International Russia/Ukraine Megathread V15

[PEB]

A little throwback from nearly 2 years ago.

 

[Rod1]

Finns can dust Ruskies like nobody’s business. Good pickup for the good guys!!

The big issue here is that Russia whole war planning against NATO involved closing the Suwalki gap and having the Baltics get fucked.

Now that Sweden and Finland will join NATO what was previously a chokepoint for Russia and "fortress Kaliningrad" is now completely irrelevant, if Russia invades the Baltics Finland and Sweden will have to come to the defense which they can attack Russia from behind, the Baltic fleet is basically trapped in NATO waters. This without even mentioning how drained Russian military is.

The big winners are the Baltics here but in the end Russia is in a much more dire and weak military position.

If the war was over "NATO aggression" they sure as fuck will be in a worse position, even if they managed to destroy half of Ukraine.

 

[SandisLL]

The worst thing for Ukraine is Mike Johnson...
His actions are more effective to defeat Ujtaine than rudsias military.

Mike Johnson wants Trump to be elected as POTUS.
# large part of Trump's campaign is to promise secure border.
## Therefore for Trump is good if before elections border financing bill isn't approved in Congress....
__
Also ofc bad situation in Ukraine too will help Trump to blame Biden and therefore for Trump is good if Congress will not approwe Ukr bill.
__
Johnson is making Congress into stalemate and delaying also other bills ....
Only supposed bill for Israel he wants to continue to push as separate bill ASAP and next week will attempt again....next voting attempt or something like this. At least he told that Israel needs to get bill approwed ASAP.

 

[SandisLL]

A bit for Ukraine also helped Putin's stupidity with barking on Baltic countries. In general in these real (!) support for Ukr wasn't high before war.. ... and even after war had started easy to see flowchart: when huilo calms down his hybrid war and psy ops & desinformation campaigns against them, then in this month lesser aid for Ukr is approwed. When Hitler escalates his shitting, then more € fot ukr is approwed in next month.....

 

[SandisLL]

BTW mod about U.S and Ukraine in EU isn't good at all. Campaigns in U.S that europe is sitting on their necks etc by using blantant 24/7/365 flows with lies and accusations despite reality .....
Ukraine didn't had did any homework 32 years in row....
Damn huge books about their mistakes will be written and sadly .....about reality.
Demanding attitude when talk with officials and dreams to get big € for reconstruction too doesn't helps, pretty opposite...
Ukraine also didn't had switched to real wartime economy...and looks that they are living in dreams.

U.K in 1 month switched to wartime economy order in WW2...
Ukraine after 23 months of war just is thinking about ....is this worth to do or no. Like a lot of impactful ppl in Ukraine are living in TV serial not in real life...

 

[PEB]

Adam Kinzinger (@adam_kinzinger) on Threads

Emergency post: here is the one way to guarantee #Ukraine aid is put on the floor of the house for a vote, only need 3 or 4 people to do this. Historic moment requiring historic courage

www.threads.net

 

[Strychnine]

 

[SandisLL]

Well, IMHO it is wrong step.
A. Where to attack and where it is allowed to retreat is defined by Mr Zelensky. This reality and it is rumoured that real de facto president in Ukraine is Yermak....
B. Supposed in comments bad reputation of Syrsky most likely is cos he had been assigned for hardest tasks and with insufficient supplies....

C. There are 50% chances that Syrsky will just follow Zelensky orders ....
50% chances that he will tell in open text a lot of stuff and ...Zelensky & Yermak then might get deNazified...

 

[SandisLL]

In Avdiivka area russia does have such advantage proportions vs Ukraine ...
Artillery shells fired : approx 5 vs 1.
Drones: approx 5 vs 1.
Mortars fire: at least 8 vs 1.
Manpower approx 4,5 - 5 vs 1.

___

 

[GhostZ06]

 

[GhostZ06]

 

[Cole train]

I’ve picked up the same impression, but do you have any decent sources for these views?

