The invasion is a Week Old...Part 7

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Unbelievable. Thread 6 is almost full, to be found here : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4495271-The-Invasion-is-ongoing-Part-6?pg=1

Still a fascinating and thoughtful set of documentation of our evolving thoughts, fears, questions, analyses and updates. And still a credit to the eyes, ears and knowledge of those on here.

Pinched from one poster on thread 6 whose name I can't recall:

Latest claims from both sides about casualties
Ukraine's army regularly puts out updates on the damage it says it's inflicting on Russian forces, which continue to press on key cities, particularly in the south.

We should stress that the BBC can't verify this information, but the latest update from the General Staff of the Armed Forces says that approximately 9,000 Russian personnel have been killed or wounded.

It also says Ukrainian forces have destroyed:

217 tanks
90 artillery systems
31 helicopters
30 planes or other aircraft
For its part, Russia yesterday for the first time gave a specific number for casualties it had suffered in Ukraine, saying 498 Russian soldiers had died and nearly 1,600 had been wounded.

It said it had killed 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers and "nationalists".

@DuncinToffee

Putin

President Putin has warned those opposing Russia's actions in Ukraine "not to exacerbate the situation" by imposing more restrictions on his country.

The Russian president was speaking at a government meeting broadcast on the state-controlled Rossiya 24 news channel.

"We have no ill intentions against our neighbours," Putin claims.

And he says his government sees "no need" for its neighbours to take further action that will "make our relations worse".

"I think everyone must think about how to normalise relations, co-operate normally and develop relations normally," he adds.

It comes as foreign ministers from across the West gather in Brussels to consider how to maintain pressure on Russia.

Putin also repeats his previous claim that all action taken by the Russian military so far has been made "exclusively in response to some unfriendly actions against the Russian Federation".

BBC live

'No ill intentions' 🙄

@EsmaCannonball

In the last few decades academia has allowed language to be gutted of meaning and now we are starting to see the concrete consequences of that shift. It always benefits the powerful.

Could you elaborate a little on this (if you have the time)? Not sure what you mean, and interested to know

Picking up on dreamingbohemians point - why are we all so beholden to the 70 plus generation?Does the ageing of populations in the West due to modern medicine actually also have a general retro affect on our ideologies and progress? Because they tend to hold voting and asset power? It shouldn’t really be like that. The future belongs to the young

My mum (who is 83 next month) said this about the Brexit referendum. She said nobody over 70 should have had a vote on it. The vote would have done the other way. Although if that had been the case for the Scottish referendum, the vote would have gone the other way as well and we probably wouldn't have had the Brexit referendum in the first place.

The vote would have gone the other way

@Esma

In the last few decades academia has allowed language to be gutted of meaning and now we are starting to see the concrete consequences of that shift. It always benefits the powerful.

Absolutely. That has really troubled me. We had built an intellectual wall of clarity that clearly doesn’t suit some people but why didn’t we do more to uphold and strengthen it? I can feel it’s absence. It was such an important part of reinforcing and stabilising our soft power.

So a 70 year old should have no voice? You're just cast aside by society as clueless once you hit 70? I understand the point about the future belonging to the young but silencing people based on age alone seems pretty punative.

How does Russia manage to control so much of the media in Russia, when things like satellites and short-wave radio and so on and providing services to Ukraine when the infrastructure is being destroyed? Why can't people in Russia get news and information from some of these other methods, to bypass the state-controlled stuff? I know that some won't know it exists or don't believe it, but there must be some who have internet connections and radio connections that are not controlled by the state, and are able to get reputable news. It seems strange in this information-age, that the state can still prevent people from accessing news sources. It must be possible as north korea can do it, but Russia has more recently been part of the world and must have more people who are aware of the possibilities of getting news in other ways. There must be ways of preventing this, or maybe just the threats of fining and jailing people caught using the equipment.

[quote FatFredsFriedEgg]**@ChimChimeny* - there's been rumours of conscription even with foreigners/tourists and martial law so It just isn't a place you want to get stuck*

I can't find any rumours of this apart from on MN. And it's clearly bollocks anyway.

Can you really imagine Russia rounding up European, Japanese, US, Australian tourists in Moscow, shoving an AK47 in their hands and sending them to Ukraine?[/quote]
I agree, this is bollocks scaremongering.

