Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Torie]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

Cool story, bro. Will you put money into Russian ETFs to capitalize on the surging Russian economy?

I really did LOL at that one. Turning every event into an investor's crystal ball moment is at once distasteful and errant. The term in my troop is financial pornography. I have been reading it now for about 50 years, and it has never got me hard.

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1576997792731787264

[Torie]

I think Putin would have been content with reducing Ukraine to Belarus status, but when that was no longer in play when the charismatic Zelensky became a thing, it then was Ukraine less the terminally "Russophobic zone"  on the west side of the Carpathians.

[Badger]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

Cool story, bro. Will you put money into Russian ETFs to capitalize on the surging Russian economy?

Not to say I would do so but in reality all Russian ETFs listed in the collective West exchanges have all been halted due to sanctions.

Ha! After months of scraping for every conceivable straw to declare that Russia's economy isn't really affected by sanctions, where the rubber meets the road, atlas's own Montgomery Burns won't risk his own money investing in russia. Very telling!

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1576636416683298817?s=20&t=5m-7rkTk...

[Storr]

Massive escalation by whom, Elon? It's certainly not Ukraine.

(The dude can't stop digging the hole.)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1577083012914651142?s=20&t=-n3skQBrJrKfz...


https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1577088677838479361?s=20&t=-n3skQB...

[NOVA Green]

Not necessarily "new news" per se, but story from the Washington Post published today about the Lyman Offensive, including interviews with UKR soldiers, local villagers, townspeople, etc...

The Ukrainian soldiers waved, hooted and raised their fists in triumph as they drove out of the strategic eastern city of Lyman on Monday, riding M113 armored personnel vehicles provided by Western countries. They passed eight corpses of enemy Russian soldiers who died trying to run from a Ukrainian counteroffensive that swept through the area and is still going, putting the lie to President Vladimir Putin’s annexation claims.

Though the Ukrainian military surrounded Lyman over the weekend, most of the Russian forces had withdrawn before then, locals said. A handful of enemy soldiers, however, might still be hiding in the surrounding woods.Though the Ukrainian military surrounded Lyman over the weekend, most of the Russian forces had withdrawn before then, locals said. A handful of enemy soldiers, however, might still be hiding in the surrounding woods.

Meanwhile, on the northern approach to Lyman, soldiers from Ukraine’s 81st Air Assault Brigade were on the lookout for fleeing Russians. A burly commander said that his unit had arrested a local separatist in the nearby forest. “The unit operating here was from the area,” the commander said. “They knew the routes through the forest when they needed them.”

In Shandryholove, a retired milkmaid, Nadia, laughed as her husband recalled a Soviet-era film, “A Wedding in Malinovka” in which control of a village changes, but daily realities stay the same. “Things don’t improve here,” she said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/03/lyman-luhansk-annexation-ukraine-offensive/

New York Times also provides some coverage from Lyman area:

Mr. Putin had meant for Monday to be a triumphant day in Moscow, where the lower house of Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament, the State Duma, voted unanimously to ratify his proclaimed annexation of four Ukrainian regions after sham referendums there.

But events on the battlefield threatened to make a mockery of such declarations, as Ukrainians continued to recapture blasted, largely depopulated cities and towns from the retreating Russians. North of Lyman, the village of Pisky-Radkivski, retaken last week, was littered with burned-out Russian tanks, abandoned Russian gear and the bodies of Russian soldiers on Monday.

Ukraine claimed on Monday to have destroyed a Russian armored column near the village of Torske in the Donetsk region, east of Lyman and just 20 miles from Lysychansk. The attack left roads in the dense pine forest cluttered with burned tanks and armored vehicles, said Vladyslav Podkich, a Ukrainian military spokesman.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/world/europe/russia-disarray-ukraine.html

[NOVA Green]

Update from The Wall Street Journal regarding the Tatar's and Crimean drafts and potential "Ethnic Cleansing" of minority populations via sending them disproportionately to fight in a war which many of them do not support.

On Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, indigenous Crimean Tatars say they are being targeted by Moscow for the military draft, leaving them with a stark choice: flee their homeland or be thrown into the fight against their Ukrainian compatriots.

