Ukraine-invasion-part-15

[Ijsbear]

Next part.

Magic I thought so initially but he's a very, very experienced veteran and ex NATO and surely wouldn't splurge this by accident and there's a few witterings surfacing on Twitter (not that that's anything to go by!)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark

I think it's probably naive to assume that all parties' intelligence services don't know about some of the covert elements in operation on all sides to some degree.

The reason they don't kick off about this kind of thing is because it would expose their own operations in some way.

Cor his Twitter feed seems quite pro-intervention and alarmist though (next stop baltics etc). Maybe he's right but...

Why the hysteria around Azov? You do realise that they are like 800 guys from total 245K serving at the moment, and the black sun insignia paraded all over the russian press are from the times when they were not much more than an armed group of football hooligans?

Yes, they have connections to some extremely unsavoury far right political characters. Who are so widely supported that they have won exactly zero seats in parliament (and Ukraine is not first past the post, but rather direct mandate elections - they genuinely have near to zero support).

Magic it is isn't it! Just scrolling through it myself. But if he is right.....

Maybe that's why BJ is so gung-ho about visiting Kyiv!

The Azov thing is a smokescreen, an excuse for Russia to wade in, especially as they are concentrated in the, guess where, the Donbas.

@TiddyTidTwo

This chap said on CNN last night that UK special forces are on the ground in Ukraine (and probably have been all along)

“This chap” is General (four star) Wesley Clarke, former SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe)…now retired..

He knows darned well he should not speculate on any SF activity and since Uk gov/MOD will never ever confirm or deny what UK SF are up to he’s speculating just as much as anybody else on that subject.

What he said though is not very helpful but I guess every pundit has their price..

He was interviewed on Today on Radio 4 this morning. I can't remember what he said there tbh.

Sky News just reported that around 100 foreign ships, containing around $6billion of cargo, are stuck in Ukraine's blockaded ports at the moment.

@TiddyTidTwo

This chap said on CNN last night that UK special forces are on the ground in Ukraine (and probably have been all along)

He's a retired general.

He's speculating. He doesn't know, know.

And we know SAS are on the ground in the sense that lots of former SAS are known to have gone. Its not a secret. We know there have been a number of these men killed already in what looks like a targetted strike on foreign fighters.

How former these former SAS are is kinda an argument for some who said, "there is no such thing as a former KGB man"

Its within the grey area of plausible denibility.

In recent years the pattern of the US certainly has been to contract out to private services who aren't technically US soliders but are. Thats what Wagner is with the Russians.

Quite frankly he's only stating the bleeding obvious as far as I'm concerned and something that all parties all ready know in practice.

The level of hate towards Russia is off the charts and will continue to be for decades and generations to come. Russian speaking Ukrainians may even have the most amount of hate.

In the end after some years trade will begin again and some degree of normality will slowly trickle back (assuming Ukraine stays free).

The trauma will pass on for generations though. Trauma can be helped in most cases but when you have half a country or more traumatized, there's too many. And the underlying mistrust of Russian govt will stay forever, I should think.

@AgnesWestern
As an add on to that, I’ve started feeling frustrated at being called a coward or that I should be ashamed of wanting to protect myself and my family. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel empathy for the people in Ukraine.

No one says you are a coward or that you should be ashamed of wanting to protect yourself and your family.

But anxiety has a way of magnifying fear into a much, much bigger fear. Anxiety gets things out of proportion and can lead to making decisions based on fear that, when you look at the situation from the outside, are not perhaps reasonably based. Plus feeling powerless magnifies all fear. I mean this kindly but I think this is what's going on for you.

Your family are in barely more danger than the last time they crossed the road together. Cars are half-kilo tanks, after all.

Anxiety is a bitch. You sound lovely.

One of the things I think has definitely be suggested that the SAS are involved in training Ukrainians with their new equipment. Which does seem very plausible.

Btw Wesley Clark nearly started WWIII in Kosovo but we were saved by British singer James Blunt. (I have always loved this anecdote!)

what anecdote's that RTB? :)

he does seem highly hawkish, not necessarily someone you want having much say in things atm ....

The trauma will pass on for generations though.

As anyone in Ireland could testify ..

[quote AgnesWestern]@MagicFox

As an add on to that, I’ve started feeling frustrated at being called a coward or that I should be ashamed of wanting to protect myself and my family. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel empathy for the people in Ukraine.[/quote]
It’s a heightened situation.

If there was an easy fix we wouldn’t be seeing the highly considered reactions from all world leaders and the many experts advising them.

Everyone is navigating the path we are on due to Putin

@DGRossetti

The trauma will pass on for generations though.

As anyone in Ireland could testify ..

Yes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if NI will soon be surpassed as the record holder for the highest recorded rate of PTSD in the world.

