Ukraine Invasion: Part 50

[MagicFox]

Welcome, with love and thanks to all contributors and lurkers. Unbelievably, we’re on thread 50. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

Centurydoofah, You do know that ever time you type a message, people from this thread donate to charities for Ukraine? I mean, given the cause you so obviously espouse, wouldn't it be netter to stfu?

Objectively, he was a television actor and producer in 2014 and didn't enter politics until 2019.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Biography

Please try harder.

I said this one was funny....

facepalm I don't think the word 'objective' applies to your statement at all. 'Misinformation' at best, most likely 'disinformation'

Here's what actually happened. The Parliament voted Yanukovyich out. This is actual footage.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000002728851/parliament-votes-to-dismiss-yanukovych.html

By the way, if it's any help @Emperorcentury according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, back in February no less than 73% of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting against Russia. Now that was 5 months ago but it's not feasible to assume that the percentage has dropped below 50%.

I do think we should respect the Ukrainian's right to self-governance.

It is after all a democracy, as opposed to an autocracy like Russia, where genuine voting doesn't even exist (https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2022)

Zero for effort!

I think this one is about to get demoted to 4chan.

Due to manpower shortages the calibre of trolls in Yoshkar-Ola has declined.

Anyway in my comfy location I keep up sending the equivalent of what I spend on a weekly shop to relatives in Ukraine (but not now to the three who have been killed in the war so far), mixing it occasionally with funds to a humanitarian organisation, or munitions for the defence of Ukraine and the death of Putin’s forces.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Goes without saying that I am thankful for the new thread 💙💛

@MMBaranova

@MMBaranova and @Mb76 , for you and your families.

It's just awful what Putin is putting Ukraine – and Russia – through.

https://news.sky.com/story/general-election-2024-sunak-starmer-conservatives-labour-reform-davey-lib-dem-12593360?postid=7859014#liveblog-body

Why can’t there be more Tories like Tom Tugendhat? Very much getting the measure of Farage as Putin’s useful idiot (although I fear he’s actually quite smart….)

@WinterMorn

"Alternatively, Putin could withdraw his troops, get back in his box and we would all be a lot happier. How does that sound?"

Genuine question how does this war ever end if Putin doesn't do this. Currently both Ukraine and Russia are too strong to lose but too weak to win.

However Russia does have manpower numbers on their side and there is growing war fatigue in Ukraine:

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz994d6vqe5o.amp

www.spectator.co.uk/article/draft-dodgers-are-undermining-ukraines-plea-for-help/

Lastly as a dictator Putin cannot simply withdraw and get back in his box because if he did so then there would be a coup and he would end up in box

@1dayatatime a coup is the only way the Russian people will be rid of Putin, and it’s going to be down to them to effect the change that is so desperately needed. Given the iron grasp he has on the media, I still believe that even now, he could withdraw his troops and with a few tweaks, spin the entire thing as a success by way of saying the point had been made, Ukraine had been ‘taught a lesson’ or some other grotesque tripe.

I’m still of the opinion that russia, like so many dictatorships, appears far more stable than it actually is and that when it falls it will do so quickly and with little warning.

Tom Tugendhat grew some balls then. Shame he let himself down by joining Sunak.

I have no issues if Putin ends up in a box. At this rate China will own half of Russia, they already have over half a million dead or injured men, North Korea are also humiliating them and they are still not gaining ground in Ukraine.
Russia is a laughing stock that has lost far more than it's gained, and the longer it is held in Ukraine, the more pathetic it looks.
Weapons are now starting to get to Ukraine, and they will soon have air power as well. Russia have tanks from the 1950s.

Drones seeking out drones.

How things have changed.

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1804572147014082636

@MMBaranova that is an interesting video. It is almost as if it is shot from a handheld camera because it moves so steadily and in a controlled fashion. The FPV drone can move, stop, hover, levitate, change direction and enter a building without smashing into walls or objects when doing it. It manoevers without being massively affected by momentum. And of course deliver some ammunition at the end.

Incredible.

@1dayatatime 1dayatatime · Today 21:25
Genuine question how does this war ever end if Putin doesn't do this. Currently both Ukraine and Russia are too strong to lose but too weak to win

I don't know. At this point .... it's impossible to see. You put it in a nutshell, both sides are too strong to lose, too weak to win.

So many guesses, but that's all they are.

Perhaps the West will up its aid and finally the tide will turn Ukraine's way. (God, I hope and pray so). Perhaps Crimea will prove a breaking point.

Perhaps Ukraine really will run out of men, then they have to settle with the situation as it is, or Russia will keep on trying to take more land. It does have the potential for vastly more people :/

Perhaps China will openly up its support for Russia.

Perhaps the West will end up involved after all (seems unlikely unless Russia invades beyond Ukraine, which ... could happen, given they're moving to a war footing economy and heavily indoctrinating the population and youth).

Perhaps NK getting more high tech from Russia will create a severe problem that becomes a bigger worldwide problem.

Perhaps Putin will die - although we might get someone even more hawkish then.

Perhaps eventually he'll weaken too far physically. He's clearly not a well man.

Or Russia could just go home 🤷🏻‍♀️

You sound delightful

Tell me, what business is it of putin who joins NATO.

If Ukraine had been in NATO they wouldn't have had murderous barbarians invading them

Succession, Kremlin-style

https://www.ft.com/content/f34d6b64-f802-43d9-b919-33f6bdd3c59c

Extracts as article is behind a pay wall.

The Kremlin princelings cementing Putin’s rule

The prominence of the Kremlin princelings indicates Putin, 71, is making plans to ensure his regime’s longevity even as he puts the country on a war footing to sustain his invasion of Ukraine, analysts say.

“This is about succession — it’s an attempt to hand over power. The new generation of princes and princesses is becoming more prominent,” said Ilya Shumanov, head of Transparency International’s Russia branch.
...
“There’s an imbalance when you have too many clans who are there not because of their professional qualities, but because they have the president’s blessing to access financial resources,” he added. “People are in jobs they shouldn’t have.”

Among the lucky few to secure promotions in Putin’s new cabinet in May were Dmitry Patrushev, son of Nikolai Patrushev, the longtime former head of Russia’s security council; and Boris Kovalchuk, son of the banking and media billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk, one of Putin’s closest friends.
...
One former high-ranking Russian government official said the ensconcement of the next generations in such plum roles was all about Putin paying back those who had paved his path to power.
...
The nepotistic appointments indicate Russia’s entrenched elite want to secure their position in the longer term, Shumanov said.

“They know Putin doesn’t have an indefinite sell-by date. So the higher they can get, the more chances they have to survive and find a secure place if the system splits,” he added. “That’s why they’re trying to get control of more assets, so they’ll have a stronger bargaining position.”

I tend to agree.

For info for quite some time now a lot of quite basic hobby type drones that can be bought by the public off the shelf have been equipped with tech that helps stop them bumping into objects, and so with a bit of practice and a lot of care they can be flown indoors and around houses in a manner similar to that seen in the video🤐.…Estate agents have been using them for some time to do fly through video tours of property they are trying to sell….

What I personally reckon is really impressive in what we’re seeing now in Ukraine is how they have been weaponised, that they seem to have extended flight duration and are managing to work through at least some jamming…and above all the development of tactics that seems to have the darn things hunting in teams.