UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[LaCroix]

Yep, they were stopped last time. The only reason they made it this far this time is that they bought one/some (investigations and trials still ongoing) officers overseeing the southern defense forces, who made ukrainian troops under their control stand down, surrender, etc, which allowed them to rush in so deep. If it weren't for Mariupol defense forces resisting for as long as they could, denying them an essential transportation hub, Russia would have gotten even further.

[LaCroix]

To add insult to injury - there was a S400 stationed in Feodosiya, not even 2 miles away from the harbor, and it could do jack shit to intercept those missiles. Thus, the Black sea fleet is now vacating this last port in Crimea, for safer harbors even further away.

In order to patrol the Black sea, Russia is putting the 1950/60 era Be-12 back into service. It remains to be seen how effective this is , as while they do have abilities to drop bombs/torpedos and supposedly some kind of missiles, it is questionable if anti-submaring/ship ammunition is able to hit small motorboat sized targets moving at high speeds(provided they even manage to stay airborne after sitting neglected and rotting for 60+ years).

And for aerial drones, which are the bigger threat, the only thing these antiques can do to stop them is to either ram them or have the crew fire small arms out of the doors/windows.

Meanwhile, the russian MOD keeps on ordering troops to run straight into the killboxes of Avdiivka and Krinky, ignoring Russian soldiers who keep complaining that their assault troops do not even reach combat range before getting anihilated by drone swarms, and getting only sparse support by artillery crews. This perception is mostly due to the fact that while these are still firing a hitload of rounds, they do now almost exclusively have to rely on NK delivered ammunition which has a good chance of blowing up their gun, and when actually sucressfully leaving the barrel, either does not explode, or - due to the huge variations in propellant charge, has dispersion ranges that rely on postal codes, rather than coordinates.

Also, in a recent interview, Putin himself confirmed the loss numbers that are provided by the ukrainian MOD - he stated the number of Russian soldiers pre-assigned, and the numbers of russian mobilization drives, and that about 600k are currently active. Doing the math, this leaves us with a loss number of roughly 360k, at a time the UA MOD stated about 340k in estimated losses.

Given that there are a good number of wounded mixed in there (but not a lot, since Russia has the habit of sending wounded soldiers back in order to have a second attemt at martyrdom - and to save on pensions), but Wagner and the "Ukrainian seperatist armies" (who wore the brunt of the casualties) are not included in those numbers, it seems the current estimations are pretty spot on, if not conservative.

[LadyTevar]

350k Russians dead or too wounded to continue.

But what's the Ukrainian toll?

[Vympel]

After the Ukrainians managed to destroy 3 Su-34s via patriot sam , there are reports that russia is discussing pulling all.air.power out of crimea - between them being destroyed on airfields and now not able to enter the Kherson region, they.aren't doing anything.good there.

Also, all marine vessels have been pulled out of the black sea and the sea of azov.

Germany sent 3 more gepard, and netherlands stated that the first batch of f16 will be deliclvered in 2023. Which means they probably already are inside the ukraine, since the ukrainians have a habit of unveiling new toys by using them in a devastating attack.

Honestly, where do you hear this utter bullshit? Like, seriously?

Even if Ukraine managed to shoot down 3 Su-34s- which they clearly didn't given how they tried to buttress their claims with pictures from a year ago - how would that lead to them "pulling all air power out of Crimea". That's idiotic. There is no connection between those two things at all.

The Russians are bombing Kherson routinely, this idea of them "now not able to enter the Kherson region" is a lie. And a Russian aircraft hasn't been destroyed on an airfield in Crimea in like - what - a year?

To add insult to injury - there was a S400 stationed in Feodosiya, not even 2 miles away from the harbor, and it could do jack shit to intercept those missiles. Thus, the Black sea fleet is now vacating this last port in Crimea, for safer harbors even further away.

In order to patrol the Black sea, Russia is putting the 1950/60 era Be-12 back into service. It remains to be seen how effective this is , as while they do have abilities to drop bombs/torpedos and supposedly some kind of missiles, it is questionable if anti-submaring/ship ammunition is able to hit small motorboat sized targets moving at high speeds(provided they even manage to stay airborne after sitting neglected and rotting for 60+ years).

And for aerial drones, which are the bigger threat, the only thing these antiques can do to stop them is to either ram them or have the crew fire small arms out of the doors/windows.

