How could anyone actually think the Ghost of Kyiv was real. Right on first day there were screenshots of how he was created on facebook or something. It was just a guy who wanted to sell t-shirts if I remember right.

/Edit: It was also the time where many people on the social media sites were like "we're just going to make **** up, because positive propaganda is good and helps the cause!" ... people who spoke against it got downvoted to hell. 😄 Of course a lot of this stuff was later used by the russian side as proof for western lies, etc. etc.

Edited May 1, 20223 yr by Lexx

6 minutes ago, Lexx said:

How could anyone actually think the Ghost of Kyiv was real. Right on first day there were screenshots of how he was created on facebook or something. It was just a guy who wanted to sell t-shirts if I remember right.

/Edit: It was also the time where many people on the social media sites were like "we're just going to make **** up, because positive propaganda is good and helps the cause!" ... people who spoke against it got downvoted to hell. 😄 Of course a lot of this stuff was later used by the russian side as proof for western lies, etc. etc.

It did make me want to try out DCS though.

57 minutes ago, Lexx said:

How could anyone actually think the Ghost of Kyiv was real.

How indeed.

Oh wait n/m they dropped "alleged" in there, so it's not like they really believed it, and it doesn't matter if they did anyway because it's OK to spread bollocks if it helps the war effort or something.

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

How could anyone actually think the Ghost of Kyiv was real. Right on first day there were screenshots of how he was created on facebook or something. It was just a guy who wanted to sell t-shirts if I remember right.

Simple answer is a complete lack of critical thinking married to an intense desire for 'their' side to win. And if you start out believing it you'd feel kind of dumb if you were wrong, so it can 't be wrong. Fortunately that doesn't really describe many people here, but it describes an awful lot of people, in general. Plus some media actively promoted the story as true for clickbait eg the Mirror; though I'm definitely not linking them to avoid giving them clicks. Unfortunately, those sorts of media are also where a lot of people get their 'news'.

You'll still find some people who think Jessica Lynch fought off waves of Iraqi fedayeen while critically injured because they believed it and the alternative is that the US government made the story up- and that's despite her always maintaining that the initial story was a load of old bollocks and saying so pretty much from the instant she got rescued.

[And on the subject of propaganda: Sarex mentioned a claim that the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army had been injured. Ukraine has confirmed that Gerasimov is fine. But they've upped the deaths caused from 20 to 200 to compensate...]

Edited May 2, 20223 yr by Zoraptor

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

Latest rumor is that Valery Gerasimov has been wounded and a lot of senior staff killed in Izium.

ISW saying he left before the attack, for what that's worth, anyway.

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Simple answer is a complete lack of critical thinking married to an intense desire for 'their' side to win.

Great point, who do you want to win Zora ?

Some of these news about Russians pillaging and looting are somewhat sad: it seems so petty of them to do this kind of stuff, especially when you contrast it with Lavrov's demands that help for Ukraine should cease. The attitude is so mad: "we have the God-given(*) right to kill, rape and plunder, but you cannot help our victims". It beggars belief. Here's the piece: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/01/europe/russia-farm-vehicles-ukraine-disabled-melitopol-intl/index.html

(*) God-given comes from the church, from Kirill.

 

Incidentally, newspapers and other media outlets put "alleged" in front of pretty much everything, for legal reasons (i.e. a killer's status will remain "alleged" until his sentencing even if everyone knows he did it, and Cristiano Ronaldo will have "allegedly" dropped a cellphone even if you see him do it in the accompanying video clip). It's both silly and funny, but newspapers do it to protect themselves against lawsuits (the classic piece of first advice for a journalist is: "Never call a thief a thief". He's always an alleged thief, if he hasn't been sentenced yet).

The English rags don't really qualify as media, and it's really a damned shame there's a lot of people who get their information there.

