Ukraine Invasion: Part 23

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, thanks for the company

Thanks for sharing

I'm glad Ex Sheehan had done something with Antytila

I'm not a huge fan, but this is touching

The good old bad old days, optimism and pessimism.

Soviet grandparents. I know a number of people my sort of age with parents who had key years straddling the end of the Warsaw Pact and grandparents who had so many Soviet era decades that they look back on those times with fondness. Not that they would give up recent years to return to those times. It is a curious nostalgia that I can observe but not empathise with.

Optimism. The contact in Mykolaiv / Nikolaev says that there is shelling a couple of times a day and the air alert had been going on for two hours when we chatted around 5pm. Phone, internet and electricity work fine, but there is no water supply where he is. I asked how he keeps going: 'I think it will be over soon and everything will be fine. I think it will happen someday, and the main thing is to survive.'

Pessimism. The relatives south of the river in Kherson Oblast are realising that help is not coming any time soon and that creeping Russification is happening.

It is, isn't it.

@TiddyTidTwo that's a really good article.

When hostage negotiators are working they build genuine empathy with the hostage takers eg in the Lebanon. They keep the end goal in mind but they actually do build empathy and a limitted friendship, generally talking about other things than the hostages. The finding of common ground seems to achieve a lot of good.

Antytila are fabulous. Check out the video for ‘Lego’ which features a certain Mr Zelenskyy and is also a great song.

ljsbear, the Ed Sheeran/Antylila music video is haunting and moving. Thanks for sharing.

Won't post the photos from this as tbh you get the gist without anyway

Trent Telenko AT TrentTelenko
It has been a little while since I've talked about truck tires, but I've been DM-ed a couple of photos what are worth a thread.

This is a Russian Grad launch truck with really old tires.

Let's take a closer look at a clip of the front tire in the photo after I've played with the light & color.

There are cracks in the sidewall consistent with a really old tire along with rubber peeling debris at the bottom in the tire fold.

The photo clip of the rear tire played with the same way is simply too blurry to determine more about the tire other than its marking nearest the hub are artifacts from its vulcanization curing press.👇

Hold that thought!

This second photo is an unblurred close up of one of those two tires, and oh boy, is there a story here for your eyes to tell.

Sun rotting cracks are all over the side wall.

Now look lower middle, right, at the tire manufacturing marks.

"MADE IN USSR" in English script!!

The USSR officially ended on December 25, 1991. We, in 2022, are looking at tire on a Grad launcher in Ukraine that could be 31 years old!

Two things to consider here. The script means this tire was for an outside the USSR market.

At a guess, It was probably made for India.

2nd, there would have been a time lapse between the end of the USSR & the replacement/modification of the vulcanization curing press making Russian Truck tires.

That is, that tire can be much younger than 31 years.

Or it could be older.

It is more likely younger, but it would require a technical marking table to decode the manufacturer mark in the circle above the "MADE IN THE USSR" script.

The sun rot on the tire & marking strongly suggests the Russians are suffering a serious truck tire shortage.

Somebody reached deeply into a storage depot somewhere in the Russian Federation to get those Cold War era tires because there was nothing else.

You don't put something that potentially dangerous on a major weapons system unless you are desperate. Even if you are Russian.

This, BTW, is why technical intelligence units collect all the manufacturing information on captured equipment to build files on where/by whom/when enemy kit is made.

It gives you trends on the enemy economy you can find nowhere else.

Like Russia is short of truck tires.

9/End

Civilian areas of Odesa hit by missiles again.

@TiddyTidTwo · 02/05/2022 18:08
Fascinating article. An insight into a Ukrainian family and the Russian troops that resided with them in their basement:

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/putin-war-propaganda-russian-support/629714/

Thank you very much for that. It certainly is fascinating and also gives a glimpse
that a spark for restoring common humanity might be found under the embers.

Pessimism. The relatives south of the river in Kherson Oblast are realising that help is not coming any time soon and that creeping Russification is happening.

MMBaranova, I feel for your relatives in Kherson. It does seem that way from the way things are reported. I really wish Ukrainian forces can dislodge the Russians from Kherson soon. It must feel so helpless waiting. If it helps at all, I wish you and your relatives strength and am also hoping and praying for a breakthrough.

An image of a little ray.

CIA are encouraging disillusioned Russians to get in touch via the dark web. Only catch is the instructions for doing so are available on their website which, in Russia, is only available on…… the dark web 🧐

She looks just like my DD, this actually brought me to tears!

The Kyiv Independent, [02/05/2022 20:06]
⚡️Ukrainian Defense Intelligence: Russia may soon announce general mobilization.

Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate, said that the Russian Federal Agency for State Reserves began inspecting food stocks required for the country’s military, which Ukraine believes can be a potential signal that Russia is ready to conscript additional personnel.

Budanov doesn’t rule out that the mobilization will be called on May 9.

Mind you given the reports of the Russian military rations you'd have thought 6 months ago was the time to start inspecting, not now.

Lego song

That article is really good

Ive said it before: most ordinary people really only care about the basics - safety, food, house, job, family when it comes to it.

They don’t care for the political games and ideology of leaders.

The Nazis came to power not on the promise of conquering Europe and killing the jews. They won on the promise of bread and work to make Germany's economy strong again.

Its a sentiment thats been echoed by Trump and Johnson amongst others in recent years.....

Much thanks for the Sheeran/Antylila link.

This is right up my street in multi ways...

@RedToothBrush it’s a really well crafted song

Do watch Alwayscheerful's link to the Lego song.

I haven't been following the music scene for ages but that is a catchy and well-produced and slick music video. Fans of Zelensky will appreciate his appearances

Embodies the energy and creativity of Ukraine.

Ukraine claims to have averted a plot where a false flag operation to shoot down a passenger jet would take place

Where though ? Surely no passenger planes are still flying over Ukraine are they ?

@Igotjelly i read about this radioactive tidal wave! I wish they would at least move onto what they’re going to do to another country for a bit so that I can stop thinking about it! Do you think there are people in Russia who are scared/convinced NATO are going to nuke them?! Or do you think they’re all so brainwashed they are happy to just perish for their country?!

Moldovia, Russia itself, Turkey, could be some others

I've watched. Really impressed. I have a thing for modern European music generally. I find it hard to find stuff thats no English language which I like because we just don't have it here but if theres a good artist or song I do find its brilliant.

Sometimes being British and only speaking English can be somewhat suffocating culturally for this reason.

I won't go into why here, but this is particular means a lot to me right now.

⚡️ Security Council secretary: Hungarian authorities knew of Russian full-scale invasion beforehand.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin shared his plans to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with Hungarian authorities.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had traveled to Moscow on Feb. 1, while Hungarian authorities publicly opposed imposing sanctions on Russia.

If this is true, and it needs proving, Hungary should be removed from the European Union.

Absolutely Lj!

Fucking snakes in the grass.

I know we are out but when it comes to the crunch such as this European war the UK is very much part of Europe. It overrides. Whereas Hungary, ugh....

"Moldovia, Russia itself, Turkey, could be some others"

If you look on Flightradar24 passenger jets, imo, fly dangerously close outside Ukraine and across the Black Sea.