[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
Ordnael
Emperor
Red line #123...if I am not mistaken?
"Thou shall not use commercial available communication satellites to strike mine army in retreat or I will bathe thee in nuclear fire"
"Thou shall not use commercial available communication satellites to strike mine army in retreat or I will bathe thee in nuclear fire"
E.U. Cuts Aid to Ukraine Over Corruption Concerns
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s anticorruption policies have already provoked Ukraine’s first antigovernment protests since the Russian invasion in 2022. Now, it seems, they may cost the country a portion of its foreign aid from the European Union, in a clear rebuke from the bloc, once a staunch ally.The European Union said on Friday that it would withhold 1.5 billion euros, or $1.7 billion, from an overall fund of 4.5 billion euros whose disbursement is dependent on achieving good governance standards and that can’t be used for military purchases. The decision is not final, however, and the funding can be restored if Ukraine meets certain benchmarks.
Snowygerry
Deity
Siversk front defenders: Ukraine’s 54th and 81st Brigades crush Russian assault
Ukraine’s 54th Separate Mechanised Brigade, alongside the 81st Airmobile Brigade – both currently operating under the 11th Corps – repelled a major Russian assault on the Siversk front of Donetsk Oblast on 25 July, killing 80 Russian personnel.
www.pravda.com.ua
▶ Russische drones worden uit de lucht geschoten terwijl strandgangers in Odessa toekijken en juichen
Oekraïne heeft een reeks Russische drones onderschept voor de kust van Odessa. Op videobeelden is te zien hoe een van de toestellen uit de lucht geschoten wordt, terwijl strandgangers toekijken.
Snowygerry
Deity
To be honest I didn't know you had internet at all over there 
en.apa.az
Mobile internet cut off in more than 30 Russian cities
Mobile internet cut off in more than 30 Russian cities
en.apa.az
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Aeroflot hacked. Apparently it is pretty severe. All information systems destroyed. The whole fleet is grounded nobody knows till when. Claimed by Belarusian hackers.
Russia Counters Ukrainian Drones by Turning Off Russians’ Mobile Internet
The same data networks that enable phone apps and web surfing help drones navigate, so officials are imposing daily, patchwork shutdowns. The actions can be very disruptive to daily life.By Nataliya Vasilyeva and Alina Lobzina NYT
July 28, 2025Updated 9:18 a.m. ET
Katya’s phone suddenly refused to provide the basics she needed to drive home to Moscow from St. Petersburg. She, her partner and countless others were unable to go online, cut off from their apps for things like maps, banking, paying road tolls and buying fuel.
There was no warning, no hint how widespread the outage was, no clue how long it would last — but it wasn’t a surprise, either. Russia’s mobile internet networks now have frequent blackouts because of the war with Ukraine.
Since last month, the authorities have shut those networks down every day in various parts of the country, in unpredictable patterns, for hours at a time. The goal is to try to thwart attacks by Ukrainian drones that analysts say have used mobile networks for navigation.
It is a big disruption in a country where smartphones provide the only online access for millions of people. The government regularly touts an array of online services, like filing tax returns and applying for jobs, and President Vladimir V. Putin claimed this year that Russia was “a step ahead of many other nations.”
Even so, “they can turn off the internet,” said Katya, 32. She described how the government had encouraged reliance on apps and web services — and then exercised control over internet access — as a “digital gulag.” Like others interviewed, she asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear for her safety.
She and her partner made it home from their recent weekend getaway, after struggling with a partially downloaded map and phoning her partner’s mother to top up their debit card to pay for gas.
The Russian government has a record of restricting online freedoms, including trying to block the country’s most popular messaging app and throttling YouTube. But the mobile internet shutdowns are the collateral damage of war, a response to Ukraine’s spectacular drone attacks on long-range bombers at Russian bases on June 1.
Image
A satellite image released by Maxar Technologies last month showed the aftermath of a drone strike at the Belaya air base in Russia.Credit...Maxar Technologies,via Reuters
Cellphones use parallel mobile networks, one for calls and another for the data used by phone apps — or drones. The internet blackouts shut down the data network, but calls still go through. Wireless connections, which do not depend on mobile networks, can allow phones to stay online.
Day-to-day orders to shut down the mobile internet come from regional officials responding to reported drone intrusions, rather than from Moscow, according to documents viewed by The New York Times. The Russian communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled Russian digital rights group, said, “The Kremlin has been asking regional authorities to put up a defense against the drones — there’s nothing else they can do but turn the internet off.”
The threat of drones also regularly shuts down Russian airports for hours. Some 300 flights were canceled in Moscow in one weekend alone.
By late July, the cellular internet was down every day, for at least a few hours, in some part of at least 73 of Russia’s 83 regions, according to a tally by Na Svyazi, a group of volunteers living abroad that monitors internet access in Russia.