I am so sick of hearing Putin’s delusional bullshit and gaslighting. I studied history and historiography, I learnt about propaganda in war etc, but to see it paraded in reality to this extreme is a whole different matter. I find it incredibly enraging!

(And yes, I know all states and politicians etc do this - including our own - but Putin’s delusions and lies are in a wholly new league imho).

I agree, this is bollocks scaremongering.

It would be a brilliant film plot though.

@CallyfromBlakes7

The vote would have gone the other way

Maybe for Brexit, not sure it's the case for the IndyRef. Those under 25 voted strongly no as did those over 50.

In the last few decades academia has allowed language to be gutted of meaning and now we are starting to see the concrete consequences of that

Er not sure why you're blaming academia, all the examples you gave are from governments and their lackey media

I actually think it's this collusion between government and press that has done the most damage. A free press should be constantly challenging the government.

@FatFredsFriedEgg yes it would!!

She said nobody over 70 should have had a vote on it. The vote would have done the other way.

I am not entirely sure that is the case. My then 93 year old MIL voted Remain. One of those people who was actively involved in the War effort although avoided the call up because she was married by the time they got round to her.

@Andouillette

On the face of it, it sounds like a reasonable idea but unless somebody has a shitload of Migs hiding somewhere I don't see how it would work due to the training aspect. Does anybody with better knowledge of these things than me have an idea of how long it would take to train Ukrainian pilots to fly our much more advanced planes? Is it feasible?

I’d start by just caution thinking the west always has much more advanced planes…

To answer your point: hard to say, typical course peacetime converting a pilot from one fighter to another in the western world with the benefit of modern training aids, simulators etc you are talking months..

Force Majeur, without the benefit of ground school and possibly simulators a good pilot might learn to mechanically fly something like an F-16 in a day or two or three but the results wouldn’t be pretty..but then again style points aren’t required.

Going on to the next step, learning to use the weapons system and perhaps countermeasures systems consistently, when under pressure, to a level where you can survive long enough to do damage to the opposition I would honestly not like to hazard a guess..but it wouldn’t be quick.

Russians have ceased the nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

From BBC reporter in Geneva:

The UN Human Rights Council has overwhelmingly backed a resolution condemning the Russian invasion and setting up a commission to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Russia was left completely isolated, with only one other member state – Eritrea, voting against the resolution.

A commission of inquiry is the highest level of investigation the council can order – there is one for Syria, now there will be one over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The outcome of the vote - 32 in favour, 2 against, and 13 abstentions - is a humiliation for Moscow.

China, Cuba, or Venezuela can usually be relied upon to back Russia - this time they abstained.

But some states voting in favour of the resolution, which was put forward by Ukraine with the support of the UK and the US, expressed unease that its wording was one-sided.

I find it interesting, and perhaps telling, that China are not prepared to publicly back their “ally”

Also a huge convoy of military vehicles has been spotted heading through Estonia. Does anyone know what is happening?

also saw something similar about buying digital art from Ukrainian sellers on Etsy a few days ago. Although by this point they might not even be able to deliver that, depending on where they are in Ukraine, so whether that means the transaction would no longer be processed I don't know. (I'm not suggesting they should have to deliver, only that it might affect them being able to collect payment, I dunno

That's why they were suggesting digital downloads. I'm pretty sure you'd still be able to process the transaction.

[quote notimagain]@Andouillette

On the face of it, it sounds like a reasonable idea but unless somebody has a shitload of Migs hiding somewhere I don't see how it would work due to the training aspect. Does anybody with better knowledge of these things than me have an idea of how long it would take to train Ukrainian pilots to fly our much more advanced planes? Is it feasible?

I’d start by just caution thinking the west always has much more advanced planes…

To answer your point: hard to say, typical course peacetime converting a pilot from one fighter to another in the western world with the benefit of modern training aids, simulators etc you are talking months..

Force Majeur, without the benefit of ground school and possibly simulators a good pilot might learn to mechanically fly something like an F-16 in a day or two or three but the results wouldn’t be pretty..but then again style points aren’t required.

Going on to the next step, learning to use the weapons system and perhaps countermeasures systems consistently, when under pressure, to a level where you can survive long enough to do damage to the opposition I would honestly not like to hazard a guess..but it wouldn’t be quick.[/quote]
Are unmanned aircraft easier to learn how to fly?
Might be a better option than trying to send fighter planes?

@MusicMan65

While I'm here, let's also nail Putin's lies about "Nazis".

