Ukraine Invasion Part 12

[MagicFox]

I see the other thread is filling up so starting the twelfth...

... ok 1dayatatime summed up the stripping-the-GDR problem much better than me ... should have RTFT :)

“WeAreTheHeroes

DP has just suggested that it may not have been the Russians responsible for the strike on the NATO training base as it's suspiciously close to a border with a NATO member. The Russian strategy appears to be to capture the Black Sea coast and the major cities.“

Who does your DP think did carry out the attack?

35 Ukrainians have been killed there - did you know that?

New year every year I agree.

Imagine what a buzz that is for him. How powerful that makes him feel. The whole world is begging to speak to him, the same leaders treating him with disdain at all the big meetings. Now they'are desperate for attention .. like any older man I bet he was feeling a little redundant.

Not now!! I wonder if he's on steroids like it's claimed does that make him feel powerful?

I'm not personally sanctioning it but how powerful would he feel with massive rockets aimed at all these beautiful and historical buildings in st Petersburg's?

All his relatives over seas under house arrest, with tag's placed on their ankles , etc.

The implication is that it could have been the Ukrainians obviously. I prefer to think they wouldn't do that.

Russia’s invasion force is estimated at 150,000. It has 900,000 active military, and 2 million reservists. If Belarus invades, that’s another 400,000 (active and reservist) troops. That’s just manpower, not hardware.

As much as I want Ukraine to win this, right now we’re in the very early stages of this. I absolutely expect Putin to continue to mobilize troops and send them in.

As pp pointed out unfortunately as a country Russia's biggest strength has always been sheer numbers.
However they can't send all theirs troops into Ukraine it's a vast country that needs troops all over it. The X million will cover all sorts of military positions.
The soldiers from Belarus, one can only hope they have no appetite for war and I wonder how many will try and escape?

Maybe signs need to go up in Ukraine explaining what democracy is.. then literature and informative on previous revolutions eg tsars, french etc m

Can people please stop giving any thought to the idea that Ukraine is bombing its own civilians and army bases

It's completely dumb and just playing into Russian disinformation

@WeAreTheHeroes

The implication is that it could have been the Ukrainians obviously. I prefer to think they wouldn't do that.

WTF?

Does your DH have a reason why Ukraine would bomb its own military base and kill 30+ of its own and friendly force personnel?

A planned destruction of a base to prevent it falling into Russian hands wouldn't kill Ukrainian forces (suicide crew in an emergency aside).

It can't even be for some false flag operation to make Putin look bad – because Putin's forces are already razing town centres and hospitals and shelling escaping civilians. Attacking a military base can't make Putin look worse than he already does.

On the other hand, the Putin government habitually claims the other guy did it. Putin did this repeatedly in Syria.

And once he's thought through how daft this claim is, I think it will open your DH's eyes to Putin's modus operandi.

@Papertyger

It certainly wasn’t my attention to be patronizing…

As for “planes expert” comment.

I’m not going to out myself but I had enough hands on experience over the years of aviation both civilian and military to perhaps have a bit more insight than some on Twitter.

Very concerning the latest strike is so close to the Polish border

The civil wars in Syria and Yemen became such a clusterfuck because what started out as fairly straightforward 'one side versus another' warfare became incredibly complicated and chaotic when various other groups (including jihadis) saw an opportunity to get involved and flooded the situation. Putin is planning to use Syrians, Chechens and the Wagner Group in Europe. It's been reported that anti-Putin Chechens, some of whom are certainly jihadis, are planning to travel to Ukraine and fight against the Russians. Will Syrians (again, some of whom may be jihadis) see this as an opportunity to strike at Putin and thereby bring down Assad too? One of the reasons I think we need to take the calculated risk of providing the Ukrainians with more offensive weaponry now is not just to avoid more direct NATO involvement in the future but also about who else might get involved.

Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, looks like what you'd get if you walked into Dobbies and asked for an Axis of Evil Garden Gnome.

