Ukraine Invasion: Part 19

[MagicFox]

Welcome friends, still going

I couldnt lift the above properly so it looks like me - responding to claudine but actaually it was another poster

Thanks for clarifying, I did wonder.

Reading about pets being tortured and killed has led me to discover Alexey Milchakov, leader of Russia's Rusich mercenary group, whose favourite hobby is posting videos of himself torturing and beheading puppies. He was previously involved in torture and massacres in the war in Donbas, involved in torture and murders in Syria, and US intelligence suggested back in January that his mercenary group was planning something in the Kharkhiv region. This is the calibre of leader in the Russian military. All this talk of de-nazification when the Russians are the literal nazis.

It seems more than likely it's orchestration. Given the deliberate bombing of civilian targets, it's just an extra aspect of terrorizing civilians.

Apparently the man in command of the siege of Mariupol was also the man in charge of the Syrian sieges and those were things of horror. It's the third time such tactics have been used and it just isn't an accident.

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Pmk not that I can keep up

@Ijsbear

It seems more than likely it's orchestration. Given the deliberate bombing of civilian targets, it's just an extra aspect of terrorizing civilians.

Apparently the man in command of the siege of Mariupol was also the man in charge of the Syrian sieges and those were things of horror. It's the third time such tactics have been used and it just isn't an accident.

The people in command must clearly have been rewarded for it by Putin for them to do it again and again with impunity whilst the West stands by.

PMK

Checking in as I find these threads very informative.

Thanks for the new thread. Don’t tend to have much useful to add other than there must be more we can do. Women gangraped to death, 10 year old girls with anal vaginal tears and animals tortured and killed has solidified in my mind that we must now go in. Now.

Can I also add I’m not Tory fan, but I also left the Labour Party because of Corbyn- like many moderate lefties. Not heard much from Starmer about Ukraine, has anyone?

Also heard Boris earlier say Ukraine situation looks very like genocide. Finally.

@cloudberry

@CPL593H

Years ago I read up on quite a bit of post war history and came across a paper referencing the Kolya Tram (please don’t look this up - it’s sufficient to know it’s warfare against women in the most horrifying way).

It must be a strategy I think to totally thwart the male soldiers and make them careless? feel redundant and as though they have already lost the war? I don’t know but to use violent assaults on women must be something to do with breaking the morale of the defending army - to kind of break them from the inside?

Thinking ahead slightly over the next few months, I really hope that much thought is being put into access to womens clinics in Ukraine, preferably with counselling and medication regarding abortion so that any of the women in need can get unjudgemental support if they find themselves with decisions to make.

I know that at the moment this is not a priority but in a few months it will be but womens issues aren't always getting the thought that they should.

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Shashank Joshi @shashj
Western official: "The the withdrawal of forces of Russian forces from northern Ukraine, around Kyiv and around Chernihiv, is...largely complete. There are isolated pockets of Russian forces which will try to make their way back, but are under pressure"

Western official: "We have not yet seen sort of the mass redeployment of those Russian forces [from around Kyiv]. We've seen the early stages of some of the VDV airborne forces starting to make their way to join the forces in around the Donbas". Others need to be replenished.

Western official: 29 Russian BTGs "rendered non-combat effective, so they've had to be either taken out of the line in order to be refurbished and reconstituted, or they've had to be amalgamated with other battalion tactical groups to generate a single group out of...three."

Western official: "obviously, as they've shortened their lines of communication [and] they focus on the area of operations [in Donbas], it gives them the opportunity to concentrate force more effectively—but bringing more forces to bear is still a problem for them."

Western official: "We believe the 9th May [Victory Day] is a significant date [for Russia] given the usual parade [in Moscow]...when you have a political imperative, which drives things in a particular way, you can end up with military disaster as a consequence."

Western official, in response to my question on whether Russian force employment is improving: "even as late as yesterday, we're still seeing single files of Russian armour attempting to advance down roads, and then coming into problems when it's met by by Ukrainian resistance."

Western official: "the threat pace to Kyiv is limited for the foreseeable future. But of course, what we wouldn't like to see is is that assumption meaning that Kiev or the ...north were left undefended, because there still remains a risk of opportunistic activity"

Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
A really good summary of a western intelligence briefing. One of the things that stands out is a few tweets down where it’s said that 29 Russian BTGs have been rendered combat ‘non-effective’. Russia has only deployed approx 130, so that’s more than 22%. These are heavy losses

Keep in mind what was said earlier about combat effectiveness; the quicker they redeploy units the less effective they are likely to be and its a sign of panic. Yet to achieve goals in Eastern Ukraine by 9th May they probably will have to do exactly that.

english.alarabiya.net/business/energy/2022/04/06/Breaking-ranks-with-EU-Hungary-says-ready-to-pay-for-Russian-gas-in-rubles
Breaking ranks with EU, Hungary says ready to pay for Russian gas in rubles

@TargusEasting

Why should he automatically resign? Don’t jump to that kind of sound bite. Sometimes people can do good things by staying in an organisation and trying to change it from within rather than running. Fight rather than flight. He has also served so perhaps cut him slack before rushing to that sound bite.

Thanks for the new thread.

Tobias Ellwood is, I believe, a fundamentally decent man who has been warning about the impending dangers of this situation for some time but has been ignored. And I am not a Tory, very far from it.

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Apologies @PaperTyger for getting the wrong end of the stick

I don’t think the raping is just strategy, even if it is useful for that. It is because some of those hideous excuses for people like it. That’s why there is so much in porn.

Not heard much from Starmer about Ukraine, has anyone?

Yes, Starmer did a serious-man-at-desk speech on the first day of the invasion, as well as his speech in Parliament.

In his Parliamentary speech I remember he was very clear about agreeing with the UK government on Ukraine, and made it crystal that Putin's normal divisiveness hadn't worked on this occasion. I thought this was a very good thing to do.

I think the leaders of the other parties did the same. IIRC they'd all been given sight of (consultation over?) Johnson's speech beforehand and had thus prepared a unified response.

I've certainly heard stuff from Starmer since, although it does depend on which media I'm consuming as to whether they've chosen to quote him.

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Thanks for new thread

It is their brothers and sisters in Orthodoxy, in a country they see as part of "Holy Rus", that they are torturing, raping and murdering, people who not 2 months ago they were at peace with.

Well Russian conscripts are raped and tortured by slightly older conscripts*, and then later on take their turning raping and torturing the new conscripts. They are taught that this is how soldiers behave. So if they are already used to that with their own brothers in arms, it probably comes quite easily when its towards people who they are now being told is the enemy.

*there has been attempts to sort this out but something that's been deeply entrenched for so long won't be got rid of that easily

Checking in

Is there any hope from the peace talks - is this the route to ending this war or are we still hopping for Putin to get taken out?

Does anyone know where Putin is living?

Pmk