Meanwhile, the russian MOD keeps on ordering troops to run straight into the killboxes of Avdiivka and Krinky, ignoring Russian soldiers who keep complaining that their assault troops do not even reach combat range before getting anihilated by drone swarms, and getting only sparse support by artillery crews. This perception is mostly due to the fact that while these are still firing a hitload of rounds, they do now almost exclusively have to rely on NK delivered ammunition which has a good chance of blowing up their gun, and when actually sucressfully leaving the barrel, either does not explode, or - due to the huge variations in propellant charge, has dispersion ranges that rely on postal codes, rather than coordinates.

Also, in a recent interview, Putin himself confirmed the loss numbers that are provided by the ukrainian MOD - he stated the number of Russian soldiers pre-assigned, and the numbers of russian mobilization drives, and that about 600k are currently active. Doing the math, this leaves us with a loss number of roughly 360k, at a time the UA MOD stated about 340k in estimated losses.

Given that there are a good number of wounded mixed in there (but not a lot, since Russia has the habit of sending wounded soldiers back in order to have a second attemt at martyrdom - and to save on pensions), but Wagner and the "Ukrainian seperatist armies" (who wore the brunt of the casualties) are not included in those numbers, it seems the current estimations are pretty spot on, if not conservative.

And yet more BS:

1. It's not significant that there was an S-400 system nearby Feodosia or not. Storm Shadow is a low flying cruise missile and is not an appropriate target for an S-400 air defence system. Becuase its low flying, the engagement time is necessarily short because the radar's field of view is limited by the horizon. The proper system for shooting down systems of this nature is a close in system like Tor or Pantsir, which naturally have a much lower threat area than an S-400, requiring more systems to provide effective defence. Even with the Russians possessing more air defence systems of this nature than anyone else, its still an impossible task to cover everywhere all at once, especially a lower priority port like Feodosia. Which brings me tp the next point.

2. Feodosia is not a significant "Black Sea Fleet" port. No ships 'evacuated' from here, the only ship of any consequence that was there was the landing ship that was struck in the first place. The major combat ships of the BSF have already been moved to Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai due to the threat of Ukrainian ALCMs.

3. Be-12 was never withdrawn from service, so it cannot be 'put back in' to service.

4. The notion that Krynky and Avdiivka are killboxes for the Russians is the most laughable exercise in cope I've ever heard, as are these fairy tales you're relating about North Korean ammunition blowing up Russian guns. Like this has "nonsense being spread on Ukrainian telegram" written all over it - the exact same nonsense they were relating before they lost Bakhmut in May.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Russia strikes cities in Ukraine in biggest air attack since the start of invasion

Russia has launched the biggest air attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military told CNN, with an unprecedented number of drones and missiles fired at targets across the country.

The wave of attacks, which began overnight into Friday and struck nationwide, killed at least 18 people and injured132 others.

Blasts were reported in the capital Kyiv, as well as at a maternity hospital in the central city of Dnipro, the eastern city of Kharkiv, the southeastern port of Odesa, and the western city of Lviv, far from the frontlines.

“It’s been a long time since we have seen so many enemy targets on our monitors in all regions and all directions,” Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force, told national television.

“Everything was being fired,” he added.

Russia used 158 drones and missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, cruise missiles and Shahed drones, to strike targets in Kyiv, the east, south and west of the country, Ukraine’s air force said.

“Today the enemy has struck a powerful blow. There are downed targets, however unfortunately there are also casualties,” Mr Ihnat added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia used “nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal” in the “terrorist strikes,” to which he pledged Ukraine’s military would respond.

“The crimes that Russia has committed in Ukraine today are its revenge for its inability to turn the tide of the battle in the fight against the Ukrainian defense forces,” it said in a statement.

Without referring directly to Friday’s attacks, the Russian Defense Ministry said its army had “carried out 50 group strikes and one mass strike with high-precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles” in the period from December 23 to 29, claiming it had only struck military targets.

Residents said they were woken by the attacks.

“It was very loud, the house was shaking, it was very scary,” said Viktoria Krasyuk.

“It seems like you’ve been living in this for many months, but it still causes emotions, it’s still very difficult, it’s very hard to decide whether to stay or go somewhere, or even leave (the country).”

