Ukraine

Another oil refinery hit

Woohoo! 🙄

Russian independent journalists writing for Verstka reported that military recruitment has  “dropped sharply”.

The number of visitors to the Unified Contract Hiring Center in Moscow decreased from 500-600 per day to 20-30 per day.

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-22-2024

The terrorism at the Crocus City Hall theatre in Moscow may cause an uptick in recruitment

Another oil refinery hit

The FT reports that the US has asked Ukraine to slow down on this form of warfare because it increases prices at the pumps, which could knock on to the outcome of the US elections https://www.politico.eu/article/report-us-urges-ukraine-stop-attacking-russian-oil-refineries/

Something has to give… weapon supply or fuel supply, but giving both up will be difficult for Ukraine

I confess to feeling uncomfortable when people’s first thought about an attack like this, is to look for an angle that will cause Putin’s regime difficulties, rather than a little human empathy.  I despise Putin and desperately want Ukraine to prevail, but it was ordinary Russians on the receiving end of this, not Putin. As someone said above, concert goers being murdered in Moscow is no different to the same happening in Manchester.

I confess to feeling uncomfortable when people’s first thought about an attack like this, is to look for an angle that will cause Putin’s regime difficulties, rather than a little human empathy.

Of course. Unfortunately the fact is that the civilian population of Ukraine have been caused massive suffering in the Donbas initially and later across Ukraine. The 2022 mass-murder at Bucha and the 151 missiles and drones that were launched overnight Thursday leaving over a million households without power are choices made by Russia.

Ukraine will be looking for “angles”, because it’s the smaller force with logistics problems, in the hope that a Russian withdrawal happens which will be the best outcome for everyone. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t/can’t be empathic as well

I confess to feeling uncomfortable when people’s first thought about an attack like this, is to look for an angle that will cause Putin’s regime difficulties, rather than a little human empathy. I despise Putin and desperately want Ukraine to prevail, but it was ordinary Russians on the receiving end of this, not Putin. As someone said above, concert goers being murdered in Moscow is no different to the same happening in Manchester.

Agreed.

But there’s one state and one leader who can put an end to the vast majority of the violence – and end it today. I’ve no internal conflict over the violence ending and cheering the demise of the aggressor an instigator state.

I confess to feeling uncomfortable when people’s first thought about an attack like this

I confess to feeling uncomfortable every time I open this thread or read anything on social media about Russia/Ukraine. Oh here everything is a Russian ‘false flag’ operation. On twitter everything is a CIA/Mossad operation. Somewhere in between there are a few of us who just want it all to stop before it destroys us all. 🤷‍♂️

The terrorism at the Crocus City Hall theatre in Moscow may cause an uptick in recruitment

See what I mean?

Timba, I’m well aware of Bucha and many other atrocities committed by Putin’s regime but they weren’t commited by the Moscow concert goers and listing them in this context I’m afraid does smack a little of whataboutery.

I feel the same horror, loathing of the perpetrators and empathy for the victims as I do for those in the Crocus theatre attack but they don’t cancel each other out on some horrific score sheet.

To be clear, I think your contributions to this thread are generally some of the most thoughtful and informative. I’ll bow out for now as I don’t want to derail this very useful thread.

But there’s one state and one leader who can put an end to the vast majority of the violence

Imagine if Islamic terrorists murdered hundreds in London and people on here posted that it was within the power of Rishi Sunak and the UK govt to put a stop to it?

Imagine if Islamic terrorists murdered hundreds in London and people on here posted that it was within the power of Rishi Sunak and the UK govt to put a stop to it?

If rishi had retasked the entirety of the nations security infrastructure to invading a neighbour, they’d have a point.

Oh here everything is a Russian ‘false flag’ operation.

On this specific example (domestic terror attack in Russia), Putin does have form for it.

Russia claims to have captured all 4 gunman alive.

That seems both conveniently fast and judging by ISIS fighters’ enthusiasm for martyrdom, highly improbable. These attacks generally only end when every attacker has been gunner down.

Whilst they’ve been slow out of the blocks I suspect we’re about to see the predictable ‘operation pin in on Ukraine’ kick into gear.

See what I mean?

Frankly, no.

Dmitry Medvedev, the ex-president of Russia and now deputy chairman of its security council, wrote that “if it is established that they are terrorists of the Kyiv regime, it’s impossible to treat them and those who inspired them differently.

“They all should be found and relentlessly destroyed as terrorists. Including officials of the state that committed such an evil thing. Death for death.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/moscow-concert-hall-shooting-blast

In the face of inflammatory statements from the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, former-President and former PM, do you not think that “the terrorism at the Crocus City Hall theatre in Moscow may cause an uptick in recruitment”?

O(n) here everything is a Russian ‘false flag’ operation.

Your self-fulfilling prophecy has come true for you.

Whilst they’ve been slow out of the blocks I suspect we’re about to see the predictable ‘operation pin in on Ukraine’ kick into gear.