More than half and possibly up to 90% of people currently drafted from the peninsula are Crimean Tatars, despite making up no more than 13% of the population, according to data collected from community leaders there by independent human rights group CrimeaSOS. In just one settlement, the Kyiv-based group said, 27 out of 28 draft notices were given to Crimean Tatars, who make up less than 40% of the population there.

A Crimean Tatar craftsman from the northern Crimean town of Dzhankoi with no military experience slipped away with his wife and children last week after his name appeared in a list of those liable to be drafted that was leaked online. He made it to Kazakhstan and plans to travel on to Uzbekistan, according to his cousin in Kyiv, Ukraine.

By targeting Crimean Tatars for mobilization, Moscow is aiming to generate manpower for the war while thinning out a restive population by sending young, able-bodied men to death or scaring them into fleeing abroad, said Mustafa Dzhemilev, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, former Soviet political prisoner and longtime Crimean Tatar leader.

Under the leadership of Mr. Dzhemilev, they became one of the most active and organized political groups on the peninsula. They protested the Russian takeover in 2014 but could do little to prevent Moscow’s troops from taking over the peninsula.

Across Crimea, draft notices have been handed out at public markets and checkpoints as well as schools, hospitals and at mosques during Friday prayers. Sometimes they are even given to people calling for emergency help, said Ievgeniy Iaroshenko, an analyst at CrimeaSOS.

In Zuya, on the outskirts of the regional capital of Simferopol, Crimean Tatars make up half the population. The Russian military there circulated draft notices to state employees at their offices, setting off fear in the community, said Mustafa Vojenny, an imam in touch with relatives there. Within hours, hundreds of people fled toward Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, Central Asian republics where many of them were born after their parents and grandparents were deported in 1944.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/crimean-tatar-minority-is-in-crosshairs-of-putins-draft-11664797639

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Elon Musk is just another silver spoon pussy coward

he's afraid of Vlad the Demon's nukes lmao. why? bcuz if he dies in nuclear Armageddon he won't be around to ensure his Congolese child slaves don't stop working in his cobalt mines?

absolute moron that man is. snake oil salesman down to his core.

I don't think he's afraid of Putin's nukes. I think Elon Musk believes he's such a genius that everybody should simply accept his brilliant peace plan.

https://twitter.com/Euan_MacDonald/status/1577096256748670976?s=20&t=xVy84ue...

I have probably a better opinion of Elon than most of the online left, but my god does he need to stick to just building rockets and literally nothing else.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/RitaKonaev/status/1576889632897499136?s=20&t=J682LkRBZ2-...

[NOVA Green]

More stories about deaths of Russian conscripts mobilized for Putin's War:

One of the mobilized, who was in the Sverdlovsk training center of the Ministry of Defense Elan, where three people died, told the Dozhd TV channel about the conditions for conscripts.

According to him, after the distribution of the mobilized, they were sent to a tent camp, where they had to stay for a month - they did not give out a uniform, and they told them to put together wooden bunkers for the night on their own. The interlocutor of the TV channel said that the makeshift structure on which ten people were sleeping collapsed, after which he was taken to the hospital, but he has not yet been diagnosed.

More from the same daily update:

At least six mobilized Russians died after being drafted

In the Elansky garrison of the training center of the Ministry of Defense in the village of Poroshino, Sverdlovsk Region , three men died after being drafted as part of a “partial” mobilization: one of the mobilized died of a heart attack, the second committed suicide, and the third died upon arrival home from cirrhosis of the liver.

In Vladivostok, in the police department, the mobilized 39-year-old truck driver Sergei Fedoseenko, after being detained from the military enlistment office , died of cardiac arrest.

A resident of the Zvezdny village of Kabardino-Balkaria, Boris Shavaev, who was mobilized to participate in a special military operation, died at a military base on the parade ground during construction. The cause of death is believed to be thromboembolism.

At the recruiting station in the village of Andreevsky in the Tyumen region , the corpse of a mobilized was found .

https://zona.media/chronicle/222#50246

[Badger]

What are Rashists front lines doing?

this lol

https://twitter.com/jabuttee/status/1576962749141495808

(won't post the video because it's a bit much for this forum)

No, no. What? No no. What? Can't? What the? No. Is this really? Can't be. Really? No. How the? Um....