(Sorry if I'm repeating this but) I read a very interesting point made by a local military expert. He said that we have now seen how badly some of the Russian equipment has worked and how much corruption there is in the army. From this we might conclude that Russia's nuclear threat is nowhere near what we've thought it would be: keeping all that stuff in working order for decades requires a lot of work, and conversely, there's a lot to money be gained via alternative routes (i.e. corruption). As we're talking about a kleptocracy that is inherently untrustworthy and does not work very well, the nuclear weapon question is very much in the air.

But of course the fact remains that the threat is not to be disregarded.

That's some next level brinkmanship thinking, bravo. Local military expert's name Turgidson?

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

(Sorry if I'm repeating this but) I read a very interesting point made by a local military expert. He said that we have now seen how badly some of the Russian equipment has worked and how much corruption there is in the army. From this we might conclude that Russia's nuclear threat is nowhere near what we've thought it would be: keeping all that stuff in working order for decades requires a lot of work, and conversely, there's a lot to money be gained via alternative routes (i.e. corruption). As we're talking about a kleptocracy that is inherently untrustworthy and does not work very well, the nuclear weapon question is very much in the air.

But of course the fact remains that the threat is not to be disregarded.

I tend to agree, we have no idea how well maintained the nuclear infrastructure has been. Its worth noting and seeing if we can get any confirmation 

12 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I tend to agree, we have no idea how well maintained the nuclear infrastructure has been. Its worth noting and seeing if we can get any confirmation 

I think it's almost impossible to have this confirmed.

Russia is supposed to have approximately 1600 deployed missiles ready to be launched. The actual numbers may well be lower, perhaps even a lot lower, but I'm inclined to agree with the military expert referred to above: whatever the number is, it's not something you want to disregard -- even if it is actually quite low.

Yeah, the reason why that take's hotter than a whorehouse on payroll day isn't because it's based fully on conjecture, indirect evidence and a metric ****ton of wishful thinking. It's because if even 95% of Russia's nuclear arsenal is inoperable due to incompetence, grafting and embezzlement, you're still looking at hundreds of millions of casualties potentially.

Looks like Lavrov had again his bright mood. After Moskva sunk, he immediately started threats about nuclear WW3, if NATO does not stop helping Ukraine, as they consider it as a direct NATO involvement against Russia. Few days later, he have made a statement, that Russia is not in a conflict with NATO at all. And today, in the conjunction of denazification and Zelenskyi being a jew, he made a statement, that even Hitler had jewish ancestors...

And some people here are suggesting, that we should take Russian statements a little bit more serious 🤣

 

Also two more ships "ishli na chuj" near Serpent Island 😛 Courtesy od Bayraktars.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=741133780230854

 

Also considering the Gerasimov incident, there is a report of Major General Semionov being killed at that attack on Izyum. I have not seen any mentions of number of other casualties, just a mention of significant blow against the chain of command at Izyum. Also when speaking about inflated numbers, Russia has released statement, that they killed more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers in the east with air attacks in a single day.

Aaaand the Kherson airport at Chornobaivka has seen another round of explosions of Russian encampment (I have lost count at bombing nr. 18 🤣)

5 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Also two more ships "ishli na chuj" near Serpent Island 😛 Courtesy od Bayraktars.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=741133780230854

I can't read the text, but judging by the speed with which they move and turn, clearly they're more boats than ships, isn't that right? Good hits, nevertheless.

2 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I can't read the text, but judging by the speed with which they move and turn, clearly they're more boats than ships, isn't that right? Good hits, nevertheless.

I am sorry if I am wrong with my English, but everything what has an engine and swims on water has a single name in my language, and that translates as a ship in English 😛

And looks like you are correct 😛 This is what has been assigned to special underwater operations during the night. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor-class_patrol_boat

 

As for something completely different, On Russian social media a lot of Russians who moved to Crimea, are now preparing to leave back home, being afraid that they get trapped there, if they manage to destroy the bridge to Russia. And are afraid of possible Ukrainian retaliation, for what Putin have done to Bucha and Mariupol. Also, rumours of Lukashenko starting negotiations with Ukraine start to circulate on Russian social media, which people assume, that means, that Russia lost the war.

