Ukraine Invasion: Part 31

[MagicFox]

31st thread, welcome all and thanks as usual.

I'm struck by how clear a pass Putin gets here.

twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1574491958101393411?s=20&t=L7U1srBlSgZLTOAxJ-59Ug

Not that he wouldn't on an official channel, but he's being venerated.

The blame is further down the ladder.

They don't know how rotten their state is.

Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, is very clear on the current situation in Russia and Ukraine (and also Iran).

ISW Key Takeaways

The Kremlin is attempting to message its way out of the reality of major problems in the execution of its “partial mobilization,” but its narratives are unlikely to placate Russians who can perceive the real mistakes all around them.

The Kremlin’s planned annexation of occupied Ukraine may take place before or shortly after October 1, the start of Russia’s normal fall conscription cycle, to enable the forced conscription of Ukrainian civilians to fight against Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces continued to make advances north of Lyman and on the eastern bank of the Oskil River.

Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) as part of the southern counter-offensive interdiction campaign.

Russian forces continued conducting offensive operations around Bakhmut and west of Donetsk City.

Russian forces continued to use Iranian-made drones to strike Ukrainian forces and cities in southern Ukraine.

The Kremlin may be considering formally closing its borders or more formally restricting the movement of fighting-age men within the country to better implement partial mobilization.

Russian occupation authorities began to announce that the results of their sham annexation referenda, citing flagrantly falsified turnout numbers.

+++

(rather pruned again)

⚡️ After Putin's nuclear threats, Japan stops exporting chemical weapons goods to Russia that could be used for chemical weapons production to 21 Russian organizations, including science laboratories

As Ukraine looks West, Russia wins over Africa (kyivindependent.com/world/as-ukraine-looks-west-russia-wins-over-africa)
(kyivindependent.com/world/as-ukraine-looks-west-russia-wins-over-africa)
While the Euro-Atlantic world has been firm in its support of Ukraine, the African continent has been absorbed by Russian propaganda that depicts Kyiv and European countries as the villains.
(it's very odd how migrants tend to want to come to the West tho rather than Russia, if the West is so bad)

⚡️ Kazakhstan won't recognize Russia's pseudo-referendums in Ukraine.

⚡️ Meduza: 11 military enlistment offices, 6 administrative buildings set on fire in Russia since mobilization start.

⚡️ OECD: Russia's war in Ukraine will cause $2.8 trillion in global economic losses.

⚡️US to provide over $450 million for Ukraine's civilian security.

⚡️Mayor: Melitopol residents forced to vote in ‘referendum’ for absent relatives, neighbors.

⚡️ Lithuania delivers 50 M113 infantry vehicles to Ukraine. [where oh where are the German tanks, Scholz?]

Russian collaborator: After 'annexation,' Russia to send Ukrainians from occupied territories to war. (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/russian-collaborator-after-annexation-russia-to-send-ukrainians-from-occupied-territories-to-war)
Russian-installed proxy in the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast Yevhen Balytskyi said on Sept. 26 that local "volunteers" will join the Russian army in its fight against Ukraine following the sham referendum on joining Russia.

⚡️ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Germany proposes ban on EU citizens accepting high-ranking positions in Russian state corporations. [mm, Gerhardt Schroder]

⚡️ Nord Stream 2 leaks into Baltic Sea.
Danish authorities have instructed ships to avoid the Danish island of Bornholm following a gas leak into the Baltic Sea from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Sept. 26.

Hundreds of Russian vehicles, weapon systems seized during Kharkiv counterattack (kyivindependent.com/national/hundreds-of-russian-vehicles-weapon-systems-seized-during-kharkiv-counterattack) ... [these] will make a noticeable difference in the battles ahead, military analysts told the Kyiv Independent.

⚡️Reuters: Kremlin says no decision yet on banning men of conscription age from leaving country.

⚡️Ukraine's military destroys Russian military barge, 3 Pantsir missile systems.
In the Kherson and Beryslav districts, Ukraine's military destroyed four Russian ammunition depots, as well as six tanks, five howitzers, three Pantsir missile systems, and 14 units of armored vehicles, according to the command's report.

⚡️Russia attacks Zaporizhzhia.

