Ukraine Invasion: Part 43

[MagicFox]

With thanks as usual to everyone!

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Interesting first posts, @soanywayyeah. Join mumsnet just for this thread did you?

You really havent done any research have you?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exposes-sick-russian-troll-factory-plaguing-social-media-with-kremlin-propaganda

Interesting writing style. Says a lot.

By the way, the US and West have given huge amounts of money to demining, and huge amounts of equipment.

Were you planning on going yourself with your own ... Polish .... hands?

https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/uk-landmine-charity-awarded-8-million-ukraine-operations

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/ukraine-eu-supports-de-mining-liberated-areas-additional-%E2%82%AC25-million-programme_en

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiauqjmm4CAAxWOlP0HHSp_ATwQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fuploads%2Fsystem%2Fuploads%2Fattachment_data%2Ffile%2F959775%2FUK_programme_assistance_to_Ukraine_in_2020-2021.odt&usg=AOvVaw3mp2VUdHuYd2Q6mCMA_2SC&opi=89978449

The echo chamber of this place is pretty funny. I can only imagine what we move on to after the cluster bombs don't turn the tide. Perhaps more F-16s? How about ATACMS? Nukes?

You aren't even making any sense at all now. Or you've been living under a stone.

I thought you were genuine at first actually. But yup, genuine as a plastic diamond as it turns out.

Donated to Ukraine's fund.
I think they are doing bloody well, given the lack of air support and Russian defences. Combined arm manoeuvres look like tank ballet under fire and I don't envy them at all.

Well would you mind awfully popping over to Moscow and telling that nice Mr Putin that his weapons are awful?

The whole "both sides" stuff reminds me of Jeremy Corbyn. His organisation "Stop the War" was rather quiet during the 2014 invasion as I recall.

@soanywayyeah you really are going to have to do better.

It's a very frustrating job he has.

It's a pity the thread has started off derailed by these two, hopefully it'll calm down now

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar

Please note @MagicFox original purpose of this thread:

"3. Discussion and debate is welcome, but please keep it respectful"

Please stop the bullying of those who share different opinions to your own.

@1dayatatime unless you have been living under a rock, they cannot be 'opinions' if they are not genuinely held.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar

By the way, the US and West have given huge amounts of money to demining, and huge amounts of equipment.

Yep...and not just traditional mines - due to the "dud" rate (especially of the older Russian artillery shells) large parts of Ukraine started getting littered with Unexploded Ordnance in February of last year..

It would be highly disingenuous to suggest, as some appear to be, that "the west"/Biden/NATO are generating a new problem for civilians, it would be more accurate to say that Cluster Munitions have the potential to add to an existing one, but the Ukrainians have the final say and they may well feel that is a price worth paying to get their country back.

I take the points made a few posts ago about it being impossible to have the equivalent of 'shock and awe' in Ukraine but is there an argument for a greater supply of accurate long range missiles to reduce Russian capability to the point where morale is very low and there simply isn't the ability to wage a long war. Footage of the destruction of ammo dumps and logistics is heartening but do you think there should have been a longer more sustained period of "softening up' prior to major land advances.

I don't think there is an easy answer to this as Eastern Ukraine is probably littered by mine fields now so adavances will be slowed. One concern I have is that Russia seems to have toned down nuclear rhetoric as if Russia may be actually sanguine about the current battle state?

do you think there should have been a longer more sustained period of "softening up' prior to major land advances.

IMHO in ideal world, yes, but there are all sorts of factors here that we don't know, for example what ordnance was available and how much, what intelligence was available (for targeting)......whole load of other stuff we simply don't know...

We even actually don't really know yet if the Ukrainians have actually attempted any major land advances..... (definition of major which required)..

