Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2)

[What_Exit]

This doesn’t appear to be beaking news. Perhaps a new thread.

[Chad_Sudan]

I read the article. The authors’ focus is entirely on the superpowers. It’s all about easing the Kremlin’s concerns and fears. For them, the concerns and fears of 150 million people in Eastern Europe don’t exist.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Putin met with prominent Russian milbloggers and reporters a couple of days ago to discuss the war.

How come they aren’t at the other end of an absurdly long table from Putin? Because they had to be quarantined for a week.

Russian “military correspondent” Sladkov confirmed he had to stay in quarantine before meeting Putin yesterday.

Anton Gerashchenko

A Russian cosmonaut - or something similar, I forget - revealed the same a few weeks ago.

[Al128]

@Walken_After_Midnight

Russian “military correspondent” Sladkov confirmed he had to stay in quarantine before meeting Putin yesterday.

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1669018337484111874

A Russian cosmonaut - or something similar, I forget - revealed the same a few weeks ago.

consistent with reports of Putin’s poor health - (cancer?) … could be that he gets imune-surpressants or so and has little to no defenses

… of course that is speculation, but the whole long tables, people being 15m away in a meeting with him might form a pattern

[Fear_Itself]

A high rise building in Belgorod, Russia is on fire, perhaps hit by a drone.

https://twitter.com/WarMach18898344/status/1669818267966251010?t=1KZAoKZi5KTZh6f5ZRwaxA&s=19

[Love_Rhombus]

The President of South Africa says “NATO is to blame for Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

And more news about that Chechen leader who was killed.

[Chronos]

The President of South Africa is mediating negotiations. And he tells us that Putin has assured him that negotiations are going well, but that he hasn’t yet heard from Zelenskyy.

…What, exactly, does he think “negotiations” means? Or “mediating”?

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Feeling important and being (in his own eyes) a mover and shaker.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

The Times has an article in which a psychologist describes how a couple of her patients, Ukrainian soldiers who were captured by Russia and returned in a prisoner exchange, had been castrated.

From article:

Yatsenko believes her patients are not the only ones to have been castrated. “They told me the Russians performed the castration procedure very skilfully, as if they knew how to do it. And I’ve heard about a lot of cases from colleagues treating others.”

An analyst/journalist comments:

We heard from a source in the Ukrainian government this was happening last year. “Hundreds” of prisoners of war had been returned, alive, but castrated.

We didn’t report this at the time, as it was deemed it could add to the trauma the men had suffered.

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1670136975108587524

[Walken_After_Midnight]

New York Times article concludes that the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed by explosives placed within it and that it was Russia that did it:

The dam was built with an enormous concrete block at its base. A small passageway runs through it, reachable from the dam’s machine room. It was in this passageway, the evidence suggests, that an explosive charge detonated and destroyed the dam.

…

In the chaotic aftermath, with each side blaming the other for the collapse, multiple explanations are theoretically possible. But the evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia.

[Broomstick]

@Walken_After_Midnight

The Times has an article in which a psychologist describes how a couple of her patients, Ukrainian soldiers who were captured by Russia and returned in a prisoner exchange, had been castrated.

Basically, another means of genocide - prevent Ukrainian men from reproducing.

Also pretty bad psychological effects, I’m sure.

[Magiver]

I wonder if Putin and his henchmen carry cyanide capsules.

[eschereal]

Last March, a Ukrainian frontline medic apologied for suggesting that captured Russian soldiers should be castrated “because they are not people, they are cockroaches.”

Passions seem to be running high. But at least he apologized. After getting death threats.

[aceplace57]

@Broomstick

Basically, another means of genocide - prevent Ukrainian men from reproducing.

Also pretty bad psychological effects, I’m sure.

Bombing civilians. Stealing Ukrainian children (sending to Russia) accomplishs a similar goal. Reduce the future population as much as possible

[aceplace57]

The fighting is costly and intense. Ukraine has to make adjustments in their attacks.
Link Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 18, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War

Ukrainian forces may be temporarily pausing counteroffensive operations to reevaluate their tactics for future operations. Head of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center Colonel Margo Grosberg stated on June 16 that he assesses "we won’t see an offensive over the next seven days.”[7]The Wall Street Journal similarly reported on June 17 that Ukrainian forces “have mostly paused their advances in recent days” as Ukrainian command reexamines tactics.[8] These reports are consistent with ISW’s recent observations of the scale and approach of localized Ukrainian counterattacks in southern and eastern Ukraine.[9] ISW has previously noted that Ukraine has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to counteroffensive operations and has not yet launched its main effort.[10] Operational pauses are a common feature of major offensive undertakings, and this pause does not signify the end of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

[aceplace57]

Russia is getting desperate. Fortunately the tank hit a mine before reaching Ukrainian lines.

Russia claims to have remotely detonated tank laden with explosives, in...

[Johnny_L.A]

I hope it was a Russian mine.

[What_Exit]

Good point, the odds would seem to favor that.

[gnoitall]

I hope that not only was is a Russian mine, but the explosion was big enough to clear a few more.

Battlefield demining is a dangerous and time-consuming pain in the ass, and if your adversary can do you the favor of doing some of themselves all the better.

I wonder how many minefields were emplaced by Wagner and left behind undocumented for the Russian regulars to discover the hard way?

[aceplace57]

Nothing really changes in this war. Russia isn’t deterred by anything Ukraine does

The guardian

In a post on Telegram, Hanna Maliar wrote:

The situation in the east is now difficult. The enemy has raised its forces and is conducting an active offensive in the Lyman and Kupyan directions, trying to seize the initiative from us. High activity of enemy shelling is recorded. Intense battles continue.

The enemy does not abandon his plans to reach the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Currently, this is the enemy’s main offensive line. Therefore, it has concentrated a significant number of units in the east, in particular the airborne assault units.

Our troops act courageously in the face of the enemy’s superiority in forces and means, and do not allow the enemy to advance.