Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

In other news, North Korea becomes the 3rd UN member to recognize the so called DPR and LPR as independent states, along with Syria and Russia itself.

https://www.reuters.com/world/north-korea-recognises-breakaway-russias-proxies-east-ukraine-2022-07-13/

OK, I don’t see how taking North goddamned Korea’s position as newsworthy can seriously be anything but Putin trolling.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Billion-dollar aid package with most of it devoted merely to replenishing ammo stocks for existing weapons is a testament to how materiel-hungry war is, especially given that they just had a 550 million aid package a week ago or so and basically all of it was just artillery and HIMARS ammunition.

https://twitter.com/OstapYarysh/status/1556684181270298624
On the topic of aid, I'm curious at what point another aid package will be needed from Congress. If I understand it correctly, some of the money allocated sunsets in September, if it hasn't been spent yet anyway. Most of it doesn't, but then again, much of that aid package wasn't direct military aid either.

Modern war burns ammo at an inhuman rate. Like well above the amount that can be produced. We are going to have to send Ukraine both increasingly more packages and eventually transition them to NATO kit while Russia burns it’s increasingly dubious Cold War stockpiles.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1567486326580150273?ref_src=twsrc%5Et...

I dunno if this has been posted yet, but JFC. The Russian standing army is up to circa 350,000 after expansions for the conflict.
This is just dead, add in wounded and the army is being bleed white.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Can someone who understands strategy better than me explain what's happening with the Crimean Bridge? Has Ukraine made any moves to destroy it? If not, why not?

IIRC that bridge is specifically hardened against missile strikes.

Basically it’s allot harder to impossible to just blow up with air strikes and rocket launchers vs just picking off vehicle trapped on a giant bridge.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

More Elon being Elon:

I wonder if something happened a few years after 2012 that would have led many Ukrainians in the east to change their minds regarding Russia? Hmmm....

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1577842427897020417?s=20&t=mRv0xcOqTnTNi...

Obviously, not everything Elon Musk does is idiotic, but it would also be inaccurate to say that nothing is.

This is something I’ve been saying since the beginning of this thread, being a Russophone and voting for the established Russophone party does not represent a desire to join Russia and the realities of the invasion have almost certainly ended any good feelings about their neighbor for the vats majority of these people.

Voting for the party of regions 12 years ago meant regional autonomy and closer relations with the east rather than west, and sympathy for the pre-Orange revolution regime, Which was not consent to annexation and brutal occupation.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Footage of the terrorist attack:

I think we can put to bed the notion that Woodbury is doing anything but Putin simping.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Lukashenko and Putin are getting ready to reopen the northern front, this time including Belarussian troops as well as their Russian counterparts:

Belarus’s Lukashenko announces troop deployments with Russia amid escalations in Ukraine

At this point, the overthrow of Lukashenko's regime moves from an idle fantasy to a military imperative.  

There's enough ambiguity in this for Lukashenko to wiggle out of a deployment of Belarusian troops to Ukraine, especially considering that Belarus is now a significant source of military aid for Russia. He's achieved this for months and seems, in some ways, to be craftier than Putin.

It is more likely, in my view, that the standing Belarusian army is used to fix Ukrainian troops near the border as they have done for months. If there is to be any deeper involvement on their part, it could come in the form of them providing training infrastructure/services for the newly mobilised Russians. Belarusian training is probably crap but Russia needs mass and it's surely better than nothing.

Maybe.  Another possibility is that Putin wants Lukashenko to put all his cards on the table, and finally deploy his army for an all-out invasion so that untrained (and undertrained) Russian conscripts will at least have professional soldiers alongside them as they attack Ukraine from the north.  

If they do move, I suspect the new Belarusian soldiers in Ukraine will be heavily out numbered by the Belarusians setting up a new anti-Russian regime in Minsk.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Kherson City is basically a ghost city now. Everything of resource has been stripped, and it's citizens sent to mainland Russia or occupied territory. I would compare it to Moscow/Borodino 1812.

With Russia's last significant logistical strain gone/Dnieper river as cover, it's offensive capabilities are strengthened.

Its not been the best of weeks for you overall, has it? Never mind

Russia has lost the battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson. Russia can never push by land to Odessa.

Ah but you see, by declaring occupied Ukraine Russia and then abandoning them, Putin is drawing the Ukrainians deeper into Russia.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Belarus says it downed Ukraine air defence missile https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64122632

Ridiculous. If I was the Ukrainian ambassador I’d tell the Belarusians to pound sand. Trying to act incredulous/mortified over the results of a conflict you’re doing everything in your power to facilitate. Barf.

If they don’t like it, take it up with the Russians shooting cruise missiles at everything

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

snip

Why does Greece have so many tanks? I mean, I know why, but do they expect them to swim across the Aegean?

Istanbul Constantinople is right there waiting for them

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1614637920455110656

Oh wow the found 15 bored people on a weekend in New York.
My whole world view is shaken.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

So possibly some German Tanks might end up in Ukraine without German approval?

Personally believe tanks might be over-rated in this current war, mainly because of mobility, but whatever...

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1616149727061344293?s=20&t=Xxdi2d...