[quote Nikkiten]@1forAll74 I don’t think Putin denied the attack on the maternity hospital, they said it was empty and being used as a military staging post. The number of casualties (as reported by the BBC) would suggest they weren’t wrong that it was abandoned and possibly being used as a shelter. That’s not to say it’s ok but just that I don’t think they completely denied the attack.[/quote]
Lavrov actively said it was deliberately targeted and that everyone was being precious over the low number of deaths, stating it was a legitimate target because it was also being used by the military who were deliberately using patients as a human shield.

Whoops have reported.. wrong thread

Apologies if this makes anybody more anxious but I wanted to get opinions on this analysis, which has frightened me: davetroy.medium.com/has-putin-already-decided-to-attack-nato-a1f8e52ce2de

Yuri Prylypko, another Ukrainian mayor, was shot dead by the Russians a few days ago. He was out delivering supplies to sheltering people when killed so it may have been random barbarism rather than a targeted attack.

Journalists reporting that the Ukrainians have said Russia used white phosphorus in eastern Ukraine.

@whumpthereitis

Russia’s invasion force is estimated at 150,000. It has 900,000 active military, and 2 million reservists. If Belarus invades, that’s another 400,000 (active and reservist) troops. That’s just manpower, not hardware.

As much as I want Ukraine to win this, right now we’re in the very early stages of this. I absolutely expect Putin to continue to mobilize troops and send them in.

It might have men. It does not have uniforms and equipment.

There is a point at which even its own citizens will struggle to tolerate so many young men disappearing amid rumours of body bags though. Especially if sent to fight in civvies and with a pitchfork.

Part of the reason Russia is recruiting from abroad is precisely because these men are dispensible and because they are liable to have some sort of their own equipment. Whether that equipment is up to the job is beside the point. They are cannonfodder.

But generally speaking men will fight for money first or a moral cause second and theres only a certain draw to do that, and perhaps even less of one to do so for Russia given its history. I can't see too many Taliban taking up the cause. I can't see that many Syrians doing so either.

That does leave the prospect of coerced press ganged soldiers under threat of death to them or their families.

These men do not make good fighters.

And again there is only so many you can ship in.

I do wish you were coordinating the UK response redtoothbrush instead of the top bojos we actually have.

@EsmaCannonball

Journalists reporting that the Ukrainians have said Russia used white phosphorus in eastern Ukraine.

Do you have a source?

Fascinating article linked to in this tweet below. The article was written by a Chinese policy advisor. Really worth a read. It's given me a bit of hope that China will change tack (whilst understanding that it would do so only to strengthen its own position)

twitter.com/ramez/status/1502895847301812224?s=21

"He closes by saying that China has 1-2 WEEKS in which to make a choice. And basically says that China should choose the West, and use its influence over Putin to end the war and bring him to heel. It says that China is the only nation that can. I don't disagree."

Several sources reporting the phosphorus bomb claims. Reuters, BBC, Sky, etc..

Magic fox, interesting.
What's this dungestic geopolitical play book?
It could be all this,it could be an old impotent Man jacked up on steroids gone absolutely mad.

Sometimes these reams of essays Remind me of deep dives on English literature, sometimes the writers Just wrote! Without reflecting on everything the commentator thought.

I'e sometimes ascribing a deeper meaning to what's going on than what actually is.

What concerns me is China getting involved. The essay states Putin may feel comfortable to starta war with China at his side.

We've not seen any evidence of this have we?

Whenever China is mentioned it seems to be swept aside as a non issues?

Thanks I'll go look. Hadn't seen thst update. Phosphorus is nasty stuff

[quote MagicFox]Apologies if this makes anybody more anxious but I wanted to get opinions on this analysis, which has frightened me: davetroy.medium.com/has-putin-already-decided-to-attack-nato-a1f8e52ce2de[/quote]
It's one man's opinion - one man who, from what I can see, is not a military strategist or someone who has any access to situational intelligence or any real insight into Putin's mindset. That's not to say his opinion doesn't have value, but it is just that, his opinion and therefore I wouldn't take it as gospel or allow it to take up too much headspace at this stage.