A man named Sehiy said the attack was a reminder that Russia’s “goal is the same – to destroy Ukraine as a state.”

The massive overnight assault comes shortly after Ukraine received the last package of military aid from the United States until Congress approves the Biden administration’s funding request.

Nearly two years since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zelenskyy is facing a largely-stalled counteroffensive while Western aid has begun to dry up.

On Friday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the attacks show that Russian President Vladimir Putin "will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy."
"We will not let him win," Mr Sunak wrote on X. "We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes."

[J]

On a somewhat related note, as much as I hate to admit it, TRR was right.
Russian interference in US elections was, and is real.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

On a somewhat related note, as much as I hate to admit it, TRR was right.
Russian interference in US elections was, and is real.

Well that was never in doubt, there's a whole Wikipedia article on the subject. And this is why if Trump gets re-elected he'd hand Ukraine to Russia in a heartbeat.

[LaCroix]

Due to the recent successes of Ukraine, Russia is pretty mad.
Not only are rusbots extra active, there were also about 100 KH101 launched at Ukraine, around 90 were shot down.
There might be a response in kind this time, though, as this year, Ukraine has the capabilities to strike back.
Other than Russia, thy don't use it to indisciminately shell cities, but pick valuable targets instead.

In unrelated news, another former ally of Putin, Vladimir Igorov fell out of his window today.

[Vympel]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/worl ... e-war.html

Extract:

Russia Retakes Some Land Hard Won by Ukraine During Counteroffensive

Russia’s recent progress around the southern village of Robotyne is a sobering development for Ukraine amid dwindling Western military aid.

Russia has recaptured land hard won by Ukrainian troops at the peak of their summer counteroffensive in the south, making progress around the southern village of Robotyne.

The situation has reinforced the war’s latest reality: With their counteroffensive stalled, Ukrainian troops are now on the back foot in many places. Besides Robotyne in the south, they are also struggling in the east, having all but retreated from the town of Marinka, officials said this week.

Deepening their challenges, Kyiv is increasingly worried that its military will not have the resources to keep up the fight. Washington announced on Wednesday that it was releasing the last remaining Congress-approved package of military aid available to Kyiv.

“Now, we are losing some fields, but if the U.S. aid is delayed, we will begin to lose towns,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in an interview last week. “Without American ammunition, we are beginning to lose territory that was hard won this summer.”

Love to "win hard" a tiny village you fought over in the gray zone for like 6 months only to lose it soon after. What a fiasco.

The fiction here is that US aid is some sort of continuing stamina bar that sustains Ukraine when in reality the reason supplies to them have run dry is because there is actually nothing to send right now. That would be the case whether Congress allocated $100B or $0.

Meanwhile, after propagandising their populations with idiot nonsense fairy tales about returning to 1991 borders including Crimea, the Biden administration quietly admits that Ukraine will lose (more) territory to Russia when peace negotiations come, and "that's been our theory of the case throughout":

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... e-00133211

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia.

The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. But along with the Ukrainians themselves, U.S. and European officials are now discussing the redeployment of Kyiv’s forces away from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mostly failed counteroffensive into a stronger defensive position against Russian forces in the east, according to the administration official and the European diplomat, and confirmed by a senior administration official. This effort has also involved bolstering air defense systems and building fortifications, razor wire obstructions and anti-tank obstacles and ditches along Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, these officials say. In addition, the Biden administration is focused on rapidly resurrecting Ukraine’s own defense industry to supply the desperately needed weaponry the U.S. Congress is balking at replacing.

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record. “We want Ukraine to have the strongest hand possible when that comes.” The spokesperson emphasized, however, that no talks are planned yet, and that Ukrainian forces are still on the offensive in places and continue to kill and wound thousands of Russian troops. “We want them to be in a stronger position to hold their territory. It’s not that we’re discouraging them from launching any new offensive,” the spokesperson added.

Again, if the idea of the US "reusrrecting" Ukraine's own defense industry so that it can surprise itself sounds suspiciously like Vietnamisation and "standing down so that the Afghans can stand up" you'd be right, becuase its totally delusional, and doomed to fail.

[madd0c0t0r2]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/worl ... e-war.html

Extract:

Russia Retakes Some Land Hard Won by Ukraine During Counteroffensive

Russia’s recent progress around the southern village of Robotyne is a sobering development for Ukraine amid dwindling Western military aid.

