Russia-Ukraine War

[chew-ie]

@Observe

My guess is the hard part comes once Ukraine enters Luhansk or Crimea. In fact, I suspect the latter one burns the last wires.

But with the recent Russian annexation, including Kherson and parts of Zaporizhia, both Luhansk/Donetsk and Crimea are now technically on the same level as any other territory taken since Feb 24th.

As of last Friday, Luhansk and Crimea are the only "completely" stolen areas. And Russia is still struggling as to which areas are truly annexable / fully defendable by Russian law.

At least that's my take on the latest informations available in combination with this article @guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... as-annexed

The nuclear option IMHO is just babbling around. If anyone really goes that route, all bets are off.

[Observe]

The nuclear option IMHO is just babbling around. If anyone really goes that route, all bets are off.

I think you are right about that. At least I hope so. Seems there are lots of options short of nuclear. Continued conflict appears to be in Russia's favor; as long as the Russian public can stomach it. If it becomes a lingering war, it is possible that the general public will soon enough forget about it and move on to the next threat.

[Tamina]

Saw an interview in German media with a Russian citizen, his logic was "Ukraine mobilized their troops as well, so we have to mobilize our troops as a reaction". It is mind boggling. To me at least it is becoming increasingly obvious that Russia has been waging an information war within Europe for years now. With the same principles how they keep their own citizens but also by breeding discord.

[fiksal]

Saw an interview in German media with a Russian citizen, his logic was "Ukraine mobilized their troops as well, so we have to mobilize our troops as a reaction". It is mind boggling. To me at least it is becoming increasingly obvious that Russia has been waging an information war within Europe for years now. With the same principles how they keep their own citizens but also by breeding discord.

most of the informational war is directed inwards.

imagine a hard core right wing tv station, the loudest of its kind - that's all of Russian tv in last 8-10 years. And as of this war those are the only legal ones

the enemy is not only outside, the West, but also within,
the liberals, the media, the fifth column, the gay

[mr.WHO]

That really brings me to heated discussion we had here 1-2 years ago about Free Speech, censorship and "letting nazi speak".

I don't want to be "I told you so" person, but I think we are going fine so far, with debunking of russian propaganda talking points and conspiracy theories (remember secret bio-labs?).
No need to bring the censor hammer (except when it's legally required, e.g German law).

In bigger picture, Western societies seems to be more resilient to russian propaganda as well.
The winter (another russia talking point), might be a bit of challenge, but I'm rather optimistic.

The suprise pikachu face on all russian propagandist, when Europe get through the first winter without russian gas - it will be priceless

[burger1]

Looks like Russia killed one of the Metro series game creators.

https://twitter.com/Leonid_Games/status ... 2465680395

Andrii "Nizrok" Korzinkin (@korzinkin_3d) died while performing a combat mission in the struggle for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. A talented animator, incredible person and real hero.

Andrii was known for his work at @4AGames on @MetroVideoGame. There he created a huge number of top-quality animations.

[fiksal]

rest in peace. It's heroic, to go fighting

[mr.WHO]

Damn, Ukraine is steamrolling both in Cherson and Charkiv/Luhans front.

This might be Ukraine plan to force Russia to prematurely throw their recent conscripts, undertrained and underequipped to the front, so their fighting power would be the lowest and they could taste the winter.

This could potentially foil Russia plan to freeze the front for the winter and try to reorganize for Sprint.

[Falcrack]

It won't be long now before any Russian soldier on the right bank of the Dnipro who hasn't fled will be captured or killed. I think the rout has begun.

[mr.WHO]

I'm afraid they might try to turn Cherson into Stalingrad, but then Russia surrender Lyman, which was suppose to be the same.

I heard Ukraine made secret deal with commanders surrounded in Lyman, that they will let them escape, if they leave all the heavy equiplment.

There are mixed reports on what happened in the end - some people claim Ukraine let them escape, other claim they massacred them under retreat as a revenge for Russia doing something like that in 2014 (e.g. Ukrainan commanders back then negotiated the retreat and leaving the equipment, but Russian massacred retreating troops).

[chew-ie]

Meanwhile Russia enters the next level of _____ (fill to your own likings): they are already officially calculating with the crops of the annexed areas.