Been in syrskyi rabbit hole since i got no life and actually found some sources, politico plus dutch newspaper actually mention his nickname is butcher for getting lot of guys killed in bahmut (have to run dutch one through translation if interested)

Zaluzhny is out, the ‘butcher’ is in

The question now is what Oleksandr Syrskyi, 58, brings to the war.

www.politico.com

Ontslag Oekraïense topgeneraal die kritische stukken schreef hangt in de lucht

Generaal Zaloeznjy en president Zelensky zouden het niet eens kunnen worden over het vervolg van de oorlog. Maar in het leger denken ze dat er meer speelt.

nos.nl

 

[LeonardoBjj]

It was announced that defense contractor starting building drones in Ukraine.

Turkish defence company Baykar has started building a factory near Kyiv that will employ around 500 people and where it will manufacture either its TB2 or TB3 drone models, the company's chief executive told Reuters.
Turkish-made Bayraktar drones have gained prominence globally after being used by Ukraine's military to thwart Russian forces by destroying armoured vehicles and artillery systems.
Baykar has said it has signed export deals for its TB2 drone with 30 countries. These include Ukraine, Ethiopia, Libya and Azerbaijan since 2018, according to think tank SIPRI.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/turkeys-drone-maker-baykar-begins-build-plant-ukraine-2024-02-06/

- Do you think they can start making using the use of drones illegal in war?

 

[SandisLL]

Been in syrskyi rabbit hole since i got no life and actually found some sources, politico plus dutch newspaper actually mention his nickname is butcher for getting lot of guys killed in bahmut (have to run dutch one through translation if interested)

Zaluzhny is out, the ‘butcher’ is in

The question now is what Oleksandr Syrskyi, 58, brings to the war.

www.politico.com

Ontslag Oekraïense topgeneraal die kritische stukken schreef hangt in de lucht

Generaal Zaloeznjy en president Zelensky zouden het niet eens kunnen worden over het vervolg van de oorlog. Maar in het leger denken ze dat er meer speelt.

nos.nl

There doesn't matter who is general.
To retreat from area in Ukraine might allow only one person: Zelensky.

If Zelensky will order to keep Avdiivka at any price it will happen and Avdiivka will be new Bakhmut + Mariupol....likes this or no.

 

[LeonardoBjj]

European lawmakers leave Washington concerned about state of US support for Ukraine​

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN

NN —
Top lawmakers from Estonia, Iceland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden left meetings in Washington Thursday concerned and frustrated about a lack of urgency from their American colleagues about the need to support Ukraine.

The Nordic-Baltic delegation, comprised of the chairs of each of the country’s parliamentary foreign affairs committees, has traveled to the US capital on numerous occasions to meet with US lawmakers in both the House and Senate to rally for Ukraine as Russia’s full-scale invasion rages on.

“We came here, obviously, to show unity, to show our commitment and hoping that the Americans would hear us,” Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir of Iceland told reporters at a roundtable Thursday morning.

“We are leaving America a little bit sad,” she said.

The issue of US assistance to Kyiv – which received widespread congressional approval at the outset of the war – has faced growing Republican opposition. Congress has yet to pass legislation for additional funding to Ukraine after last year’s funding was expended.

A Senate bill that tied Ukraine funding to border security measures was blocked on Wednesday. Following that failure, the Senate voted on Thursday afternoon to begin debate on a security spending package with aid to Ukraine.


The European lawmakers, who were in Washington when the vote on the border and funding bill failed, said they are concerned that their US counterparts do not recognize the imperative for Ukraine to quickly receive continued US military support.

Rihards Kols of Latvia noted that “there wasn’t a sense of urgency of what is happening.”

“I got the notion that the war in Ukraine is something very far away, distant from the US,” he said.

“We are so united as never before in Europe, and then you have this phenomenon of isolationism growing with every week in America. This is so strange,” echoed Žygimantas Pavilionis of Lithuania.

They acknowledged that the influence of former President Donald Trump and US domestic election considerations were likely playing a role.

Estonian foreign affairs committee chairman Marko Mihkelson said that many of the lawmakers with whom he met “actually sincerely support Ukraine.”

“Many of them would like to see this bill passed as soon as possible. But they are very much afraid of results of their own elections in November,” he said.

“What was striking was that they are not ready to go and make a case in their own constituencies about that,” Mihkelson said. He and others in the delegation said it felt as though the lawmakers wanted them to “do their job” in making the case for Ukraine funding.