Yelena, who lives in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, said that her daughter commuted to and from school by bus, paying her way with a transport card, but that the system didn’t work during an outage. A few times, Yelena said, she has had to wire the fare to the bus driver’s phone, instead.
Image
Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow last month, when many flights were canceled or delayed due to Ukrainian drone attacks.Credit...Reuters
Russians first experienced such shutdowns in the early months of the war, but they were limited to the areas bordering Ukraine.
This year, the authorities switched off mobile internet in Moscow for a few days before the annual Victory Day parade in May, a major event for Mr. Putin, who was hosting several world leaders, including China’s leader, Xi Jinping. That outage exposed Muscovites’ reliance on apps for contactless payments, taxis, car sharing, food delivery and shopping, but discontent was fairly muted.
“The regions used to be wary of potential public repercussions and had not resorted to such shutdowns,” Sarkis Darbinian, a Russian lawyer and internet expert who lives in exile, told The New York Times. The lack of protests in Moscow gave regional authorities the signal that “you can just turn the internet off” without causing a backlash, he said.
After the Ukrainian attacks on June 1, the shutdowns began to afflict the vast breadth of the country.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, blamed the inconveniences around the Victory Day parade on “a dangerous neighbor,” an apparent reference to Ukraine. When he was pressed recently about more widespread shutdowns, he said, “Everything that’s linked to ensuring public safety is justified.”
Internet blackouts have hit e-commerce companies and consumers most directly, though the scale of the economic impact is unclear. They have also hampered businesses not usually associated with phone apps. In the northwestern city of Pskov, a municipally owned heating company complained last month that it had not been able to finish repairs on a pipeline on time because of the outages.
The internet shutdowns have become so frequent and widespread that they have given rise to online memes and songs. In Rostov-on-Don, Pavel Osipyan, a media personality, released a music video making light of the inconveniences.
“How can you tell you’re from Rostov without saying it?” he rapped. “Show me one bar for the internet.” In Izhevsk, a city known for weapons production about 800 miles from Ukraine, mobile internet has often been turned off since June 1. Arina, 23, said residents there had been calling the emergency services, looking for an explanation, only to be told that it was a safety measure and that they should be patient.
The precautions do not always work. In the middle of one shutdown, Ukrainian drones hit a factory in Izhevsk that makes surface-to-air missiles, killing three people and injuring scores more. No air raid alert was issued while mobile internet was down, leaving locals unsure what was happening.
Another day, Arina was at home when she said she heard an air raid siren. She had no idea what was going on: No one could post from the scene.
“The government keeps mum or says everything is fine, but everyone can see things are not fine,” she said. Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the pro-Kremlin League for a Safe Internet, asked on social media this month why “the internet is being throttled, and the drones keep coming and coming.” Many people affected by the blackouts speak of resignation. Neighbors and friends are annoyed but seem to be taking the disruptions as a new norm. In the courthouses where Sofia, a law student from the southern city of Krasnodar, spends her afternoons, attorneys, their clients and families often chat about the outages, but their reaction tends to be that the shutdowns are just one more burden.
“They just laugh it off,” she said.
And dozen of regions, from Tula in the southwest to Omsk in Siberia, have said recently that they will introduce public wireless internet to allow residents to stay online when mobile networks go down. Shutdowns have reached the easternmost parts of Russia, which have not been hit by drones, prompting some to question the official rationale. Artyom, a remote technology worker from Khabarovsk, 15 miles from the Chinese border, expressed concern that the blackouts could be a part of the Kremlin’s strategy to restrict information. He called it “a very convenient lie” to blame the drone threat.
“Drones don’t make it to Khabarovsk,” he said. “I don’t see any connection here.”
Sarin
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2013
- Messages
- 2,491
To be honest I didn't know you had internet at all over there
Not for long, at least nothing that would actually be INTERnet.
@red_elk speaking of that, do you have Max already? From what I've heard, it'll be mandatory on new devices from September, how long until it's mandatory on all devices?
CNN paints less rosy picture, comparing to pravda.com.ua
"A Ukrainian commander defending the area told CNN he had not received new personnel in his unit for eight months and was only resupplying frontline positions – where sometimes a pair of soldiers hold off over a dozen Russian attackers – with drones, as vehicles would not reach the trenches."
“We have a critical shortage of personnel. No one wants to fight. The war is over (for them). The old personnel are left, they are tired and want to be replaced, but no one is replacing them.”
"The commander said newer Russian drone teams, known as the Rubicon unit, are well-trained and professional, sometimes using only a thread, dangled by another drone flying on top of a Ukrainian device, to entangle in its rotors and cause the Ukrainian drone to crash.
Vasyl said poor communication from the front lines of the nature of military problems was a serious issue. “A lot of things are not communicated and are hidden” he said. “We don’t communicate a lot of things to our state. Our state doesn’t communicate a lot of things to the people.”
