Ukraine Conflict

[xzar_monty]

Putin's New Year's speech is, shall we say, quite something. Also almost certainly his longest, at nine minutes or so.

Also, it's delightful that this same woman keeps appearing close to Putin, representing various professions according to the needs of the moment. In the New Year's Speech, she was a soldier.

Edited December 31, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

 

[xzar_monty]

Not a very pleasant report on how the Russian army treats its own personnel. A Twitter thread made more readable by an app:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1609535843391377408.html

Edited January 2, 2023 by xzar_monty

[xzar_monty]

It appears that Ukraine has managed to make a particularly effective strike, even though the numbers are not clear yet -- but the numbers mentioned by Russians are big indeed. I wonder if this is the biggest individual hit Ukraine has been able to muster.

Storing ammunition in the same building with soldiers doesn't sound like a bright idea to me.

 

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

It appears that Ukraine has managed to make a particularly effective strike, even though the numbers are not clear yet -- but the numbers mentioned by Russians are big indeed. I wonder if this is the biggest individual hit Ukraine has been able to muster.

Storing ammunition in the same building with soldiers doesn't sound like a bright idea to me.

 

Yup, according to Ukrainian warreporters, biggest hit so far. I have linked about this hit tonight, few posts above, but unfortunately Safari does not work anymore with Obsidian boards, so unfortunately I was not able to write any context there.

Anyway, Russian sources claim 600+ dead service men, and are complaining, about the idiocy of the commander, who put 600+ servicemen on top of ammunition pile during Putin's speech. Ukrainian sources on the other way, would like to see this commandant promoted to General

Girkin has already shared his thoughts about the incident as well.
 

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Mamoulian War

[bugarup]

Not just ammo, there were military vehicles and other equipment parked there too. Really thougthful of Z-head brass to pack them all in all place, I hear that Himars rockets are quite costly. Shame about the cat that died in explosion, though; poor bastard definitely wasn't there to rape and torture people.

[Malcador]

 

[xzar_monty]

19 hours ago, bugarup said:

Shame about the cat that died in explosion, though; poor bastard definitely wasn't there to rape and torture people.

Speaking of which: apparently 25 torture chambers found in Kharkiv. I have not seen this info (coming from Ukraine) verified in what I'd consider good media, but certainly it doesn't sound like an exaggeration, considering Bucha and Russia in general.

As for rape, Putin's Russia has throughout the 2000s steadfastly opposed every proposed improvement to dealing with rape-related (war) crimes, all the way up to the UN security council. It's heartbreaking.

Edited January 3, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

Little bit more news about Makiivka incident. There is one russian/separatist milblogger on Telegram, who claims, that he has contacts to Separatist army, which were on site after the explosion, and were documenting the damage and casualties, and also some families of deceased Russian mobiks from Saratov, which were on site during the explosion. He posted on his Telegram, that based on his sources, the number of casualties is indeed 600+. He also mentioned, that according to the relatives of deceased mobiks, some of them have spoken with them few hours before the explosion over the phone, and they have said, that approx 5 hours before the strike, the local command had suspicion about possible attack to their "barracks", so they tried to contact High Command, what to do. As the High Command did not respond, they have decided to do nothing and stayed at the site. We all know, how that decision played out. The source is from this video, he shows screenshots of the Telegram post on his video, and talks few minutes about the history of the blogger and his recent post. Unfortunately I am not on Telegram, so I was not able to doublecheck it. So as always, take it with a little pinch of salt.

Also, a video of how New Year was celebrated in Russia in big cities. Allegedly up to 2000 people who celebrated New Year in St. Petersburg, were detained by force and taken away. All of them were men. Allegedly the same happened in Moscow as well.
 

 

[Lexx]

Crazy thing is that nobody is doing anything in those videos. Compare this to regular sunday in Berlin, where people would throw stones at the police.

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Crazy thing is that nobody is doing anything in those videos. Compare this to regular sunday in Berlin, where people would throw stones at the police.

Keep in mind, that this was no protest, there were just people walking around, enjoying their NY Eve. Then the OMON came, and started to pick random men on the street.

[Lexx]

I'm aware of that, but surely someone must have noticed? At least once the women start crying that their husbands get taken away for nothing?

Edited January 3, 2023 by Lexx

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

I'm aware of that, but surely someone must have noticed? At least once the women start crying that their husbands get taken away for nothing?

A Russian activist of sorts has pointed out that Russian surveillance technology is superb, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Your face WILL be recognized, and they WILL come after you. The punishment will be severe. This is one reason why it's so very dangerous to demonstrate in Russia: the internal security service works much better than the army, and has better resources. And for good reason, too: Putin most certainly has his reasons to be afraid of his own people.

Btw, do you have an opinion on that absurd video posted by that German minister? It is excruciatingly embarrassing, in my opinion. I understand it didn't go down well in Germany.