In other news, if you're going to be a refugee this is how to do it in style

www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/03/dutch-royals-offer-16th-century-castle-to-house-ukrainian-refugees/

Just to add in that last post for Agnes

You do not need to feel ashamed in any way. If there was an easy fix that didn’t take the current world effort we’d be seeing it.

@Ijsbear

what anecdote's that RTB? :)

he does seem highly hawkish, not necessarily someone you want having much say in things atm ....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11753050 Singer James Blunt 'prevented World War III'

Singer James Blunt has told the BBC how he refused an order to attack Russian troops when he was a British soldier in Kosovo. Blunt said he was willing to risk a court martial by rejecting the order from a US General.

But he was backed by British Gen Sir Mike Jackson, who said: "I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III."

Blunt was ordered to seize an airfield, but the Russians had got there first.

He said: "I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there.

"I was the lead officer with my troop of men behind us...

"The soldiers directly behind me were from the Parachute Regiment, so they're obviously game for the fight.

"The direct command [that] came in from Gen Wesley Clark was to overpower them. Various words were used that seemed unusual to us. Words such as 'destroy' came down the radio."

The whole story is fascinating do read it (including how it concluded)

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Jack Detsch
@JackDetsch
NEW: Ukrainian forces are continuing to hold off Russian attempts to take the city of Mariupol that has been encircled by 🇷🇺 forces for more than 3 weeks: UK Defense Intel

🇷🇺 was largely “stalled in place” on Day 26 in 🇺🇦, w/ several cities bombarded w/ air & artillery attacks

Dear god, how are they doing it?

More protests (and tear gas) in Kherson today:

twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1506227222511771648

They continue to sing the national anthem.

There are also (unverified) reports that the Russians landed a fresh lot of helicopters at the airfield near Kherson. They are now almost all ex-helicopters yesterday. They've previously lots a shedload of equipment there apparently and they keep trying it.

(Keeping a close eye on Kherson...)

sorry if it's already posted

"A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, Borys Romanchenko, was killed Friday by a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Romanchenko's death was confirmed by the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial institute in a series of tweets.
Romanchenko survived the camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen during World War II, the memorial said, adding that it was "stunned" by news of his death.
It said Romanchenko worked "intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.""

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/21/europe/borys-romanchenko-death-ukraine-intl/index.html

@WeAreTheHeroes

The Azov thing is a smokescreen, an excuse for Russia to wade in, especially as they are concentrated in the, guess where, the Donbas.

I know that, I am from the area myself. I was just surprised that it was blown into such a massive issue in the West. There are issues with far-right in the UK as well. EDL, BNP, Britain First (did I forget anyone?) - how likely are they to stay neutral if the UK is attacked? I'd say they will be first in the queue at the enlistment centres.

I am even more perplexed that Azov are presented as Ukrainian ultranationalists. Most of the times I hear them speaking, they speak Russian. Even if one wants to excavate political beliefs of some mentally disturbed people they associate / used to associate with, it is a weird sort of panslavic / norse "wiccan"-style paganism aimed at establishing a single slavic state on the territories of modern Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Poland. An aim that directly conflicts with the idea of a Ukrainian nation state.

[quote HeadPain]sorry if it's already posted

"A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, Borys Romanchenko, was killed Friday by a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Romanchenko's death was confirmed by the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial institute in a series of tweets.
Romanchenko survived the camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen during World War II, the memorial said, adding that it was "stunned" by news of his death.
It said Romanchenko worked "intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.""

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/21/europe/borys-romanchenko-death-ukraine-intl/index.html[/quote]
"Yulia Romanchenko, Borys' granddaughter, told CNN that she "learned about the shelling of Saltivka residential district on March 18 from social networks. I asked locals if they knew anything about my grandfather's house. They sent me a video of a burning house. I found out about this after the curfew and therefore I could not go there immediately."
By the time Yulia managed to get to the area, she found her grandfather's house "completely burned down -- there were no windows, no balcony, nothing in his apartment."

The discovery of Buchenwald, on April 11, 1945, began the liberation of more than 21,000 prisoners from one of the largest Nazi concentration camps of World War II.

The official US military account of the liberation called the camp "a symbol of the chill-blooded cruelty of the German Nazi state," where thousands of political prisoners were starved and "others were burned, beaten, hung and shot to death."

In 2012, Romanchenko attended an event commemorating the liberation of Buchenwald, where he read an oath devoted to "creating a new world where peace and freedom reign," the memorial said.
In 2018, a Kharkiv newspaper reported on his visit to Buchenwald on the 73rd anniversary of the camp's liberation by US forces.
"The event was attended by the last surviving Buchenwald prisoners from Ukraine and Belarus -- Borys Romanchenko from Kharkiv, Oleksandr Bychok from Kyiv and Andriy Moiseenko from Minsk," the report said. "