Russia has recaptured land hard won by Ukrainian troops at the peak of their summer counteroffensive in the south, making progress around the southern village of Robotyne.

The situation has reinforced the war’s latest reality: With their counteroffensive stalled, Ukrainian troops are now on the back foot in many places. Besides Robotyne in the south, they are also struggling in the east, having all but retreated from the town of Marinka, officials said this week.

Deepening their challenges, Kyiv is increasingly worried that its military will not have the resources to keep up the fight. Washington announced on Wednesday that it was releasing the last remaining Congress-approved package of military aid available to Kyiv.

“Now, we are losing some fields, but if the U.S. aid is delayed, we will begin to lose towns,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in an interview last week. “Without American ammunition, we are beginning to lose territory that was hard won this summer.”

Love to "win hard" a tiny village you fought over in the gray zone for like 6 months only to lose it soon after. What a fiasco.

The fiction here is that US aid is some sort of continuing stamina bar that sustains Ukraine when in reality the reason supplies to them have run dry is because there is actually nothing to send right now. That would be the case whether Congress allocated $100B or $0.

Meanwhile, after propagandising their populations with idiot nonsense fairy tales about returning to 1991 borders including Crimea, the Biden administration quietly admits that Ukraine will lose (more) territory to Russia when peace negotiations come, and "that's been our theory of the case throughout":

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... e-00133211

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia.

The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. But along with the Ukrainians themselves, U.S. and European officials are now discussing the redeployment of Kyiv’s forces away from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mostly failed counteroffensive into a stronger defensive position against Russian forces in the east, according to the administration official and the European diplomat, and confirmed by a senior administration official. This effort has also involved bolstering air defense systems and building fortifications, razor wire obstructions and anti-tank obstacles and ditches along Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, these officials say. In addition, the Biden administration is focused on rapidly resurrecting Ukraine’s own defense industry to supply the desperately needed weaponry the U.S. Congress is balking at replacing.

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record. “We want Ukraine to have the strongest hand possible when that comes.” The spokesperson emphasized, however, that no talks are planned yet, and that Ukrainian forces are still on the offensive in places and continue to kill and wound thousands of Russian troops. “We want them to be in a stronger position to hold their territory. It’s not that we’re discouraging them from launching any new offensive,” the spokesperson added.

Again, if the idea of the US "reusrrecting" Ukraine's own defense industry so that it can surprise itself sounds suspiciously like Vietnamisation and "standing down so that the Afghans can stand up" you'd be right, becuase its totally delusional, and doomed to fail.

It is true. I mean all of NATO is in a state of total war, with the entirety of the manufacturing, logistics and construction sectors turned over to support the front. Our economy is in freefall, our reserves of Forex burnt and we've had to ban petrol exports, but we're hanging in there.

Or maybe one reason to Just In Time ammo delivery is that they are only vulnerable within Ukraine. We can fill a wharehouse or seven with ammo a mile back from the polish border, stick some German soldiers around it and it's untouchable. Same wharehouse outside Kiev would be a pointless liability.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ralin said it best:

Exactly what sort of deal or negotiated peace is potentially on the table that doesn't boil down to "Russia gets part of Ukraine" and that the Ukrainian government and public would accept, even assuming anyone trusted Putin to keep it?

Meanwhile, Ukraine isn't fucking around:

In North Ukraine, 500,000 mines installed, second defense line is built

In northern Ukraine, military has laid 500,000 anti-tank mines. A second line of defense is being constructed near the border in case of a potential repeat invasion, reports the press-service of the Joint Forces Operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Military officials note that since the beginning of June 2022 and until now, over 500,000 anti-tank mines have been installed on the main directions of a potential enemy advance. Anti-tank minefields, sets of anti-personnel explosive devices, shells, mined obstacles, and others have been created.

"The density of mine-explosive barriers in the Northern operational zone has increased by 16 times. Non-explosive barriers have also been installed, and objects of transport infrastructure, including bridges and roads, have been prepared for demolition," say the defenders.
Additionally, under the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, work continues on equipping positions for the second line of defense in northern Ukraine, with the involvement of local authorities. The Ukrainian Armed Forces emphasize that the northern border has become impassable for the enemy.

