Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[Larry O'Hara]

Why are you so obsessed with crack, pipes and medication?
You seem to use these references almost every time you post.

If you are not projecting, could you stop it?
It adds nothing to the thread.

Did you not read the unprompted abuse from Doyle-Cooper accusing me of smoking crack? Oh I forgot, its ok for trolls to pile in and abuse me on here but I am not
allowed to fight back as its inappropriate. Charming.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Did you not read the unprompted abuse from Doyle-Cooper accusing me of smoking crack? Oh I forgot, its ok for trolls to pile in and abuse me on here but I am not
allowed to fight back as its inappropriate. Charming.

 

[elbows]

The ISW completed the shifting of their assessment, falling into line with other analysis and news narratives that moved much quicker in this respect.

Institute for the Study of War

ISW assesses that the Kremlin has revised its campaign plan in Ukraine after the failure of its initial campaign to capture Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities and its subsequent failure to adjust its operations in late March. ISW previously assessed

www.understandingwar.org

ISW assesses that the Kremlin has revised its campaign plan in Ukraine after the failure of its initial campaign to capture Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities and its subsequent failure to adjust its operations in late March. ISW previously assessed that the initial Russian campaign of the war—airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine—had failed as of March 19.[1] The Russian military continued to feed small collections of reinforcements into operations around Kyiv and across northeastern and southern Ukraine in an effort to keep its initial campaign plan alive throughout late March. We assess that the Russian military has now halted these failed efforts and is beginning a new phase of its campaign in Ukraine with new objectives. We are updating the structure of our campaign assessments to reflect the new structure and prioritization of Russian operations.

The Kremlin may intend to capture Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts before seeking to negotiate a Kremlin-favorable ceasefire and claim that Russia has achieved its war aims. The Kremlin’s initial false justification for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine was to protect the DNR and LNR from Ukraine and enable them to seize their “claimed” territory. The Kremlin is attempting to gloss over the failure of Russia’s initial campaign for a domestic Russian audience. The Kremlin has in fact been forced to alter its operations after the failure of its initial campaign. Kremlin claims that Russian forces solely attacked northeastern Ukraine to degrade Ukrainian forces before achieving the “main goal” of capturing Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts – such as statements made by the Russian General Staff on March 25 – are false.

Russian forces around Kyiv and in northeastern Ukraine seek to conduct a retrograde action—the orderly withdrawal of combat forces—for refit and further redeployment to other axes of advance. Russian forces remaining on the forward trace of Russian lines are a covering force intended to screen the retrograde of most of the combat power previously deployed around Kyiv. Ukrainian forces retook substantial territory both northwest and east of Kyiv in the past 24 hours. Ukrainian forces likely advanced faster than Russian forces anticipated, but Russian forces successfully withdrew much of the damaged combat power remaining around Kyiv into Belarus.

 

[spitfire]

An interview with a Ukrainian music producer, Timur Dzhafarov (John Object), who is now in the army. CW: descriptions of death.

Highlights how quickly people's lives can change.

https://mixmag.net/feature/ukraine-kyiv-war-john-object-artist-producer-soldier-interview?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

eta: the white square is the "cover" of the music he uploaded to Bandcamp in a hurry after the war started.

 

[friedaweed]

Poor old bugger

The Last One To Leave: Ukrainian Troops Evacuate Elderly Man From Abandoned Neighborhood

Valentyn seems to have been the last resident of Teterivske, a village west of Kyiv, who stayed in his old wooden house as Russian shells hit his deserted neighborhood. On March 31, Ukrainian soldiers persuaded the elderly, frail, and frightened man to let them take him to safety.

www.rferl.org

 

[existentialist]

Poor old bugger

The Last One To Leave: Ukrainian Troops Evacuate Elderly Man From Abandoned Neighborhood

Valentyn seems to have been the last resident of Teterivske, a village west of Kyiv, who stayed in his old wooden house as Russian shells hit his deserted neighborhood. On March 31, Ukrainian soldiers persuaded the elderly, frail, and frightened man to let them take him to safety.

www.rferl.org

He reminded me of my dad.

And that look of incomprehension, and the awful decision process, written on his face, as he was being urged to leave for somewhere safer really got to me

I'm glad he went, though.

 

[IC3D]

I don't buy the Putin fucked up narrative. It's laid on so thick as some kind of reassurance that bad things won't happen in Europe because Nato. Reasoning is the absolute lack of stratigic gains made by Ukraine since the invasion. We have lots of videos of smoldering tanks that failed their MOT in 1990 costing 20k? a pop to destroy with a limited amount of weaponry. Could filling the country with these pretty worthless targets just be preventing the Ukrainian army forming a front line and taking territory the Putinbot wants and now has embedded his competent forces in. Valuable assests like manufacturing in Dombass while shelling Ukraine into the stone age.