Having suffered unimaginably under Stalin, when in 1941 the Nazis invaded Russia, some Ukrainians did choose to fight with them on the basis that, however brutal the Nazis might be, they at least didn't steal all the Ukrainians' food as Stalin had done a few years before (see previous post).

If the only two alternatives available in the real world are both extremely brutal, then the only choice for any of us is what we think is the "least worst" alternative of the two. Having experienced Stalin's rule, it would have made perfect sense at the time to some Ukrainians to join the Nazis to fight against Bolshevism and just hope that the Nazis might become a bit less brutal. Nazi promises to Ukraine in 1941-2 about "independence" etc were of course also just lies, but some people believed them.

SO - if Putin claims that some Ukrainians fought with the Nazis in WW2 he is semantically correct. However, the present day Ukrainian Nazis are a very VERY tiny minority, as they are also in Poland, Hungary, Germany and, erm, Russia.

Let's be clear about this. Ukraine, with no previous history as a country and no tradition of democracy, has in 30 years done as much as any country possibly could to fight internal corruption and establish true democracy, despite malicious interference from Russia. The real Nazi here is Putin, who is operating exactly as Hitler once did.

@musicman65 Despite your otherwise informative posts, I do think it is important to correct the impression that is given in this one. The Ukranians at the time of WW2 were not just "choosing the least worst alternative" and "hoping the Nazis might become a bit less brutal".

The active participation of Ukranians in the murder of Jews is well known - eg:
"Participation in the Holocaust
Naked Jewish women await execution by Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

Professor Alexander Statiev of the Canadian University of Waterloo writes that Ukrainian Auxiliary Police were the major perpetrator of the Holocaust on Soviet territories based on native origins, and those police units participated in the extermination of 150,000 Jews in the area of Volhynia alone.[22] German historian Dieter Pohl in The Shoah in Ukraine writes that the auxiliary police was active during killing operations by the Germans already in the first phases of the German occupation.[23] The auxiliary police registered the Jews, conducted raids and guarded ghettos, loaded convoys to execution sites and cordoned them off. There is a possibility that some 300 auxiliary policemen from Kyiv helped organize the massacre in Babi Yar.[23] They also took part in the massacre in Dnipro, where the field command noted that the cooperation ran "smoothly in every way". Cases where local commandants ordered murder of Jews using police force are known.[23] In killings of Jews in Kryvyi Rih the "entire Ukrainian auxiliary police" was put to use.[23] "

From Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Auxiliary_Police

There is a reason for the memorial at Babi Yar. Again from Wikipedia:
"The massacre was the largest mass killing under the auspices of the Nazi regime and its collaborators during its campaign against the Soviet Union,[8] and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust" to that particular date.[9] It is only surpassed overall by the later 1941 Odessa massacre of more than 50,000 Jews in October 1941 (committed by German and Romanian troops), and by Aktion Erntefest of November 1943 in occupied Poland with 42,000–43,000 victims" (from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar)

That does not mean, of course, that any credence whatsoever should be given to Putin's claim of "denazification" of Ukraine today.(not to mention that Jews were specifically targetted in the Soviet Union as well), It makes as much sense as invading Germany today because of Hitler. The sins of the fathers have nothing to do with today's children (or even adults), and Jews today in Ukraine can even grow up to be President! But that doesn't mean it is appropriate to whitewash the history in this respect.

@FatFredsFriedEgg

James McAvoy to play Zelensky. He’s got a similar kind of energy

Sadly not surprised at the suggestion that 70+ year olds shouldn't have had a say in brexit. Presume that this is because the vote went the "wrong way" but this is Mumsnet after all, ageism is rife. What else should old people not be able to have a say in in case they vote the wrong way? General elections? Other referendums?

Sorry for the derail but there's so much ridiculous ageism on this site. You'll be 70 and invisible one day.

@notimagain

I don't know of specific similarities/differences between MIGs supplied by Russia to Poland and MIGs supplied by Russia to Ukraine. Do you?

I mean, do you have any reason to believe that they're not identical apart from (I assume) the writing on the buttons?

(I have no reason (or evidence) to believe they're the same - other than they came from an era when I perceived that Russia was very much in full control of the Warsaw Pact countries).

[quote Bellalastrasse]@FatFredsFriedEgg

James McAvoy to play Zelensky. He’s got a similar kind of energy[/quote]
He could play himself!