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[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine--Act 3: Ride of the Valkyries

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Then there's also this:

Russia's theft of Ukrainian grain appears to be ramping up as it continues war, news satellite images show

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live...s-05-23-22/h_f5a403f9240f53682704d00a4b523330

It's our responsibility to ensure that all the crimes (genocide, war crimes, murder, displacement of civilians, theft, property & infrastructure damage) committed by the Russians in Ukraine, are documented and verified. Besides the obvious legal repercussions for Russia and Russians, it will also make things a lot easier, when the issue of war reparations from the Russian state comes up. Putin will obviously deny everything, which means a court must decide whether frozen Russian funds can be seized legally for this purpose.
 
FriendlyFire said:
Have you tried reading ?
Its not that hard to figure it out.
Click to expand...

You were one pf the people here singing about the imminent collapse of the russian army and the ukranian victory around the corner.

I was the one warning that this war would end in defeat for the ukraine government (and its backers), needlessly wrecking Ukraine and later central and western Europe (politically) in the process.

I am right. It's happening. It's not the russians putting cities under siege. They've been careful not to destroy even internet connectivity!. Nor electricity supply , water or gas. They are not blocking foot trasport. Hits on rail infrastructuire were only on sume electric stations serving rails in military use. As wars go this is has been so far a very non-shock-and awe war.
It's the ukranian government drafting or driving into flight from the country its whole male population. It's western countries persisting in supporting lunatics in Kiev in their version of a Nero Decree. Ukraine needs to negotiate a peace settlement. It should have negotiated one right at the start of this crap, or in fact NATO should have negotiated leaving Ukraine before it started. Because it never intended to "protect Ukraine", only use it as cannon fodder and then dump the wreck.

Have you all forgotten what happened to the Kurds, time and again? What happened to the "freedom fighters" in Lybia, with the country bombed to pieces and then left to rot? That is the kind of protection on the offer.

Want to know how NATO peacemaking in Europe has worked like? Look at what the Croatian government is demanding to vote for Sweden and Finland to be allowed into NATO: that the electoral laws of Bosnia be changed to favor its croat population. Basically it's admitting that Bosnia is another NATO wreck, under foreign rule decades after having been "liberated", for the croats are demanding from NATO that it change Bosnia's laws. This is an acknowledgement that territory is no more than a colony. Everyone knows it and everyone pretends not to notice it.

Ukraine is another victim. Not just of the russians but of NATO also. Was never meant to be a real member but only a protectorate/battlefield for a long war of attrition. But the strategists in Brussels failed: attrition is being far more contly on NATO countries than on Russia. As I have been warning! And when Ukraine inevitably settles with Russia (they will have to), the population of rump Ukraine will quite possibly be turning their hatred westwards. Stab in the back and all that. NATO is run by idiots in Washington, psychopaths in London, and poodles across Europe.

@EvaDK you were one of the people here prediction the imminent collapse of the russian invasion.- Because lack of soldiers or logistics or whatever? So how come you are also willing to believe that the russians can steal - meaning have to move - 60 million tonnes of grain? Magic trains that carry grain but no ammo?

You keep falling for contradictory propaganda.
 
keli said:
It's likely Ukrainian forces dug in around the city of Severodonetsk will be surrounded by Russian troops, one Western official predicts.
Click to expand...

Looks like Ukraine is going to have to give up Severodoestk and probably Lyman as well. Going to increasingly hard to supply into the salient
A lot of NATO weapon system such as German artillery, Czech rocket artillery, Denmark Anti ship missiles and US lend lease wont be available until Jun
Again the important thing is not to be encircled and trade the land up as the war will be waged for many months.
 
innonimatu said:
You were one pf the people here singing about the imminent collapse of the russian army and the ukranian victory around the corner.
Ukraine is another victim. Not just of the russians but of NATO also.
Click to expand...

? Nothing is certain in this war outcome
Nor can NATO force any country to fight when it is not willing to do so.
If Ukraine wants to wage a 20 year war against Russia for its existence and independence then it will do so.

So on the one hand you argue dividing up a Serbia is a bad thing, but its good when its happens to Ukraine ?
 
FriendlyFire said:
Again the important thing is not to be encircled and trade the land up as the war will be waged for many months.
Click to expand...

Not by you it won't, you're not volunteering to fight it are you? What makes you believe the ukranians population will remain on board with being used for a proxy war? I mean, the ones who haven't fled or switched sides already. Shy stay with the crumbling regime?

