Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[Pickman's model]

weltweit, bringing us yesterday's news, today.

He's more on the ball than usual

 

[Supine]

weltweit, bringing us yesterday's news, today.

Never accused of over reading threads before posting

 

[weltweit]

Never accused of over reading threads before posting

I have read most of the 70 odd pages.

 

[Supine]

I have read most of the 70 odd pages.

How about the even pages?

 

[Kaka Tim]

Have to say - respect for the Ukrainian president - very visibly staying in Kiev when he almost certainly facing death or imprisonment.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

It seems the Russians have taken control of the Chernobyl region which gives them a more direct route from Belarus to Kiev. There has been a spike (yesterday) in radioactivity in the region of the plant which observers are putting down to heavy military vehicles disturbing the radioactive ground around Chernobyl. There is apparently no evidence that they have damaged the mothballed power plant.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're using that area as cover as well. No one in their right mind wants to stir up that mess by bombing it.

 

[hitmouse]

I would guess he was alluding to the far-right elements who were among the crowds during the EuroMaidan mass protests of 2013-2014. I’m not aware of any state-organised far-right or neo-Nazi policies enacted by the Ukrainian govt since 2014 & Lukashenko’s hasty departure.

So I agree with you and class Putin’s accusations about neo-Nazis alongside his claims of genocide in Donetsk, or the Ukrainian govt being composed of drug addicts - bollocks, in other words, but presumably intended for a domestic audience.

Putting this here as much as a reminder for myself as anyone else, I think the former interior minister Arsen Avakov was seen as being genuinely close to the far-right - Meduza have a very detailed profile of him here:

The powerful and unpopular Why the sudden resignation of Ukraine’s top police official is an important political event — Meduza

On July 13, Ukraine’s top police official, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, filed a letter of resignation. On July 15, the Ukrainian parliament supported his decision to step down. Avakov assumed office seven years ago, immediately after the end of the Euromaidan Revolution in February 2014. He...

meduza.io

After becoming Interior Minister, Avakov’s first move was to reestablish the National Guard — a military force with law enforcement functions — on the basis of the Interior Ministry’s Internal Troops. The National Guard is referred to in Ukraine as Avakov “personal army.” Along with regular Ukrainian troops, National Guard units were sent to fight the separatists and Russian armed forces in Donbas.

Volunteer battalions fighting in eastern Ukraine were also brought under the Interior Ministry. The most famous among them is the Azov Battalion, which later became the Azov Regiment of the National Guard. One of Azov’s founders, right-wing nationalist Andriy Biletsky, has been a close associate of Avakov since his time Kharkiv. Biletsky was involved with the Kharkiv branch of the far-right Social-National Assembly Party (now the Svoboda party) and co-founded its off-shoot, the ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi movement Social-National Assembly.

Belarusian neo-Nazi Serihy Korotkykh, otherwise known as “Botsman,” also fought with Azov and later ended up close to Avakov. Long before he moved to Ukraine, Korotkykh founded the Russian far-right group National Socialist Society, whose members have been accused of committing murders motivated by racial hatred. In Russia, Korotkykh went by the nickname “Malyuta” and befriended well-known neo-Nazi Maxim “Tesak” Martsinkevich — together, they carried out a radical project dubbed “Occupy Pedophilia,” taking public actions to “hunt” men identified as “pedophiles.” According to his Ukrainian asset declarations, Korotkykh worked as the head of the Interior Ministry’s Police Department for the Security of Strategic Objects from 2015 to 2018.

In addition, Biletsky and Korotkykh’s comrade — the Azov Battallion’s former deputy commander, Vadym Troyan — served as Avakov’s deputy for a long time.

But, of course, the important word in "former interior minister" is "former", because he resigned in July 2021 and, as I understand it (I am not the greatest expert on all this) I don't think there's been anyone comparably far-right in the government since then. So it sounds a little bit like someone saying they're going to invade the UK to liberate us from Dominic Cummings, I guess?

 

[deeyo]

Long thread, but has this been posted anywhere yet?

Against Annexations and Imperial Aggression

Yesterday, on February 21, an extraordinary meeting of the Russian Security Council was held. As part of this theatrical act, Putin forced his closest servants to publicly “ask” him to recognize the independence of the so-called “people’s republics” of the Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR] and...

avtonom.org

good one.

i found this (rather) short piece by a slovakian group interesting too, though written the day before the invasion.

No messing around with nation states

A war is coming. We will gladly leave questions of international law, this utopian discipline, to the experts. Reasoning which proceeds from the supposed natural claims of powers to buffer zones or a Lebensraum is just as alien to us. Such “realism” is inherently conservative, it affirms the...

bufet.karmina.red

 

[Raheem]

Again its yet another thing I have to file in the expected war propaganda category, at least until more confirmed facts emerge.

Russia-linked sources came out with the same thing on the internet when Iraq was invaded. They were providing running commentary/analysis that repeatedly made much of the US getting bogged down and featured lots of excited claims about how the timetable had gone wrong.

It's impossible to be sure of anything, of course. But there's a basic narrative that today Russia has been repeatedly sending columns of tanks and vehicles along arterial routes into the city, but they have not been getting though. That seems to be quite well corroborated.

