Ukraine Conflict - Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master

[Mamoulian War]

Something different and little bit less sad from the conflict.

 

[Gfted1]

That 2,000 Yard Stare

[BruceVC]

11 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Something different and little bit less sad from the conflict.

 

I love this story, I was reading how he ended up getting reunited in the comments because Belarus to Spain is a long way. But the QR code in his collar helped track his owners and kind people in Belarus also made it possible

I like  how they say " Russians kidnapped the cat "  Dont they mean catnapped?

Bad Russians, bad bad Russians 

Edited February 1, 2023 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

Hmm. This sounds both like an astonishing admission and too big, as a number, so it raises doubts. Interesting nevertheless.

 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Hmm. This sounds both like an astonishing admission and too big, as a number, so it raises doubts. Interesting nevertheless.

 

It wouldnt surprise me at all, we know the Ruskie airborne forces suffered huge casualties. There are  several accounts of this from different sources 

The acknowledgement is a bit of a  surprise but if there are  not  sufficient  airborne forces on the ground it becomes hard  to justify why if you not being honest because the obvious next question would be " why are we not deploying  more of our special forces " 

 

[xzar_monty]

I think I have previously said that Russia, as an entity, looks like a self-pitying murderer who laments the injustices it constantly faces. Well, here's a new example: the Russian foreign ministry has informed Finland that it is astonished at and disappointed by the way Finland decided to ruin the relationship between the two countries basically overnight by joining outside forces antagonistic to Russia. In saying this, the Russian foreign ministry makes no mention that anything untoward might be happening in Ukraine. Russia also brings up things like "psychosis" and seriously doubts Finland's capacity to make its own decisions. Meanwhile, various things in Finland have been and are being cyber-attacked by Russia (with negligible but not meaningless consequences).

You couldn't wish for a better neighbour.

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Hmm. This sounds both like an astonishing admission and too big, as a number, so it raises doubts. Interesting nevertheless.

 

It might raise a doubt, but there is reported much lower presence of VDV recorded content from their combat missions on Telegram since September or so. Reasons might be also completely different, but this might be underline the above statement.

[Mamoulian War]

It looks like the GLSDBs will be in the next aid package from USA.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-readies-2-bln-plus-ukraine-aid-package-with-longer-range-weapons-sources-2023-01-31/

[kanisatha]

8 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Hmm. This sounds both like an astonishing admission and too big, as a number, so it raises doubts. Interesting nevertheless.

Not so surprising since Russia has seen their VDV forces as their most competent mainline forces, and as such have thrown them into every single battle. I would even expect that now they are completely depleted.

[Malcador]

Good person to follow, granted the bar for war commentary on Twitter is low..

I have to admit this tweet in the thread is pretty funny

Apparently they are active in Bakhmut though

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

Good person to follow, granted the bar for war commentary on Twitter is low..

I have to admit this tweet in the thread is pretty funny

Apparently they are active in Bakhmut though

A little bit in-depth investigation into the guy/organization behind the Rybar channel and his credibility. Approximate expenses of this channel are about $30-50k per month, as he is paying a lot of insiders in Russia and Ukraine.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/11/18/who-s-behind-rybar

[Zoraptor]

Rybar, much like Girkin/ Strelkov, is precisely as reliable as the observers' biases*. For pro Ukrainians If he's saying the Russians/ Wagner are advancing and, inevitably, UkrMoD says they're not he's unreliable. If he provides footage without meeting their expectations then it's faked or historical**. If he says something people want to be true then... VDV still has a big presence in Syria anyway, and you'd suspect they'd be withdrawn from there if really needed. Most likely as with a lot of the original Russian forces they've been reorganising.

(They'd have had a lot of casualties for sure, but that doesn't necessarily reduce effectiveness in the longer term since you add in replacements constantly. The Golden Division in Iraq suffered more than 100% casualties over the course of fighting ISIS for example, though they were the only really effective regular Iraqi army formation full stop)

*much like anyone really. Funny how Arestovich got reliable to pro Russians when he said things that disagreed with the Ukrainian official line too

**he provided the footage of 4 Ukrainian S-300s getting hit by a cluster munition which appeared in the last week. Couldn't be current though, said Ukrainian Hasbara, no snow on the ground! So must be fake, or from last spring or... Check last two weeks of weather for Kharkov though and: no precipitation, and every day had temperature above freezing. Check satellite image for provided co-ords and they look identical too, no snow and same field pattern. Ho hum. Whatever gets you through though, I guess.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/01/europe/ukraine-soldiers-fighting-wagner-intl-cmd/index.html

Really informative and evocative article about fighting Wagner Group and how they use " cannon-fodder " tactics

It sounds like hell, imagine being part of  the Wagner Group 

 

[Mamoulian War]

15 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Rybar, much like Girkin/ Strelkov, is precisely as reliable as the observers' biases*. For pro Ukrainians If he's saying the Russians/ Wagner are advancing and, inevitably, UkrMoD says they're not he's unreliable. If he provides footage without meeting their expectations then it's faked or historical**. If he says something people want to be true then... VDV still has a big presence in Syria anyway, and you'd suspect they'd be withdrawn from there if really needed. Most likely as with a lot of the original Russian forces they've been reorganising.