Most of it is definitely rumour, but it shows, that it is not just bouquets of roses on the mind of Russians living close to Ukraine, and the support for Putin's war is lower day by day

Also it looks like Ukraine found a hole in Russian air defense and they managed to sneak in with few planes and bombed Belgorod.

 

7 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

I am sorry if I am wrong with my English, but everything what has an engine and swims on water has a single name in my language, and that translates as a ship in English 😛

No need to be sorry, I understand this phenomenon perfectly well (in fact, it's my specialty). It is indeed quite interesting how differently various languages categorize the world. For instance, Spanish and French make no real distinction between house and home (casa means both in Spanish, maison means both in French). English makes no real distinction between family (meaning just your mum and dad and siblings) and family (meaning your relatives including your mum and dad and siblings), or uncle (your mom's brother) and uncle (your dad's brother), whereas plenty of languages do. And so on.

It is fascinating.

34 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Looks like Lavrov had again his bright mood. After Moskva sunk, he immediately started threats about nuclear WW3, if NATO does not stop helping Ukraine, as they consider it as a direct NATO involvement against Russia. Few days later, he have made a statement, that Russia is not in a conflict with NATO at all. And today, in the conjunction of denazification and Zelenskyi being a jew, he made a statement, that even Hitler had jewish ancestors...

And some people here are suggesting, that we should take Russian statements a little bit more serious 🤣

Well, that's from the same guy who just stated that Adolf Hitler was a Jew (causing much anger in the state of Israel), in order to justify labeling Zelensky (who is Jewish) a Nazi /rolleyes

 

34 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Looks like Lavrov had again his bright mood. After Moskva sunk, he immediately started threats about nuclear WW3, if NATO does not stop helping Ukraine, as they consider it as a direct NATO involvement against Russia. Few days later, he have made a statement, that Russia is not in a conflict with NATO at all. And today, in the conjunction of denazification and Zelenskyi being a jew, he made a statement, that even Hitler had jewish ancestors...

Not very surprising that that comment by Lavrov didn't go down well in Israel: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-61296682

I am not sure if it's true that Lavrov tried to quit a while back (maybe even two years ago, or something), but Putin refused to let him go. If that is true, it is all the more astonishing to see him lie so blatantly and repeatedly during this war.

Dang, @Gorth, you got there first!

1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:

Dang, @Gorth, you got there first!

I was too lazy to find the BBC link... lets call it even?

 

Fair enough!

28 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Well, that's from the same guy who just stated that Adolf Hitler was a Jew (causing much anger in the state of Israel), in order to justify labeling Zelensky (who is Jewish) a Nazi /rolleyes

 

Talking about believing the Nazi conspiracy theory, where has Comrade been ?

News about Russia's goals. Interesting if true. Can't read the document itself, so that's a bummer (for me).

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-fake-referendums-russia-draft-document/31828617.html

My experience is that the Nordic countries tend to have plenty of decent politicians. Here's a good example: the former foreign and prime minister of Finland tweeting about the war. He makes excellent points in this 10-tweet thread. There's nothing groundbreaking about any of this, but it is good political discourse, nevertheless. I wonder what @kanisathathinks about it.

NB: In case anyone wants more information on this guy, it's good for you to know that the Wikipedia article concerning him is A. Stubb. 😛

 

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

My experience is that the Nordic countries tend to have plenty of decent politicians. Here's a good example: the former foreign and prime minister of Finland tweeting about the war. He makes excellent points in this 10-tweet thread. There's nothing groundbreaking about any of this, but it is good political discourse, nevertheless. I wonder what @kanisathathinks about it.

NB: In case anyone wants more information on this guy, it's good for you to know that the Wikipedia article concerning him is A. Stubb. 😛

 

Well just today there was a major article in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately behind a paywall) quoting several top Russian officials including our favorite Russian jokester, Lavrov, claiming Russia now intends to carry out a broader global war against the US and the West in retailiation for the US and the West aiding Ukraine in their not-war with Russia. Lots of blather from the Russians about how this is all now a plot by the West to keep Russia down blah blah blah.