Scholz will probably "approve" it IMO for this very reason... as a face-saving measure and all.

Can someone explain to me what the hell Scholz's problem is?
There is a war of conquest in Europe.
Why does Germany even have a defense industry if not for this?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

So everyone talking about Bakhmut realizes this was a 5 month operation in which Russia had taken extreme casualties to advance the front a few kms, and during that same period they lost all of Kharkiv and the city of Kherson

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/OlenaHalushka/status/1617599253626646528?s=20&t=VM8kjDi4...
The poll details. The last two options are pretty odd. Is anyone actually considering those seriously? Why Lithuania? Ukraine doesn't even border Lithuania.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1617531862309810185?s=20&t=VM8kjD...

For centuries we slept, now the winged hussars shall arise

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

So much for the deluded fantasy that India is buying Russian oil out of solidarity...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/india-to-ensure-no-breach-on-russia-oil-purchase-sanctions/articleshow/98585193.cms

...or the even more deluded fantasy that the Global South is a unified and cohesive anti-western bloc.

https://www.reuters.com/article/india-russia-china-yuan-idAFL4N35K0HZ

Why does it matter to you WHY India is buying Russian oil? The fact is that they are buying tons of it and that is great to give Russia a way out of the sanctions!

What is exactly that you’re bragging about? Uhh India is helping Russia but it’s not because they like like Russia, they still like us better. Is international geopolitics like middle school to you people or something?

It’s so fascinating to see how most people here tend to frame everything under a morality or friends logic lmao. The other dude was posting some irrelevant map about what powerless average people abroad think of the US.

Newsflash: there isn’t morality OR true “friendship” in geopolitics. Everyone is driven by their self-interests. They can be directed towards different things simultaneously and sometimes may be even misguided internal strategies, but no ones does anything only because they have more personal friendship with one country more than they have with another.

Ok why do you believe the systematic mass murder and deportation of Ukrainians behind an arbitrary line is in Brazil or I’m sorry ‘the Global South’’s self interest?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Politico, citing US officials, says Ukraine has suffered ~100,000 KIA:

‘Ukraine doesn’t have any time to waste’: U.S. races to prepare Kyiv for spring offensive

Russia has spent months pummeling the country with missiles, seeking not only to cause destruction but also deplete Ukraine’s air defense stocks. Ukrainian soldiers have described acute shortages of basic ammunition, including mortar rounds and artillery shells. And upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces have died in the year-long war, U.S. officials estimate, including the most experienced soldiers.

I am skeptical of this figure, though I suppose maybe it makes sense if, while specific battles like Bakhmut and Vuledhar have been costly for Russia, Russia's superiority in stockpiles of artillery munitions has allowed them to inflict more favorable casualty ratios on the "quieter" parts of the front.

If that's true, it would mean the US estimates more Ukrainian casualties that Russian ones (I believe their figure for Russian death is around 60k?). This simply doesn't match the effective combat power we see on the ground, especially if you factor in Russia's advantage in equipment.

We really, badly need some neutral estimates of losses on both sides.

Yeah...  but really one must also consider the fact that:

1.)  Politico has gotten objectively worse since it was purchased by Axel Springer, and
2.)  the "upwards of 100,000" number was cited by "US Officials" who clearly are trying to create a worst case scenario as a driver to push policy and funding for increased US support for Ukraine in both terms of military assets, training.

Honestly it seems to me like the "upwards of 100k Ukrainian dead" sounds more like TOTAL Ukrainian military casualties versus KIA.

On 1) Politico was never good

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

French article from January about Lvova-Belova is horrifying

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230113-mother-russia-maria-lvova-belova-the-putin-ally-deporting-ukrainian-children

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

A few hundred pages back Torie said that he could measure how well the war was going for each side by seeing who was posting the most in this thread. By that measure the past week must have been especially dire for the Russians.

Sounds like cope. Ukraine hasn't won any territory since mobilization.

They drove Russia from all of Kharkiv oblast and
In the same timeframe that your glorious Russian masturbatory aide has failed to take a minor city 2.5km from the front.

Someone’s coping alright

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Some interesting reads today from Reuters on the war. First, Ukraine’s commander in chief Gen. Zaluzhniy reported to his British counterpart that they have stabilized Bakmut. Second, Ukraine is calling for a UN intervention on Russia putting nukes in Belarus
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-top-soldier-says-situation-embattled-bakhmut-is-stabilising-2023-03-25/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-security-chief-says-basing-russian-nuclear-weapons-belarus-will-2023-03-26/

Not really that interesting when the information being reported in support of their claims are pretty stale and extremely dubious.

