to me.  However, Ukraine is a democratic country that is a long way from Nazism.  An unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country because you believe it has no right to exist as a nation state seems a bit more like old school national socialism to me.

Where does it fall on the scale of completely fabricated <–> partially true <–> totally accurate?

Low. Ukraine does have a bit of a Neo Nazi problem amongst the public, but not worse than in the rest of Eastern Europe. In 2019, all the far right groups came together to form an election coalition, and only won 2% of the vote. Seems to me that Hungary leans much more to the far-right.

Also in 2019, Ukraine was the only country besides Israel to have a Jewish president AND prime minister.

So there’s enough there for conspiracy theorists to find stuff on social media and point to it as ‘proof’, but really it’s just an excuse Putin is using to muddy the waters.

This article explains a bit more. Also has a graph suggesting that in fact, Ukraine is less anti-semitic than its Eastern European neighbours.

Can Ukraine have a ‘Nazi problem’ with a Jewish president?

The link @piemonster posted above. Absolutely chilling.  Anyone else read that and think ‘Einsatzgruppen’?

https://twitter.com/Joanna_Szostek/status/1503869213718556673?s=20&t=6yn0xb37Jk9-sazjMqCqHg

The Spectator’s Russia correspondent, Owen Paterson (who seems to really know his stuff) is just being interviewed and said that he’s been reliably informed that when Putin held that insane Security Council meeting only 3 people, including himself were aware that he actually planned to go ahead with the invasion. He is completely isolated and now apparently consults absolutely nobody before making these decisions

He also referenced China and said that they’re unlikely to get involved in any support for Russia (though they won’t openly condemn them) as they’ve been shocked by the effects of western companies withdrawing their services, ie: Apple and Googlepay, and Boeing and Airbus has had on the Russian economy. They don’t want anything that might stifle economic growth and this certainly would, so the last thing they want is anything that might amount to a trade war with the west

Its a sad world we live in where the impact of war on finance is more important than the impact of war on lives.

They don’t want anything that might stifle economic growth and this certainly would, so the last thing they want is anything that might amount to a trade war with the west

Its a sad world we live in where the impact of war on finance is more important than the impact of war on lives.

Well it’s one thing we do know for sure, like or loath the Chinese power house, they are not going to act against thier own interests to help russia, they make loads of products, and they need us to buy loads of products. Thier economy will quickly be in deep trouble if they have fewer consumers to sell thier products to, it’s a symbiotic relatioship in that sense, and the Chinese will be acutley aware of that.

Having watched numerous drone videos of Russian tanks being destroyed by what appears to be artillery I’m starting to think that the Ukrainians are using their drones as forward observers. I could be (and probably am) wrong but even with a consumer drone, when flying you are shown the coordinates of where the drone is, if the drone operator is in contact with the artillery they could easily tell them “left a little bit, up a little bit”.

100+ years ago coordinating artillery attacks was extremely difficult. Scouting, map reading, ranging, trigonometry, battlefield communication, plus running improvements after the first volley.

But in 2022 I reckon I could do it all myself with a DJI mavic and google maps.

People in Moscow are leaving the pro-war rally at Luzhniki Stadium already. Before the event has even started. (They got their tickets punched, so they can split now.) pic.twitter.com/Nsu5U5ZEcf

— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) March 18, 2022

Its a sad world we live in where the impact of war on finance is more important than the impact of war on lives.

I know what you mean, but I think its just the case of using the tools you have at your disposal. Economic sanctions have had an enormous effect on Russia. Their economy is now absolutely ****ed!! The guy from the Spectator was saying how he’d witnessed people fighting in the shops for what little they have left in stock. Apparently the most prized possession is sugar as this is used to make their moonshine vodka

If there was anyone remotely sane in the Kremlin this would all be over by now. But Putin is clearly a madman. The Chinese have seen the effect that sanctions have had and decided that there is no way on earth that they’re going to risk that. I think we need to just take that as a positive. Biden is meeting the Chinese this afternoon. I’m sure that this is the point he will be stressing to them, should they be wavering on the idea of providing any support to Russia, or having any ideas about Taiwan

I’d recommend listening to the interview with Owen Paterson on Five Live on BBC Sounds. It’s fascinating. His family are Russian and he’s lived in Moscow for years. He seems to be better informed than anyone else. Its certainly an interesting listen

All the people leaving the Moscow rally early – is that an attempt by anti-war types to leave the stadium embarrassingly empty? IIRC there was a gang of tik-tokers did this to Trump at one of his re-election events.

100’s of FOO’s just cried out in anguish at that statement.

100+ years ago coordinating artillery attacks was extremely difficult. Scouting, map reading, ranging, trigonometry, battlefield communication, plus running improvements after the first volley.

But in 2022 I reckon I could do it all myself with a DJI mavic and google maps.

^I mean, I probably couldn’t do it fully properly. But I think I’d do it better than a WW1 expert with the advantage of cheap modern technology.

Where does it fall on the scale of completely fabricated <–> partially true <–> totally accurate?

Just to add beyond what others have said.

One of the reasons it gets put out there, is to erode support for Ukraine. Which is partly why I also linked to an article about a seemingly pro Putin RUSSIAN Neo Nazi leader.

There’s a photo doing the rounds of a senior member of the Wagner group, who appears to have SS tattoos.

Am I worried about Neo Nazis, very much so, but not more so about Ukrainian ones than Russian ones or any others.

Walking rounds to target is a fully valid way of correcting fire.

Drone position would be crucial though, imagine how threaders you’d be if you hit it? :p

“Can Ukraine have a ‘Nazi problem’ with a Jewish president?”

USA had a racism and white supremacy problem with a black president.

There’s a photo doing the rounds of a senior member of the Wagner group, who appears to have SS tattoos.

There’s a big hint to the political orientation of the founders of the Wagner group in its name.

Even the UK has problems with the extreme right wing, see farage, EDL, even some factions within the Conservative Party.

It’s all smoke and mirrors from putin.

*Kremlin: It’s Not Up to German Chancellor to Decide Who Should Lead Russia but Up to Russian People – RTRS

And so it should follow it’s not up to Russia who should lead Ukraine.
I think my hypocrisy guage has broken. Maybe I can order some spare parts for it from from China.