“To understand the situation, you have to be in it,” he said. “When we say that the situation is difficult, no one understands. You have to be in our shoes. We are tired. Everyone is tired of this war, and I believe that other countries are also tired of helping us.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky signs a law allowing military service for citizens older than 60
"A Ukrainian commander defending the area told CNN he had not received new personnel in his unit for eight months and was only resupplying frontline positions – where sometimes a pair of soldiers hold off over a dozen Russian attackers – with drones, as vehicles would not reach the trenches."
“We have a critical shortage of personnel. No one wants to fight. The war is over (for them). The old personnel are left, they are tired and want to be replaced, but no one is replacing them.”
"The commander said newer Russian drone teams, known as the Rubicon unit, are well-trained and professional, sometimes using only a thread, dangled by another drone flying on top of a Ukrainian device, to entangle in its rotors and cause the Ukrainian drone to crash.
Vasyl said poor communication from the front lines of the nature of military problems was a serious issue. “A lot of things are not communicated and are hidden” he said. “We don’t communicate a lot of things to our state. Our state doesn’t communicate a lot of things to the people.”
“To understand the situation, you have to be in it,” he said. “When we say that the situation is difficult, no one understands. You have to be in our shoes. We are tired. Everyone is tired of this war, and I believe that other countries are also tired of helping us.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky signs a law allowing military service for citizens older than 60
Snowygerry
Deity
You've been attacking the same little town for 2 years - one could imagine the situation there is difficult yes, all the more reason to keep the Russians as far away as possible.
www.euronews.com
This was last year :
Locals urged to evacuate after second attack on Kostyantynivka
Zelenskyy condemned the Russian attack on the city in the Donetsk region, injuring one and damaging infrastructure, as "heinous evil". #EuropeNews
www.euronews.com
This was last year :
Konstantinovka is a city with 70k population (2022) and the frontline started approaching it only few months ago.
Your second quote is about Pokrovsk, a different city.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Russian strikes kill 25 as prison and hospital hit, Ukraine says
At least 25 people have been killed across Ukraine in overnight and early morning Russian air strikes that hit a prison and a hospital, local officials say.They say the deadliest attack was on the Bilenke penitentiary in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where 16 inmates were killed and more than 50 injured.
A separate Russian strike on people queuing for humanitarian aid killed five in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. Three people - including a pregnant woman - were killed in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Another casualty was reported elsewhere in the region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia "must be forced to stop the killings and make peace" via "tough" sanctions.
In a statement on Tuesday morning, Ukraine's justice ministry said four glide bombs hit the Bilenke penitentiary shortly before midnight, destroying the dining hall, administrative headquarters and quarantine area.
It said that more than 50 people were injured, and 44 of them had to be taken to hospital.
The ministry had earlier reported 17 inmates were killed but later amended the death toll.
Ukraine's human rights commissioner said attacking a prison was a gross violation of humanitarian law as people in detention did not lose their right to life and protection.
Russian forces have frequently targeted the front-line region of Zaporizhzhia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It is one of four south-eastern regions in Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed since 2022, although Moscow does not fully control any of them.
In a separate Russian rocket attack on Tuesday morning, five people were killed in the village of Novoplatonivka, Kharkiv region, the local authorities said.
The villagers had gathered near a local shop to get humanitarian aid, regional police chief Petro Tokar told Ukraine's Suspilne TV channel.
Ukraine's officials later released photos showing bodies lying near a destroyed shop.
Another Russian rocket strike hit a hospital in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region, killing three people.
A 23-year-old pregnant woman named Diana was among the casualties there, President Zelensky said.
In a statement, he accused Russia of killing Ukrainians when a ceasefire "could have long been in place".
US President Donald Trump issued a stark ultimatum to Moscow on Monday, warning that Russia had "about 10 or 12 days" to agree a ceasefire or face sweeping sanctions. Speaking during a visit to Scotland, Trump told reporters he would "announce it probably tonight or tomorrow," adding, "there's no reason to wait, if you know what the answer is".
Zelensky praised Trump's "very important words" and said that Russia was "wasting the world's time".
Earlier in July, Trump set a 50-day deadline for the Kremlin to reach a truce with Kyiv or risk economic penalties, but the warning has not halted Russia's barrage of strikes.
The wave of attacks came as Russia said its troops were pushing deeper into Ukrainian territory.
At the weekend, Moscow said its forces had seized the village of Maliivka, weeks after claiming control over their first village in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has rejected Russia's claims.
Meanwhile, in Russia, officials said Ukraine had launched dozens of drones overnight in the southern Rostov region, killing one person in their car in the town of Salsk and setting fire to a goods train.
