Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Silent Hunter]

Guess who they borrowed that line from, that's right, the Americans! Where did those Iraqi WMD's end up anyway? Those trailers from those grainy satellite photos that were supposed to be bioweapons labs? The supposed Saddam deal to buy uranium from Africa that turned out to be a fabrication?

Some of the chemical weapons were just buried. Completely useless for war, but still caused injury to Americans when they found them.

[Logical]

If you are curious on how the Russians made large advances on the first days of the war in the Southern Front then this article partly explains it. There's no denying Zelensky's heroism but Ukraine could have prepared for it better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-beats-russia-mykolaiv.html

Despite near-frantic warnings from the White House of an imminent Russian invasion in the weeks before it actually happened on Feb. 24, the initial attack took Colonel Stetsenko’s unit by surprise, he said. His brigade was at a training exercise near the border with Crimea outside a town called Oleshky and only half assembled when it received the order to prepare for battle.

“If we had received the order three or four days before, we could have prepared, dug trenches,” he said.

That delay nearly led to his brigade’s destruction in the first hours of the war, he said.

The Russian force that poured out of Crimea was five times the size of his Ukrainian unit and quickly overwhelmed it. His brigade had no air support and few functional antiaircraft systems, because most had been sent to Kyiv to defend the capital. Much of the brigade’s tanks and armored fighting vehicles were destroyed in the initial attack by Russian aviation.

The brigade’s commander, Col. Oleksandr Vinogradov, had lost touch with military leadership and was forced to make decisions on the fly, said Colonel Stetsenko, who was with the commander throughout. Encircled and suffering heavy losses from strikes by Russian fighter jets, Colonel Vinogradov ordered his remaining tank and artillery units to punch a hole through a unit of Russian airborne assault troops that had positioned itself at the Ukrainian brigade’s rear.

The maneuver allowed the main Ukrainian fighting force to cross a bridge over the Dnieper River and retreat west about 45 miles to Mykolaiv, where it could regroup and link up with other units to continue the fight.

“The fighter jets of the enemy attacked our tanks, several tanks were hit and burned, and the rest remained and did not flee,” Colonel Stetsenko said. “They knew that behind them were other people, and they gave up their lives to break through the bridge to dig in on the other bank.”

The tactic worked, but the costs were steep. By falling back to Mykolaiv, Colonel Stetsenko’s brigade had to sacrifice Kherson, which on March 2 became the first major city to fall to the Russian forces. They had no choice, Colonel Stetsenko said. If they had tried to defend Kherson, Russian forces could have flanked them and cut them off, opening a road to the west, and to Odessa.

[Silent Hunter]

I genuinely don't know if Ukraine will even exist in a month. The Russians will not accept anything less than their current demands.
 

I am not sure Russia has the manpower to roll over the entire country and deal with the inevitable insurgency. I think their best case scenario at this point is to set up an "East Ukraine" with a puppet leader and commit enough forces to deal with the insurgency there than attempt to take the west. To be honest, I am not even sure that Russia *could* take Western Ukraine at all at this point.

I suspect when people think of the Russian military, some are still envisioning the Red Army that prevented the Wehrmacht from capturing Moscow, destroyed von Paulus' 6th and 4th Panzer armies at Stalingrad, lifted the siege of Leningrad, destroyed the German ability to conduct massive blitzkrieg campaigns upon the conclusion of the battle of Kursk, steadily forced the Wehrmacht to relinquish all the territory it gained from Operation Barbarossa and Fall Blau (and more), and eventually destroyed Hitler's Nazi regime at Berlin. 

It should be clear by now that the Russian army today is the (unworthy) successor to its heroic forebearers from the Great Patriotic War.   

This is more akin to the Tsarist-era Russian military. The one that in 1905 confused British fishing vessels for Japanese torpedo boats and got an entire fleet wrecked in a day.

[Omega21]

https://twitter.com/MoonOverlord/status/1501277700950040584

[Silent Hunter]

Would explain why Reddit is playing up.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1501322317557018624?s=21

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1501322317557018624?s=21

YES....HA HA HA...YES!


Another report:
https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/1501322504341655552?s=20&t=RwNiFOFls...

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/idreesali114/status/1501299320590458880

lol, Pepsi was waiting to see what Coke did.

https://twitter.com/idreesali114/status/1501303123788378116

Once again, I shall accept my accolades.  Another corporate giant culled into  Responsible action through my acid pen!

As much as Russians are suffering from the effects of sanctions, they can still take solace in McDonalds (for now):

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1500954446066593794

 I just wrote an email to the customer service Addresses for PepsiCo and McDonald's McDonald's, readily available at the respective websites. Any advice that although my family uses their products regularly come out we henceforth will cease to do so, as Well As members of our small business, until until they pull out of Russia while Ukraine is under attack, like other companies such as Microsoft and Coca-Cola.