"In close cooperation with the heads of military administrations, we are constructing military engineering and fortification structures, installing additional observation cameras. This work has been carried out 24/7, 365 days a year," the statement says.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Belarus has been assisting Russia in the war against Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russians have concentrated about 19,000 military personnel in the territories of the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions.

Therefore, Ukrainian military continues to strengthen border security. Recently, defenders in the north of Ukraine conducted exercises, traversing obstacle courses and practicing assaults.

[Ralin]

Ralin said it best:

Exactly what sort of deal or negotiated peace is potentially on the table that doesn't boil down to "Russia gets part of Ukraine" and that the Ukrainian government and public would accept, even assuming anyone trusted Putin to keep it?

Which isn't to say it won't happen. Ukraine has held out this long and we keep hearing lol so incompetent stories about the Russian side, but like Mike was saying on Facebook awhile back there isn't some sort of kill counter bar that fills up and awards Ukraine an overall victory when enough Russian soldiers have died. It's not like they're going to invade Russia to depose Putin and stop them from recruiting and arming more troops.

[Ralin]

On that note

No, if anyone is naive here its you. You actually think that the Russian government's policies are dictated through random articles in state media, as if there's some big cartoonish Ministry of Truth issuing directives as to policy, rather than the way all media actually works.

You probably also believe western media is "free" and "independent" even though its all controlled by like three corporations and every major outlet dutifully echoes and amplify the foreign policy goals and ideological priors of the US in every single international conflict in which it is involved, don't you?

How media actually works - everywhere - whether state or corporate controlled - is that the scope of the debate is limited, but freedom of movement within the four walls of that scope is permitted. The justification for a war will never be questioned - how such a war is to be prosecuted, however, is.

Hi, so I live in a country with probably more media controls than Russia and safe to say more than Australia where I think you live. And by controls I mean people getting arrested and imprisoned for saying things that are considered disruptive to public order or insulting to the military or something like that (I believe Russia actually has a formal law against that last one). In an environment like that where the government has strong prior restraint powers over what can be published and/or to take the person who wrote it away for a very scary chat with a police officer you learn to read between the lines on some things. Sometimes, like on really extreme subjects, you assume that if something was published in national media (maybe that's a hand wavy term since I'm not giving a clear definition of what media is prominent enough, but bear with me) that by itself is a sign that the ideas presented are supported by the authorities and that they want them to be discussed and promoted.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that if I started seeing articles or news anchors talking about the Cantonese menace and the threat they pose to the Chinese nation and how Cantonese language has to be banned and we need to take Cantonese children away to be adopted into proper Chinese families so they can be beaten until they lose their retarded Cantonese accent and the specific river the ones who don't get with the program should be drowned in I would conclude that President Xi Jinping, whose leadership inspires us every day, and his government support the general goal of eliminating much of Cantonese culture because it is unlikely that sentiments like that would be allowed a platform otherwise. Even if those stories weren't dictated by the Central Propaganda Department.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ralin said it best:

Exactly what sort of deal or negotiated peace is potentially on the table that doesn't boil down to "Russia gets part of Ukraine" and that the Ukrainian government and public would accept, even assuming anyone trusted Putin to keep it?

Which isn't to say it won't happen. Ukraine has held out this long and we keep hearing lol so incompetent stories about the Russian side, but like Mike was saying on Facebook awhile back there isn't some sort of kill counter bar that fills up and awards Ukraine an overall victory when enough Russian soldiers have died. It's not like they're going to invade Russia to depose Putin and stop them from recruiting and arming more troops.

At least, not one that we can see, projections put the number of Russian casualties at half a million by 2025. If there even is a certain number of Russian lives that Putin is prepared to sacrifice for Mother Russia beyond which he decides it's not worth it, he's not saying.

Elsewhere, the boot is on the other foot:

Russia has vowed retaliation following an airstrike on the border city of Belgorod, which killed at least 21 people, including three children.

A further 110 others were injured during Saturday's attack, according to the region's governor Vyacheslav Gladkov . He said among the wounded are 17 children.

Images on social media showed burning cars and plumes of black smoke rising among damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded. One strike hit close to a public ice rink in the very heart of the city.

The attack followed an 18-hour aerial bombardment which saw Russia send over 120 missiles and dozens of drones into Ukraine, killing at least 39 civilians.

