Ukraine Invasion: Part 19

[MagicFox]

Welcome friends, still going

Rob Lee @RALee85
The BBC reports that the Southern Military District will now be in charge of the operation in Ukraine. This makes sense for a few reasons: 1) its commander, Army General Alexander Dvornikov, outranks the other district commanders who are Colonel-Generals.

Dvornikov has also been the commander of his district the longest, since 2016, and the Donbas is a priority for that district. This also makes sense because the focus of Russia's operation is now on S/SE Ukraine, which has been the Southern Military District's responsibility. 2/

I think the Western official is wrong to focus on Dvornikov's time in Syria. All of the district commanders commanded Russian forces in Syria, and Zhuravlyov and Chayko both commanded forces there twice and have more experience in Syria. 3/

4/ Michael Kofman @KofmanMichael
The question is what will the command structure look like. Will Dvornikov be coordinating it from the district’s joint strategic command? Is it staffed to manage an operation of this size with a significant part staged from Western MD? Or will they create a new command layer?

Will other states take advantage of the very much weakened Russian defence force?

Yes. But do Russians want to become a vassal state of China? Huawei are in there now and the UK has rejected the company on safety concerns. This is a major failure.

[quote ScrollingLeaves]@Ijsbear

Statements from some of the better twitterati that 121,000 children have been forcibly taken to Russia and 600,000 people in all.

Do you know if that would be children separated from their parents? Or, orphans? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Where would they take them. I wish people tracking the satellite cameras could follow all trucks and buses.[/quote]
I don't, no. I suspect that it's families and orphans, plus if the families show signs of rebellion then the children will be taken away and re-educated. I'm certain that will happen if it isn't already. From what's been published Russia planned to eliminate Ukraine as a country and one of the most effective ways of doing that is to indoctrinate children. Isolated children are far easier to handle than children in a family, as naturally kids take their first impressions from their parents.

Shaun Walker @shaunwalker7
In the Ukrainian village of Novyi Bykiv, the Russians set up their base in the local school. The whole place is totally wrecked now, just two years after it was renovated.

But the messages they left behind and the way they behaved are quite revealing. Thread:

Every classroom was smashed up and littered with discarded food, ration packs and other rubbish

They painted over the faces on posters of Ukrainian historical /literary figures.

Every room was trashed except a small exhibition about villagers who fought in the Second World War. “Don’t touch the museum” one soldier wrote on the door. “We wouldn’t dream of it”, is the reply, presumably by a later rotation.

On the class blackboards soldiers had left messages. “Slavic brothers, you’re being cheated”. And “sorry, we didn’t want this war”. And grotesquely given what was all around “let’s live peacefully”. Someone else had drawn a GRU bat.

It won’t come as any surprise that they stole all the computers from the school before they left.

I found these papers in the school. 02030 - which is the 297th anti-aircraft missile brigade from Penza region. The used cases from their BUK missiles were lined up outside.

Alexandra do they need to be protected if there is no war in that side of the country.

And then does Putin want to Risk war with the peace keepers?

The peace keepers are armed because they Keep the peace.

I've been wondering the same thing - are they trying to exhaust US supplies with the long game and then they'll bring out the big guns (so to speak) and achieve their wider ambitions while the US reconsolidates

The USA could sustain several Ukraine's ad infinitum, their military manufacturing capacity is huge and lets face it, they are only supplying light weapons atm.

In some ways this battle has been so absurd and strange one wonders if it's not just Been an exercise to drag USA out.

I think you are up the wrong path here. The Americans are masters of dark military arts. Their economy is partly built on it and it is one of the keystones. Russia is simply totally uncoordinated on many levels. The US, despite the Trump years, is able to regroup and connect with Europe. Partly I think because persuasive power is held in the Senate.

I don't doubt USA military power or $$$ power but I have seen somewhere that USA is struggling and yes.... they don't have warehouse full of endless arms these things do need creating and making and ultimately paying for.

@PaperTyger

Alexandra do they need to be protected if there is no war in that side of the country.

And then does Putin want to Risk war with the peace keepers?

The peace keepers are armed because they Keep the peace.

Chernobyl is in the far east of Ukraine.

Russia has bombed Lviv and Odesa, West and South regions of Ukraine, weapons as you know have vast ranges and i don't want to see Uk soldiers (or any other NATO troops) coming home in bags because we didn't neutralise the Russian threat from land and sea.

Targus, Maybe Russia and Putin want to see what USA has got? Tech moves so fast

Personally I don't think Putin would dare try and attack peace keepers in that side of the country.
Why would he?

@PaperTyger
Peacekeepers in my view says "Ukraine has a problem" and only the world can sort it out. Russia is the problem and Ukraine believes it can and is sorting it out. Peacekeepers also have to provide a solution. That's where is gets complicated because Ukraine will have to compromise. The Ukrainian people do not want to compromise. At the moment I get that. Would you compromise or would you want to keep going when you believe you have right and are winning?

