Ukraine Invasion: Part 38

[MagicFox]

🇺🇦 38th thread for information sharing, solidarity and community 🇺🇦

It sounds to me that they are aware that whe Ukraine starts it's offensive, the Russian troops will be pushed back and they are trying hard to scare the world before that happens.

In my opinion Russia is a busted flush, all bluster with nothing to back it up. Putin knows that. It's just more noise.

To end the war in Ukraine, the Russian Federation demands to stop the supply of Western weapons, to recognize the temporarily occupied territories as Russian, and to confirm the non-aligned status of Ukraine, — the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Moscow also demands the lifting of sanctions, the withdrawal of lawsuits against the Russian Federation, and the restoration of the status of the Russian language.

To end the war in Ukraine, I demand of the Russian Federation:

1. A return of all Iranian and Chinese military equipment in Russian hands back to the country of origin.
2. The immediate cessation of the recruitment of foreign fighters and mercenaries to fight in Ukraine.
3. An end to Russian interference in foreign elections and cyber attacks on foreign institutions.
4. The immediate cessation of the destabilisation of Moldova.
5. The return of Transnistria to the state of Moldova.
6. Damages paid to the City of Salisbury and the town of Amesbury, together with Sergei and Yulia Skripal, DS Bailey and the family of Dawn Sturgess. Plus an apology for the use of chemical weapons by Russian agents on British soil.
7. The return of all abducted persons, including 65,000 Ukranian children.
8. Open and transparent participation in War Crimes trials including turning over all evidence to the ICC.
9. The payment of significant damages for the restitution of Ukraine's infrastructure and public services and specifically to pay pensions to families all those widowed.
10. Free and fair elections in Russia because of the souls of 144,000,000 people, not 1,000 elite Russians. By the way, your yachts and apartments in Western places will be forfeited.
11. A recognition that the 10 points above are just the basic start and there are 44,000,000 other reasons, being the Ukrainian population, with all their own stories and demands to add to the bottom of this memo.......

And in return, I will undertake to:

1. Be more vocal than I have been in the past of the part Russia played in defeating Nazi Germany.
2. Support peace and reconciliation between Russian people and Europe. Russians are Europeans and definitely not the other way around.
3. To work on 2 above with urgency before Russia gets swallowed up as a vassal state of China, in which case Russian culture will be lost forever.

Should the Russian Federation be unwilling to accept these demands:

1. Russian Federation, Go Fuck Yourself.

💙💛

@Zuffe hear hear.

@Zuffe 🥂

American tanks may make it to Ukraine much sooner than originally projected.

Biden speeds up sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine by using refurbished models

SECARMY has been tasked with expediting the process. If anyone can do it, she can.

Why are not Russian people realising they will become integrated into a Chinese empire within 20 years? Right up to the Polish and Romanian border.

Belt and Road sucking people out of Africa to serve Chinese interests in the richest territory on earth when it comes to natural resources.

There are three countries which will become pivotal in this century: Turkey, Brazil and Canada.

I think the hatred of the west is so strong that that is the preference they're driving towards

I think the singling out of the UK is because we have been quite hawkish in supporting Ukraine but are quite politically isolated since Brexit and I think Putin is hoping to tap into the anti EU sentiment here, make us fearful and persuade a Gov getting pasted in the polls to take a step back and hope for an isolationist populist boost.

The EU is quite cumbersome and can be slow to react but for that very reason it's far harder for Russia to influence its direction.

It's not like the Challengers are going to be a game changer in the numbers we're sending but it did help give others a little push towards sending Leopards which is the real threat.

The 'nuclear componant' of DU shells is clearly bollox and just the sort of misinformation that Russia is well documented for using while trying to influence public opinion in the West.

We've made ourselves a bit isolated from our neighbours so empty threats might be felt more deeply but as for any real threat our position in NATO is what really matters and that's as strong as ever.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar ”waving the nuclear willy” - absolutely classic

@Zuffe fabulous post.

@Surplus2requirements I agree - when it comes to the crunch, we are in NATO and that’s the reality that Putin has to deal with.

God, I am sick to death of seeing his suet pastry face. It’s like an undercooked pie.

@Greenshake Lolling at your last comment, undercooked pie

Thanks everyone, for the usual fantastic analysis.

@katem98 pleased to have made you smile 😊

Another interesting analysis of Xi's visit, this time emphasising China's relationship with Western Europe: t.co/uEfgQDHx3H

Could you elaborate a bit more on those three, @Zuffe? Turkey and Brazil both make sense, but I am curious about Canada.

Great post @Zuffe

Why are not Russian people realising they will become integrated into a Chinese empire within 20 years?

I don't think it will be obvious - and it's been solidly proven that if you tell the Russian population anything, they will believe it. All you have to do is keep banging the drum that Russia is independent and great and the population will believe it, because much like in China the governmental media control is extremely tight.

The real owners of Russia won't need to be obvious about it. (Which also does beg the question of whom the real owners of power in the West are, but there is a much stronger investigative press here)

Does anyone remember those adorable little Switchblade 300 drones the US started supplying to Ukraine last summer? They are hard at work on the front. I'm not surprised. US troops in Afghanistan couldn't get enough of them

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1637949850770718722

Great post @Zuffe!

Excellent post @Zuffe

Turn a globe so you are looking down at the North pole. When the sea ice has gone, this region will become very important and Russia / Canada have the greatest borders. China is to Russia what the US is to Canada, geographically.

I thought this but apparently there’s not much actual land at the North Pole? Is it the seas they’ll be fighting over?

There's oil there I think

I think a variety of things. Minerals for sure, but rare earth metals also. Plus transport routes. If I were China, playing a long game, it is also where I would create a presence to keep the US and Europe 'in check'. Who knows. A bit of gazing into the future, but I still think this region will become particularly important.

I don't see some countries treating climate change with the urgency it needs. There seems to be a psychology of accepting climate change may happen and that because it will reverse human fortunes, bagging as much growth as possible is logical to offset some of that inevitable reversal. There is no easy solution and it is getting harder with two worlds, not one.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-21-2023

Key Takeaways

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be setting conditions to weaponize the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a method of Russian power projection in advance of Russia’s accession to the rotating UNSC presidency in April.

The readouts of the second day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to suggest that Putin has not been able to secure the no-limits bilateral partnership with China that he likely hoped for.

Putin falsely portrayed the Western provision of depleted uranium ammunition (not suitable for use in nuclear or radiological weapons) to Ukraine as a significant escalation in order to bolster information operations aiming to deter Western security assistance to Ukraine and to place the onus for negotiations on the West.

Wagner Group may lose most of its convict force in the upcoming weeks as convicts finish their six-month military contracts.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) launched a criminal investigation into the Deputy Commander of the Rosgvardia’s Central District, Major General Vadim Dragomiretsky.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced that it authorized a presidential drawdown to provide around $350 million of security assistance to Ukraine.

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.

Russian forces did not make any confirmed gains in or around Bakhmut and continued offensive operations along the outskirts of Donetsk City.
The Kremlin continues crypto mobilization campaigns to recruit men across Russia for contract service to avoid declaring a second mobilization wave.
Russian occupation officials continue to facilitate the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.