As for the besieged cities thing, it was the ukranian military that entrenched itself inside urban areas, making the civilian population there targets to warfare. Because they would be defeated even faster outside cities. In the process it was them who closed the cities, who prevented both evacuations of civilians and entry of supplies. A smart tactic but a stupid strategy. Only useful to buy a few days for a negotiated peace - which were wasted with delusions of victory over Russia! More than that and the strategic damage from this tactic becomes greater than the strategic advantage it can produce: it leads to both economic destruction and loss of support from the population.

About the commercial shipping in the Black Sea it is the Ukranian government that is keeping the ports closed. And while you may not know that, the people who actually like on those port cities know it. Propaganda doesn't work on them.

The situation is improving in the Sea of Azov - where the ukranians have surrendered entirely. Not in Odessa and around, where they persist in the suicidal strategy of fighting out a war they can't win. For the time being. Probably the whole country will collapse quickly into anarchy once surrenders in the east turn into an avalanche. Ukranians cannot be asked to keep fighting this war. Certainly not by foreigners who want only to use them as cannon fodder.

This is not going to end well. People don't take kindly to be forced to die for the sake of "glory to Ukraine" when Ukraine is obvious losing, and especially when half the country didn't feel particularly ukranian even 10 years ago. That whole piece of it is definitively lost to Russia. The long attrition war planned by NATO turns into a summer war only. And whatever remains of the die-hard nationalists in rump Ukraine will be looking for people to blame. With the russophile population off-limits because it will have been annexed by Russia, place your bets on whom will get blamed.

I argue that fanning the flames of war is immoral. And very often - this is one example - counter-productive even for those doing it. Bosnia was a genuinely messed-up case, a product of certain european governments - Germany!" - having encouraged the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. Kosovo was a cynical war entirely that should never have happened. And Ukraine is happening because crazy people in Kiev were encouraged to attempt a military solution instead of a diplomatic solution to their civil war in the east and conflict with Russia over Crimea.
I mean, this crap happened after 8 years of the russians attempting to settle the thing through diplomatic means. It was unexpected that they this time got tired of waiting for others to start the war, but not at all unexpected that it got to war. The scale of it was the real surprise.
 
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innonimatu said:
You were one pf the people here singing about the imminent collapse of the russian army and the ukranian victory around the corner.

I was the one warning that this war would end in defeat for the ukraine government (and its backers), needlessly wrecking Ukraine and later central and western Europe (politically) in the process.

I am right. It's happening. It's not the russians putting cities under siege. They've been careful not to destroy even internet connectivity!. Nor electricity supply , water or gas. They are not blocking foot trasport. Hits on rail infrastructuire were only on sume electric stations serving rails in military use. As wars go this is has been so far a very non-shock-and awe war.
It's the ukranian government drafting or driving into flight from the country its whole male population. It's western countries persisting in supporting lunatics in Kiev in their version of a Nero Decree. Ukraine needs to negotiate a peace settlement. It should have negotiated one right at the start of this crap, or in fact NATO should have negotiated leaving Ukraine before it started. Because it never intended to "protect Ukraine", only use it as cannon fodder and then dump the wreck.

Have you all forgotten what happened to the Kurds, time and again? What happened to the "freedom fighters" in Lybia, with the country bombed to pieces and then left to rot? That is the kind of protection on the offer.

Want to know how NATO peacemaking in Europe has worked like? Look at what the Croatian government is demanding to vote for Sweden and Finland to be allowed into NATO: that the electoral laws of Bosnia be changed to favor its croat population. Basically it's admitting that Bosnia is another NATO wreck, under foreign rule decades after having been "liberated", for the croats are demanding from NATO that it change Bosnia's laws. This is an acknowledgement that territory is no more than a colony. Everyone knows it and everyone pretends not to notice it.

Ukraine is another victim. Not just of the russians but of NATO also. Was never meant to be a real member but only a protectorate/battlefield for a long war of attrition. But the strategists in Brussels failed: attrition is being far more contly on NATO countries than on Russia. As I have been warning! And when Ukraine inevitably settles with Russia (they will have to), the population of rump Ukraine will quite possibly be turning their hatred westwards. Stab in the back and all that. NATO is run by idiots in Washington, psychopaths in London, and poodles across Europe.

@EvaDK you were one of the people here prediction the imminent collapse of the russian invasion.- Because lack of soldiers or logistics or whatever? So how come you are also willing to believe that the russians can steal - meaning have to move - 60 million tonnes of grain? Magic trains that carry grain but no ammo?

You keep falling for contradictory propaganda.
Click to expand...
Not really. It is stuck on Stalemate.
 