(They'd have had a lot of casualties for sure, but that doesn't necessarily reduce effectiveness in the longer term since you add in replacements constantly. The Golden Division in Iraq suffered more than 100% casualties over the course of fighting ISIS for example, though they were the only really effective regular Iraqi army formation full stop)

*much like anyone really. Funny how Arestovich got reliable to pro Russians when he said things that disagreed with the Ukrainian official line too

**he provided the footage of 4 Ukrainian S-300s getting hit by a cluster munition which appeared in the last week. Couldn't be current though, said Ukrainian Hasbara, no snow on the ground! So must be fake, or from last spring or... Check last two weeks of weather for Kharkov though and: no precipitation, and every day had temperature above freezing. Check satellite image for provided co-ords and they look identical too, no snow and same field pattern. Ho hum. Whatever gets you through though, I guess.

Girkin and Grey Zone, are probably only two pro-russian sources, where a pro-ukrainian people can find information which is not aligned with their information bubble, and still find it trustworthy, even if they do not like what they say.

Rybar on the other hand is one of the most used sources in pro-ukrainian medias, when talking about Russian advances. So his information are probably considered reliable as well. I do not follow him, I can’t comment on his current reliability. Stopped following him, during Kherson counter-offensive, as he was at that point summoned with few other milbloggers to Kremlin, and I noticed much bigger increase of propaganda narrative in his reports. For the same reason, I stopped following few western sources as well

[Mamoulian War]

An interview with Russian officer, who went to Ukraine, but did not want to fight Ukrainian people. He was later dismissed and fled Ukraine.

summary: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/2/7387569/

full article (in russian, so you have to run it through google translate): https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64491016?ocid=wsrussian.social.in-app-messaging.telegram..russiantelegram_.edit

 

[Lexx]

Or use this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64470092

[pmp10]

A fascinating article about the visit of Burns in Kiev and Moscow.

For anyone no fluent in German that can't be bother with translation software:

Supposedly Putin was offered 20% of Ukraine (likely the part already held by Russians) as a peace offering but turned it down as not enough.
Ukraine was also not interested, I bet they weren't offered any guarantees for the future.

This fiasco resulted in a snap decision to send Abrams tanks which caught Scholtz unaware and finally cornered him in regards to Leopards. 

[Chilloutman]

paywalled, but interesting indeed

[Mamoulian War]

On 2/2/2023 at 4:09 PM, pmp10 said:

A fascinating article about the visit of Burns in Kiev and Moscow.

For anyone no fluent in German that can't be bother with translation software:

Supposedly Putin was offered 20% of Ukraine (likely the part already held by Russians) as a peace offering but turned it down as not enough.
Ukraine was also not interested, I bet they weren't offered any guarantees for the future.

This fiasco resulted in a snap decision to send Abrams tanks which caught Scholtz unaware and finally cornered him in regards to Leopards. 

In a very rare occurence, Russia and USA agreed on a statement, and officialy announced, that this news are not based on truth.

[Mamoulian War]

And a little bit more info about the newest glider provided in the latest UA help package. It will have it’s own launcher and it is now worked on making it compatible with HIMARS.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-new-weapon-will-force-russian-shift-2023-02-02/

[Zoraptor]

Dear Germany,

If you don't want comparisons to World War 2 might I suggest sending pretty much any number other than 88 Leopard's to Ukraine? What next, insisting they be used exclusively by Azov? Maybe you could show friendly intent by painting a prominent symbol of pacific Jainism/ Buddhism on them indicating their peacefulness? Just make sure not to mirror it, eh.

88 --> HH --> Hulk Hogan Heil Hitler, for anyone wondering. Very hard to imagine the Germans managed to miss the significance there so I'm rather skeptical the number is actually true despite being picked up by some relatively reliable sites.

And a few days old now, but a bit of correction for something earlier... Morocco says Czechs sent their T-72s to Ukraine without permission. So far from it being a sign of how widespread support was for Ukraine even in Africa it was just yet another example of Euros seizing African assets for Europe's benefit. Or at least, making public a backroom deal Morocco didn't want public, since it's unlikely they weren't in fact paid.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Zoraptor

[HoonDing]

NATO will keep fighting until the last Ukrainian. Then it's time for Formosa.

[Maedhros]

It baffles me that anyone's focus in this war is consistently criticising anyone but Russia.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Maedhros

[Malcador]

25 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

It baffles me that anyone's focus in this war is consistently criticising anyone but Russia.

How so?

Besides, plenty of criticism for Russia here, xzar_monty is always posting some generic "Russians are evil" typle post every now and then.

88 Leopards is still pretty funny, mostly L1s which has some people upset. Mind you, these people think no country buy Ukraine needs a military.

Tank related

https://mobile.twitter.com/thorstenbenner/status/1621593786588532739

Edited February 3, 2023 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, HoonDing said:

NATO will keep fighting until the last Ukrainian. Then it's time for Formosa.

And Iranians will fight to the last Russian