Ukraine Invasion: Part 23

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, thanks for the company

"We paid attention to the anti-historical statements of the Israeli Foreign Minister @yairlapid,which largely explain the course of the current Israeli Government to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv"

Russia doubling down on their disgusting Lavrov comments.

Olga Tokariuk AT olgatokariuk
I just spoke with a man who was abducted by Russians in Kherson reg and spent weeks in captivity. He was beaten, tasered, ribs broken. His main takeaway about Russians? 'They are cowards. Their main fear is to be sent to frontline: they are scared to death of the Ukrainian army'

Kherson region has been under Russian occupation for more than two months, yet, Russians fail to install an effective control over the region. They kidnap, torture, kill civilians, shoot at protesters. My source believes 90% of Kherson reg residents oppose Russian occupation

.... they'd been waiting weeks to come to the UK, despite having a sponsor to take them in.

I'm still expecting, at some point in the future, the WM Government to claim that it has issued more visas than any other European country

Along the lines of the "proud" claims that they make that they've taken in more refugees than any other country in the world using a scheme that almost noone else uses

Bastards

Olga Tokariuk AT olgatokariuk
Russians have been trying to disconnect the region from internet and mobile communications in the last days. They closed almost all of the evacuation routes from Kherson region. They do not allow food and medicine supplies from Ukraine in,bringing low-quality stuff from Crimea

Many people in Kherson region refuse to take goods brought by Russians. It is a matter of dignity and another form of protest. 'Kherson is not Crimea, Russians cannot count on popular support here', my source said. 'People are waiting for Ukrainian army to come and liberate them'

According to my source, Russians were surprised to see that living standards in Kherson region were higher than back home. They also cannot comprehend a different, bottom-up and based on free elections, system of governance that exists even in small Ukranian villages

On the likely mass mobilization, Budanov asks: how will they explain it to their own people? Why does Russia, with its big army need mobilization, when, according to their official reports, everything goes according to plan? /5

They've framed the whole thing as a conflict with NATO so they'll just carry on. Ukraine as (in their view) the battleground.

The only way the Russians improve is learning by their incompetence, will they be able to develop combative tactics on the fly? Will they be able to do this when they're getting replacement troops that are less experienced and coming over with older equipment?

From everythign that's been said they are not going to be able to improve training much. It's a process that takes some time. So even if tactics improve then there will be only so much they can do with poorly trained soldiers and units that have been recombined?

It's much too early to say that Russia is losing Donbas and the South - much- but if that point does come then I fear for Kherson. How could the Ukrainians retake it? It's hard to believe they could shell their own city. If they do manage to get the Russians out then the retreating army will take everything they can lay their hands on and mine and booby trap a lot.

They didn't just double down about jews. They went against promises made in a chat with Israel following the original incident!!!

Lahav Harkov AT lahavharkov
Welp, looks like Russia wants a fight with Israel. Russian Foreign Ministry says that Israel "supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv" and that Lapid saying "“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust" is "anti-historical."

This comes after Lavrov said that Hitler had Jewish blood and the worst antisemites are Jews. Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and the sides agreed not to discuss the matter in public anymore. That clearly didn't last very long.

Why are the provoking Israel like this?

@Alexandra2002 03/05/2022 09:00

My heart bled the other day on hearing that a family inc a 14yo had suffered terrible injuries after being bombed in Odesa.... they'd been waiting weeks to come to the UK, despite having a sponsor to take them in.

What the Fxxx is wrong with this country? we are deliberately trying to limit the numbers

I did not know that family in Odesa had been waiting for visas. What a horrific consequence of the chaotic bureaucracy, among many others no doubt.

If the U.K. scheme for issuing visas was to refugees and their hosts what a war plan is to war, then U.K. would seem to have very poor commanders.

According to the The Guardian various groups are taking class action.

Priti Patel faces legal action over the visas.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/02/priti-patel-refugees-legal-action-homes-for-ukraine

@prettybird Please don't forget "World beating"

I'd laugh but this is a very serious issue, their deliberate stalling is costing lives.

If its genuine error, then Patel should step down for incompetence.

A substantial part of Kherson region, including the city of Kherson is the Ukrainian side of the river.

The bridges are, at present, still in place - probably to allow a Russian withdrawal or a Ukrainian advance.

It makes it easier for the Ukrainians, at least initially to make advances.

Then there is the bridge in crimea itself - the route most Russian supplies are coming into the south. Thats not gone, again its believed, because once you cut the bridge the cornered Russians have to fight not run.

Watch the Russian bridges. At some point they are liable to go boom.

I have no fucking idea.

I am waiting for them to start picking a fight with Turkey next.

Israel deciding to side with Ukraine would be interesting. But not as interesting as Turkey.

Turkey clearly isn't terribly happy (it eventually closed its airspace to Russia last week i think) but is still benefitting from the war at this point.

When Israel and Turkey stop benefitting, then you have to ask what does happen? .

They are key players in brokering peace atm, but since Russia doesn't look likely to do this, whats the point in that role?

Russia making a formal declaration of war has legal ramifications in theory. I believe that under UN rules all countries are supposed to stop trade with a country who declares war (Hello European states who import Russian fuel). Ukraine does not have the same problem, as its under attack and has the right to defend. It does not have to formally declare war back.