If he attacked peace keepers in Ukraine far away from where he's doing his next slaughter.. then bombs would start on Russia would he want that?

Chernobyl is in the far east of Ukraine.

North. North of Kyiv near the border with Belarus.

Deportations: it's an Imperial Russian thing. Assyrians and others used to do it too.

Relatives: brief contacts with other today. Staying and determined seemed to be the message.

@PaperTyger

Targus, Maybe Russia and Putin want to see what USA has got? Tech moves so fast

War is a strange way to go just to see what the enemy has got. I can't think of a case where that has been done before.

The Kremlin thought it would take its chances. The UA had been trained and groomed for years. The US were surprised by how poor the Russian army fared and they got that intelligence wrong. But it is by no means over and Russia will draw hard lines across the Donbas. Tech is one side of modern warfare, but ultimately there is a reason why every soldier or sailor is trained to be an infantryman and why every one carries a bayonet.

@PaperTyger

Personally I don't think Putin would dare try and attack peace keepers in that side of the country. Why would he?

Given what he has done over the last 6 weeks, i think that is a huge assumption. Bombs falling on Russia would be WW3 and doubtless a nuclear response.

Also need to take into consideration that the Russian military is ill disciplined, rogue units could do anything.

Inna Sovsun @InnaSovsun
#russians planned to attack #Kramatorsk railway station🤬

The information that the civilians will be evacuated from Kramatorsk by trains at this time is public. The russians knew that there would be thousands of people. But to strike at civilians was their goal

Yesterday at night, separatist Telegram channels warned people of #Donbas that it was dangerous to evacuate from #Kramatorsk and Sloviansk by rail and called for the use of cars.

This morning at 10:13 a video of the launch of 2 missiles was published. It was filmed in Shakhtarsk. This town has been occupied for 8 years.

The first reports of the attack on the #Kramatorsk railway station were released at about 10:45.

#russian media "RIA" published a planned by TweetDeck tweet, at 10:25. The tweet was a link to an article about the events in #Kramatorsk.
I doubt it's real to write it just a few min after the hit. It's clear that they knew about the attack and prepared the article in advance.

Local separatist publics half an hour after the hit began to publish information that russians hit at the "accumulation of #Ukraine troops in #Kramatorsk"
But these posts were quickly removed as soon as an order came from the kremlin.

By the way, the idea to bomb the stations to prevent evacuations belongs to the #Ukrainian traitor and separatist Oleh Tsarev. Two days ago, he called for an attack on railway junctions to "paralyze traffic for many months"

#russian propaganda has again tried to shift the blame for #russia's crimes on #Ukraine. But they will not be able to do that. We record their every crime.

Tbf there has been a lot of talk of disrupting the railways all round by both sides. However this does seem to be a targeting of civillians using the railways rather than the railways themselves...

@MMBaranova Sorry my mistake, but the point is still valid, we would need to go a very long before we would be able to take control of all of Ukraines nuclear power stations & be target for every Russian missile or ship unit going.

Targus I see it differently.
Maybe your quoting the actual technical definition of peace keeping?

For me, peacekeeping forces are armed to the teeth with all the best stuff.
They don't attack unless attacked and because they are going into area's where no Russian's are it's highly unlikely that they Will be attacked.

They go into area's of concern like nuclear site's, which is everyone concern they hold the line around the capital too make it safe for rebuild and millions of displaced persons.
The area's where Putin's army is can stay blissfully free, all for Putin. And if they drive him back, again* peace keeper's" go in...

@RedToothBrush
What is the relevance of that picture timed at 10:25 with regard to the railway station attack?

Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen
Ukraine belongs in the European family.

And today, Ukraine takes another important step towards EU membership.

We will accelerate this process as much as we can, while ensuring that all conditions are respected.

It's all one sided Alex.

Do you think he wants ww3?

Targus I've seen many posts on twitter reference tanks that are properly modern and good not Been seen yet?

Where are they? Stuff like that.
I agree going too war like this would be ridiculous for finding out what the other side has but I find the entire situation mind boggling.

@PaperTyger

Targus I see it differently. Maybe your quoting the actual technical definition of peace keeping?

For me, peacekeeping forces are armed to the teeth with all the best stuff.
They don't attack unless attacked and because they are going into area's where no Russian's are it's highly unlikely that they Will be attacked.

They go into area's of concern like nuclear site's, which is everyone concern they hold the line around the capital too make it safe for rebuild and millions of displaced persons.
The area's where Putin's army is can stay blissfully free, all for Putin. And if they drive him back, again* peace keeper's" go in...

Sounds like a job for NATO and /or the US all by itself because nobody else is going to have the manpower and all the best stuff…

Do you think the Russians would just stand off from the likes of Chernobyl or the perimeter of Kiev if they knew NATO/US were on their way?