^Probably because he would like to be absorbed into Russia too. It would be interesting to see a psychological study about western Russia supporters.

About this war, it has been a continuous Russian failure, going through a number of alternative failed plans, increasingly smaller but equally disastrous. Like a matrioshka made of failures:

Plan A was about terrorizing Zelensky placing a huge army outside Kiev, making him flee or even killing him with special forces, so the whole army wold surrender afterwards. Zelensky not only didn't flee but appeared in a video walking through Kiev with his government at full.
Plan B was about taking Kiev, destroying the stubborn Ukrainian government directly, remember the huge 40km column. This one was terribly wrong as Ukrainians armed with his new toys massacred the out of fuel stationary Russians.
Plan C was to make a wide offensive, from north to south. Expecting the Ukrainian army to crumble. This one was beyond Russian army capabilities lacking enough forces, preparation and supplies. After taking some territory and suffering terrible causalities russian offensive stalled.
Plan D was to take eastern and southern Ukraine only, including Odessa to cut Ukraine from the sea making it an inviable country. This was beyond reach of Russian army too, and land offensive stalled again. Ukrainians even manage to sink Russian flagship making any amphibious operation impossible.
Plan E was about reducing the offensive again, this tine to the Donbass region, but Russian army failed to cross Donetsk river in a number of points, and very badly too.
Plan F, the one we currently are, is about
taking a small part of Donbass only, specifically the cities of lysychansk and sievierodonetsk, using exclusively artillery and avoiding as much as possible any direct contact with the Ukrainian army which has proved deadly to Russians. We will see soon how this more limited approach works, since military analysts predict Russian army will be depleted and exhausted for mid June.

I would say that only plan A had a reasonable chance of success. Eliminating Zelensky had probably lead to the surrending of the whole country. In this sense i think the moment when zelensky appeared in TV walking through the streets of Kiev saying he would never surrender was maybe the key moment of the war.
I also think plan A was the only one really considered by Putin, the rest has been improvised, so we have seen the Russian army trying to achieve something it was not prepared for, with catastrophic consequences.
 
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innonimatu said:
I mean, this crap happened after 8 years of the russians attempting to settle the thing through diplomatic means.
Click to expand...
This is a rather amusing interpretation of the events of the past 8 years.
 
Thats avg only 12 rounds per day, per gun perhaps NATO artillery doctrine of only firing at known targets rather then endless Russian barrages trying to grind down everything
And sobering reminder that wont be immediate counter offensives, while Ukraine has a lot of soldiers it lack equipment and sending in just light infantry produces high casualties
Id imagine there will be a long period of using better quality NATO artillery to grind down Russian forces and hunt down Russian Artillery before any major attacks will be mounted

Powerful American Artillery Enters the Fight in Ukraine
The most lethal weapons the West has provided so far to Ukraine are now deployed in combat. Will they make a critical difference for Ukraine’s military in a war that has mostly become an artillery battle?
It is the American-made M777 howitzer. It shoots farther, moves faster and is hidden more easily, and it’s what the Ukrainian military has been waiting for.
Three months into the war in Ukraine, the first M777s — the most lethal weapons the West has provided so far — are now deployed in combat in Ukraine’s east. Their arrival has buoyed Ukraine’s hopes of achieving artillery superiority at least in some frontline areas, a key step toward military victories in a war now fought mostly on flat, open steppe at long ranges.
They have already fired hundreds of rounds since arriving around May 8, destroying armored vehicles and killing Russian soldiers, Ukrainian commanders say.

Western military analysts say. The arrival of the new weapons is no guarantee of success, as the Russians continue to engage in fierce fighting in the eastern Donbas region. Much depends on numbers
“Artillery is very much the business of quantity,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at C.N.A., a research institute in Arlington, Va., said in a telephone interview. “The Russians are one of the largest artillery armies you can face.”
Military analysts say the full effect won’t be felt for at least another two weeks, because Ukraine has yet to train enough soldiers to fire all 90 such howitzers pledged by the United States and other allies. Only about a dozen guns are now at the front.

“I’m surprised people believe Ukrainian forces can absorb this level of losses and then be ready to go on the offensive right afterward,” Mr. Kofman, the analyst, said.

Since their deployment two weeks ago, the dozen or so howitzers operating in two artillery batteries had by Sunday fired 1,876 rounds, according to Ukrainian officers.
American M777, known as the triple seven, is likely to have the greatest effect for the quantity of guns provided, providing accurate, long-range fire when sufficient crews are trained to use them, military analysts say.

