Akka
Moody old mage.
Damn that's a tough lady 0_o
[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
saamohod
Deity
Odessa embankment hit with a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions yesterday. As of today, five civilians are reported killed.
Weird. We're constantly being told by Putin's bootlickers in these threads that Donbass should belong to Russia, even against the will of the Donbass people, because it's Russian-speaking.
Because you know every English-speaking country belongs to England.
Spoiler :
She spoke Ukrainian on that video.
Weird. We're constantly being told by Putin's bootlickers in these threads that Donbass should belong to Russia, even against the will of the Donbass people, because it's Russian-speaking.
Because you know every English-speaking country belongs to England.
Klaus Hergersheimer
Prince
I very much doubt those painted flags were there before, as I've never seen bold colors on any military-standard vehicles in decades. (I don't know when nose art fell out of favor in the US, probably post-Vietnam).
I imagine the intention is for the presenters to show who the Russians are "really" fighting...
I imagine the intention is for the presenters to show who the Russians are "really" fighting...
Last edited:
saamohod
Deity
To give you some ideas on what Russian propaganda for the plebs is all about.
Before the show they force-bent the barrel of a Leopard with a several-ton metal block in order to put it down. Guess the reason. I'll give you a clue, it's nothing rational.
Things like this would give outsiders some clues about the inner workings of the Mysterious Russian Soul (TM).
Spoiler :
I made mistake to go there on the very first day, holiday evening 
Crowd is huge, though it's still possible to get close to the most interesting pieces.
There was a German "Marder-2" from 1942 put right next to the modern version, with the inscription "history repeating".
Crowd is huge, though it's still possible to get close to the most interesting pieces.
There was a German "Marder-2" from 1942 put right next to the modern version, with the inscription "history repeating".
It's some kind of a sticker or tablet attached to every showpiece. About half of the flags are Ukrainian, btw.
I guess parading prisoners through Red Square will be next.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
On the contrary, in the case of Russian tanks there would be three parades: one for the chassis, other for the turret and other for the coffins with the crew. However, looking at the shape of these western tanks, the crew most probably survived and are driving another tank now.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
The world's largest minefield
Landmines are part of the deadly legacy of the Ukraine warAs Andrij Nalezhatyi, his father and cousin made their way across their frosty plot of land in the village of Dovhenke in Eastern Ukraine in February, they knew they had to choose their steps carefully. Scattered across the field could be mines and other dangerous debris of war.
It was their first time back on their rural land since Ukrainian forces recaptured it from the Russians in the fall of 2023.
They wanted to assess the field to see if they would be able to plant a cereal crop there in the months ahead. They didn’t make it far.
“I fell immediately to the ground. I felt pain in my leg. It was hard to breathe,” Nalezhatyi said, recalling the moment one of the three triggered a tripwire, setting off an explosion.
"I immediately understood that it was an anti-infantry mine.”
By the time the ambulance arrived over an hour later, his father, Ivan Nalezhatyi, 48, and his cousin, 30, were dead.
Nalezhatyi survived, but his leg and hip bones were shattered. He now has shrapnel lodged in his chest and in his back near his spine. More than two months later, he still uses crutches to get around. A cast covers most of his left leg.
If he’d arrived at the hospital half an hour later, he would have died, too, he was told.
More than two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country, Ukraine is now considered the largest minefield in the world, according to deminers working in the country, with as many as two million mines scattered across fields, forests and communities.
The majority were laid by Russian forces, although Ukraine has been laying them in some areas, as well.
The often-inconspicuous devices can remain on the landscape for decades, creating a prolonged danger and further stunting Ukraine’s agricultural heartland by making farm fields too dangerous to access.
As much as 30 per cent of the country could be contaminated, according to government estimates, with the majority planted in and around communities on the front line. The cost to demine and clear the land will run into the tens of billions of dollars.
Hundreds killed or injured
Landmines have been detected in 11 regions across Ukraine, including in the Kyiv oblast and in the south in Kherson, where Russian forces were pushed back by Ukraine’s military in the late fall of 2022.
Typically found on the ground or just below the surface, they can be set off when pressure is exerted on them, or if they are triggered by a tripwire.
Since Feb. 24, 2022, more than 400 civilians have been killed by landmines or other explosive ordinances, according to the HALO Trust, a non-governmental humanitarian organization that has been clearing landmines in Ukraine since 2015. HALO, which stands for Hazardous Area Life-Support Organization, compiles its data using open source information, which its team later works to verify.