Deepl translation:
Russia expects a significantly higher grain harvest in the future due to the annexation of four Ukrainian territories in violation of international law. "Considering the acreage there, I think at least five million tons of grain will enter the Russian piggy bank," Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said, according to state news agency Tass. "I also think that we will get other crops."

----

Original (German)
Russland erwartet durch die völkerrechtswidrige Annexion von vier ukrainischen Gebieten künftig eine deutlich höhere Getreideernte. "In Anbetracht der dortigen Anbauflächen denke ich, dass mindestens fünf Millionen Tonnen Getreide in die russische Sparbüchse kommen werden", sagte Landwirtschaftsminister Dmitri Patruschew nach Angaben der staatlichen Nachrichtenagentur Tass. "Ich denke auch, dass wir andere Feldfrüchte bekommen werden."

(@source, German state media: https://www.tagesschau.de/newsticker/li ... g-169.html)

Looks like the officials are really desperate and looking for positive aspects / prognosis. Even if by doing so they give away their mindset RE topics they were accused for a few months ago (stealing crops)

[mr.WHO]

Looks like the officials are really desperate and looking for positive aspects / prognosis. Even if by doing so they give away their mindset RE topics they were accused for a few months ago (stealing crops)

Funny thing is that their projections are probably overshot several times, due to people running away from occupied areas, material loss of farming equipment and skilled labor, forced drafts, metric tons of unexploded ammunition that can blow you up during seeding and harvest.

I know babushka is a good last resort farming personel, but they are not efficient nor scale up to industrial grade

[mr.WHO]

BTW, can media finally debunk that STUPID RUSSIAN NUCLEAR TSUNAMI superweapon crap?

It was tried during Cold War multiple underwater test.
It's impossible to make tsunami with nukes (explosion evaporate water, not push it), unless you deconate it in peculiar geographical and structurally vulnerable spot (e.g. destroying underwater cliff, falling push the water in one direction).

Hipotetically speaking, you would probably had to blow up the coast of Cuba to have a chance for some tsunami in Florida (I'm sure Cubans will be happy to take it for the team).

Same with irradiating the coast with radioactive materials - you can have huge hydrogen fusion warhead, that create relatively little contamination, or you can have small fission warhead that cause small explosion but a lot of contamination (e.g. cobalt bomb - which might, or might not be overhyped as well).

Even something like cobalt bomb easily disperse in something as huge as ocean - it will be a huge local enviomental catastrophe in the place of explosion, but irradiating entire coast of a continent or even mid size country is not possible (you would need hundreds of warheads worth of fission material).

[Tamina]

First time I even hear about that. Maybe just polish news?

[mr.WHO]

First time I even hear about that. Maybe just polish news?

That Tsunami nukes are mainly use for Russian internal propaganda, but they were threatening UK with them like month ago:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpec ... 3dd8eb32b6

[Warenwolf]

First time I even hear about that. Maybe just polish news?

That Tsunami nukes are mainly use for Russian internal propaganda, but they were threatening UK with them like month ago:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpec ... 3dd8eb32b6

Yeah, I mentioned that indirectly on this thread before but as far as people taking it seriously (in apocalyptic sense) ....first time I hear about it.

[Vertigo 7]

Are you really surprised? We just had members of the GOP claim democrats sent Hurricane Ian to destroy Florida via "weather control technology". We have some really special people out there that will believe anything told to them, which is what makes the Kremlin's propaganda so successful. It relies on the stupid and the gullible to spread and when confronted with reality, they'll still deny it, even if it registers, because they would then be forced to admit they were stupid to begin with to believe the bs.

[Chips]

Going back a few pages....

@Chips
I am amazed about your Whataboutism, that you look so far into the past and mention Austria and WW2. Israel, Azerbaijan, Türkiye would be much more obvious in terms of time.

Btw every nation has his neo nazis, not only UKR or RU.

Indeed, neo-nazi's are everywhere. The thing is, only one side brought them up to start with; those explaining away Russia's actions.

So - to address this fairly fully. Russia gave it's reason to invade as NATO. That's it, there was no mention of nazi's or other until post invasion. We've previously posted links where they examined the frequency pre/post invasion and found it wasn't mentioned until a week after the war started and Putin started bringing it up.