The bottleneck is training. The United States has so far trained about 200 Ukrainian soldiers in six-day courses at bases in Germany. The Ukrainian military divided this group roughly in half, sending some to the front and others to train more Ukrainians. Training soldiers for all 90 guns — the amount that are scheduled to arrive — could take another several weeks

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/world/europe/us-ukraine-howitzers.html
Click to expand...
 
Thorgalaeg said:
^Probably because he would like to be absorbed into Russia too. It would be interesting to see a psychological study about western Russia supporters. (...)
Click to expand...

You think so ?

The psychology of those with a hard-on for fascist dictators and their invading armies is rarely interesting, suffice it to say they're an insignificant minority (probably adding to their frustration, but that is speculation on my part).

But it has been done, just search for something like :

Psychological Reactions following the Russian invasion of the Ukraine: A cross-national study. Morten Moshagen. Ulm University.

In sum, the present study indicates overall strong and similar reactions following the Russian invasion of the Ukraine in samples from Germany, Poland, Great-Britain, and the United States. Whereas there was some support for the preposition that geographical and psychological proximity triggers different emotional responding and thinking, in particular concerning perceived threat and the desired severity of sanctions against Russia, participants from all countries showed overall strong emotional reactions, found virtually no justifiability of the Russian action, and desired rather severe sanctions against Russia, thus pointing to a large degree of unity not only concerning the currently implemented policies, but also among citizens from the studied countries.
Click to expand...
 
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innonimatu said:
This is not going to end well. People don't take kindly to be forced to die for the sake of "glory to Ukraine"
Click to expand...
Also it is less of "glory of Ukraine" but rather "defend my homeland from motherfricken invaders." Ukraine isn't fighting the war for the sake of glory but rather because Russian army is DESTROYING THEIR HOME!
what is so hard to understand?
 
In sum, the present study indicates overall strong and similar reactions following the Russian invasion of the Ukraine in samples from Germany, Poland, Great-Britain, and the United States. Whereas there was some support for the preposition that geographical and psychological proximity triggers different emotional responding and thinking, in particular concerning perceived threat and the desired severity of sanctions against Russia, participants from all countries showed overall strong emotional reactions, found virtually no justifiability of the Russian action, and desired rather severe sanctions against Russia, thus pointing to a large degree of unity not only concerning the currently implemented policies, but also among citizens from the studied countries.
Click to expand...

Without knowing the precise questions and the method of interviewee selection, it is difficult to comment.

But it seems to me this is people echoing back what their governments and their media tell them.

And I wonder if all who do that are entirely genuine in their responses to the study questions.
Some people may wisely auto-sensor any doubts because expressing doubts about group
think of bosses, workmates, relatives and friends is usually personally disadvantageous.
 
EnglishEdward said:
Without knowing the precise questions and the method of interviewee selection, it is difficult to comment.

But it seems to me this is people echoing back what their governments and their media tell them.

And I wonder if all who do that are entirely genuine in their responses to the study questions.
Some people may wisely auto-sensor any doubts because expressing doubts about group
think of bosses, workmates, relatives and friends is usually personally disadvantageous.
Click to expand...

The details can be reviewed here apparently, the larger files need to be downloaded :

https://osf.io/8e97a/?view_only=5f9416cf761c47f7a18e9a004d6bef86

But as stated, it is not entertaining reading, for what seems to be a foregone conclusion.
 
innonimatu said:
People don't take kindly to be forced to die for the sake of "glory to Ukraine" when Ukraine is obvious losing, and especially when half the country didn't feel particularly ukranian even 10 years ago.
Click to expand...
You talk as if there were "blocking squads" of NATO troops with machine guns pressing Ukrainians into invading Russia.

I feel slightly sick.
 
@ Snowygerry

Thank you for the link.

The variations between Poland, Germany, GB and USA peoples' percentage opinions seem
to accord pretty well with my grey fat fuzzy logic understanding of peoples' responses.

However the absolute percentages surprised me. But that may be because it is mainly the people
who are already strongly against the Russian invasion that self selected themselves to participate.

From:

https://psyarxiv.com/teh8y/?view_only=5f9416cf761c47f7a18e9a004d6bef86

A limitation is that the study rests on comparatively small, self-selected convenience samples.
It is well possible that those feeling more emotionally involved are more likely to take part in such studies,
so that the extent of involvement and thus arguably the desired severability of sanctions may have been
overestimated. As such, replications with national probability samples are strongly advised.
Click to expand...
 
Ukraine retreated from Svetlodarsk, Luganskoe and Mironovsky. Street fights in Severodonetsk and Liman.

Kharkov, people being drafted at shopping mall.
 
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