The number of people injured by landmines in that period ranges from 668, according to the Ukrainan military, to 1,155, by HALO’s count. Estimates vary due to how difficult it is to gather information from Russian-occupied areas.
In the battered hospital of Izyum, which itself came under attack in the spring of 2022, Dr. Yurij Kuznetsov has seen dozens of victims rushed in after stepping on or driving over a landmine. Most of the injuries involve the legs. About 70 per cent of all cases require amputation, he estimates.
“We have civilians who say that, ‘We walked this road 100 times, but blew up on the 101st time,’” he told CBC News.
In other cases, people see a mine on the ground and make the dangerous decision to pick it up.
“We have people who for some reason believe that what harms everyone will not harm them.
“For example, they take a grenade and try to demine it themselves.”
Izyum was one of Russia’s earliest targets. A key transportation gateway to the Donbas region, it was captured by the Russian military in April 2022, and occupied until Ukraine liberated it as part of a lightning offensive in the northeast later that fall.
Many of the mines in the area were laid by Russian forces as they built up their fortifications or retreated from areas to slow a Ukrainian advance.
Since the start of the invasion, Russia has used at least 13 types of anti-personnel mines — which target humans, as opposed to vehicles — according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Ukraine also has a significant stockpile of anti-personnel mines that it inherited during the fall of the Soviet Union, the report’s authors noted. HRW found evidence that the country repeatedly used thousands of small landmines as it fought to try and reclaim occupied areas.
‘Butterfly’ mine
One of the most common mines found in Ukraine is known colloquially as the “butterfly” or “petal” mine because the 12-centimetre device looks like it has two wings or petals. Officially, it is called a PFM-1.
The mines, which were used extensively by the Soviet Union during its invasion of Afghanistan, carry 37 grams of explosives and can be scattered by aircraft or rocket artillery.
They are typically green or brown, and therefore can be difficult to see in the grass or on the dirt.
They can also settle on top of buildings or trees temporarily, and fall to the ground later when they are disturbed. Just five kilograms of pressure can set them off.
On July 4, 2023, when Lidia Borova, 70, headed into the woods near her home in Izyum to pick mushrooms, she was already very familiar with butterfly mines.
So familiar that when she spotted one lying in the forest, she thought it must have fluttered down from a tree, because she hadn’t seen it there the last time she went through the woods. During previous strolls, she had seen markers, including sticks of various colours, stuck in the ground, warning about the presence of mines.
But Borova was undeterred.
After gathering mushrooms, she started to head back to her car, which was 30 metres up the road. As she walked, she looked at the vegetation along the side, hoping she might be able to spot a chanterelle growing under the trees.
Suddenly, an explosion tore through her right leg, flinging the bucket she was carrying into the air. Her phone was attached to it.
Bleeding and dizzy, she crawled several metres toward her phone, so she could call a friend to come rescue her.
She kept calling every five minutes because she worried about losing consciousness. In an interview from her house in Izyum, she told CBC News that she couldn’t remember the drive to the hospital.
“I don’t regret it,” she said.
“I'm 70 years old. I'm not afraid of anything anymore.”
As she sits on her couch in her living room, she rolls up her pink track pants to show a prosthetic limb where her lower leg used to be.
But the life-changing injury appears to not have slowed her down.
She bounds through her backyard garden and greenhouse with hardly a limp, showing off where she is growing tomatoes and cucumbers.
“I can work in the garden for two hours. Without any difficulties.”
Evidence of Ukraine’s landmine use
During the initial days after Izyum was liberated, HRW sent a team to the area to speak with local residents, first responders and doctors.
In a report, the New York-based group said it documented numerous cases of petal mines being fired into Russian-occupied areas and near Russian military facilities by rocket artillery. The team was able to verify 11 civilian casualties.
HRW, which has previously produced investigations on landmine use by Russia forces, concluded in its report that Ukraine “appears to have extensively scattered landmines around the Izyum area.”
In a response at the time to the investigation, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the HRW report would be “duly studied,” and that the country “fully implements” its obligations under international law.
Anti-personnel mines are prohibited under the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, which Ukraine ratified in 2005, and onto which Russia never signed.