Einarsdóttir suggested that US lawmakers must be willing to act now, rather than considering the political future.

“Donald Trump is not president of the United States,” she said. “The people we are disappointed with they are actual people that hold actual powers.”

“Of course, he’s a very influential person. But at the end of the day, we believe that some very powerful, powerful people, currently powerful people that are holding actual powers and the United States, should do more,” she said.

The lawmakers worry about what message the continued lack of funding – and therefore lack of weaponry – is sending to Russia – a concern that has also been voiced by the Biden administration.

“There’s a seriousness behind the fact that we are here now,” Ine Eriksen Søreide of Norway said.

“Of course, we are concerned about US support for Ukraine. And I say that with quite a lot of solemnity because we are at a place right now where Europe, even though we are giving our fair share, and then some to Ukraine, both when it comes to weapons systems and money, we are not able to fill the gap if the US pulls out,” she said.

The lawmakers rejected criticism that Europe was not doing enough to contribute to Ukraine

“When some Republican congressmen and senators are saying you have to do more –We’re giving everything we have. So we cannot actually do that much more,” Michael Aastrup Jensen of Denmark said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/european-lawmakers-concern-us-support-ukraine/index.html

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Ukraine: New Findings on Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol​

War Crimes Inquiry Needed into Massive Loss of Civilian Life, Infrastructure

• The Russian assault on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in 2022 left thousands of civilians dead and injured, including many in apparently unlawful attacks, new findings show.
• Russian forces’ devastation of Mariupol and continued efforts to erase Ukrainian culture stand out as one of the worst chapters of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• International bodies and governments committed to justice should focus on investigating senior Russian officials who may have been involved in war crimes in Mariupol.

(Kyiv, February 8, 2024) – The Russian military assault on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol between February and May 2022 left thousands of civilians dead and injured, including many in apparently unlawful attacks, and trapped hundreds of thousands for weeks without basic services, Human Rights Watch, Truth Hounds, and SITU Research said in a report with extensive new findings released today. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials should be investigated and appropriately prosecuted for their role in apparent war crimes committed by Russian forces during the fighting there, and Russia should provide reparations to victims of laws-of-war violations and their families.

The 224-page report, “‘Our City Was Gone’: Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine,” an accompanying digital multimedia feature, and a 20-minute video, analyze the civilian suffering and damage to thousands of buildings, including several hundred high-rise apartments, hospitals, educational facilities, and electricity and water infrastructure. They describe repeated attempts by Ukrainian officials and international agencies to organize official evacuations and aid deliveries in the face of Russian obstruction.

“Russian forces’ devastation of Mariupol stands out as one of the worst chapters of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “International bodies and governments committed to justice should focus on investigating the senior Russian officials who appear linked to overseeing war crimes in this once vibrant city.”

The report is based on 240 interviews with mostly displaced Mariupol residents by Human Rights Watch and Truth Hounds, a leading Ukrainian human rights organization, and an analysis of over 850 photos and videos, documents, and dozens of satellite images by Human Rights Watch and SITU Research. The digital multimedia feature includes 3D reconstructions of seven buildings damaged in apparently unlawful attacks, graphics on damaged schools and hospitals, and an analysis of grave sites to help estimate the death toll.

The groups documented in detail 14 attacks that damaged or destroyed 18 buildings, killing and injuring civilians. They include attacks that struck two hospitals, the city’s drama theater sheltering civilians, a food storage facility, an aid distribution site, a supermarket, and residential buildings serving as shelters. In those attacks, Human Rights Watch and Truth Hounds found either no evidence of a Ukrainian military presence in or near the structures hit or only a minor military presence, making them apparently unlawful.

In one case, a man who helped rescue survivors and retrieve bodies from the rubble of a residential building after it was struck on March 13, 2022, described what he saw. “The building was simply pulverized,” he said. “There was almost nothing left, just part of a bathroom and part of a corridor…. [A man next to his dead mother] was covered in blood. He had blood coming out of his ears, nose, and eyes, and was crying.… [Another man] was holding his lifeless child and was talking to him. He kept saying, ‘The child is not crying.’” The attack killed eight civilians and injured three others.

