Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[DINGO Joe]

https://www.infowars.com/posts/ukraine-to-ban-war-and-peace-from-being-taught-in-schools/

"Ukraine to Ban ‘War and Peace’ From Being Taught in Schools"

Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ and other classic historical novels that portray the Russian military in anything other than a negative light will be banned from being taught in Ukrainian schools, it has been announced.

Not explicitly saying this is false, but until we get a report from some Source less absolute crackpot band Infowars, caveat emptor

Although what child wouldn't want "War and Peace" banned.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/Shtirlitz53/status/1534305549222875138

Look at the translation.

Where?

"Col. Ruslan Shirin, who was chief of staff for the Baltic Fleet's 336th Naval Infantry Brigade was killed in action."

Girkin has been posting quite a few high ranking officers the last few days.  They can't even last long enough to be promoted to General before dying.

[DINGO Joe]

Can someone explain to me how Starbucks or McDonald's "pulling out" of Russia works? Their stores in Russia are owned by franchisees who could very easily just keep their businesses open, using the same brand and menu items without the company's permission, right? It might be difficult for them to source the same products now due to the sanctions, but it's not like American corporations have ever had much legal recourse against Russian companies stealing their brands.

Russians know.  At least the ones that have money are very label/status conscious.  In their hearts they know it's a fraud.  And given it's Russians, I'm sure the product sucks too.

I'm actually serious about this.

[DINGO Joe]

So, anyway I usually have sigs turned off, so I miss out out on much of the drama, but I recently turned it on briefly and randomly saw SirWoodbury's sig



So, I was curious and Google searched it and it a screen shot from an obscure (to me at least) Russian gangster movie from 20 years called Brother 2 or Brat 2.  So a quick a quick internet search sez that it was controversial for it's racism and dialogue promoting killing of Americans and Ukrainians.  It's also supposedly one of Putin's favorite movies and he quotes it frequently as do Russian fascists in general.

Is he trolling?  Is it part of his belief system?  Or maybe he's just some film auteur.  But a the very least the Mods and everyone should know the kind of person they are dealing with.

[DINGO Joe]

So, anyway I usually have sigs turned off, so I miss out out on much of the drama, but I recently turned it on briefly and randomly saw SirWoodbury's sig



So, I was curious and Google searched it and it a screen shot from an obscure (to me at least) Russian gangster movie from 20 years called Brother 2 or Brat 2.  So a quick a quick internet search sez that it was controversial for it's racism and dialogue promoting killing of Americans and Ukrainians.  It's also supposedly one of Putin's favorite movies and he quotes it frequently as do Russian fascists in general.

Is he trolling?  Is it part of his belief system?  Or maybe he's just some film auteur.  But a the very least the Mods and everyone should know the kind of person they are dealing with.

"Obscure" bro, you really need to do more than just google searches, literally any Russian on the street knows about the Brat franchise, and it's about as racist as the Sopranos is... this is the same energy as the Masha and the Bear thread lol.

And I think's it's f**ed up that many psychos quote it to use it on today's conflict.

OK it's not obscure to Russians, what's your point?

[DINGO Joe]

I saw the original Brat and Bart 2 in 2004.  Both are great movies.  I related better to Brat 2's message of patriotism and nationalism.

As  noted, it is very popular with Rascists.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1536101470717845504

This is the Russian mobilization.  Old cannon-fodder equip with WW1 helmets.


And they post it.  Isn't this a war crime?

[DINGO Joe]

I mean, do they not even get ammo for their guns?  It seems like you could just frag whoever is sort of in charge and take off.

[DINGO Joe]

Big if true:

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1536054047874113542?s=20&t=1RWjBMmTsz...

Yeah, the always barely decipherable Girkin has been posting the Firms maps of Izyium and doing the whole hmmm thing for awhile

[DINGO Joe]

Big if true:

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1536054047874113542?s=20&t=1RWjBMmTsz...

Yeah, the always barely decipherable Girkin has been posting the Firms maps of Izyium and doing the whole hmmm thing for awhile

I stumbled upon a blog where an Estonian guy translates Russian military phone call intercepts released by Ukrainian intelligence and Russian blogs/accounts about the war, half of which are Girkin's doomposts. His most recent opinion posts is simply titled: Why is Igor Girkin still alive? He talks about why Girkin has been able to be so open in his criticism of the Russian high command and whether we can believe and should listen to what Girkin says.

Yeah, I see Dmitri on twitter too, but had never read that blog.  I can assure you I've never thought Girkin to be pro-Ukraine, whether it's personal bitterness that he thinks he could do better or his byzantine role within the FSB I certainly take his posts with a grain of salt.  Plus the fact that his posts almost always lose something in the translation, well there's many a WTF moment when perusing his tweets, and why I'd almost never be willing to post them here.

[DINGO Joe]

Hard to keep up with and sort out (I was hoping Storr had been looking into it all), but the Girkin feed has video of numerous targets in the LNR and DNR hit or on massive fire.  Including a military registration office in Sobinov, Dominek Hotel in Donetsk (which he says is favorite of Russian officers), an ammo depot in Krasny Luch (Red Beam), and a military base in the Kievsky district in Donetsk. 

Lots of video.  All well behind the lines. 

