Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)

Any Russian translators in the house?

I saw one tweet that claims Black Sea communications is routine. Hard to verify without going into Russian speaking threads.

I haven’t found anything conclusive. The need for ambulances seems interesting.

It would be helpful to know if OSINT88 provided the correct translation.

I thought your joke was very clever.

It says 30 ambulances rushed through the streets of Sevastopol with sirens blaring, transporting, according to their source, wounded sailors from Adm Makarov to the military hospital.

No news on the Admiral Makarov. Little war news at all.

Thank you eschereal.

Seems conclusive something happened to the Admiral Makarov. Hit a mine or maybe a missile strike. 30 ambulances could be for 90 or more men.

I wouldn’t give Ukraine credit yet.

Russia is doing a good job keeping it covered up.

I seriously doubt that the person who wrote it literally counted the ambulances. It was a means to convey “a lot of them”.

If they sank the Admiral Makarov it is a big blow. The frigate is only 5 years old. Quite possibly it was the most valuable ship the Russians have left in the Black Sea.

At this rate, “the most valuable Russian ship in the Black Sea” will soon be the Grand Admiral Putinov missile rowboat.

From what I’ve read today, it sounds like the Ukrainians will push Russian forces out of artillery range in Kharkiv and may be able to push them back to the Russian border.

There are also reports of a landing ship being destroyed while docked at Snake Island.

https://twitter.com/jongambrellAP/status/1522863149459939328?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Western-supplied high-precision artillery seems to be effective:

Also: Russian self-propelled artillery doctrine seems to be that backing 10 meters into a little copse of trees is sufficient cover.

Also: Those are some nice-looking shockwaves.

It’ll be obvious if the Admiral Makaro isn’t seen patroling in the next few days.

No need to publicly take credit for its misfortune.

I’ve read the CIA isn’t happy some people are talking publicly about giving Ukraine targeting data. Its smarter to stay quiet. No need to poke the Russian bear.

Guardian blog

Yeah, I mean, come on, no, let them keep getting surprised. Let them worry that one of their own guys may be a Ukrainian mole. Sure, anyone with normal smarts in the Russian side knows we are sharing intel but they don’t need to know about what and how good; that’s something we can pat ourselves in the back about after the job is done.

I agree. CNN is reporting that the extensive intel sharing is becoming a hot political issue. Best to keep it dark. I just want to see continued Ukrainian successes; we don’t need to know how they were achieved.

As someone who still can’t talk about things almost 30 years on, I agree.

I’m remembering reading how vexed the navy got in WWII when a newspaper reported our submarines in the Pacific were escaping serious harm because they were deeper than the IJN was figuring they could go and so were setting the depth charges too shallow.

Or in other words - loose lips sink ships.

To be a little fair to the Russias - it’s not like there’s any other form of cover in the terrain depicted.

Well that slogan isn’t going to work. There aren’t any ships in this conflict that I don’t want sunk!

I wonder if anybody in the Secret Service has had a heart attack yet.

Jill Biden pays surprise visit to Ukraine, meets first lady (msn.com)

Probably not, since any Secret Service agents with weak hearts would have passed away when Laura Bush visited Afghanistan twice during the Bush administration’s actual direct war there, in 2005 and again in 2008.

This visit was a beautiful act of encouragement and support.