“Despite the challenges of investigating war crimes in areas made inaccessible by Russian occupation, we and our partners have spent nearly two years uncovering the truth about the horrific crimes committed by Russian forces in Mariupol,” said Roman Avramenko, executive director of Truth Hounds. “This investigation aims to ensure that these crimes will never be forgotten and that the perpetrators will face justice.”

The analysis of satellite imagery, photos, and videos of the city’s main cemeteries found that more than 10,000 people were buried in Mariupol between March 2022 and February 2023. By comparing the growth in graves with the city’s normal mortality rate, the groups estimate that at least 8,000 people died from fighting or war-related causes, though how many of those were civilians remains unknown.

The total number of dead may be significantly higher: some graves contained multiple bodies and the remains of others were most likely buried in rubble. Some may remain in makeshift graves, and others may have died later of war-related causes. Some relatives of those missing are still looking for their loved ones.

Thousands of people were injured, many of whom lost limbs, eyesight, hearing, or memory, including from traumatic brain injuries caused by explosions.

The report identifies 17 units of Russian and Russia-affiliated forces that were operating in Mariupol in March and April 2022, at the height of the fighting.

The groups also identified 10 people who as a matter of command responsibility may be criminally liable for war crimes relating to unlawful attacks and the possible arbitrary blocking of humanitarian aid and evacuations. They may also have committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity for the forced transfer of Mariupol residents to Russia and Russia-occupied territory.

Under the principle of command responsibility, a superior is responsible for crimes committed by their subordinates when they knew or should have known that the crimes were being committed but failed to take reasonable measures to stop or punish them.

On December 4, 2023, Human Rights Watch sent the Russian government a summary of the report’s findings and a list of questions but, as of February 1, had not received a response.

Since occupying the city, Russian authorities have been constructing new high-rise apartment buildings as part of their stated plan to rebuild and redevelop Mariupol by 2035. An occupying power should clear debris and demolish unsafe structures to protect the population. However, in the absence of independent investigators, the Russian government is erasing physical evidence at hundreds of potential crime scenes.

Occupying forces are also stripping away markers of Ukrainian identity, including by enforcing a Russian school curriculum and renaming streets. They are requiring residents to obtain Russian passports to apply for certain jobs and benefits.

In Mariupol, like elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian and affiliated forces extensively used explosive weapons with wide-area effects, including tank shelling and heavy artillery, multi-barrel rocket launchers, missiles, and airstrikes in populated areas. The use of such weapons in populated areas, with devastating impacts on civilians and civilian infrastructure, heightens concerns of unlawfully indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

“Mariupol stands as a testament to the cruel destruction and suffering caused by explosive weapons in cities and towns across the world,” Sawyer said. “All governments should support justice for crimes committed in Ukraine and sign the international declaration condemning the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/08/ukraine-new-findings-russias-devastation-mariupol

 

[Denter]

Why was Zeluzhny dismissed? I'm hearing differing stories.

 

[Cole train]

Why was Zeluzhny dismissed? I'm hearing differing stories.

Theory number 1

Political rival to Big Z since commander is pretty much most popular man in ukraine, according to ukr constitution there should be election next month if i remember correctly (though since theres war things might change)

Theory number 2

Bumped heads with Big Z too many times over what military should or should not do
( for example troops in mariupol getting surrounded was on Big Z i remember reading in 2022 while commander wanted to retreat from city)

Truth is likely both reasons mixed or something else

 

[SandisLL]

Putin looks that now is too senile and can't manage to hide that he is Nazi...
He found excuses for Hitler ....told that Poland had forced Hitler to start World war II.
Lol.
Also he now is thinking that ukraine had been founded by Stalin....
--
Special operation is going as had been planned....

 

[Denter]

Theory number 1

Political rival to Big Z since commander is pretty much most popular man in ukraine, according to ukr constitution there should be election next month if i remember correctly (though since theres war things might change)

Theory number 2

Bumped heads with Big Z too many times over what military should or should not do
( for example troops in mariupol getting surrounded was on Big Z i remember reading in 2022 while commander wanted to retreat from city)

Truth is likely both reasons mixed or something else

Thanks.

Nothing good can come out of political meddling in battlefield decisions IMO.