[DINGO Joe]

Now anyone can be an "elite" Russian soldier in only three weeks!

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1537504376604004352

[DINGO Joe]

One thing that I suspect Ukraine and America do agree on is that that this war needs to wind down this year, rather than drag on through the next with all the economic disruption and food shortages, and, nukes aside, incurring the  ongoing higher risk of through calculation or miscalculation of a major clash of the titans where troops of more nations get actively involved.

I hope for Ukraine's sake this is not true.  I totally agree that this is the vibe.  But it would be a disaster if this is their real strategy since it just allows Russia who can also pick up this vibe to organize their political military and economic strategy around the fact that Ukraine and the collective West would want to end this by the end of 2022.  The vibe that the Russians SHOULD be getting is that everyone, Ukraine and collective West, will fight until hell freeze over to stop the Russians and roll back the Russian offensive.

Well, food shortages don't seem to be on the horizon

https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/@W.1

And really, outside of LNG the world seems to be adapting to the disruption.  Can't really see any reason that the West won't continue supporting Ukraine blowing up every bit of Russian equipment until the warehouses are empty.

[DINGO Joe]

Good luck with that, given the losses they are taking.

Somebody needs refreshing their WW2 lessons.

That was 80 years ago.

It's a good lesson as Russia outlasted the Nazis thanks to lend-lease and the US just outright giving them military equipment.  It's just this time the Russians are the Nazis and guess who is the beneficiary of lend-lease.  Ukraine will ultimately blow up 6 decades of Rascist military equipment.

[DINGO Joe]

https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-russia-energy-deal/31950165.html

"Gazprom, Iran Sign Tentative Energy Deal Worth $40 Billion"

It seems Russia will help Iran develop its natural gas reserves with the implied goal of
a) Russian gas -> PRC
b) Iranian gas -> India

I think the Russian plans for building pipes with taking this into account and focus on more pipe expansion to PRC while Iran will prioritize building pipes to India.

Given that Russia can't even restore Nord Stream without a Canadian part I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. 

[DINGO Joe]

Lazurne is quite far from the front lines, 69km from the nearest town under Ukrainian control Oleksandrivka, Kherson Oblast.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1549470246259548162?s=20&t=sw-dnl...

This was a very rare valuable piece of equipment they took out.  The kind of thing Russia can't build now.

[DINGO Joe]

This is the first time I can remember Ukraine targeting a hotel the Russians had been using: 

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1553150011919290372?s=20&t=xMFg8p...

https://twitter.com/GoraGiza/status/1553147326092509186?s=20&t=aISdxMWklQ16h...

No, the Ukrainians have hit other hotels that are known to hold Russian officers.  In fact Girkin has video of a "Yacht Club" burning in Donbas and subsequent video of  Russian air evac of wounded presumably from that event just yesterday.  And air evac is, of course, only for the high ranking.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553733177956507651

Not so noteworthy for Russian stuff being blown up (as there a dozen video a day of that) but for the juxtaposition of a lovely sunflower field and a rocket being launched.

[DINGO Joe]

Despite Russia being uncooperative or incapable of running their gas lines to Europe, the EU is well ahead of pace for filling their NG storage for winter.

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/080222-eu-wide-gas-stocks-on-track-for-nov1-target-after-july-injections

In fact if they fill as fast in August as they did in July, they'll hit their goal by the end of August instead of the end of October.

[DINGO Joe]

Oh who's to say where a front line is....as long as it is a military target.  Looks like the front line to me.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557017110320136194

A thread with many many videos and photos of the explosions.  Obviously, given the location and time of day it'll be the most documented event of the war thus far.

#17 is pretty interesting because you can see the shockwave on the video and blue car obviously felt it and decided to turn around.  There are photos of windows blow out and traffic jams of people trying to leave but can't say for sure if all part of this event.

[DINGO Joe]

Lazurne is quite far from the front lines, 69km from the nearest town under Ukrainian control Oleksandrivka, Kherson Oblast.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1549470246259548162?s=20&t=sw-dnl...

This was a very rare valuable piece of equipment they took out.  The kind of thing Russia can't build now.

One of the internet tech guys thinks these dots might connect

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557223009383059457

[DINGO Joe]

I'm highly sceptical Ukraine would deliberately hit a country that isn't officially part of this war.

It may be on Belarusian territory but it is functionally a Russian air base.

This was written a month~ ago:

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-control-belarus-zyabrovka-airfield-20-miles-ukraine-1722757

A top Ukrainian official has stated that Belarus has given "full control" of the Zyabrovka airfield near the Ukraine-Belarus border to Russia, materializing previous fears that a growing number of Belarusian assets are intensifying war-time pressures.

So at the very least it should give some insight into how Ukraine views that base.

Well, it could have been something done by the locals as they have been known to engage in sabotage themselves.  While Luka is a bad man and dictator with plenty of political prisoners he's managed to keep Belarus from being a source of cannon fodder for Russia  even as Russia is getting increasingly desperate for such fodder.

Speaking of Luka he had a special Rascists guest just a couple of days ago

https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1557349576167903241

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1559584173731586050

Busy Day

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1559519126258962437

If I had the time I might try to repurpose the Dead Kennedys "Holiday in Cambodia" for Crimea