 

[existentialist]

I don't buy the Putin fucked up narrative. It's laid on so thick as some kind of reassurance that bad things won't happen in Europe because Nato. Reasoning is the absolute lack of stratigic gains made by Ukraine since the invasion. We have lots of videos of smoldering tanks that failed their MOT in 1990 costing 20k? a pop to destroy with a limited amount of weaponry. Could filling the country with these pretty worthless targets just be preventing the Ukrainian army forming a front line and taking territory the Putinbot wants and now has embedded his competent forces in. Valuable assests like manufacturing in Dombass while shelling Ukraine into the stone age.

I think Occam's Razor might have something to say on the matter...

 

[IC3D]

I think Occam's Razor might have something to say on the matter...

Say what you think

 

[existentialist]

Say what you think

I just did!

 

[Kaka Tim]

Grim reports and pictures coming out of many dead civilians - some clearly executed - in the areas around Kiev that have been retaken from the Russians - and they didnt have time to cover their tracks. Looks to be too many dead to be an isolated incident - why the fuck would they do this?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Grim reports and pictures coming out of many dead civilians - some clearly executed - in the areas around Kiev that have been retaken from the Russians - and they didnt have time to cover their tracks. Looks to be too many dead to be an isolated incident - why the fuck would they do this?

A bunch of soldiers with no supplies, no support, no communication, no clue what they're doing and no idea what to do with an occupied but non-compliant civillian population? Fuck knows. There can't really be a valid answer can there? There's no sense to be found in it.

 

[Diamond]

Grim reports and pictures coming out of many dead civilians - some clearly executed - in the areas around Kiev that have been retaken from the Russians - and they didnt have time to cover their tracks. Looks to be too many dead to be an isolated incident - why the fuck would they do this?

Lots and lots of dead civilians it seems. Reports coming through thick and fast now.

Why indeed? I saw a Twitter post just yesterday about the Russian army's adoption of new technical standards on the creation of mass graves from last November. The post was saying - look what we managed to avoid by preventing a Russian occupation. It seems they made a start. Maybe they really were planning a genocide.

Rumours from Bucha are that all civilian men between 16 and 60 have been shot. That matches up to the Ukranians not allowing men between 16 and 60 to leave the country (to preserve fighting numbers).

This level of atrocity is one of the things that I was worried about re: a 1914 escalatory spiral.

 

[Diamond]

I have been reading this since the war started (highly recommended):

Sergei Medvedev The Return of the Russian Leviathan — Pushkin House

www.pushkinhouse.org

The picture it paints of Putin's Russia is of a fascist state, no doubt at all. Absolutely terrifying. I had no idea about some of the depths. A true nightmare.

 

[frogwoman]

Hundreds buried in mass grave in Bucha, near Kyiv: Mayor

Anatoly Fedoruk says the recaptured town’s streets are littered with corpses of civilians killed by Russian forces.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Yossarian]

Hundreds buried in mass grave in Bucha, near Kyiv: Mayor

Anatoly Fedoruk says the recaptured town’s streets are littered with corpses of civilians killed by Russian forces.

www.aljazeera.com

Fuck. I wonder if the Putin regime and its defenders will try to spin this as:

• an isolated incident
• fake news
• Ukraine did it
• Ukraine did bad things too
• America does bad things too
• all of the above

 

[frogwoman]

Fuck. I wonder if the Putin regime and its defenders will try to spin this as:

• an isolated incident
• fake news
• Ukraine did it
• Ukraine did bad things too
• America does bad things too
• all of the above

You forgot 'it didn't happen and even if it did they deserved it because Nazis'

 

[SpookyFrank]

I expect at least two contradictory responses from Russia. Choose from it didn't happen, Ukrainian 'militant nationalists' did it, the dead were all nationalist combatants so it's fine.

 

[Diamond]

Maybe it's meant to provoke the West into a wider conflict.

 

[kebabking]

A thread that, I think, broadly sums it up.

If you want to know why the Russian Army behaves in the way it does, and what it thinks is the way to go about war, read on...

 

[SpookyFrank]

I have been reading this since the war started (highly recommended):

Sergei Medvedev The Return of the Russian Leviathan — Pushkin House

www.pushkinhouse.org

The picture it paints of Putin's Russia is of a fascist state, no doubt at all. Absolutely terrifying. I had no idea about some of the depths. A true nightmare.

It's back to the bad old days in Russia with everyone selling out everyone else to the state for insufficient patriotism or whatever. Heard one story of a teacher being grassed up by her students and arrested because she was opposed to the war.