As soon as they stated 4 captured I wondered if we’d possibly see 4 unfortunate POWs paraded as the perpetrators.

Given ISIS claim to have been behind the attack it seems to be some front to claim convenient unprovable (caught heading in the direction of) links to Ukraine.  As much as it sickens me to think it (100+ civilian casualties), I imagine Putin will milk this for all its worth to justify an escalation in attacks and targets.

I feel the same horror, loathing of the perpetrators and empathy for the victims as I do for those in the Crocus theatre attack but they don’t cancel each other out on some horrific score sheet.

That isn’t the intention, my apologies. I’ll try again in the hope that I don’t dig deeper…

We have an harmony of opinion in my first two words.

I think that there is an horrific score sheet, but it contains only the losers. It’s important to remember those civilians as a whole, regardless of their origin. They don’t cancel out and nobody wins from it.

The only end to this horror is through Russia withdrawing and that involves “angles”

well i wouldnt put it past putin to have ordered it himself to further strengthen his ambitions on destroying ukraine.

he has previous, and clearly has a low value on his own citzens lives

I do not belive for one second ukraine would have sanctioned an attack on inncocent civilians at a concert. they are reliant on the west for support l, and they would know that would be lost if they did such a thing.

ISIS do have form, but again seems strange theyd chose to attack russia when they have a common enemy, and potentially causes a rift with Iran.

My money is on putin did it to push up support for an escalation against ukraine.

After a quick Google across the news networks, if it is ISIS then it is one of a long series of attacks as a result of Russia’s interventions in Chechnya, Syria and Afghanistan. Beslan School, St Petersburg Metro and suicide bombings in the past.  Reading articles:
“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticising Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke, with the Soufan Center, an independent foreign policy research centre.

Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Wilson Center said ISIS-K “sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims”.

So it doesn’t need putin to do this to his own country although as mentioned he has previous form.

If Putin blames Ukraine, I’m not sure what an escalation looks like? Mobilisation? There is already a successful ongoing stealth mobilisation. What else is there?

Of course that mad bastard will use this for his own ends. I don’t imagine many other leaders wouldn’t, including some of those in the west. He has no issue chucking these people’s brothers, sons, nephews and neighbours into the meat grinder for his own ends.

Islamic extremists and Russia are competing for influence in Africa. Possibly some link there?

Islamic extremists and Russia are competing for influence in Africa. Possibly some link there?

russia directly fought ISIS for asad in Syria

Possibly another Russian ship sunk in Sevastopol harbour tonight

meanwhile ISIS have released bodycam footage of the theatre attack,  yet Putin & plenty of his useful idiots still blaming Ukraine!

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have launched a Massive Barrage of “Storm Shadow” and/or “SCALP-EG” Long-Range Cruise Missiles against the Russian-Occupied City of Sevastopol in Crimea tonight, with several Bases used by the Russian Military said to have Struck including the… pic.twitter.com/02wNPFvfgq

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 23, 2024

seems like a response to the 90+ missles russia chucked at then thr night before.

esacaltion wise, i dont know what is next for putin, full scale mobilisation, then possibly nastier weapons like more widespread chemcial warefare. maybe attacking and blowing dams….oh no theyve already done that…

Putin’s dilemma over ISIS

They claim one of them is from Tajikistan. None of them are Ukrainians or have lived in Ukraine

Ukraine has explicitly denied involvement in the attack and ISIS has claimed responsibility. 2/

— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) March 23, 2024

But regardless of what Putin decides and who he blames the ISIS problem in Russia won’t go away. And Putin is unable to deal with it. 8/

— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) March 23, 2024

Another bombardment of Kiev

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68648815

yet Putin & plenty of his useful idiots still blaming Ukraine!

And many on here blaming Putin.

And many on here blaming Putin.

His claim to legitimacy is that he is a strongman who could make Russia secure. He attacked a peaceful neighbour and neglected the threat of Islamic terror groups. Responsibility for Russia’s security lies with him and he failed Russia.

Reports coming through of 2 Rapua class ships attacked in Sevastopol last night, as well as the naval base.

And many on here blaming Putin.

The BBC and Ukraine’s military intelligence, amongst others, initially said much the same.

The 2002 Dubrovka Theatre siege in Moscow fitted the MO and the murdered Russian former FSB officer, Aleksander Litvinenko, had alleged that the Dubrovka Theatre was an FSB operation.

On Friday, in their live reporting, Gordon Corera of BBC News mentioned the 2002 attack, while Ukrainian military intelligence called it a “planned operation by Moscow” (pages 5 and 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68642036 )

Dmitry Medvedev said, “…”found and ruthlessly destroyed”, particularly if they were inspired by “the Kyiv regime”.” (page 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68642036 )

By Friday evening it was increasingly apparent that ISIS-K was responsible, hence my response to your post on Saturday, although Russia has continued to angle blame towards Ukraine.