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Elon Musk proposes:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

Well he represents only himself

To go a bit further, he's part of all these people who still believe Russia is a great army while it isn't. Ukraine doesn't have to sign it, they will be able to repeal the russians by themselves.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost it's military superpower status. After the catastrophic Russian failures in the Ukraine war, Russia is no longer even a great power.

[NOVA Green]

Although previously discussed, the AP just published a story which appears to support the fact the Russia looted Ukrainian Grain and sold it illegally as an equivalent of "Blood Diamonds".

When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship.

But an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

AP used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Reporters reviewed shipping manifests, searched social media posts, and interviewed farmers, shippers and corporate officials to uncover the details of the massive smuggling operation.

This story is part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that includes the War Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive experience and and upcoming documentary, “Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes,” which premieres 10/9c Oct. 25 on PBS.

Videos posted on social media in recent months show a steady stream of grain transport trucks moving south through occupied areas of Ukraine with the letter “Z” painted on their sides, a wartime symbol for Russia and its military forces. Agro-Fregat train cars have been recorded rolling through the Crimean port town of Feodosia, where satellite imagery shows trucks and trains lined up as grain was being loaded onto ships.

The Kremlin has denied stealing any grain, but Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported on June 16 that Ukrainian grain was being trucked to Crimea, resulting in long lines at border checkpoints. Tass later reported that grain from Melitopol had arrived in Crimea and that additional shipments were expected, bound for customers in the Middle East and Africa.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-business-lebanon-syria-87c3b6fea3f4c326003123b21aa78099?utm_source=telegram

Reminds me a bit of this old classic old UK '80s Punk-Pop-Alt band Chumbwamba from back in the days off of their album: "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Albums".

Naturally this was written towards the tail end of the Cold War, but politics of control of global food production still rings true today regardless of if the original song originally focused more on the US or the USSR.

Anybody who doesn't like musical interludes, my apologies but feel free to skip.

Sometimes music can capture stories in a way in which text, videos, etc cannot...

[Storr]

Defending Svatove is not going to be fun nor easy for the Russians:

https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1577126986043912192?s=20&t=Zpxhnun-7hk0...

Look at this google maps view taken in August 2021 from one of the bluffs:

[Frodo]

Defending Svatove is not going to be fun nor easy for the Russians:

https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1577126986043912192?s=20&t=Zpxhnun-7hk0...
Look at this google maps view taken in August 2021 from one of the bluffs:

So it is like Chattanooga then:

[DINGO Joe]

Lukashenko announces mobilization

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1577003767614287872

I know he's rigged elections (or at least the most recent one) and he's locked up people who shouldn't be and maybe has done worse, but damn this [insks]er can troll.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is more of a general observation than anything special going on right now, but the obsessively homophobic cast to current Russian anti-NATO rhetoric is really something. At least in the bad old days the CAPITALIST SWINE terms of abuse had a vestigial legitimate point smothered deep within them.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1577006943499350016?t=BS1Y6bgBf2VS2MUQsf3...

Not so long ago...

"Omg I beg Mr. Musk plz give starlink"

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1577006943499350016?t=BS1Y6bgBf2VS2MUQsf3...

Not so long ago...

"Omg I beg Mr. Musk plz give starlink"

Not so long ago...

"Omg I beg Mr. Putin plz give check"

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/Sprinter99880/status/1577224347009548288

[Woody]

In Russia, the Federation Council has ratified the entry of the four oblasts into the country. The only thing left is Putin's signature and they will be recognized as Russian territory.

https://twitter.com/Olomoinfo/status/1577224289237237761

[Woody]

So far only two UN member states has recognized these as new Russian borders: North Korea and Cuba. Syria will most likely follow suit

https://twitter.com/MEPaper1090/status/1576576260024995845
https://twitter.com/AmplifyUkraine/status/1577212515305537536

[CumbrianLefty]

Well, the "referendums" are the sort of electoral type events both countries are familiar with.