It was one of the biggest strikes on Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it identified the ammunition used in the Belgorod strike as Czech-made Vampire rockets and Olkha cluster munitions. It provided no additional information, and it has not been possible to verify the claims.

Accusing Kyiv of an "indiscriminate" strike in a statement on social media, the ministry said: "This crime will not go unpunished."

Russia's military has since launched strikes on its western neighbour, on the city of Kharkiv, in return.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the Belgorod attack, and that the country’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, was ordered to join a delegation of medical personnel and rescue workers traveling to the city from Moscow.

Russian diplomats also called for a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the strike.

Speaking to Russia’s state news agency, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Britain and the United States were guilty of encouraging Kyiv to carry out what she described as a “terrorist attack.”

She also placed blame on EU countries who had supplied Ukraine with weapons. In a statement, the ministry said: “Silence in response to the unbridled barbarity of Ukraine’s Nazis and their puppeteers and accomplices from ‘civilized democracies’ will be akin to complicity in their bloody deeds.”

Earlier on Saturday, Moscow officials had reported shooting down 32 Ukrainian drones over the country’s Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol, and Kursk regions.
They also reported that cross-border shelling had killed two other people in Russia. A man died and four other people were injured when a missile struck a home in the Belgorod region late on Friday evening.

A nine-year-old child was killed in a separate incident in the Bryansk region, officials added. Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv.

Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula.

However, larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russia’s ongoing aerial attacks have sparked concern for Ukraine’s neighbours, including Poland.

Warsaw said on Friday that an unknown object had entered Polish airspace before vanishing off radar, adding that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.
Speaking to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday, Russia’s charge d’affaires in Poland, Andrei Ordash, said: "We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated."

[Broomstick]

Once again, we see from the Russia viewpoint it is unreasonable for people to fight back against being abused and killed.

[Ralin]

So uh, what exactly were the Ukrainian Nazis targetting with this airstrike? The article doesn't seem to say.

[LaCroix]

This is beyond stupid.
Vampire rockets are a Grad 122mm system. Even the best versions have a range of about 30 ish km. Belgorod is 40km inside Russia.

So ukraine launched from inside russia? To randomly shell a city - which they never do, unlike russians?

Seems russia launched another salvo, the.missiles malfunctioned and hit belgorod. Has happened before. The blame game is especially stupid, this time. For all this money, they could come up with better lies.

[LadyTevar]

Once again, we see from the Russia viewpoint it is unreasonable for people to fight back against being abused and killed.

YEP!

I do not want to see any children, Russian or Ukrainian, dead or wounded, yet that is going to happen as long as there are airstrikes and retailiation.

"suffer, they suffer, the children
when I see them,gods my heart breaks
it is ever and always the children
who pay for their parent's mistakes" (Mercedes Lackey)

[Vympel]

It is true. I mean all of NATO is in a state of total war, with the entirety of the manufacturing, logistics and construction sectors turned over to support the front. Our economy is in freefall, our reserves of Forex burnt and we've had to ban petrol exports, but we're hanging in there.

Or maybe one reason to Just In Time ammo delivery is that they are only vulnerable within Ukraine. We can fill a wharehouse or seven with ammo a mile back from the polish border, stick some German soldiers around it and it's untouchable. Same wharehouse outside Kiev would be a pointless liability.

I'm sorry, but do you inhabit a fantasy world? What the fuck are you talking about? No one is doing "Just in Time" ammo deliveries to Ukraine. I've heard of cope before but this is ridiculous - there has been article after article after article in western media talking about the US and NATO's inability to supply enough shells to Ukraine because of the atrophy of the industrial base. Fucking Joe Biden himself literally came out and said they had to send cluster artillery shells to Ukraine to make up the difference because they were running out, and this was after the placed enormous pressure on South Korea to give them 500,000 artillery shells, because they had run out of shells to send.

What kind of perfect epistemic bubble do you inhabit where even these uncontroversial facts are handwaved away with absurd cope about "actually we mean to have the Ukrainians endlessly suffer from shell hunger"

I am continuously surprised at the profound ignorance people have about even basic, agreed upon facts about this conflict. It is astounding.

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/ ... el/392130/

Ukraine has seen a decline of deliveries of vital 155mm shells since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, even as Ukrainian parliamentarians warn of a dangerous shortage of ammunition across the front lines.

