Ukraine Conflict - "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

[Mamoulian War]

Ok, so grand mobilization did not happen today. But from what is happening last few days, it looks like, that Russia starting to focus on Odessa. They are moving away from Kharkiv, because they found out, they are not able to get anywhere close to it, and they started big shelling in Mykolaiv, Odessa, and destroyed the only bridge between Romania and Odessa in middle of the Odessa Oblast. Ukraine did a lot of preemptive strikes to weaken the Russian Navy around Serpent Island and Russia have started to amass their soldiers and military equipment at north Crimea. So IMHO Russians moved to third phase, after they were not able to make any significant gains in Donbas, and they will try now to go against Odessa, to seize the last Ukrainian port, and they attempt to landlock it. The flase flag attacks in Transnistria are probably also a sign of Odessa offensive in preparation.

And I have found a small but very good channel by an Ukrainian guy, who is also posting their non-successes. I think it is the best channel regarding the fights, I've found so far, without noticeable propaganda from both sides.

Also a little bit about grand mobilization, if it would theoretically happened.

 

[kanisatha]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But the speech was classic Putin propaganda 101. It had everything you knew would be in it. Nazis, nukes, NATO wanting to invade Russia through Ukraine, defense of motherland and of course unconvincing comparisons that the invasion of Ukraine is the same as the threat faced towards the USSR in WW2.

This is the big lie that Putin seems to now have fixated on for his domestic audience, that Russia faces today, from a "neo-Nazi" "gangster" West, an existential threat just like it did in 1940. However, only a tiny fraction of Russia's population today was even born pre-1945. And yes I'm sure everyone got plenty of "Great Patriotic War" indoctrination in school, but still, I have to wonder how effective all this propaganda actually is, even with a very propaganda-and-conspiracy-theory-favoring Russian public.

[Zoraptor]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

No, was suggesting they would cover it, hence being a 'rare' occurrence.

CNN (International) usually covers the parade, briefly. As does BBC and AJE. We'd be talking maybe 15s as a filler report most years though, unless something interesting was expected to happen. You'd be getting CNN (North America) though which has identical branding but different content and I suspect would have rather less of the, well, International about it. Someone watching in NZ or South Africa would have a difference experience.

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

So IMHO Russians moved to third phase, after they were not able to make any significant gains in Donbas, and they will try now to go against Odessa, to seize the last Ukrainian port, and they attempt to landlock it. The flase flag attacks in Transnistria are probably also a sign of Odessa offensive in preparation.

That really doesn't seem likely at all. If the Russians were planning something from Transnistria you need a good reason for trying it now rather than back in February or March when they had troops only about 100km away along a broad front. Odessa is also more than twice the size of Mariupol.

[ShadySands]

Really happy with the lack of announcements today. Entire family breathed a sigh of relief, even the pro-Russia ones.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

Really happy with the lack of announcements today. Entire family breathed a sigh of relief, even the pro-Russia ones.

There are, indeed, those of us who are somewhat removed from the war and those who are more closely touched by it. Happy to hear those news from you.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, even as someone who was not particularly surprised we got no announcements it was certainly still a case of no news is good news. War declarations or mobilisation up the stakes and make a quick (and at least relatively low destruction) resolution a lot less likely.

[BruceVC]

37 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Yeah, even as someone who was not particularly surprised we got no announcements it was certainly still a case of no news is good news. War declarations or mobilisation up the stakes and make a quick (and at least relatively low destruction) resolution a lot less likely.

More importantly we didnt need a war declaration, it already is a war so whatever propaganda came from Putin makes no difference to the reality on the ground  

[bugarup]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:41 AM, BruceVC said:

The one thing I did like about it was Putin recognized that the families of killed Russian soldiers would be compensated and wounded soldiers would be looked after. That does matter because you would expect any country to respect its soldiers killed in any war 

Only if there is a corpse. No cadaver, no money, comrade. And according to russian war ministry there are only 1351 dead.

 

[xzar_monty]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:41 AM, BruceVC said:

The one thing I did like about it was Putin recognized that the families of killed Russian soldiers would be compensated and wounded soldiers would be looked after. That does matter because you would expect any country to respect its soldiers killed in any war 

I wouldn't trust this (heck, if Putin said it's two o'clock I'd check my watch), although I'd wager that at least somebody is going to get something. Let us keep in mind that Putin has stressed how conscripts would not be used in battle, although they definitely have been used.

[Mamoulian War]

Speaking of compensations, some parents of sailors which died on Moskva, have allegedly complained, that they are not getting anything, because officially Moskva was not part of Special Military Operations, it was just swimming around Black Sea. I'll try to dig out the source from week ago.

And a friend linked me a few interesting propaganda gem pieces from May the 9th

 

[xzar_monty]

@Mamoulian War: D'oh. Here's an interesting thing: you would sort of think that this kind of stuff was done with at least some amount of subtlety and care. But it's not. It's once again in the great tradition of editing Kirill's watch from the picture but neglecting to edit the reflection of the watch on the table. It's so amateurish that it's actually quite hard to believe.