I'm definitely not a military expert, but I'd say that you don't send convoys to go scouting. Maybe there is some other interpretation, but it seems to me that they must have been expecting to roll right into the centre of town without encountering meaningful resistance.

If that's the case and they are now having to plan instead for slowly pushing forward along an urban battlefront, that seems like things are not going brilliantly for them. Not that they are losing, just that things are not going as planned.

A gazillion caveats, of course.

 

[weltweit]

How about the even pages?

Look, I am "worldwide" I can't be expected to read the odd and the even pages!

 

[friedaweed]

So it sounds a little bit like someone saying they're going to invade the UK to liberate us from Dominic Cummings, I guess?

I wouldn't of objected to that. I'd of been in the street throwing flowers at the Welsh Fusiliers as they drove over the boarder.

 

[hitmouse]

I wouldn't of objected to that. I'd of been in the street throwing flowers at the Welsh Fusiliers as they drove over the boarder.

Yeah, doing it prior to 2021 would be one thing, but it'd be a bit mad to do it now, was what I was trying to get at.

 

[friedaweed]

Yeah, doing it prior to 2021 would be one thing, but it'd be a bit mad to do it now, was what I was trying to get at.

I'd be all up for the Cornish invasion to free us from the Pritster.

 

[friedaweed]

good one.

i found this (rather) short piece by a slovakian group interesting too, though written the day before the invasion.

No messing around with nation states

A war is coming. We will gladly leave questions of international law, this utopian discipline, to the experts. Reasoning which proceeds from the supposed natural claims of powers to buffer zones or a Lebensraum is just as alien to us. Such “realism” is inherently conservative, it affirms the...

bufet.karmina.red

Good read thanks for posting.

 

[A380]

I'd be all up for the Cornish invasion to free us from the Pritster.

Will they use a bridge floating on scones to cross the Tamar?

 

[discokermit]

I wouldn't of objected to that. I'd of been in the street throwing flowers at the Welsh Fusiliers as they drove over the boarder.

dominic cummings lives at your house?

 

[hitmouse]

dominic cummings lives at your house?

Worst LCD Soundsystem song ever.

 

[Raheem]

Worst LCD Soundsystem song ever.

County Durham remix is good though.

My son Dom's staying at my house, my house.
And the neighbours have
Called the police.

 

[friedaweed]

dominic cummings lives at your house?

He started squatting in our flower boarder just befor Christmas to try to escape the tabloids. He sits there amongst the rising bulbs typing away at his blog trying to square his beef with Bojo.
I shout at him through the bedroom window every now and then but it doesn't make any difference. He just sits there typing away muttering "My precious, they stole it from us. Nasty Borises"

 

[friedaweed]

Will they use a bridge floating on scones to cross the Tamar?

Only when they have decided if its best to put the cream or the jam on first

 

[two sheds]

Have we had this? Another brave man.

 

[TopCat]

If this is real (seems real) it’s something I’ve never seen the like of :
Account details at national bank of Ukraine asking people to send money for the army.

Національний банк відкрив спецрахунок для збору коштів на потреби армії (оновлено)

Національний банк України ухвалив рішення відкрити спеціальний рахунок для збору коштів на підтримку Збройних Сил України. Таке рішення ухвалене у зв’язку із введенням воєн...

bank.gov.ua

Did you chip in?

 

[Ax^]

would that be a bad thing for you TopCat?

 

[weltweit]

Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champion, warns of a difficult night ahead. I think I heard on the radio that he is going to fight.

 

[tim]

g

Have we had this? Another brave man.

Being brave in Dubai one of the constituent Emirates of the UAE, a brutal kleptocratic dictatorship, which is slaughtering the people of Yemen.

 

[A380]

Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champion, warns of a difficult night ahead. I think I heard on the radio that he is going to fight.

I can see Sadiq Khan picking up a rifle if it came to it, and Ken would have gone full wolverines given half a chance. But its obvious Johnson would either fuck off to the Bahamas for the duration or stay on to feather his own nest by putting the whole machinery at City Hall at the disposal of the invaders.

 

[two sheds]

g

Being brave in Dubai one of the constituent Emirates of the UAE, a brutal kleptocratic dictatorship, which is slaughtering the people of Yemen.

still wouldn't fancy being in his shoes if he goes back to russia.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

g

Being brave in Dubai one of the constituent Emirates of the UAE, a brutal kleptocratic dictatorship, which is slaughtering the people of Yemen.

It's not an empty gesture, though. He'll know his card is now marked. I hope many follow his example.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Ken would have gone full wolverines given half a chance

 

[not-bono-ever]

various SM - tiktok is the main engine for this atm - showing russian trucks and hardware utterly trashed. Judging by Puitains latest shouty message, this is not how it was supposed to be. calling for the military in Ukraine to turn against their government is pretty shoddy. Its as if he has entirely forgotten about the rancour that has marked past century of history between the 2 sides. He is well aware of this but I dont think he is a happy man here. the twat.

Kudos to the Russian citizens who are on the streets and getting a kicking from the filth- brave people