"Our supplies have decreased. It is life—and it is normal, as everyone is fighting for survival,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.

U.S. stocks of 155mm rounds that were originally meant for Ukraine are now being shipped to Israel, Axios has reported. The number of rounds were in the “tens of thousands,” according to the report, or close to U.S. monthly production rates.

The U.S. has delivered over two million 155mm rounds to Ukraine in the year and eight months since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. It has more than doubled production of the shells, going from 12,000 a month before Russia’s invasion to 28,000 now. EU members likewise emptied their stocks, and the EU as a whole launched a plan to supply one million 155mm rounds between March 2023 and March 2024.

Despite the effort, though, ammunition has frequently been tight. Ukraine uses 240,000 shells a month, a figure far higher than U.S. monthly production rates. Ukrainian troops regularly report ammo shortages across the front lines, even in hotspots like the country’s east.

That EU effort:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu ... 023-12-06/

The broader initiative, launched in March, offered various schemes to get 1 million shells and missiles to Ukraine within a year for the war against Russia's invasion.

Together, those schemes have yielded some 480,000 munitions, according to the EU - less than half of the target, with about four months to go.

The particularly small volume of orders for the scheme at the heart of the programme highlights bigger struggles that the EU is facing in trying to hit the target.

This stuff is not hard to find out. You'd have to be trying to remain ignorant to not know this stuff.

This is beyond stupid.
Vampire rockets are a Grad 122mm system. Even the best versions have a range of about 30 ish km. Belgorod is 40km inside Russia.

So ukraine launched from inside russia? To randomly shell a city - which they never do, unlike russians?

Seems russia launched another salvo, the.missiles malfunctioned and hit belgorod. Has happened before. The blame game is especially stupid, this time. For all this money, they could come up with better lies.

It's true, your absurd "actually, the Russians shelled themselves with malfunctioning missiles" is beyond stupid, especially while social media is full of Ukrainians gloating and celebrating this strike.







Say what you will about their views, at least they're not lying to themselves for god knows what reason. Time to wake up, maybe.

[Ralin]

I can't say I'm knowledgeable about the exact range and capabilities of Ukranian artillery and I do know enough to be skeptical of 'lol Russian military is so incompetent they missiled their own city' stories, but listing a handful of tweets by (apparently? If these are supposed to be noteworthy accounts you didn't say) random Ukranians who think the Ukranian military did it is about the worst counterargument I can imagine.

Is LaCroix wrong about the range of the rockets the Ukranians are using or missing some other relevant detail there?

[LaCroix]

He's simple twisting each argument on itself, trying to make a point.

I said it was idiotic to claim it was the vampiry missile, since it doesn't have the range. Twisting my words around doesn't make you right.

And as far as latest news are concerned it was in fact the russians - kind of. Ukraine stated it launched a counterstrike against the launcher complexes that are located right behind Belgorod. Russian air defense shot some of the drones down, and this debris, along with missed shots of both sides, fell on the city.

But no, some Ukrainians venting their anger and wishing it had been them is proof it was a deliberate strike on civillians. Right.

Btw - for people wanting to know how much of a killbox Avdiivka is:
https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/17 ... 4490112493
13:1 losses in vehicles.
Geolocated.
But these are only facts, don't let them distract you.

[Vympel]

I can't say I'm knowledgeable about the exact range and capabilities of Ukranian artillery and I do know enough to be skeptical of 'lol Russian military is so incompetent they missiled their own city' stories, but listing a handful of tweets by (apparently? If these are supposed to be noteworthy accounts you didn't say) random Ukranians who think the Ukranian military did it is about the worst counterargument I can imagine.

Is LaCroix wrong about the range of the rockets the Ukranians are using or missing some other relevant detail there?

Like again, if you don't know enough about coverage of this war to know who any of these personalities are you can find out. Like Ponamarenko alone is an extremely well known Ukrainian journalist/propagandist. But sure, he's just randomly speaking out of turn along with everyone else.

He's simple twisting each argument on itself, trying to make a point.

I said it was idiotic to claim it was the vampiry missile, since it doesn't have the range. Twisting my words around doesn't make you right.