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

Crazy thing is that nobody is doing anything in those videos. Compare this to regular sunday in Berlin, where people would throw stones at the police.

Well, consider the reputation of the cops. Some forces people learn to not mess with.

[majestic]

21 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Btw, do you have an opinion on that absurd video posted by that German minister? It is excruciatingly embarrassing, in my opinion. I understand it didn't go down well in Germany.

Just wait until she becomes President of the European Commission some years down the line, the terminal storage for failed German ministers of defense.  

[Lexx]

42 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

A Russian activist of sorts has pointed out that Russian surveillance technology is superb, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Your face WILL be recognized, and they WILL come after you. The punishment will be severe. This is one reason why it's so very dangerous to demonstrate in Russia: the internal security service works much better than the army, and has better resources. And for good reason, too: Putin most certainly has his reasons to be afraid of his own people.

Btw, do you have an opinion on that absurd video posted by that German minister? It is excruciatingly embarrassing, in my opinion. I understand it didn't go down well in Germany.

Well, that sucks. Kinda glad we are living now and in the west, I guess. Who knows how the world will look like in 50 years.

About the video, no idea, haven't seen anything.

[xzar_monty]

7 minutes ago, Lexx said:

About the video, no idea, haven't seen anything.

A video report on it below.

And here's a link to an HRW article on one way that Russia uses surveillance technology right now: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/26/russia-uses-facial-recognition-hunt-down-draft-evaders

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

Reporter was right, there's not much happening if this is causing controversy.

[Lexx]

Well, she should fire her writer. I get what she means when saying that, but it does feel very... oof.

Keep in mind that she very likely has no idea about war, military, and anything related to defense. I have absolutely no idea why they keep assigning such people to this position. Remember, our last one was the family minister before becoming defense minister....

[Elerond]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

A video report on it below.

And here's a link to an HRW article on one way that Russia uses surveillance technology right now: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/26/russia-uses-facial-recognition-hunt-down-draft-evaders

Interesting thing is that facial recognition tech they use was developed by group of Russian hackers that first used it to dox Russian porn actress in order to shame/black mail them, but now it is used to find people who were first gleeful when it was released.

https://globalvoices.org/2016/04/22/facial-recognition-service-becomes-a-weapon-against-russian-porn-actresses/ 

[xzar_monty]

Very interesting stuff from Germany: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-germany-influencers/

History can be excruciatingly harrowing: in the 20th century, Germany was a kind of a scourge for Europe because of all the things that it did. And now it's creating huge problems for Europe because of the good things that it leaves or has left undone (both militarily and in support of Ukraine) and because of the things it has done in response to its earlier deeds (i.e. tying itself to Russian energy in an effort to work out peace through trade). No blame attached to this comment, just exasperation at how things can go.

[Mamoulian War]

Aftermath of Makiivka hit.

Russian MoD started to blame mobilized themselves, saying, that the attack was due to their usage of mobile phones. According to some milbloggers, the mobile phones of mobiks are confiscated as soon as they get to the front. Relatives of some survivors are also saying, that the Russians are also "taking care" of survivors in various ways, just to cover up this mega ****-up and save their own hides.
 

EDIT: Yestreday Ukrainian General Staff reported another big hit similar to the one in Makiivka, reporting 500 KIA+WIA in village of Western Kherson Oblast. So the numbers of KIA is definitely lower, but the pattern is the same. A big bunch of mobiks/servicemen in one place, being hit by long range artillery. Man would say, that Russians would already learn since the summer, that putting a lot of men together with their equipment is very very bad idea.Instead, they are doing some witchhunts to find someone to blame for it...

Edited January 4, 2023 by Mamoulian War

[Lexx]

43 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Man would say, that Russians would already learn since the summer, that putting a lot of men together with their equipment is very very bad idea.Instead, they are doing some witchhunts to find someone to blame for it...

I don't mind, though. They can keep doing that for all I care. Maybe the war will then end sooner, idk.

[kanisatha]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Very interesting stuff from Germany: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-germany-influencers/

History can be excruciatingly harrowing: in the 20th century, Germany was a kind of a scourge for Europe because of all the things that it did. And now it's creating huge problems for Europe because of the good things that it leaves or has left undone (both militarily and in support of Ukraine) and because of the things it has done in response to its earlier deeds (i.e. tying itself to Russian energy in an effort to work out peace through trade). No blame attached to this comment, just exasperation at how things can go.

I was just now about to post this very article, as I found the story very interesting too!!

[Malcador]

https://abcnews.go.com/International/expect-strikes-deeper-deeper-russia-ukraines-spy-chief/story?id=96127220

Interesting he says they expect Bradleys soon, might be wish as an expectation though.  The bit about denuclearizing Russia is good laugh.