Where this politically might go with Israel and Turkey is interesting because as peace brokers, they will be pissed at a move to formally declare war and expand the war, especially if Russia is actively goading one of them.

What sense is there for Russia to make an enemy of Israel?

Sorry, didn't see the question had just been asked.

Bojan Pancevski AT bopanc
Chancellor ⁦Olaf Scholz⁩ said he’s not going to Kyiv, partly because ⁦Zelensky refused to receive Germany’s president. Ukraine ambassador to Berlin ⁦AT MelnykAndrij⁩ responds: not “very statesmanlike to behave like an offended liver sausage”

The Germans are just annoying me now.

To get the rest of the Middle East on their side?

Israel is hated there. Russia is courting the Middle East with quite a bit of success judging by the number of Middle Easterners who seem to be on their side.

If Russia is seen as anti-Israel now, then a lot of the Middle Easterners will be more on their side.

The West can't piss off Saudi Arabia etc too much because .... Oil. Even more so than before, oil.

Russia's done well with the propaganda war in the Middle East and the Far East and Africa. Emphasising Western imperalism over Iraq, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan and other countries gets them on side, especially since the 2nd Iraq war etc.

I also think that perhaps for Russians, Nazi was less about exterminating Jewish people and more about invasion and annihilating Russia. For us in the West the Nazi regime is indelibly entwined with the Holocaust. But in Russia the Germans invaded and caused incredible suffering all round, with perhaps the Siege of Leningrad as the worst point. Maybe the anti-Nazi bullshit is about invasion and suffering rather rather than the Holocaust.

The difference is that the Ukrainians have thousands of furious supporters in Kherson. They don't need to turn it to rubble - they just need to break the Russian's morale enough to get them to evacuate (or abandon the place). After all, this is an army more interested in looting that returning official equipment. They don't want to fight and they know if they get wounded, they are more likely to die than be rescued. If you were an underpaid, bullied soldier stationed in Kherson for a war you never wanted and the news the Ukrainians are shelling your position? That you are surrounded by sympathisers who are sabotaging your efforts and are just waiting for you to slip up? That your general has been killed and your captain is clueless? You would start looking for a reason to retreat.

Watch the Russian bridges. At some point they are liable to go boom.

There may indeed be tactical/strategic reasons some of the big bridges have been left alone so far.

From a practical POV well engineered bridges are notoriously difficult to "drop" from the air without the use of heavy weight Precision Guided Munitions and they also tend to be very well defended...It's possible that so far at least the Ukrainians have decided the cost element of cost v benefit of attacking those bridges is too high...that of course is subject to change.

Olena Halushka AT olenahalushka
What a woman! For two weeks a 70yo lady from Motyzhyn near Kyiv was adjusting the fire of the Ukrainian artillery. She helped to destroy around 100 pieces of russian heavy arms. Thanks to her invaders couldn't pass her village. Unfortunately, russians killed her. A true hero!

Theres further details of this. A solider gave a briefing about what happened.

The woman had a house at the extreme end of the village. She would go out on foot and count the vehicles and note their location. She would then convey the location to the Ukrainians. She also found the location of a jamming device which was blocking Ukrainian drones. She told the Ukrainians this too and they were able to take it out.

The Russians eventually worked out it was her and razed her house to the ground, killing her in the process. However her actions single handedly managed to help slow the Russians for two weeks.

No wonder the Russians killed the internet in Kherson region.

Btw, i suspect the story about the Ukrainian grandma, whilst it might be true, is more about motivating resistance and trying to demoralise Russians in occupied areas...

The point is precisely that anyone, even your grandma, can help defend Ukraine and will do so.

If Russia does go through with mass mobilization, the butcher's bill is likely to cripple their society for the next generation, in the same way the World Wars, their famine and the 1990 economic bust shrank the numbers. There are no good outcomes left for Putin, now beyond a stalemate.

Phillips P OBrien AT PhillipsPObrien
Todays update on claimed Russians losses by the Ukrainians again points to a levelling off or decreasing of combat intensity. 18 more Russian tanks destroyed and 26 APC. Otoh a relatively high number of artillery systems (much higher than daily average) at 15.

So seems to support the idea that the Russians are being very cautious in trying to move forward (exhausted, worn out) and the Ukrainians are engaged more with ranged weaponry.

And yes, this is not to say that the Ukrainian figures are somehow reliably accurate. What I’m interested in are the trends in equipment claims and the relative balance between what is being claimed to be being destroyed

Andrew Lilico AT Andrew_Lilico
How would you rule out the counter-hypothesis that the Ukrainians' ability to inflict losses has dropped - eg because they've been out-manoeuvred or cos they've suffered critical losses themselves?

Phillips P OBrien AT PhillipsPObrien
Could be true, though the Russians are not advancing much if at all; so their level to move has dropped as much if not more. And Ukrainians are claiming increasing amounts of artillery, which is showing improvement in this area

Andrew Lilico AT Andrew_Lilico
I wasn't pushing the hypothesis. I was just curious how you would think about testing/probing it in our environment of limited access to data.

The UK visa system is utterly appalling. Priti Patel better face consequences.

William Hague is calling for Finland and Sweden to get full NATO protection throughout the application process. Now that's a nice thought.