I saw this tweet from Ukrainian sources last night and thought it was relevant to at least some of the debates that are going on:

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1677687481829818369

@notimagain

thanks for the post. I guess a lot is clouded in secrecy.

maybe naively I thought that given the huge technological gap between western and Russian equipment there was scope for a faster breakthrough? My concern would be that a slow grinding attentional war is harder to sustain politically in the West and war support fatigue may set in. At what point does the West pivot from war to peace making efforts?

the issue I had with cluster bombs was the fact it shows that this war is not going to be dynamic in future and therefore we need the political will across a broad range of countries to support this effort. The US elections must be a bit of a concern to the Ukranians as obviously the US is underpinning the military equipment support and there must be all sorts of timetables being discussed in secret about the likely consequences of the war.

@mids2019 yes I’m with you there. Very concerned going forward 😥

On the back of this thread last night I looked up Azov and found this https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/azov-battalion#highlight_text_33833

It says that they are/were a far right group. Could someone who understands this well shed any light?

@mids2019

I think we all need to be very wary about trying to judge success or not by the rate of advance, and we certainly need to be very very wary of those who are starting to pop up claiming slowness equals failure.

There's no doubt many in the west have had unrealistic expectations based on TV coverage of the likes of GW1 and GW2 ... basically many now seem to think that all major campaigns have and must start with "shock and awe" from the air, i.e. knock seven bells out of the opposition's command /control etc and then after that it's simply a fast race by ground forces across the desert/up the highway to border or city of choice.....couple with that with Twitter supposedly reporting real time and it's led to some seeming to think the Ukrainians not claiming a village a day is a calamity..

In reality it's worth looking at other battles from history, such as the Normandy Campaign, where even despite having air supremacy the allied breakout took several months (ah, just opened the door on the old Patton vs. Montgomery argument). Give it time and somebody will no doubt come up with other examples that might be more relevant to more modern warfare (Iran v Iraq?)

One real concern for me now, especially after what I've seen here over the last few days, is there is a threat from the useful idiots, with motives various. They are obviously doing the rounds happily "explaining" that the apparent slow rate of advance means shortage of ammo/lack of competence/lack of will/lack of support from NATO and the west....it means nothing of the sort.

@LeonardCohensRaincoat this was discussed back in the early threads, I suggest you have a read rather than us going over old ground but, if my recollection is right- they did start as an independent far right military group fighting against Russia (so in my opinion possibly not far right at all knowing know how Russia operates, but I digress) when Russia invaded Crimea, but had been incorporated into the regular army before 2022 and was no longer considered far right. Russia has been continuing to use this battalion to demonise the whole Ukrainian army and justify the way they wage war which is to bomb, rape,starve and drown innocent civilians.

I thought people had got beyond this shit a year ago, but maybe not. This is a clear sign of desperation to be clinging to.

TLDR: Started off bad, got cleaned up, now mostly consists people fighting Russia. Not squeaky clean by any means, but not awful and mostly focussed on freeing Ukraine.

They started off far right with neo-nazi leanings and very nationalist. There was one particular individual was was specially awful iirc. He was removed at some point.

They had around 500 people until 2014 when Russia invaded. Then they were taken over by Ukraine, several key unpleasant people left and they were apparently 'depoliticised'.

The general view now seems to be that they started off far-right and now traces of that remain with some individuals. (Of course, Russia claims they're all signed-up members of the Nazi party but frankly there are more Nazis in Russia than Ukraine). To quote from wiki:

Many recruits joining the regiment are well aware of its past, and join up for various reasons, including Azov's positive reputation for training new recruits. While extremist elements remain, it is less driven by ideology than it was at its formation, and the chief motivation now is patriotism, and anger at Russian provocations and the attack on Ukraine.

also: The rest of the right-wing radicals who openly articulated their views were deliberately "cleansed" by the new regiment command in 2017" and that several Jewish members (including one Israeli citizen) are currently serving in the regiment.

However, rumours remain. Esssentially it seems that most (reputable) specialists in the far right movements think that they've cleaned up their act, but a few don't.

I suspect they are very, very tough and have some all-round unpleasant people in, but they're not neo-Nazi any more; they're anti-Russian army.