So, were we right? No. Fair do’s, Daz

Did properly authoritative sources think the same? Yes

Whats been great (and rare on STW) is this thread has mostly been people sharing information and trying to make sense of what the bloody hell is going on.  There hasn’t been many people just coming on and being argumentative shits by disagreeing with people for the sake of it without contributing anything of merit.

If you want to be argumentative piss off to one of the politics threads

Thanks @DT78 – completely agree. This thread has stuck to analysis and constructive discussion and is better for it.

If you want to be argumentative piss off to one of the politics threads

You don’t think war is worthy of discussion (political or otherwise)? Yeah let’s just keep score and analyse tactics like it’s a game of footy. 🙄

Evening, been looking into this and weighing my words before I post but I’m now pretty convinced that this was not a false Flag operation and was indeed an ISIS-K terrorist attack.

Sorry DT78. Im’ going to pick on your earlier post a bit, nothing personnal but it nicely summed up the arguements.

Well i wouldnt put it past putin to have ordered it himself to further strengthen his ambitions on destroying ukraine.

he has previous, and clearly has a low value on his own citzens lives

True, but as far as Putin is concerned not all Russian lives are equal, it’s not educated Muscovites that are being shovelled into the meat grinder in Ukraine, it’s disproportionately the poorest inhabitants of the federation’s more deprived and far-flung regions.

Past suspected false flags connected to Putin  (i.e. the 1999 apartment bombings) targeted poor neighhbourhoods. A theatre full of Moscow’s great and good is the precise opposite of this. Whilst details are (and will probably remain) scarce there’s a very high chance that government officials or their families will be among the casualties. It’s as if ISIS hit a gala performance at the Royal Opera house.

There are far FAR less risky and damaging ways to achieve Putin’s objective’s than having his own minister’s and supporters families gunned down. It makes zero sense to do it this way. Not least because if it ever came out he’d have made some very powerful enemies,

ISIS do have form, but again seems strange theyd chose to attack russia when they have a common enemy, and potentially causes a rift with Iran.

ISIS are basically out to get anyone who isn’t a Sunni Muslim, that very much includes Shia muslim governments such as Iran and the Alawite Assad regime in Syria who they see as apostates. Russia throwing it’s lot in with the Assads and the horrendous warcrimes they commited against the Sunni population of Syria have not been forgotten. That’s without factoring in Chechnya and Russia’s support of China who are in the process of forcibly eliminating thier own internal Sunni Muslim minority, namely the Uyghurs.

My money is on putin did it to push up support for an escalation against ukraine.

There’s a case here, but if this was planned then surely they would have carried this out before the election so that Putin could exploit the ‘rally round the flag’ reflex, not just after it.

The response was also shambolic, to best suit Putin’s narrrative the heroic Tough, manly Spetsnaz would have ridden to the rescue and gunned down the ‘dastardly Ukrainian terrorists’  as it was the reponse was disorganised and slow, even the attempts to pin in on Ukraine took a while to find their narrative, this all smacks of a scrabbling panic’ed response and not a planned move.

Then we have the fact that the CIA was already picking us ISIS chatter in advance of this, when they tried to warn their Russian contacts they were basically told to go kick rocks. When the US then went public to warn thier own citizens the Russian media publically scoffed at it.

ISIS have now released livestreamed bodycam footage of the attacks, the ‘false flag’ narrative makes less sense with every development.

The inconvenience of that truth to the Putin’s aims means that they will still do everything they can to pin it on Ukraine though.

Apologies for length, girth etc.

 I’m now pretty convinced that this was not a false Flag operation and was indeed an ISIS-K terrorist attack.

ISIS taking responsibility and uploading helmet cam footage from the attack might be clues about who was responsible.

Someone saying they’re ISIS will happily take responsibility for an infidel in Great Yarmouth stubbing their toe so whilst a claim of responsibility is certainly a factor its not ‘case closed’

Their dispersed and decentralised nature also makes it very hard to pick out which online proclamations are from accounts with actual connections to militant networks on the ground and which are the overexcited rantings of the Jihadi equivalent of a Taylor Swift Stan account.

The posting of the body cam footage by them does strongly suggest it was them behind it though.

+1 for this thread generally being informative, and not argumentative being a good thing. Plenty of discussion being had without the usual STW desperate need for vacuous arguments for the sake of arguments, being dressed up as “challenging views” when they’re really anything but and are really just the exact same thing recycled a thousand times.

Even with some of the reactions to events being ‘not for me thanks’.

Yeah let’s just keep score and analyse tactics like it’s a game of footy. 🙄

I’m going to take a rest from this

There is a really sad Guardian podcast ‘Why are Indian and Nepali men ending up on the front line in Ukraine’. It seems that they are being tricked into going over to Russia for work by 3rd parties but ending up on the front line instead.

And yes, this thread has been quite unique for its lack of argumentitus, please lets keep it that way.

And yes, this thread has been quite unique for its lack of argumentitus

If you go back to page 1, it wasn’t always like that. I think the magnitude of how terrible Putin is has finally sunk in and the apologists have given up trying.