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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3959 "2022-04-04T00:33:27Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> There’s also the article I posted earlier that sanctions are starting to bite Russia’s war industry, by denying them high tech chips and components that they need to keep building tanks.
I want to read this, as it challenges my own semi-fixed view that sanctions rarely work (South Africa being the prime exception). But, going back many posts, I am missing your link. Can you repost?
If Russia didn’t use the last eight years, of being under sanctions, to switch weapons production to local and Chinese electronics components, that is a failure up there with sending out tanks without infantry support.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3960 "2022-04-04T00:39:09Z")
> [@CaveMike](#):
>
> I guess this is well-known, but I don’t remember it coming up in this thread. Ukraine had nuclear weapons left over from USSR, but agreed to give them up in a show of good faith.
>
> [Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Government%20welcomes%20the,non%2Dnuclear%2Dweapon%20State).
It may have been mentioned in passing but I hadn’t seen that wiki article, so thanks. Gave them up and received “assurances”.
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### Author:  [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3961 "2022-04-04T00:41:58Z")
There’s quite a number of reports on the Russian tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod shutting down due to the sanctions. However, they all seem to be based on a claim made in a [facebook post by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine](https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/277666367879782). As far as I can tell the claims have not been verified by anyone, so I’d take them with a rather large grain of salt.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3962 "2022-04-04T00:46:52Z")
Here’s the article. I posted it over in the Sanctions thread, sorry. As keeganst94 comments, it is sourced from Ukraine defence, so difficult to know if it’s correct or not.
> **[Russian tank manufacturer may have run out of parts](https://fortune.com/2022/03/22/russian-tank-manufacturer-sanctions-ukraine-war/)**
>
> Sanctions imposed on Russia to cripple their economy may be starting to hurt its military capabilities.
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### Author:  [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3963 "2022-04-04T00:47:14Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#):
>
> [https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1510735976901103617](https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1510735976901103617)
I’m just not buying that. It took Germany, and Japan, a lot less than 80 years to “live down” what happened in World War II and both of them did a lot worse than anything Russia has done in Ukraine.
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3964 "2022-04-04T00:53:07Z")
Interesting fact of the day:
Donetsk, the largest city in the contested Donbas region and its “unofficial capital”, was founded by a Welshman called John Hughes. Until 1924, the city was named after him as Hughesovka or Yuzovka (Юзовка), with “Yuz” being a Russian-language approximation of Hughes.
> [@](#):
>
> The city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes, who operated a steel plant and several coal mines at Aleksandrovka. The worker’s settlement at the plant merged with Aleksandrovka and the place was named Yuzovo, later Yuzovka (Russian: Юзово, Юзовка), after Hughes. In its early period, it received immigrants from Wales, especially from the town of Merthyr Tydfil. By the beginning of the 20th century, Yuzovka had approximately 50,000 inhabitants, and attained the status of a city in 1917. The main district of Yuzovka is named English Colony, and the British origin of the city is reflected in its layout and architecture.[citation needed]
> **[Donetsk | Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk#Foundation)**
>
> One of the early mining settlements in the territory of Donetsk was Aleksandrovka \[ru\]. The existence of Aleksandrovskaya Cossack Sloboda in its place is attested by 1779, with the Aleksandrovsky coal mine \[ru\] eventually being opened there.
> The city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes, who operated a steel plant and several coal mines at Aleksandrovka. The worker's settlement at the plant merged with Aleksandrovka and the place was named Yuzovo, later Yuzovka (Russia...
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3965 "2022-04-04T00:57:29Z")
The bit you are commenting on is not Zelensky’s speech. That’s just a reply in the comments to the Twitter post.
I don’t know why it sometimes includes a reply when pasting a Twitter post in this thread.
Zelensky’s speech is a video in the linked post.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3966 "2022-04-04T01:00:33Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> As keeganst94 comments, it is sourced from Ukraine defence, so difficult to know if it’s correct or not.
>
> [Russian tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod may have run out of parts | Fortune](https://fortune.com/2022/03/22/russian-tank-manufacturer-sanctions-ukraine-war/)
Thank you.
Yes, it is hard to know, what with truth being the first casualty. I hope it is true that Russian weapons commonly require Western imported parts, since it would mean Russia will have to wind down the war. It sounds almost too good to be true.