🖇 The IAEA has started negotiations on establishing nuclear safety zone at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

⚡️General Staff: Occupied parts of Kherson Oblast closed for entry and exit.

🔎 Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Russia on an unannounced visit
According to the Belarusian media, Lukashenko met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Sochi.

The Kremlin is preparing cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine and allies — Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine

🪖 60,000 men have already been mobilized in Crimea
⛔️ In the temporarily occupied Crimea, there are cases when summons are issued to disabled people and cancer patients

🇩🇪 Germany has agreed on gas supplies from the UAE to dispense with Russian resources
The first batch of liquefied natural gas will arrive in Germany at the end of 2022.

💼 They never left Russia. Most multinational corporations remain in Russia and finance Putin's invasion of Ukraine, despite their statements about the complete cessation of activities.

🛂 The European Commission will update the principles of visa policy regarding Russia, given a large number of Russians trying to avoid mobilization

📌 Russian propagandists were given instructions on how to explain mobilization to Russians. Propaganda should convey to the people that the invasion of Ukraine is a "people's war with NATO."

❗️Russian invaders fired X-59 missile at Kryvyi Rih airport
The infrastructure of the airfield is destroyed, its further use is impossible, writes the head of the Regional Military Administration Reznichenk

💰US banks have begun to prepare for the worst case scenario in Taiwan: $57 billion of investment is at risk.

⚔️ China puts barbed wire on the border with Russia

📉 The Moscow Exchange Index fell below 2,000 points for the first time since the beginning of a full-scale war — Russian media

Losses not yet released

Thank you Ijsbear.
It looks like your duckling is fluffing up!

Beautifully! She's (or he) is currently sitting on my shoulder hiding under my hair. Hauled the muslins out of storage from when the kids were small, ducks ... poo!

Losses released, another huge personnel count. No information on where these losses are taking place. Zelenskyy did say that there were 50 Ukrainian soldiers being killed a day. I do wonder if those figures are massaged, but Ukraine appears to have gone for the strategy of either being honest or not saying anything at all.

Thread on the politics of Dagestan:

twitter.com/IvanUlisesKK/status/1574435284615368704

Basically it's a whole pile of ethnic groups held together with a sticking plaster and protests are unlikely to spread

Reports of a Japanese diplomat being forcefully detained and interrogated for ‘receiving confidential information’ aka being a spy…. Japanese are rightfully furious.

V interesting interview on Ukrainecast this morning about how all the emphasis on ideology misses another point of the war: access to Ukraine's rare minerals that we need to function over the next 30 years. Climate change/shift to renewables is all tied up in this war. I know we've discussed this before on the thread but it's not often expressed in media coverage

Good reminder MagicFox.

It's one of the problems, that Russia itself has some of the world's only deposits of some very rare but necessary resources. Iirc it's China, Africa and Russia has these particular ones.

@Igotjelly I wonder what will happen. The Kurils are in the back of my mind.

Also something fishy afoot with the unprecedented damage to the gas pipelines.

Thank you for sharing this.

It’s actually a huge relief to see people of this calibre, integrity, gravitas and ability communicate in an intelligent and measured way.

Thank goodness we have Biden’s government and not Trumps inept idiots at the helm of world security.

The duckling is just too cute @Ijsbear and hiding under your hair? This makes my heart melt. How lovely.

@Ijsbear · Today 08:21
ISW Key Takeaways

Thank you, Ijsbear. Your duckling is gorgeous.

Nord Stream 2 leaks into Baltic Sea.
Danish authorities have instructed ships to avoid the Danish island of Bornholm following a gas leak into the Baltic Sea from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Sept. 26.

That’s interesting. If it is defunct I wonder how it is leaking, and what the effects on the surrounding area are? Could it blow up?

@MagicFox · Today 09:58
V interesting interview on Ukrainecast this morning about how all the emphasis on ideology misses another point of the war: access to Ukraine's rare minerals that we need to function over the next 30 years. Climate change/shift to renewables is all tied up in this war. I know we've discussed this before on the thread but it's not often expressed in media coverage

You are right, it isn’t often discussed, and it must be an important factor.

I’m sure I read somewhere, I think CNN, that although the pipeline no longer send gas to Europe it’s still filled, hence it can leak.