Another person was reported killed in their car in the border region of Belgorod and his wife was wounded.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0y45mdjp7o
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Russian soldiers scammed and robbed of war cash on return from Ukraine
Russia's President Vladimir Putin promised Russian soldiers a hero's welcome when they return from Ukraine, but the BBC has found cases of servicemen robbed and scammed for their salaries and pay-offs by government officials.Since the invasion began in February 2022, President Putin has trebled the size of the Russian army, relying on financial incentives to attract volunteers.
Like thousands of Russians, 39-year old Nikita Khursa went to fight in Ukraine for the money.
Depending on the region, a recruit can get up to 5.2m roubles (£47,000) in the first year of service, plus up to 4m roubles for injuries.
This can amount to 600% of the average national wage.
For many, hailing from Russia's poorer regions, it is irresistible despite the risk of not coming back.
A welder originally from a town in Rostov region, close to Ukraine, Nikita Khursa only spent a couple of months on the front in the summer of 2024, before being wounded and sent back home to recover.
That injury earned him a hefty bonus, which he and his wife Oksana had planned to spend on buying a flat.
However, after falling out with her one night over his drinking, he stormed out, drunk, upset and barefoot - with a plastic bag containing their savings in cash.
In his drunken state, Khursa decided to drive to Rostov and buy an apartment there instead.
"If my wife had been wiser, she would have told me to sleep over it and decide in the morning", he laments to the BBC.
He got into his car but didn't drive very far before being stopped by the traffic police who noticed the bag and demanded a bribe.
Khursa told the two officers he had recently returned from Ukraine.
"Let's not do this, he's just come back from the war," he recalls one police officer suggesting. But the other one, seeing the cash, said: "Shut up, do you know how much money that is?"
They took almost everything - 2.66m roubles (£24,000).
The officers had no regard for Vladimir Putin's promises that those who decided to join Russia's war against Ukraine should be treated as heroes and "the new elite" upon their return.
In another case, several police officers who worked at a Moscow airport are suspected of tipping off taxi drivers about servicemen returning from the front.
The drivers would offer a reasonable fare, and then, after completing the ride, they would demand up to 15 times more.
Those who resisted were threatened; some were allegedly drugged or intoxicated while the thieves used their bank cards.
Investigators believe the gang took at least 1.5m roubles from returning soldiers.
Sometimes salaries are stolen before the servicemen have even seen the money.
In October 2024, police arrested three staff members of a recruitment centre in Vladimir region for stealing more than 11m roubles from soldiers.
The suspects got access to their salary accounts by keeping for themselves the sim cards that had been issued to the new recruits and were tied to the accounts.
In another case, a local official from Belgorod region is suspected of stealing more than a million roubles from new recruits by linking their bank accounts to his own phone number.
Sometimes soldiers have been robbed by their own commanders.
One serviceman told the BBC his unit was denied access to shops and ordered to hand over their bank cards and PIN numbers to a sergeant major.
The officer allegedly ended up with 50 salary cards, many belonging to soldiers now listed as missing in action.
According to the soldier we spoke to, he fled with the money . Some cards reportedly had up to 2m roubles on them.
Nikita Khursa reported the two officers who took his money to the police.
They were charged with robbery and abuse of power, but the case never reached court.
Both officers signed up to join the army and went to Ukraine, avoiding prosecution under a new law that allows criminal suspects to fight instead of facing charges.
"At first I was angry," Khursa told the BBC from a hospital near Saint Petersburg. "Then I thought, if there is a God, maybe this is how it should be."
He never got his money back and is now awaiting a military doctor's decision on whether he must return to the front, as contract soldiers have to stay in the fight until the end of the war.
Khursa says he has shrapnel near his heart, but does not see a civilian future for himself.
He and Oksana have now split up: he said he didn't want to keep his wife tied down while he was in the military.
"If I'm not here, I'll end up on the street", he says. "Only the army saves you, puts a roof over your head."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5rm41g34qo
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Kind of the dude’s own fault for drunk driving with a grocery bag full of cash in a crooked and ineptly run state like Russia.
sylvanllewelyn
Perma-newb
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
- Messages
- 2,028
In most countries, it is not difficult for authorities to rob and steal from civilians. But isn't it preferable to choose an easier and weaker target?
Are war veterans usually the easiest and weakest targets?
Are war veterans usually the easiest and weakest targets?
Snowygerry
Deity
Welll they must be quite gullible to join the Russian army, would you ?
Thorgalaeg
Deity
In Russia vets are all alcoholics, drug addicts, usually amputees or terminally ill, and mentally broken. I'd say yes.
Snowygerry
Deity
Well yes, that is not yet taken either, this is from a few days ago :
Explainer-Why is Russia trying so hard to capture the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk?
By Andrew Osborn and Anastasiia Malenko MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces are pushing hard to encircle the strategically important eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after capturing a string of
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