Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1498420747752157189

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Kherson has fallen

Kherson after heavy shelling
From CNN's Paul P. Murphy and Jake Tapper
(From Telegram)
(From Telegram)
The Russian military appears to have taken central Kherson, screenshots posted to social media and a video obtained by CNN show.

The screenshots from a webcam and the video have been geolocated, and their authenticity verified by CNN.

The video shows Russian military vehicles at a roundabout in northern Kherson on Tuesday. The screenshots from the webcam show Russian military vehicles parked on Svobody Square in central Kherson.

The Kherson Regional Administration building sits on Svobody Square.

Entering the city: On Tuesday, CNN reported that Russian military vehicles had been seen on the eastern side of the city after days of shelling and intense fighting.

The videos provide new evidence that the Russians are moving throughout Kherson, apparently unimpeded. It also shows that the Russian forces from Crimea have advanced and established a crossing across the Dnieper River.

Mayor's desperate plea: On Tuesday afternoon, Kherson Mayor Igor Kolykhaiev posted a stark message on Facebook, warning the city was under attack. "Residential buildings and urban facilities are burning," he wrote.

"We are NOT military! But I will hold the city and its functioning as long as I can," he wrote. “If the Russian soldiers and their leadership hear me. I ask: leave our city, stop shelling the civilians. You have already taken everything you wanted. Including human lives.”

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-01-22/index.html

The fact it took the Russians this long to capture a major city is a win for the Ukrainians. The Russians were relying on finishing the war quickly, and that was denied to them.

Yeah Russia was hoping to control the whole country in the time it took to get this. And wait till they deal with the insurgency it'll have now...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/CraigCaplan/status/1499071422387343366

Venezuela was absent. Nicaragua and Cuba abstained. Even Serbia, Hungary and Myanmar voted for it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

IIRC fhtagn was only temp banned but she opted not to return.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/ZaidSabah/status/1499428364762894337

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Pinky and the Brain!  I remember growing up watching this cartoon!   

Animaniacs has two new seasons on Hulu, very good and worth checking out. Each episode has a Pinky and the Brain segment in the middle.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BTW even had a piece about Russia in the new season. Check out the Russian Pinky and the Brain.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1499696220457127939

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Those "NATO laptops" are hysterical. Reminds me of the Trump supporter who claimed that she saw a ban labeled "Biden/Harris" pull up and people started unloading boxes of ballots off it as proof of vote fraud.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also not that we needed more proof those laptop labels are fake, but all official NATO labels are labeled both "NATO" and "OTAN" because NATO has two official languages: English and French.

How the actual NATO logo is labeled:




Got to love that these Russian propagandists weren't even aware of that! That's like Wikipedia article level of research.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Anyone remember this from the early days of the uprising against Gaddafi? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/21/libya-pilots-flee-to-malta

Wondering if we'll see any Russian pilots do this especially since getting shot down is likely the alternative. At least in Libya the opposition had no air force or air defense at all until NATO intervened.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

DESPERATION

https://www.ibtimes.com/russia-offers-syrians-300-fight-ukraine-report-3425981

Someone actually calculated this is like 8 months of the average salary in Syria...for 6 months of "work" that consists of possibly dying in a miserable hellhole. The fact that's all Russia can offer says a lot.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1500815037589504009

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1500984893563670528?s=20&t=xXpOXLl9...

this is my field, I find this hilarious

Can't they just use encrypted phones that still run off local networks or something? Sounds like a laughable own goal. Like I'd expect random African countries' militaries to be able to handle this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1500984893563670528?s=20&t=xXpOXLl9...

this is my field, I find this hilarious

Can't they just use encrypted phones that still run off local networks or something? Sounds like a laughable own goal. Like I'd expect random African countries' militaries to be able to handle this.

Yes, they can.  They just have to encrypt the signal, which one assume they'd be good at.  Even if it's old Soviet era gear that western security peeps can easily decrypt, it still (probably) wouldn't be "hacked" by civilians.  I can't imagine how they have zero ways to communicate securely with "HQ".  Even an ancient tele-type system would be better than just using a burner phone like they seem to be.

That's what I thought. Even Mexican drug cartels are able to do that to some level. Meanwhile Russian military communications are being livestreamed by randos ok the Internet.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Broke: The virgin, weak, flaccid jokes that are Russian soldiers as evidenced by their repeated ownings.

Woke: These bad ass ladies.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1501062747408281603?s=20&t=e1BKWWDkZZ2cD8...

they are also the most trained and most experienced.

Which reminds me of the idiotic common armchair general take online from people who are convinced that Putin just sent "cannon fodder" or weak troops first and is holding back the big guns until later.

This is both obviously not true per evidence and horrendously idiotic military strategy, like even dumber than what Russia has done so far which saying a lot. It makes no sense whatsoever outside of movies and TV shows as a way to build tension and cause later drama or as a strategy maybe in some real time strategy video games...but that's now how the real world or real military strategy works. Especially when the initial goal was to "shock and awe" the country into submission and then occupy it in two weeks.

At this point, I doubt that Russia even has Ukraine significantly outnumbered if at all, pretty much the entire Ukrainian military is there in addition to the civilians joining up and fighting back and Russia's already deployed 95% of the available troops, Russia could send in more but again people forget this isn't a video game, the troops can't be mobilized and magically appear at the front lines, Russia is huge and the transportation will take time and resources, which normally wouldn't be a major issue but Russia is unable to keep a convoy fueled to hit Kiev. Also this is usually a point in a movie where the villain sends in the really evil, nasty and dreaded forces...except Russia already did that by dispatching Chechen death squads to kill Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials, and the Ukrainians absolutely curbstomped them. It's tough to imagine that Putin has any insidious tricks up his sleeve.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Russian warship the Snake Island defenders told to go f[inks] yourself to is now destroyed: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10586145/Cheering-Ukrainian-navy-hits-Russian-war-ship-Black-Sea-Odessa.html

(Sorry about the Daily Mail... anyone got another source?)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1501071619439087617

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm actually pretty sure Ukraine has a numerical advantage now, when you throw in the foreign volunteers, their paramilitaries and armed civilians and Russian casualties plus Russian forces that are basically worthless now and just sitting in freezing unfueled convoys. Ukraine's total forces are probably around 300k, with Russia being under 200k, and that's not even taking into account the full number of those forces that are completely useless at this time.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Russia has now likely lost more troops than the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1501860795843416068

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1501577368049176584

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Lithuania has changed the name of the street its Russian embassy is located on.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Good for Poland. (reply intentionally included)

https://twitter.com/SandersVoter/status/1501931057544839168

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I wish there was a better source than the Daily Mail on this...(the main reason I think they're used so frequently now is they're not paywalled) but Putin has apparently ordered the head of the FSB and his deputy under house arrest: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603045/Putin-places-head-FSBs-foreign-intelligence-branch-house-arrest.html

Perfect! Putin should go ahead and purge the entire upper echelons of Russian intelligence and the military. This guy has to have been a f[inks]ing monster in the first place to even work for the FSB so no tears but it's better if the FSB is ran by a more incompetent monster.