Ukraine Invasion: Part 47

[MagicFox]

Welcome to thread 47. Thanks as usual to all for the information, guidance and solidarity.

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A. The agreed purpose of the thread is for the sharing of information and commentary on current events

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I don't think the Americans 'allowed' Russia to invade. They didn't have the power to stop it.

But I do think that after the first months, the US and NATO could have given more, much sooner. For example, the many months' delay before giving the Leopards, the many months delay before ok'ing the F-16s - had they been sent sooner, or training begun immediately, then Ukraine would be in an infinitely stronger position now. The long delays allowed Russia to dig in.

Had Russia been defeated swiftly, the strong alliances with N Korea and Iran would have been much slower to develop and the move away from the US being pre-eminent would have been much delayed, too.

Live: Ukraine Telegram Highlights

The ratio of forces in the Avdiivka area is one to seven, and the situation in the area itself is critical, speaker of the 3rd assault brigade Oleksandr Borodin said.
"We have some units operating at 360 degrees and one of the elements is that the enemy can hit almost completely 360 degrees in some areas. It doesn't say we're completely surrounded in those areas, but it does mean that we can be hit."

🇺🇦🇩🇪 Zelensky has arrived in Germany
The President will speak on the main stage of the Munich Security Conference and hold a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines. He will also meet with the German Chancellor. They are expected to sign a security agreement for Ukraine.

Navalny allegedly felt sick after a walk and fainted. Resuscitation did not help.

🇳🇴 Norway will start https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge-skal-trene-ukrainske-marinesoldater-1.16764118 a training course for Ukrainian marines on small boat operations in the spring and will also provide Ukraine with such boats and equipment - NRK.
These exercises are Norway's contribution to the Maritime Coalition, which it leads among the countries of the Ramstein format together with the UK.

According to Defence Express, a ballistic missile produced by North Korea has reportedly crashed in the Kyiv region of Ukraine
The explosion caused all trees within a 40-meter radius to burn down. [40m!]

Routes of Russian missiles during this morning's massive attack on Ukraine

Yes, completely agree, Ducks, that the US, EU and NATO should have done more, sooner.

The havering by France and Germany hasn't been good.

No, though Germany is really helping massively now - apart from the Taurus. Not sure what/how much France is doing.

Navalny's wife Yulia just took to the stage (unplanned) to speak at the Munich security conference: twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1YqxoDZyYBQKv

About 40mins into the broadcast

Our favourite, Mark Galeotti, on Navalny and his murder: x.com/markgaleotti/status/1758508899815059522?s=46&t=ZRiOqYBPJdwGCarjKNzCeQ

Biden campaign produces anti-trump advertisement based on his nato comments: x.com/djrothkopf/status/1758509402514989148?s=46&t=ZRiOqYBPJdwGCarjKNzCeQ

About time they hit back harder on his nonsense!

I really do love him but he does give me vibes of living in his parents' basement 😂

Brave, brave man.

Many will judge Alexey Navalny on his political leadership, but he wasn’t a leader in the sense of truly offering a platform for government. He was a campaigner against the venality of the Russian state and its associated entities and players. I encountered him initially through his LiveJournal posts and exposes (avatar graphic attached). His star then waxed further and then waned as he continued his quests while allying (or not) with others in the marginalised Russian opposition. The slain Boris Nemtsov (with Navalny in other image) for instance was a true politician.

His work was thorough and revealing. It used digital techniques well, both in discovering what was attempted to be hidden and in circulating those discoveries. He tapped into the ideas of the young digital enthusiasts. I never noticed much traction with a truly wide constituency.

He had his flaws, as all of us do, not least a vanity that made it hard for anyone else to be a lasting ally as any sort of equal plus a lack of a coherent programme for what he wanted rather than what he didn’t. His default, at times, to embarrassing Russian Nationalist positions was certainly a weakness.

This last point was clear in his mixed utterances over Ukraine. However, I note his horror as the Bucha atrocities were revealed that some there had been targeted by Russian troops because they shared his family name in the place his father’s family traced to.

So another voice standing up to Putinism and cronyism is extinguished. There isn’t any real hope for a Russia that is a fair participant in world affairs with an internal system that enables justice and progress anyway. As the sun goes down today there will be a little less.

Yes, that's where Putin's taken us @Igotjelly! Don't be ashamed of the crush 😂

Yes @MMBaranova. Have you seen the flowers and monuments laid in Russia? The impact you describe has clearly been recognised and the police clamping down on things that have been laid only underscores that.

I see the bots on Twitter have been given their instructions today.

One "sex coach/pick up artist" who died in Ukraine last month is being cited under most posts about Navalny.

Get your purses ready for any that appear on here

Yulia Navalny's speech with subtitles: x.com/acf_int/status/1758509330402267522?s=46&t=ZRiOqYBPJdwGCarjKNzCeQ

Btw, Russia is saying that Washington and Brussels are to blame for Navalny's death so 🙄

Flowers for Navalny 💐

Navalny😭

Watching the news this evening and they’re running interviews with Russian people coming to lay flowers for Navalny. They may be small in number but what incredibly brave individuals, many of them so young, to speak out against their Govt when they know the potential consequences. It’s easy for me or others to say they should do more, but what is more? What can they do? I spend so long hating the Russians and it brings me real hope to see that there is still good amongst the bad. There is a flicker of light left. It’s really reminded me that these people aren’t my enemy, I can’t remember where I heard them referred to as Putin’s hostages but it’s so true.