For Borova, there is no doubt in her mind who is responsible for her injury and the war that has decimated communities throughout the east.
“Only [Russians] are to blame for the fact that they have caused this destruction,” said Borova.
Decades to demine
In June 2023, the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed, unleashing a torrent of water and flooding areas downstream along the Dnipro River. Russian forces were controlling the dam at the time, and both Russian and Ukrainian militaries accused each other of blowing it up.
The deluge washed away homes and vehicles, and most certainly displaced landmines that hadn’t been cleared yet.
The HALO Trust said the floodwaters impacted 17 known minefields.
“We know down by the front line, there are certainly landmines that moved,” said Jasmine Dann, a regional manager for HALO who is based in Mykolaiv in Southern Ukraine, but grew up in Belleville, Ont.
HALO employs more than 1,200 Ukrainians in demining work, and is looking to hire around 300 more by the end of the year.
As Dann spoke to CBC News by Zoom, demining training was taking place on a mock minefield behind her.
HALO, founded in Afghanistan, recruits locals in all its areas of operations, as it believes they should be empowered to clear their own land. All recruits go through an intensive month-long training to qualify as deminers; a small group of highly qualified senior deminers are trained in explosive ordnance disposal.
Among its new recruits in Ukraine: a manicurist and lawyer.
“What we are seeing in Ukraine really is on a level that we haven’t seen in decades,” said Dann, who’s previously worked in Sri Lanka and Somalia clearing landmines.
“The Ukraine conflict has also shown us really widespread usage of landmines, something that previously, I think a lot of people thought was going out of practice within modern militaries.”
According to HALO, one of the most common mines their teams see are anti-vehicle mines like the TM-62, which both Ukraine and Russia have used. They are comparatively large, weighing around eight kilograms, and are designed to destroy military vehicles.
Dann says in the south, her team frequently sees the OZM-72. The device is usually olive green, and when it is set off, the casing is propelled into the air and explodes, enabling it to spray metal fragments over a larger area.
Since Russia launched its attack, HALO has cleared over 19,000 landmines and other unexploded munitions. With such a large portion of Ukraine possibly contaminated by mines, the government and groups like HALO are working to prioritize areas that should be cleared first.
HALO uses drones to try and identify where landmines are, while other teams are sent into fields and forests with metal detectors. Robots are also used extensively.
If they find a mine, they carefully excavate and destroy it. HALO uses thermite to ignite and burn the devices, but recently got approval to start blowing them up with explosions.
Dann says HALO is focusing on clearing the Russian-laid minefields, because they are finding that the Ukrainian forces have been removing their mines once they have left an area.
Costly cleanup
The World Bank estimates that it will cost $37 billion US to demine Ukraine. Several countries including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada — which has contributed more than $35 million to demining — have contributed. Companies have also donated equipment, and Ukraine has received additional funding from organizations like the Howard Buffett Foundation.
The spring months often carry the most risk, as people are getting out into gardens and fields. There has been a high proportion of accidents among farmers, with more than 150 killed or injured in landmine accidents, according to data that Ukraine’s defence ministry provided to CBC News.
On March 31, Artem Korolev, 31, was driving his tractor down a well-travelled road in the village of Krymky in Donetsk oblast. He was on his way to his grandfather’s house to make repairs, which were badly needed after months of war and occupation.
He knew that the area had been swept for mines already, so didn’t think much when he needed to back up and turn around the tractor.
“I moved a little to the right, a little to the left, and it just happened,” he said, describing an explosion that tore through his tractor and the right side of his body.
“A neighbour was next to the tractor … I shouted at him, ‘Am I in one piece or not?’”
Korolev spoke to CBC News from his hospital bed in Izyum, where he says Dr. Kuznetsov and the rest of the medical team “sewed and glued together” his body in different ways.
The blast severely injured his hip, spine and leg. He’s expected to be in hospital for three more months.
“I hope I will be able to walk … and everything will be fine,” he said.
“But we will never forgive the Russians for this.”
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/ukraine-war-landmines
Russian forces have hit on a cheap way to foil US precision weapons in Ukraine
Another US precision-guided weapon has apparently been foiled by Russian electronic warfare, a Pentagon official said.The munition, which was rapidly developed and transported to Ukraine, is just the latest to fail in combat, highlighting the growing challenge of countering cheap Russian jamming tactics.