Yes, Azov Batallion is broadly speaking "neo nazi". I previously posted a Youtube video which followed reporters examining it's links, and how they ran "summer camps" for kids with militaristic training themes. That was broadly in response to someone saying the UK is training neo nazis.

So any mention of Nazi is because it's being repeatedly levelled at Zelensky and a justification (by some in this thread) for invasion based upon how "Russian citizens" were being persecuted in Eastern Ukraine - therefore mandating the requirement to invade. Further references by posters are questioning that and pointing out that behaviour wise, Putin is exhibiting behaviour more fitting than Zelensky, is precisely that. Zelensky isn't exhibiting nazi tendencies, though obviously there are both supporters and elements of military that do. Posting blurry-as-hell pictures of an image on someone's back does not make him a nazi sympathiser, nor a nazi either. To try and paint a picture as such is laughable in the extreme and precisely the misinformation being peddled by certain segments of certain media propaganda elements. Unsurprisingly, this link to the a Guardian article about one such person... may give some enlightenment to others in this thread

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/ ... propaganda

Anyway, I previously pointed out that Ukraine had shelved the idea of joining NATO in 2010, and even following the flee of Yanukovych after the Maiden protests, it was reiterated that there were plans to remain neutral and not join NATO.
That was until Russia (invaded and) annexed the Crimea, at which point they determined joining NATO should be a priority due to the threat posed by Russia and remaining unaligned.

In other words, Russia caused the very reasoning they used to justify a war. On top of that, you have Putin stating Ukraine should never have existed and shouldn't... so that leaves little doubt as to why Ukraine was correct in determining it should join NATO; self defence.

Talk about nazi's is a post invasion construct to give extra justifications for actions, but were never part of the original "special operation" reasoning. Meanwhile, they're continually referred to in this thread by some who claim that by trying to point out actions taken by groups and individuals, it's "highlighting our hypocrisy."

So highlighting azov battalion does not remain justifications for what is going on whatsoever. Whatabouttery allegation thrown, yet when people engage in going "you castigate Russia, but look, in 2018 60 civilians died in public unrest within Odessa, but you've not accepted this as a reason why Russia must do what it is doing and therefore is hypocrisy to condemn Russia bombing civilians and I'm highlighting this to you because you refuse to see Russia's perspective".

As said, we've heard Russia's original justification, we've heard their ongoing reasoning, and we've been repeatedly told in this thread other justifications/reasoning too.

But the bottom line is... Russia signed up to the Geneva conventions in 1954, and has violated them repeatedly. Whatabouttery with references to civilian unrest/issues in areas of Ukraine, the Azov battalion, doesn't excuse Russia's violating Geneva conventions by blowing up civilians. Nor does saying the USA have done so in Iraq and Afghanistan either. Trying to claim hypocrisy for not accepting the "nazi" line as justification for Russia's military actions against civilians; those aren't miscalculation/accidents, or civil unrest led - they're intentional. The murder of hundreds in a village isn't "accidental deaths".

But honestly, there's zero point explaining this because this thread is 158 pages long and still we have people trying to explain Russia's actions as being just with actual whatabouttery.

I'm afraid in this instance I'll side with the UN (who also has commented upon Ukraine and ethnic Russians in the east and their treatment -- but didn't ask for Russia to invade and kill civilians to protect those people) who voted overwhelmingly to call for Russia to stop and withdraw from the Ukraine.

That's literally that needs to be said. But still we have people trying to explain Russia's right to "defend" itself by attacking, or has to in order to protect civilians, or is right to take back land that is theirs. Or bafflingly, that Zelensky is a nazi and therefore the nation needs invading? I don't get that line I have to admit.

(p.s. Read a few articles on the Grayzone, to be very blunt, if that's the only source someone has for certain information - there's a reason for that).

[Scarecrow]

Following this thread is like watching a dog chase his tail.

[Tamina]

Russian propaganda will keep trying to rewrite history, the second it happened, with the smallest lies to the biggest twisted facts. And as long as this happens, this thread and everywhere else we will go in circles until one side stops.