Putin, the ugly evil vindictive little man, and all of his enablers and henchmen (looking at you too Trump!) are my enemies. We are in dark times but I genuinely believe better times will come, for Ukraine, for Russia and for the World 🇺🇦

The murder of Navalny should not be taken lightly, he was the only real opposition leader in Russia and his death marks another milestone in the race to the bottom for Russia. It clearly shows that Putin has no brakes, nothing will stop him. Putin poses an existential threat to the world and no cost should be spared at eliminating that threat. I rally hope the circus in the Washington comes to the end and some real strategical plans are drawn.

Aye Igotjelly it is darkest before the dawn. At some point, the pendulum must swing again. My prayers for Ukraine and humanity.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-15-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces are conducting a tactical turning movement through Avdiika likely to create conditions that would force Ukrainian troops to withdraw from their positions in the settlement. Ukrainian forces have yet to fully withdraw from the settlement and continue to prevent Russian forces from making gains that are more significant than the current incremental Russian advances.
• The Russian offensive effort to capture Avdiivka underscores the Russian military’s inability to conduct a successful operational envelopment or encirclement in Ukraine.
• The potential Russian capture of Avdiivka would not be operationally significant and would likely only offer the Kremlin immediate informational and political victories.
• The Russian command reportedly reorganized the command structures of the Russian grouping of forces in southern Ukraine.
• Russian forces conducted a relatively larger series of missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of February 14 to 15.
• Ukrainian security forces reportedly conducted a successful drone strike against an oil depot in Kursk Oblast.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to elaborate on an amorphous ideology for Russia to support geopolitical confrontation with the West by attempting to portray Russia as the leader of an international anti-Nazi movement.
• Putin intentionally misrepresented a statement from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an attempt to promote pseudo-history aimed at denying Ukrainian statehood.
• Russian sources claimed that the Russian military officially removed Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) Commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov and replaced him with the BSF’s Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk.
• Select members of the US-led coalition the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein format) formally launched an air defense coalition and agreed to form a drone coalition and demining coalition to support Ukraine following the group’s 19th meeting in Brussels on February 14.
• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO and Ukraine will create a joint analysis, training, and education center in Poland following the meetings of NATO Defense Ministers in Brussels on February 15.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Uralvagonzavod plant in Sverdlovsk Oblast, one of Russia’s largest tank producers, on February 15 to promote Russian efforts to expand Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB).
• Head of Ukraine’s nuclear operating enterprise Energoatom Petro Kotin stated that the situation at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is becoming more dangerous due to Russian activity near and at the plant.

Russian Presidential Election Runners.

One month to go. Who is your money on? Yawn. However, it is of some interest to see how things go, how much ballot box stuffing is spotted by webcams and so on.

First. Vladimir Putin. Enough said elsewhere for now.

Second. Nikolai Kharitonov. Communist. Agrarian Leninist who likes the idea of Dzerzhinsky statues. No office or town square should be without one. Backs the war. Came second to Putin 20 years ago. Image attached.

Third. Leonid Slutsky. Just your normal take the money LD far righter who again backs the war. Subject of sex scandal accusations. Defended himself by comparing his plight to that of Harvey Weinstein.

So those are the three mainstream candidates including the two tolerated oppositionists. The CP are for real and would like a return to the good old Red old days and the LDs are a scary joke. No A Just Russia candidate from the party that is ahead of the LDs in the Duma and usually feature Mironov. They are supporting Putin for President. They used to be a spoiler soak off for the semi-critical types but can't be bothered this time. Or have been told not to run.

Not standing: Boris Nadezhdin who had his candidature disallowed. Against the War. Might have got say 2-5% of the official vote tally. In reality? Not much more than 5%.

Is there a semi-sane option? Well... that brings me to candidate number 4, who might end up around 5% or so at a guess. Step forward Vladislav Davankov of New People (blue tie, white shirt in image). Curious this. As Poroshenko was to being a Chocolate Oligarch in Ukraine, Russia has Alexey Nechayev, the Cosmetics Oligarch and President of Faberlec. Nechayev founded New People and it got just over 5% in the 2021 Duma election to qualify for list seats. Sensibly for his life expectancy he stays in the background a bit and has put Davankov forward as the candidate for his 'liberal' party. Davankov is his junior business partner in Faberlec, which is a direct sales outfit touting the wonders of patented miracle ingredient Aquaftem in its cosmetics which (at this point you think I am making it all up don't you?) is an 'O2 oxygen complex [which] delivers oxygen directly to the skin... Arginine improves microcirculation and oxygen delivery processes...' and so on.

New People rather daringly didn't vote for incorporating occupied Luhansk and Donetsk into the Russian Federation. They also seem to be anti-Covid vax. Davankov's approach to new politics is to sell a vision of the future (possibly without blemishes and with glowing pale skin) as he thinks criticising your opponents is antiquated.

He also supported Boris Nadezhdin's candidature, as well as his own.

Аквафтэм - основной ингредиент косметики Фаберлик | Кислородная косметика Faberlic (fl34.ru)

Don’t Give Up on a Better Russia
An Opposition Activist in Moscow on How His Country Can Change (Aleksei Miniailo)

www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/dont-give-better-russia

Good report. Again reinforces my view that west done everything in its power to reinforce Putins Russia. They punished ordinary Russians, made it impossible to travel and use global services. Banned all the sportsmen, oligarchs and intellectuals. And filled the countries coffers with hundreds of billions to fund the war machine. And what do you have in the end; country with a booming war economy and the public strongly supporting their leader.