The second in a series of essays outlining a western strategy for ukraine from CEPA. This makes total sense

cepa.org/article/a-western-strategy-for-ukraine-part-2/

A Russian economist predicts dire consequences for the Russian economy due to the mobilization.

Russia's economy will 'die by winter' because of military mobilization

Between young men fleeing or being conscripted, this makes a good deal of sense.

Swedish seismologists saying they detected explosions near the Nord Stream leaks. On the guardian live feed.

So given Russia's performance in this war do we now have just one super power on the planet?

I was surprised at the scale of equipment dysfunction and tactical ineptitude by the Russians and it seems they are a busted flush in military terms

Are we now in an era of pax Americana where the best weaponry lies with a single state?

It is just different to the era of two conflicting super powers I was brought up with in the eighties.

Another thought.....if and when Ukraine regains it's full sovereignty is there any possibility of Putin surviving that? Would any future leader completely divorce themselves from ideas of territorial expansion?

On the morning of September 27, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that a mobilization point would be deployed at the Verhniy Lars checkpoint on the border with Georgia
Recall that satellite images for September 25 showed a large traffic jam at this checkpoint
[so they are trying to stop escapes now]

🇰🇿 Kazakhstan will extradite citizens wanted by the Russian Federation for evading mobilization if they are declared wanted — Minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan Marat Akhmetzhanov

⚡️ The Ukrainian military liberated Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, which is a large railway junction, from the Russians, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleh Syniehubov, confirmed

⚡️ Reuters: Two more Nord Stream pipelines damaged, gas leaks into Baltic Sea.
Two offshore lines of the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline have sustained "unprecedented" damage and started leaking into the Baltic Sea. The Kremlin does not rule out sabotage as a reason behind damage.(kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/reuters-two-more-nord-stream-pipelines-damaged-gas-leaks-in-baltic-sea), Reuters reported on Sept. 27.

⚡️ Russian media: Kremlin may create new 'Crimean Federal District' after sham referendums in Ukraine.

Reuters:
(kyivindependent.com/news-feed/reuters-droughts-russias-war-in-ukraine-reduce-world-grain-stocks-to-10-year-low)Droughts, Russia’s war in Ukraine reduce
By the end of the 2022/23 crop year, the world will face the biggest grain shortage in eight years due to droughts in key agricultural regions and disruption of grain export from Ukraine, Reuters reported on Sept. 27.

@mids2019

Two. China.

Any country that holds nuclear weopons can be named a superpower by a certain reasoning, but in all other terms it's the US and China now.

Seems like Russia has long ~not~ been a superpower, but the perception of their military as powerful gave them the appearance of it. Ukraine war has taken the illusion away.

Another thought.....if and when Ukraine regains it's full sovereignty is there any possibility of Putin surviving that? Would any future leader completely divorce themselves from ideas of territorial expansion?

Probably not, and .... probably not.

Russia seems to regularly hold territorial expansionist aims. That is more valuable to them than trade links, which are usually what keep nations relatively peaceful.

China have been treating Russia as their friendly military experts. They've been training their tropps for years on how to do things the Russian way. Bet they're regretting that.

NEXTA
@nexta_tv
⚡️The Rashists reported preliminary results of fake "referendums":

"DPR" - "for" - 97,91% (14% of votes)

"LPR"

• "for" - 97,82% (13% of votes)

Zaporizhzhia region - "for" - 98% (20% of votes)

Kherson region - "for" - 97,47%
(12% of votes)

I think you have to include China on the list of military superpowers, if not now, then within the next few years.

Many military professionals were also surprised by the Russian army's lack of cohesion and competence. I think Putin was surprised too.

Re the question of the best weaponry, the Russian gear was never considered great, it was considered adequate and cheap. US military suppliers sell almost everything they make to our allies, and a lot is developed cooperatively with NATO partners. The Abrams tank, for example, uses a German-made gun. The NASAMS surface-to-air missile system was jointly developed by Kongsberg Defence and Raytheon. Everyone benefits when multiple nations share the cost of developing expensive systems, and standardization makes logistics much easier.

It is different than in the 80's. Russia is considerably weaker than the soviet union was and probably more corrupt as well.

And there's a bunch of figures which make it as clear they're fake as any dictator's re-election one does.