Ukraine Invasion: Part 21

[MagicFox]

Another thread, thank you to all

@RedToothBrush that's weird, especially given the Beijing Global Times article linked below

With about 40% of semiconductors coming from one company there, that really would end economic globalisation. There would be two economies, with Africa in particular stuck in the middle and some South East Asian countries also. The Gulf States are already orientating to Russia/China. Dictatorships tend to stand together.

Hang on so can I rewind a bit here...so NATO couldn't defeat rusty old Russia? I'm gobsmacked. How can we supply Ukraine with the weapons week after week and the training to operate them?

@WeAreTheHeroes The reports this morning are that there are cilivilians at the Azovstal steel works complex - I don't think that had been reported previously.

That was on either (or both) the BBC or Sky news yesterday, together with pictures (and I'm sure I'd read about it the day before) - but it did say it couldn't independently verify the images as information from Mariupol was sketchy.

Has everyone else woken up to a new version of mumsent😦is it Just me?. struggling too navigate it.

I'm sure I read that many of those civilians were the families of the defenders?

Nope. Me too

@PaperTyger

Has everyone else woken up to a new version of mumsent😦is it Just me?. struggling too navigate it.

There's a thread on Site Stuff. Lots of unhappiness. I've posted a few comments .

There seems to be loads of issues with the app: no bookmarking, posters names in red, your own posts not showing in a different colour, threads you post on not showing up in Watched thread, threads you've read but which don't have a new post not changing colour, emotion emojis randomly spread amongst the emojis......

That's for starters

I've not been on to the Desktop yet

Site stuff thread here:

New Talk launching tonight - please read! http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/4533658-New-Talk-launching-tonight-please-read

I could not agree more.

There is a bit of a 'gung-ho' mentality on SM and in the press which is not due. The reality of getting the right equipment into the right place, keeping it serviced, supplied and monitored is quite a task. There are two stages involved here to getting equipment in because firstly it has to go to border locations that make entry into Ukraine possible. While there has been some retraining of the UA to westernise it since 2014 it appears that is more to do with softer yet vitally important human skills than expensive kit.

There have been some rather odd pictures posted of Russian soldiers who were clearly nothing of the sort and at best 50+ year old reservists, but most probably fake. Clearly theft by arm's suppliers has been felt on the battlefield, but I have seen pictures of battalions of Russian tanks and regiments of artillery with what appears to be well motivated and supplied men. These are probably coming forward now to the Donbas.

The US administration pulled out of Afghanistan because there was no point funding a permanent war. In Ukraine, the majority of the population will fight to their deaths to preserve their homes, country and identity. That has become clear only over the last 60 days or so. It would be unrealistic to expect a massive arm's sale to Ukraine and other indirect and substantial military support until this factor became clear.

More tricky than trying to learn the new control panels of a Mig-29, for example?

I don't know if its been mentioned on the thread but its certainly been mentioned on twitter for the best part of a week.

Many of the civilians are family members of the soliders. As a result of being related to soliders many have been fearful of ending up going Russian filtration camps hence why they haven't left the city and why even if there is a humanitarian corridor opened today they are unlikely to try today.

There are a few tweets been doing the rounds about 4 year old Alisa stuck in the complex which are utterly gut wrenching. Her mother is a military doctor treating wounded soliders and civilians.

It doesn't bear thinking about what will happen to these civilians. There is no satellite cover below ground. I really do wonder what parents in this situation would do if it came to the very end knowing what had happened in Bucha. How many bullets do they have left?

The commander of the 36th Battalion has put out a video this morning begging the world for help to extract them and to take them all to a 3rd party country. He said it could be their final days or even hours. So even they know the end is near by the sound of it.

It is utterly beyond comprehension.

We are waiting for the silence now I fear.

Point well made 👀 @TargusEasting

lol, well put.

Did I read that Zelenskyy had signed a decree that he would come to the rescue of the Mariupol defenders? How he would do that is beyond me but noone has ever deserved to be rescued more.

Ukrainecast is worth a listen to this morning. Weird and chilling to hear Popov's take out the war but, as the present points out, important that we hear the Russian narrative.

Summary of programme:
We speak to a Russian politician... Yevgeny Popov, Deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, speaks to Frank Gardner and Victoria Derbyshire, and says that Russia felt “bullied” into invading Ukraine. He’s challenged on his belief that Nato is the aggressor, and his claims are analysed with the help of Sam de Bendern, a former Nato Ukraine political officer.

The at thing for twitter and mumnets new feature is driving me nutty. It just throws up loads of problems if i try and reference twitter.

For the time being im going to try and put AT in caps so you can see the reference.

I am not able to link to tweets directly when im on my phone (never have been even on the old mn), only on my laptop because of how twitter on the app rather than a browser works on my phone.

Its really useful just to copy the tweet for this reason. Ive put something on the site stuff thread about it. Its a major headache.

It does make we wonder if its a deliberate thing to stop references to twitter, but this only is likely to cause more problems than less.

@Hillsmakeyoustrong · 20/04/2022 08:38

Hang on so can I rewind a bit here...so NATO couldn't defeat rusty old Russia? I'm gobsmacked. How can we supply Ukraine with the weapons week after week and the training to operate them?

if you listen to Radio 4 Today they were discussing this. I cannot remember who was speaking but he said that apart from America, NATO countries had not been contributing the minimum 2% of GDP they had contracted to do. It has been way below that. I think he said that in his opinion it needed to be more like 3%.

@WeAreTheHeroes
The reports this morning are that there are cilivilians at the Azovstal steel works complex - I don't think that had been reported previously.

It was reported quite extensively yesterday. I think some are families of the defenders in the Azovstal plant.

Apparently humanitarian corridors are now agreed for civilians out of Mariupol.

From the Guardian

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has announced on Telegram that a humanitarian corridor has been agreed to evacuate women, children and the elderly from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. She posted:
Given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Mariupol, it is in this direction that we will focus our efforts today. We managed to agree in advance on a humanitarian corridor for women, children and the elderly.
Civilians are instructed to gather at 2pm (11am GMT) and the column will then proceed to Zaporizhzhia via Berdyansk. Vereshchuk added:
Due to the very difficult security situation, changes may occur during the corridor. So, please follow the relevant official announcements. We will do our best to make everything work properly.
Earlier though, deputy mayor of Mariupol Sergei Orlov spoke to Sky News in the UK, and demonstrated how low trust is between the two sides. He told viewers:
Do not believe in any words from Russia. It would be good if they allowed civilians to leave the Azovstal, but they didn’t allow this for 50 days, why should they allow this now?

Useless for the families of defenders.

Red I agree.

Is there anything that can be done? I can't bear waiting and watching their fate

Reports mention that ‘bunker buster’ bombs have been used at the steel plant. If they work as described it must make it terrible underground there with passages blocked off I should imagine.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster

WeAreTheHeroes
The reports this morning are that there are cilivilians at the Azovstal steel works complex - I don't think that had been reported previously.

This had been being reported on the World Service before Easter.

(this new mn format sucks swamp through a straw: ugly and hard to use. And I have lost almost all the threads I was watching.)

Might be posting less in future. Can't abide the new layout, and MNs arbitrary pulling threads down. Take care all.