Oh stop being such a coward and own the implications of your argument. You specifically claimed the Russians did it themselves, and now the cope is that it was the Russians in the sense that they shot down drones and it was falling debris. You're clearly just making shit up to work backwards from your pre-determined conclusion.

Btw - for people wanting to know how much of a killbox Avdiivka is:
https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/17 ... 4490112493
13:1 losses in vehicles.
Geolocated.
But these are only facts, don't let them distract you.

LMAO, hilarious. Because a OSINT website compiling a spreadsheet drawing photographs from exclusively pro-Ukrainian twitter and telegram is of course going to impartially show photograph/video of Ukrainian losses, right?

You're either impossibly naive (i.e. basically stupid) or just wilfully dishonest. Because no thinking person could possibly be this much of a credulous rube this far into this war. Its just embarassing at this point.

If all you're doing is slurping up the slop either pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian 'OSINT' accounts are farting out onto the internet, you're going to get an entirely fictional account of the war. These are marketing flacks and you are their target. They're there to give you dopamine rushes depending on your biases. They are an entirely negative influence.

[LadyTevar]

LMAO, hilarious. Because a OSINT website compiling a spreadsheet drawing photographs from exclusively pro-Ukrainian twitter and telegram is of course going to impartially show photograph/video of Ukrainian losses, right?

You're either impossibly naive (i.e. basically stupid) or just wilfully dishonest. Because no thinking person could possibly be this much of a credulous rube this far into this war. Its just embarassing at this point.

If all you're doing is slurping up the slop either pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian 'OSINT' accounts are farting out onto the internet, you're going to get an entirely fictional account of the war. These are marketing flacks and you are their target. They're there to give you dopamine rushes depending on your biases. They are an entirely negative influence.

So where are you getting YOUR Intel, Vympel?
Who's supplying the information to your news sources? OSINT? Russia's Equivalent? American or European Sources, who are relying on Ukrainian sources?

Right now, I'd say YOUR SOURCES are more biased than LaCroix's sources. After all, LaCroix lives in Austria, which is closer to the problem and therefore the media is interested in getting things as clear as possible.

Is Propaganda getting mixed in? Yes from both sides, who both want to be seen as Winning. I distrust anything coming out of Russia more, simply because we know that Putin is having their media spin things the Best Possible Light, and we know that those who are openly stating there's problems are being jailed, which is a Good Reason to Toe the Party Line. Out of the two Countries, Russia is telling the biggest lies, but that doesn't mean Ukraine is telling the whole truth.

More battles have been won by lies and deceptions than by straight fights. See how the Brits got the Germans to believe D-Day was happening at different beaches.

[LaCroix]

Again, nothing but insults and twisted responses evading the point, and making up strawmen.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

LMAO, hilarious. Because a OSINT website compiling a spreadsheet drawing photographs from exclusively pro-Ukrainian twitter and telegram is of course going to impartially show photograph/video of Ukrainian losses, right?

You're either impossibly naive (i.e. basically stupid) or just wilfully dishonest. Because no thinking person could possibly be this much of a credulous rube this far into this war. Its just embarassing at this point.

If all you're doing is slurping up the slop either pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian 'OSINT' accounts are farting out onto the internet, you're going to get an entirely fictional account of the war. These are marketing flacks and you are their target. They're there to give you dopamine rushes depending on your biases. They are an entirely negative influence.

So where are you getting YOUR Intel, Vympel?
Who's supplying the information to your news sources? OSINT? Russia's Equivalent? American or European Sources, who are relying on Ukrainian sources?

Right now, I'd say YOUR SOURCES are more biased than LaCroix's sources. After all, LaCroix lives in Austria, which is closer to the problem and therefore the media is interested in getting things as clear as possible.

Is Propaganda getting mixed in? Yes from both sides, who both want to be seen as Winning. I distrust anything coming out of Russia more, simply because we know that Putin is having their media spin things the Best Possible Light, and we know that those who are openly stating there's problems are being jailed, which is a Good Reason to Toe the Party Line. Out of the two Countries, Russia is telling the biggest lies, but that doesn't mean Ukraine is telling the whole truth.

More battles have been won by lies and deceptions than by straight fights. See how the Brits got the Germans to believe D-Day was happening at different beaches.

Wasn't our first rodeo either, we did the same thing the year before to fool them into thinking we were invading Greece instead of Sicily, via Operation Mincemeat.