Hmm. I just saw a video of a Russian column of tanks getting severely beaten. One of the tanks had its top seriously blown off, I suppose it reached an altitude of 100+ meters, high enough to start a Special Airborne Operation. Dang that was brutal. I'm sure anyone can find this video if they want to. The Ukrainians appear to have better weapons now.

[Mamoulian War]

I have found some news aggregator from Ukraine, which is writing about one missing sailor from Moskva and a response from a prosecutor's office

https://newsrnd.com/news/2022-05-07-russia-claims--"moskva"-did-not-fight-against-ukraine-at-all---soldier-s-father-is-outraged.HJGDZOmIq.html

And I have found a link to the scan of the document translated by google translate camera, i've seen this Prosecutor's letter in some YT video, but it was few days ago, and I have no clue how to find it again.

although it is on 4chan... sooo I just put it in the spoiler tag, just in case, that someone would like to check it out, because we all know, what kind of place is that

Spoiler

https://i.4cdn.org/k/1651821914366.jpg

 

 

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

@Mamoulian War: D'oh. Here's an interesting thing: you would sort of think that this kind of stuff was done with at least some amount of subtlety and care. But it's not. It's once again in the great tradition of editing Kirill's watch from the picture but neglecting to edit the reflection of the watch on the table. It's so amateurish that it's actually quite hard to believe.

Hmm. I just saw a video of a Russian column of tanks getting severely beaten. One of the tanks had its top seriously blown off, I suppose it reached an altitude of 100+ meters, high enough to start a Special Airborne Operation. Dang that was brutal. I'm sure anyone can find this video if they want to. The Ukrainians appear to have better weapons now.

Sounds like normal operation with a Javelin and the design of the T-72.

[bugarup]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

Speaking of compensations, some parents of sailors which died on Moskva, have allegedly complained, that they are not getting anything, because officially Moskva was not part of Special Military Operations, it was just swimming around Black Sea. I'll try to dig out the source from week ago.

And a friend linked me a few interesting propaganda gem pieces from May the 9th

 

It's even better when they honor German soldiers as well as German tanks (bonus for upside-down flag): 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Speaking of compensations, some parents of sailors which died on Moskva, have allegedly complained, that they are not getting anything, because officially Moskva was not part of Special Military Operations, it was just swimming around Black Sea. I'll try to dig out the source from week ago.

And a friend linked me a few interesting propaganda gem pieces from May the 9th

 

Russian propaganda is so ridiculously unbelievable you can only laugh  

Yet people believe it 

Which makes me wonder where Comrade is? Does anyone know where he is, he has been quiet for ages ?

 

 

[majestic]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Which makes me wonder where Comrade is? Does anyone know where he is, he has been quiet for ages ?

I think it is not much of a coincidence that he 'disappeared' after he called Hurlshot a Californian pedophile not worth explaining himself to. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that he got beaten by the ban hammer for that.

Maybe he'll eventually be back as SonicComrade or YellowMage117, who knows.

[Sarex]

He shouldn't have called him Californian, I don't know what he expected...

[Malcador]

I will miss that alt.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

13 minutes ago, Sarex said:

He shouldn't have called him Californian, I don't know what he expected...

Hurlshot doesn't even eat avocados, how could he be Cali?

[kanisatha]

Article on the long-term strategic ramifications in Europe from the war:

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-transforming-europe/

Article on the failure of Russian airpower in the war:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/russian-military-air-force-failure-ukraine/629803/

Some more interesting tidbits on Finland, Sweden, and NATO membership [incl. some good observations on the tremendous value Finland brings to NATO, a big part of why I like Finland in NATO ]:

https://www.rferl.org/a/finland-sweden-nato-membership-explainer-russia-ukraine/31841209.html

[Malcador]

Some tanks are moving around in Belarus, obviously this means they are invading.

[kanisatha]

For those of you who, like me, are interested in the nitty-gritty details of the tactical and operational battlefield in Ukraine:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-9

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, Malcador said:

Some tanks are moving around in Belarus, obviously this means they are invading.

Well after being told by Russia that the massive troop buildup in Belarus and on the border of Ukraine was a " training exercise " you can understand how no one believes a single word that comes out the mouth of Russia or Belarus ?

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Well after being told by Russia that the massive troop buildup in Belarus and on the border of Ukraine was a " training exercise " you can understand how no one believes a single word that comes out the mouth of Russia or Belarus ?

I guess, but was just commenting on a bunch of videos of T-72s on a train somewhere as proof.  Doesn't make much sense for them to enter now, anyway.

 

[Sarex]

12 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I guess, but was just commenting on a bunch of videos of T-72s on a train somewhere as proof.  Doesn't make much sense for them to enter now, anyway.

Force them to pull troops back to Kiev.