(As far as the truth of today’s reports of atrocities, while it is possible early reports aren’t quite right, or concern rarities, the chances that Russian forces have committed other atrocities, at least as bad, are all too high.)
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### Author:  [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3967 "2022-04-04T01:21:21Z")
> [@Lamoral](#):
>
> t took Germany, and Japan, a lot less than 80 years to “live down” what happened in World War II
This is absolutely correct. In my early days as a young Canadian naval officer I spent three days in a then-West German frigate and I had a great time. At the same time we (NATO squadron) spent a few days in Port in
Bremen.
A couple of years earlier I worked with some young Japanese naval officer cadets. In both cases, with the Japanese and the Germans, there was absolutely no problem with the history from 40 years earlier.
To me, however, this situation is different. I think that regarding WW II we were all, for the most part, able to look back on that as the end of a bad era in human history, and that we as a species might be starting to mature.
As such, what Putin has done is violent, vile, unforgivable, and horribly out of place for the times in this part of the world.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3968 "2022-04-04T01:31:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> If Russia didn’t use the last eight years, of being under sanctions, to switch weapons production to local and Chinese electronics components, _ **that is a failure up there with sending out tanks without infantry support.** _
Yes, and your point is? 😃
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2022, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3969 "2022-04-04T01:32:30Z")
Here’s Zelensky’s speech:
> [@](#):
>
> "Today this address will be without greetings. I do not want any extra words.
>
> Presidents do not usually record addresses like this. But today I have to say just that. After what was revealed in Bucha and our other cities the occupiers were expelled from. Hundreds of people were killed. Tortured, executed civilians. Corpses on the streets. Mined area. Even the bodies of the dead were mined!
>
> The pervasive consequences of looting. Concentrated evil has come to our land. Murderers. Torturers. Rapists. Looters. Who call themselves the army. And who deserve only death after what they did.
>
> I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel. What did they do? Why were they killed? What did the man who was riding his bicycle down the street do? Why were ordinary civilians in an ordinary peaceful city tortured to death? Why were women strangled after their earrings were ripped out of their ears? How could women be raped and killed in front of children? How could their corpses be desecrated even after death? Why did they crush the bodies of people with tanks? What did the Ukrainian city of Bucha do to your Russia? How did all this become possible?
>
> Russian mothers! Even if you raised looters, how did they also become butchers? You couldn’t be unaware of what’s inside your children. You couldn’t overlook that they are deprived of everything human. No soul. No heart. They killed deliberately and with pleasure.
>
> I want all the leaders of the Russian Federation to see how their orders are being fulfilled. Such orders. Such a fulfillment. And joint responsibility. For these murders, for these tortures, for these arms torn off by explosions that lie on the streets. For shots in the back of the head of tied people.
>
> This is how the Russian state will now be perceived. This is your image.
>
> Your culture and human appearance perished together with the Ukrainian men and women to whom you came.
>
> I approved a decision to create a special mechanism of justice in Ukraine for the investigation and judicial examination of every crime of the occupiers on the territory of our state. The essence of this mechanism is the joint work of national and international experts: investigators, prosecutors and judges. This mechanism will help Ukraine and the world bring to concrete justice those who unleashed or in any way participated in this terrible war against the Ukrainian people and in crimes against our people.
>
> The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Prosecutor General, the National Police, the Security Service, the Intelligence Service and other structures within their competence must make every effort to ensure that the mechanism is operational immediately.
>
> I call on all our citizens and friends of Ukraine in the world who can join this work and help establish justice to do so.
>
> The world has already seen many war crimes. At different times. On different continents. But it is time to do everything possible to make the war crimes of the Russian military the last manifestation of such evil on earth.
>
> Everyone guilty of such crimes will be included in a special Book of Torturers, will be found and punished.
>
> Ukrainians!
>
> I want you to realize that. We drove the enemy out of several regions. But Russian troops still control the occupied areas of other regions. And after the expulsion of the occupiers, even worse things can be found there. Even more deaths and tortures. Because this is the nature of the Russian military who came to our land. These are bastards who can’t do otherwise. And they had such orders.
>
> All partners of Ukraine will be informed in detail about what happened in the temporarily occupied territory of our state. War crimes in Bucha and other cities during the Russian occupation will also be considered by the UN Security Council on Tuesday."
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