Last week, William LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said a new version of a US precision weapon had failed to hit Russian targets partially because of Russian electronic warfare. LaPlante told a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel that the ground-launched weapon, a version of an air-to-ground system, had been quickly developed and deployed to Ukraine after relatively limited safety testing and little operational testing.
Once the weapon arrived in Ukraine, "it didn't work for multiple reasons," LaPlante said. Those included electromagnetic interference and complications from launching the weapon on the ground. "It just didn't work," he said.
He implied that Ukraine had lost interest in the experimental version, saying: "When you send something to people in the fight of their lives that just doesn't work, they'll try it three times and they'll just throw it aside." While LaPlante didn't confirm what the weapon was, experts told Defense One they suspected the weapon was the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb, which Ukraine apparently began using in February.
Funding for the ground version of the air-to-air munition was approved in February 2023. The bomb has a reported range of up to 90 miles, ideal for targeting Russian logistics centers near the front lines, and relies on GPS as well as an internal system to keep locked onto its target. It's unclear, though, if that's what it was.
If this weapon did fail, it would not be the first US precision-guided weapon foiled by Russian electronic warfare. The Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, a valuable weapon for Ukraine that can be fired from its US-provided High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions have both been reported to repeatedly fail because of Russian jamming. US defense officials have noted these issues, adding that the US and Ukrainians were working on solutions and countermeasures.
In December, Lt. Gen. Antonio Aguto said electronic warfare directed at some of "our most precise capabilities is a challenge."
In March, Daniel Patt, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Congress the GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells "had a 70% efficiency rate hitting targets when first used in Ukraine" but that "after six weeks, efficiency declined to only 6% as the Russians adapted their electronic-warfare systems to counter it." Patt said at the time that "the peak efficiency of a new weapon system is only about two weeks before countermeasures emerge."
Electronic warfare has been a prominent feature on the battlefield in Ukraine, viewed as a cheap and effective method for both sides to jam GPS-guided weapons such as missiles and rockets and signal-driven systems including drones.
Russian forces have hit on a cheap way to foil US precision weapons in Ukraine
The Pentagon said some US GPS-guided weapons given to Ukraine had been repeatedly stopped by Russian electronic warfare.
www.businessinsider.com
Thorgalaeg
Deity
But jamming GPS signal also works for your beloved and so trumpeted GPS-guided gliding bombs which are supposed devastating Ukrainians winning the war months ago and such or only affects western weapons?
Putin lovers should be ashamed of themselves for supporting this terrible war.
what ?
Another one added to the list...
www.nytimes.com
U.S. Accuses Russia of Using Chemical Weapons in Ukraine
The State Department said Russia had used chloropicrin, a poison gas widely used during World War I, against Ukrainian forces, an act that would violate a global ban signed by Moscow.
saamohod
Deity
Since Feb 2022 all of Ukrainian cities and the populations therein have been suffering from Russia's war action. Every day cities and villages are being subject to missile and drone bombardment. Large cities like Odessa and Kharkiv hear explosion sounds every damn day.
Cities and villages in Donbas have since been turned to dust and it happens right now. Next city to be leveled by Russian bombs is Chasiv Yar. In weeks-months it will cease to exist just like recent extinctions like Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka an many more.
Yes, Russia's cities must and will experience the war of annihilation they started.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
So Ukraine can be as atrocious as Russia is? So you can descend down to Russia's level?
Since Feb 2022 all of Ukrainian cities and the populations therein have been suffering from Russia's war action. Every day cities and villages are being subject to missile and drone bombardment. Large cities like Odessa and Kharkiv hear explosion sounds every damn day.
Cities and villages in Donbas have since been turned to dust and it happens right now. Next city to be leveled by Russian bombs is Chasiv Yar. In weeks-months it will cease to exist just like recent extinctions like Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka an many more.
And this is a good strategy for Ukraine to adopt.
What you're trying to achieve is revenge. What you will achieve is dead civilians and relatives of dead civilians who will feel the same way you are feeling. You might reason: well, that's easy for an outsider not experiencing the war crimes to say. And yes it is. I understand you have wrathfull emotions. But,
be mindful when staring into the abyss.
Spoiler :
so, are they coming back because they love Russia and Putin, or are they coming back because Russia and Putin's behavior made them unwelcomed in the rest of the world ?
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