And the report from Ukrinform:
As reported earlier, Russian invaders see the port of Berdiansk as strategically important for delivering equipment, ammunition, and manpower to the southern regions of Ukraine.
It feels like Berdyansk is going to be in range of Tochka missiles fired from Ukrainian-controlled territory for some time to come, maybe forever.
There are also reports that a warehouse on the docks containing ammunition and fuel was destroyed. That would explain the size of the explosion.
This kind of sums up a big chunk of this war. It may well be both.
It’s hard to tell from the length and quality of the videos, but I would have expected a lot more explosions from an ammunition supply ship. It seems more likely it was a landing ship for armored vehicles.
And now I see the newer posts are confirming what I thought.
I’ll leave this post just so I can say Happy Birthday! to @kenobi_65 and @Lumpy. Congratulations, you are looking pretty good as you approach your dotage!
That’s presuming there’s enough civilization intact in their area to have effective police. If police are not a realistic option then I suspect older and more directly violent means will be used to deal with someone looting in a war-torn village.
Three (of the four) French SSBNs are at sea. Usually only two at a time are. I suppose one will come in shortly for supplies. Still, this seems alarming.
Ukraine has missiles, but do they have precision guided missiles? Hitting a ship in port would be quite a feat with old Soviet missiles.
If it’s a Russian rocket hitting a Russian ship, maybe they just set it free and it found its own way home.
I heard a first-hand account of exactly how they dealt with a young German soldier on the lam caught stealing food from a French village. No cops.
Ukraine has Tochka-U missiles which they have modified for increased accuracy.
The accuracy of the 1990’s Russian version was 70m circular error probable (CEP). Probably the Ukrainians have been able to improve that accuracy considerably with modern technology.
The range of the 1990’s Russian version was 185 km (115 mi).
Yeah. Not to go too much farther with this particular tangent, but in most cases just cycling the printer’s power (off - on) will end the madness:
But I, too, was hoping that tens of thousands of printers, across a vast geographic area, each had one or two copies of this document printed.
If private citizens murder a foreign soldier in a situation that’s not self-defense, is it considered a war crime, or just a crime?
Probably doesn’t go through the legal system that often.
Probably varies by country also.
Also matters if the victim was still in uniform or not.
They’re generally considered heroic partisans.
Bear in mind that in war, private citizens killing enemy troops is very much a “man bites dog” situation. The reverse is far more common.
Killing enemy soldiers who are actively serving the interests of the enemy is one thing, but I was thinking of the situation described upthread where the enemy soldier has laid down his arms (but is still wearing his enemy uniform, so clearly not an ordinary citizen) and is begging or stealing food from the local civilian populace.
How is this “laid down his arms evidenced”? Don’t you need to actually make some action to surrender?
Ukraine claims its navy is responsible for the explosion in Berdyansk:
I can’t imagine a government prosecuting its own civilians for killing invaders, no matter what the circumstances. How much public support do you think that would have?
I’m thinking about a situation where if the soldier were replaced with an ordinary citizen, it would be a clear case of murder. IOW, the soldier isn’t carrying a weapon or presenting an imminent threat of violence.