As I stated in each, if Ukrainians can soldier on without heat, electricity, running water, or food, let alone the knowledge that they or their family members won't be killed by indiscriminate rushing bombing and rocket attacks, that I can live without my beloved Doritos/quarter pounders for as long as necessary.

IConcluded my email to Pepsi CO by saying ""Coke did the right thing here. When will you?"

And for those of you taking the "boycott never work" stance, keep in mind that Coke was resisting calls for divestment as well but flipped in response to public pressure in just the last couple days.

[Badger]

Big if true:
https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1501268895939837954?s=20&t=1pWaBeP...

This should be common sense.

Imagine your neighbor's house is on fire.

You should try to help put out the fire before it spreads to your house.

 It's a little more complicated and dangerous than that for Holand. A better analogy would be if your neighbors  House is on fire in the gang of arsonist just who set the fire are still there stoking it, and you might have fear that they'll get p***** off if you're trying to put out your neighbor's fire is at your house on fire as well.

So yeah, kudos for Poland taking this step

[Person Man]

Big if true:
https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1501268895939837954?s=20&t=1pWaBeP...

This should be common sense.

Imagine your neighbor's house is on fire.

You should try to help put out the fire before it spreads to your house.

 It's a little more complicated and dangerous than that for Holand. A better analogy would be if your neighbors  House is on fire in the gang of arsonist just who set the fire are still there stoking it, and you might have fear that they'll get p***** off if you're trying to put out your neighbor's fire is at your house on fire as well.

So yeah, kudos for Poland taking this step

So far, the world’s response has been perfectly appropriate.

[Badger]

If you are curious on how the Russians made large advances on the first days of the war in the Southern Front then this article partly explains it. There's no denying Zelensky's heroism but Ukraine could have prepared for it better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-beats-russia-mykolaiv.html

Despite near-frantic warnings from the White House of an imminent Russian invasion in the weeks before it actually happened on Feb. 24, the initial attack took Colonel Stetsenko’s unit by surprise, he said. His brigade was at a training exercise near the border with Crimea outside a town called Oleshky and only half assembled when it received the order to prepare for battle.

“If we had received the order three or four days before, we could have prepared, dug trenches,” he said.

That delay nearly led to his brigade’s destruction in the first hours of the war, he said.

The Russian force that poured out of Crimea was five times the size of his Ukrainian unit and quickly overwhelmed it. His brigade had no air support and few functional antiaircraft systems, because most had been sent to Kyiv to defend the capital. Much of the brigade’s tanks and armored fighting vehicles were destroyed in the initial attack by Russian aviation.

The brigade’s commander, Col. Oleksandr Vinogradov, had lost touch with military leadership and was forced to make decisions on the fly, said Colonel Stetsenko, who was with the commander throughout. Encircled and suffering heavy losses from strikes by Russian fighter jets, Colonel Vinogradov ordered his remaining tank and artillery units to punch a hole through a unit of Russian airborne assault troops that had positioned itself at the Ukrainian brigade’s rear.

The maneuver allowed the main Ukrainian fighting force to cross a bridge over the Dnieper River and retreat west about 45 miles to Mykolaiv, where it could regroup and link up with other units to continue the fight.

“The fighter jets of the enemy attacked our tanks, several tanks were hit and burned, and the rest remained and did not flee,” Colonel Stetsenko said. “They knew that behind them were other people, and they gave up their lives to break through the bridge to dig in on the other bank.”

The tactic worked, but the costs were steep. By falling back to Mykolaiv, Colonel Stetsenko’s brigade had to sacrifice Kherson, which on March 2 became the first major city to fall to the Russian forces. They had no choice, Colonel Stetsenko said. If they had tried to defend Kherson, Russian forces could have flanked them and cut them off, opening a road to the west, and to Odessa.

 Yeah, zalensky has been a great leader since the war started, but let's please quit this discussion about him being one of the great leaders ever. He had a real  Streak of Chamberlain in him until until the Russians actually  Invaded.

[Silent Hunter]

The Chamberlain who declared war on Hitler in 1939?

[Storr]

Big if true:
https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1501268895939837954?s=20&t=1pWaBeP...

This should be common sense.

Imagine your neighbor's house is on fire.

You should try to help put out the fire before it spreads to your house.

 It's a little more complicated and dangerous than that for Holand. A better analogy would be if your neighbors  House is on fire in the gang of arsonist just who set the fire are still there stoking it, and you might have fear that they'll get p***** off if you're trying to put out your neighbor's fire is at your house on fire as well.