 

[strung out]

I don't buy the Putin fucked up narrative. It's laid on so thick as some kind of reassurance that bad things won't happen in Europe because Nato. Reasoning is the absolute lack of stratigic gains made by Ukraine since the invasion. We have lots of videos of smoldering tanks that failed their MOT in 1990 costing 20k? a pop to destroy with a limited amount of weaponry. Could filling the country with these pretty worthless targets just be preventing the Ukrainian army forming a front line and taking territory the Putinbot wants and now has embedded his competent forces in. Valuable assests like manufacturing in Dombass while shelling Ukraine into the stone age.

Russia deployed more Battalion Tactical Groups to Belarus than it did to Crimea for the invasion, including more paratroopers, Rosgvardia national guardsmen, and officers. Add in the army from Bryansk in Russia that advanced towards Kyiv and the imbalance is even greater. Those forces were absolutely routed by Ukraine's army.

Anyone who still thinks the east was Putin's priority from the start once they know that is an idiot. Putin fucked up monumentally and it was obvious from about the first week onwards.

 

[IC3D]

Russia deployed more Battalion Tactical Groups to Belarus than it did to Crimea for the invasion, including more paratroopers, Rosgvardia national guardsmen, and officers. Add in the army from Bryansk in Russia that advanced towards Kyiv and the imbalance is even greater. Those forces were absolutely routed by Ukraine's army.

Anyone who still thinks the east was Putin's priority from the start once they know that is an idiot. Putin fucked up monumentally and it was obvious from about the first week onwards.

Okay General, 99.9 % of people don't have a grasp on this shitshow and my post was just inviting discussion but a quick google Rosgvardia national guardsmen shows they are riot cops and not trained for warfare and are not very happy having been sent there.

Subscribe to read

www.ft.com

Rosgvardia employees were not trained for full combat operations. “Have [they] been taught to dig trenches? To build defensive structures?” he asked. “In their line of work they handle small guns. Maximum they have automated weapons, but they basically never use them,”

 

[A380]

I don't buy the Putin fucked up narrative. It's laid on so thick as some kind of reassurance that bad things won't happen in Europe because Nato. Reasoning is the absolute lack of stratigic gains made by Ukraine since the invasion. We have lots of videos of smoldering tanks that failed their MOT in 1990 costing 20k? a pop to destroy with a limited amount of weaponry. Could filling the country with these pretty worthless targets just be preventing the Ukrainian army forming a front line and taking territory the Putinbot wants and now has embedded his competent forces in. Valuable assests like manufacturing in Dombass while shelling Ukraine into the stone age.

Genuine question, what is your evidence base / sources for continuing to think that Putin is this über Machiavellian infallible master mind who can out think the rest of the world in four dimensional chess?

 

[bluescreen]

Okay General, 99.9 % of people don't have a grasp on this shitshow and my post was just inviting discussion but a quick google Rosgvardia national guardsmen shows they are riot cops and not trained for warfare and are not very happy having been sent there.

Subscribe to read

www.ft.com

Which is kind of the point being made: Russia was bulking up the regular troops who were failing. Rosgvardia were indeed v unhappy about being sent there. Happy to break heads of citizen protesters, not so happy to be shot at.

 

[IC3D]

Genuine question, what is your evidence base / sources for continuing ti thing that Putin is this über Machiavellian infallible master mind who can out think the rest of the world in four dimensional chess?

Genuine question what is your interest in misrepresenting my post with this bollocks. Do you not question why his army have just sat on their arses for weeks in the middle of nowhere or you think its a huge gaff, maybe just inviting other ideas

 

[A380]

Genuine question what is your interest in misrepresenting my post with this bollocks....

Genuine answer, because I think you are an example of a large group of people on the left are either incredibly naive, and/or have a sub GCSE level of analysis and I was trying to work out which.

So, I've answered your question. Could you answer mine please?

 

[strung out]

Do you not question why his army have just sat on their arses for weeks in the middle of nowhere or you think its a huge gaff, maybe just inviting other ideas

The answer to that question has been really well documented over the last weeks, and essentially comes down to shit logistics from Russia, excellent tactics from the Ukrainian army, the mud season of late winter in Ukraine, and utter incompetence from those leading the Russian forces.

 

[IC3D]

Genuine answer, because I think you are an example of a large group of people on the left are either incredibly naive, and/or have a sub GCSE level of analysis and I was trying to work out which.

So, I've answered your question. Could you answer mine please?

Im asking why you think Putin left the bulk of his army sat on their arses during an invasion, Genuine question? Seems a bit easy to say incompetence hes planned this for a decade probably. Without air cover Ukraine haven't been able to consolidate territory.

 

[bluescreen]

Genuine question what is your interest in misrepresenting my post with this bollocks. Do you not question why his army have just sat on their arses for weeks in the middle of nowhere or you think its a huge gaff, maybe just inviting other ideas

Sat on their arses maybe because they couldn't proceed. Because they were bogged down, literally. Because they ran out of supplies. Because they met a degree of resistance they weren't expecting and weren't prepared for?