Let's start with this BS claim about Russia transferring nuclear weapons to Belarus, because I find their framing incredibly scary.  It appears to be an attempt to shift public attention away from the UK's shipment of depleted Uranium-tipped tank ammo that other sources were reporting last month, but was only recently confirmed by the British Defense Ministry.  Towards that end, Reuters is falsely conflating the sale of nuclear missiles to Belarus (BS) with the sale of the Isklander missile system that can launch cruise missiles 'capable of carrying a nuclear payload if later modified' (reality).  Russia is sending these offensive-defensive systems to Belarus, because Ukraine, as they have claimed multiple times, successfully launched attacks into Belarus military and civilian locations.  Russia isn't sending nukes to Belarus.  Their position has been incredibly straightforward.  If NATO provides WMD to Ukraine, they will respond with corresponding weaponry against Ukraine.   Russia has a lot of depleted-uranium tipped ammunition that they could have fire at Ukraine, but they have held back.  

https://twitter.com/missnicamarie/status/1638883861257150465
Second, there was an expected operational pause earlier this week that was reported as a possibility for multiple weeks.  Per this March 10th Article from NBC, citing the Institute for the Study of War, "The bloody battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut wages on, but Russian mercenary group Wagner may be taking a “tactical pause.”. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html.  Ironically, Reuters wrote the article as Wagner Forces had some successful offensives in Bakhmut City, and Ukraine has actually lost ground within in the city from March 24th to the 26th.  Ukraine did stabilize the advance by Wagner Contractors flanking, and encircling, Bakhmut from the Northern and Southern areas like Ivanivske and Khromove. . Many Troops have been pumped into the Bakhmut Front in order to stop Russia from cutting-off all routes in-and-out of Bakhmut, as well as prevent them from reaching the canal protecting Chasiv Yar.  

Depleted Uranium isn’t a wmd. It’s, you know, depleted. As in the dense waste metal produced after uranium has been enriched, about 68% denser than lead and used in similar applications, like AP rounds. ‘Depleted Uranium tipped shells’ aren’t a thing, the what we might call bullet of the shell is made from DU instead of lead, using this formulation is misleading, either intentionally on your part or the Russian propaganda you’re quoting too credulously, to imply these are nuclear devices to imply a Western escalation and provide a post-hoc justification for the Russian war. Similar to Russians citing Ukraine having javelin missiles as a threat to Russian security, relying on credulous listeners to conflate man portable anti-tank weapons with cruise missiles.
A depleted Uranium shell is as much a nuclear weapon as a lead bullet is a chemical weapon

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Muradov (Responsible for Vuhledar assaults) has been replaced by Kuzmenko (The bald guy on the picture below)

https://twitter.com/TruthPuke/status/1640502790593343489
https://twitter.com/ILRUSSO12/status/1640594895340548097

Kinda funny how the army you keep claiming is winning keeps firing it’s generals huh?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://mobile.twitter.com/wgdunlop/status/1641145262209892614
https://mobile.twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641211884194897920

bawhat?  But General Woody has been suggesting Ukraine leave for months and obviously he knows more than DoD intelligence.

Given the poor track record of US intelligence (right up to and including massive failures in both Afghanistan and Ukraine within the last two years) down the decades he probably does.

What failure would that be in Ukraine?

US Intelligence said exactly what was going to happen happened, but Euros weren’t listening because lol Iraq.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://mobile.twitter.com/wgdunlop/status/1641145262209892614
https://mobile.twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641211884194897920

bawhat?  But General Woody has been suggesting Ukraine leave for months and obviously he knows more than DoD intelligence.

Given the poor track record of US intelligence (right up to and including massive failures in both Afghanistan and Ukraine within the last two years) down the decades he probably does.

What failure would that be in Ukraine?

US Intelligence said exactly what was going to happen happened, but Euros weren’t listening because lol Iraq.

The one where they overestimated the strength of the Russian invasion force and predicted that Ukraine would collapse quickly (and if you don’t believe me you can search “US intelligence failure Ukraine” and read more about it). I wouldn’t consider the fact that they correctly predicted that there would be a Russian invasion to obviate that fact that they seemed to lack understanding of Russian strategy, the quality of the invasion force and, most bizarrely, the strength of Ukrainian resistance (given that the US has, you know, been cooperating closely with the Ukrainian military for years). That seems more relevant for assessing their competence in analysing the state of the Russian forces now than the fact that they successfully predicted that an invasion force would… invade.

I mean, they assumed that the Russians would follow their own military doctrine and that their military actually functioned.
Assuming that they were going to be as incompetent as they were would have been irresponsible.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Is it just me or is Ukraine putting any forces on the Kinburn Split f**king insane? It's totally indefensible. If this is just Ukraine using artillery to force Russia out, fine, but trying to occupy it is just ridiculous right now. You'd be trapped on a peninsula.

The Ukrainians are purposely saying they drove Russians out of the Kinburn Split, the thin patch. Not the Kinburn peninsula itself. They are being vague.

This is what they are talking about. The green patch is the Kinburn split:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Kinburn_map_ukr.png

So about as much territory as the Russian push on Bakhmut/

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I really doubt A-10s are coming.
The A-10 is basically a glorified Supertucano at this point, it can’t operate in areas with any significant anti-defense systems. Which is to say basically all of Ukraine.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

80% of Bakhmut (Soon to be Artyomovsk) is under Russian control.

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1646239870640173058?cxt=HHwWhMC9iZacz9...

Oh wow after, what is it now, 9-10 months, during which times massive amounts of occupied territory were lost, they’ve taken 4/5ths of a minor town 5 km from the front.

Pyrrhus would be proud.