Ukraine Invasion: Part 30

[MagicFox]

We're now on our 30th thread, thanks as usual to all who contribute.

Thank you very much Ijsbear.
This is such a great thread- so many knowledgeable people who are patient and generous with their knowledge.

it's an odd one isn't it @N1C

They have changed their narrative, but before this they both seemed to say that Ukrainians were brothers and that they were scum who needed exterminating. And re-educating as to how Russia was. Possibly the latter two at the same time.

Serious doublethink (triplethink?)

there's always a nagging inner voice that Putin on the ropes is when he's at his most dangerous. He's a bitter, twisted little man who obviously has no regard for human life.

I feel the same.

I have been wondering for a long time, and am wondering even more now: all this looting by the Russian army.

What do they do with the stuff they have looted? How do they get it back to Russia? This applies even more now, when they are abandoning their army vehicles and taking to bicycles to escape on: they won't have any way to transport any loot on a bicycle.

Yes, that's frivolous and I know it's irrelevant, but how do they get those fridges back home? Have there been lorries going to Russia with white goods addressed to individual soldier's mothers? Dinner services and double beds and televisions and all the rest of what was there before they arrived and was no longer there after they ran away?

It reminds me of a scene in a book (might be a Conan Doyle? The White Company or Sir Nigel?) in which a mercenary has looted a feather bed and is trying to carry it around with him, with very limited success.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Yes, that's frivolous and I know it's irrelevant, but how do they get those fridges back home? Have there been lorries going to Russia with white goods addressed to individual soldier's mothers?

With the caveat that I'm not sure if the imagery in this tweet from early in the war was ever verified as being genuine or not:

twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1510228162411642882?lang=en

Have there been lorries going to Russia with white goods addressed to individual soldier's mothers?

I believe so, and considerable outrage when the drivers and delivery men actually stole the stuff along the way so it never arrived.

Laptops and jewelry will be the most popular things I imagine.

I believe so, and considerable outrage when the drivers and delivery men actually stole the stuff along the way so it never arrived.

There were reports that a lot of the loot they sent home by post got stolen by the postal workers. Russia is simply corrupt from top to bottom. Corruption has also been a major factor in the fragility of the Russian army.

Goodness, what determination to behave badly. That twitter thread is eye-opening. (Well, until it ends up in rabbit-holes about past conflicts.)

One of the stories that stuck in my head was a very expensive piece of farm machinery - possibly a combine - that found its way right over to the east of Russia. The owners could see where it was because it was gp tracked. Sadly for the new owners it was also gps controlled so it will have been utterly impossible for them to do anything with it.

The one that stuck in my head was the one of the Russian woman sat in her kitchen dismissing all the tales of looting as false western propoganda. Meanwhile a fridge freezer with the Ukrainian energy efficiency shop label still on it stood right behind her.

www.potatogrower.com/2022/05/ukraine-how-farm-vehicles-stolen

Thanks for update. I was hoping for more moderate voices but a coalition at least helps to keep parties in check. Even though somewhat unproductive with stalemates.

@Fladdermus I remember that one. Lying in plain sight must be a Russian national pastime.

Putin is not going to go quietly. So the radio silence from him is worrying. I wonder whether the Russian elite are now plotting and sharpening their knives to paint him as a scapegoat and do the job for us.

Maybe that is why we are starting to hear a change in the tide from the rabid propagandists. I beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist ...

At least her fridge-freezer wasn't second hand. Just stolen from the shop. She probably felt that was morally acceptable.

@notimagain , UAF have recovered wreckage from an Su-34, one of their more modern jets. They've also recovered an EW pod from another crash site recently, so lots of good kit for the technical staff to look at.

Advancing Ukrainian Forces Continue Finding Wrecked Russian Aircraft, the Modern Su-34 Abandoned

There's more coverage of the dust-up between Armenia and Aberajan. Russia has a defense agreement with Armenia but appears unable to help them at the moment. That's going to cause a lot of rethinking among other allies who depend on Russia.

‘There's more coverage of the dust-up between Armenia and Aberajan. Russia has a defense agreement with Armenia but appears unable to help them at the moment. That's going to cause a lot of rethinking among other allies who depend on Russia.’

As long as they don’t decide to make friends with China instead…

Yes, let's hope they don't cosy up to China instead.

That said, Russia provides the guns and goons (security / military support) and China provides the gold (economic support aka Belt & Road).Those are their traditional strengths.

Yeah that one had me grinning too. As does the idea that the Russian ~thieves~ are upset when they get stolen from ...

Putin is not going to go quietly. So the radio silence from him is worrying. I wonder whether the Russian elite are now plotting and sharpening their knives to paint him as a scapegoat and do the job for us.

The rumours I'm picking up are that more and more ordinary councils and officials from regions are saying that Putin should go. The Kremlin's officials try to get them to take it back and take them to court. The courts come down on the regional officials side.

Then there are Orders from Moscow and the courts change their minds and rule in the favour of the Kremlin.

I hadn't heard that...

This is turning into an intelligence goldmine for the west....

I long for this to be over before winter. I keep thinking of 3 university students the BBC interviewed right at the beginning. They were leaving London to fight. They looked so young. But I keep reading that if Putin goes, worse will replace him.

That fridge freezer video wasn't what it looked like. A lot if people from Russia commented afterwards that you could get fridges with Ukrainian labels even before the war, probably because they were bought from Ukrainian distributors. So although it doesn't rule out that it was a loot, there was another quite credible explanation.

Re Russia cosying up to China - it can cosy up all it likes, but if China wasn't in a hurry to help out back in March when situation was pretty ambiguous, it's not going to do it now when Russia is clearly losing. Xi isn't stupid.

Re Russia and China, what do we make of this: twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1569766185721380865?s=46&t=8OuT1JZvbbNIWN9Z0V-v2g

Isn't Xi due to meet Putin very soon? Maybe a little word of warning before he does so. Not sure it's a brilliant idea myself, though.

Yeah he is, Thursday and Friday. I can't see anything coming out of it though.