So yeah, kudos for Poland taking this step

Indeed. Now we just need Bulgaria and Slovakia to swap out their 13 and 11 MiG-29s, respectively. I'm sure the USAF has enough used F-16s to let the two countries use until their brand new F-16Vs currently on order, (16 and 14, respectively) are delivered in a few years.

https://d3lcr32v2pp4l1.cloudfront.net/Uploads/s/u/t/flightglobal_worldairforcesdirectory_2022_28129.pdf

[Edu]

You take whataboutism to a new level.

Yep, next thing you know he'll say something like "You can't complain about humanitarian corridors being bombed because the Trail of Tears or somesuch".

If the CCP is paying this guy, then I'm glad, because they are wasting money.

[compucomp]

oh ffs

https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1501292668013404163

Guess who they borrowed that line from, that's right, the Americans! Where did those Iraqi WMD's end up anyway? Those trailers from those grainy satellite photos that were supposed to be bioweapons labs? The supposed Saddam deal to buy uranium from Africa that turned out to be a fabrication?

You take whataboutism to a new level.

You guys serve it up for me to hit out of the park as if we were playing T-ball. It's not my fault hypocrisy is the defining feature of American foreign policy since the Cold War started.

[Person Man]

oh ffs

https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1501292668013404163

Guess who they borrowed that line from, that's right, the Americans! Where did those Iraqi WMD's end up anyway? Those trailers from those grainy satellite photos that were supposed to be bioweapons labs? The supposed Saddam deal to buy uranium from Africa that turned out to be a fabrication?

You take whataboutism to a new level.

You guys serve it up for me to hit out of the park as if we were playing T-ball. It's not my fault hypocrisy is the defining feature of American foreign policy since the Cold War started.

In Soviet Russia, biological weapons lab experiment in you!

[Storr]

WHAT?

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1501335043448442880?s=20&t=QI381JE...

[Frodo]

This could be huge:

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1501233069885632515

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1501322317557018624?s=21

YES....HA HA HA...YES!


Another report:
https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/1501322504341655552?s=20&t=RwNiFOFls...

This is not a good thing (in fact arguably better for Russia than for those counter parties exposed to a default, at least in the short term).

[Logical]

This could be huge:

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1501233069885632515

Vlad Putin, radical Extinction Rebellion activist.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

WHAT?

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1501335043448442880?s=20&t=QI381JE...

The US claims to see a risk of war it is unwilling to take but wants Poland to take. I don’t believe that risk is significant, but even if it were, NATO’s article 5 would mean the US shared any Polish risk.

To me, this signals that the US is not ruling out a failure to honour article 5 (“Putin said giving planes would be an act of war, so Poland is the aggressor”). That may not be an intent - the mixed US messaging is likely a result of common miscommunications and disagreements within the natsec blob - but it is what is signalled.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1501336574751084547?s=20&t=SE6nHYR...

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1501306831225954304

[compucomp]

This entire episode of USA going to Iran and Venezuela to ask them to pump more gas and Australia asking PRC to get Russia to back down (Australia-PRC relationships have been in the dumps for a few years now) make the collective West look like a bunch of high school cheerleaders that have no problem ostracizing those they feel that are social inferiors but when they need those they have ostracizing having no problems just demanding they fall in line because they assume that everyone wants to hang out with the cheerleaders.  I am not saying they are necessary wrong in their reading of the social positions but more of a comment on their actions and the assumptions they have of the world.

Not just Iran and Venezuela, even Saudi Arabia and UAE refused to take Biden's call.

The White House unsuccessfully tried to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. was working to build international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices, said Middle East and U.S. officials.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr. Biden in recent weeks, the officials said, as Saudi and Emirati officials have become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the Gulf.

“There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t happen,“ said a U.S. official of the planned discussion between the Saudi Prince Mohammed and Mr. Biden. ”It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil].”

Mr. Biden did speak with Prince Mohammed’s 86-year-old father, King Salman, on Feb. 9, when the two men reiterated their countries’ longstanding partnership. The U.A.E.’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the call between Mr. Biden and Sheikh Mohammed would be rescheduled.

[Frodo]

If you are curious on how the Russians made large advances on the first days of the war in the Southern Front then this article partly explains it. There's no denying Zelensky's heroism but Ukraine could have prepared for it better.

Proud Band of Ukrainian Troops Holds Russian Assault at Bay — for Now

In a way, Putin was in a race against time.  Had he waited any longer before invading Ukraine, it would have been even harder for the Russian military considering all the training and equipment the Ukrainian army received from the United States and NATO in the years since 2014.  Another couple of years, and Ukraine would be (militarily, at least) a peer of any NATO member.