Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Another "Down Under" Update from The Guardian 2 Hrs ago---

"Australian PM Calls on China to Stop Russia"

China must act on its declarations of promoting world peace and join the effort to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Australia’s prime minister said on Monday, warning that the world was in danger of being reshaped by an “arc of autocracy”.

Reuters reports that Scott Morrison also suggested in a wide-ranging speech that Russia’s invasion was not going according to the plan of its leader, Vladimir Putin, who he said had “overestimated the capacity of how he might be able to prosecute this illegal war”.

“China has long claimed to have a role as one of the major powers in the world and to be a contributor to global peace and stability. No country will have a bigger impact on concluding this terrible war in Ukraine than China,” Morrison said in response to a question after a speech at the Lowy Institute think tank.

“I was listening for the voice of the Chinese government when it came to condemning the actions of Russia and there was a chilling silence,” he said.

China has declined to call the Russian attack on Ukraine an “invasion” while asking western countries to respect Russia’s “legitimate security concerns”. It has called for a solution to the crisis through negotiations.   "

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/06/

It's an election year in Australia, and ScoMo is cosplaying as John Curtin. Not surprising.

[Hollywood]

Russia strikes at Ukrainian air bases today

"Russian forces attack airfields in Ukraine as Zelensky pleads for fighter jets

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Russia targeted a military air base and a commercial airport in central Ukraine on Sunday, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials, in attacks that could deny Ukraine usable airstrips as Kyiv presses Western allies to send fighter planes to combat Moscow’s invasion.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said the military had struck and disabled Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv military air base, about 150 miles southwest of Kyiv, early Sunday, using long-range, high precision weapons. The airport was among dozens of targets, including a Russian-made air defense system owned by Ukraine, the spokesman said.

Later Sunday, in a video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a missile strike on Vinnystia, about 70 miles southeast of the air base, had “completely destroyed the airport.”



"



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/06/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-HD5A5ZR5TBD3HA6BGJPATPXNTY

Bad, bad news if Russia can take out critical airports like that.

They were always going to take out the Ukrainian Air Defense, but they had to be careful of the anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.  The Ukrainians have a large well-trained army and citizenry.  I think people under-estimated the Ukrainians as if it was the Iraqi Army.  

Right now, Ukraine desperately needs a re-supply of anti-aircraft missiles, but the Russians have pretty much taken out their supply lines from the Dneiper River all the way to the Russian border, and they've encircled many Ukrainian Forces in the East.  Russian has taken out communication, energy deposits, and weapons caches throughout Ukraine.  Mobile Networks are down in many parts of the country.  Food supplies are dwindling to the point where everyone is foraging for food like they're living in the 'Walking Dead' Universe.  The last few days have been devastating.  They literally cannot receive weapons unless it's consistently air dropped.  Good Luck!

Well Iraq was fundamentally different cause of the fact Suddam was oppressing a majority of the population and many viewed the US as the lesser evil. Where things started to go wrong in Iraq was the way we implemented de baathification.


The issue with that was given that Iraq was a one party dictatorship for decades at that point, banning any person who had associations with the Ba'th party from employment in public sector jobs was always gonna backfire. The reason is there were probably many Iraqis who had worked in those public sector jobs who were not bad people but because they had to be part of the Ba'th party to get employment and banning them from getting jobs meant we had to build literally every institution from scratch which led to anarchy.

What we should have done is have competent experienced people who not actually horrible people run those institutions and agencies from the start which would have made the transition away from Suddam's Government much more smooth.

Okay.  But our media is saying that Putin is not loved by a majority of citizens.  They say the same thing about all our enemies.  Most French People loved Napoleon even though he took dictatorial powers, and conquered the Austrians.  It was a different story in Spain.  

Where things went wrong?  You're the first person to not say "Mueller", "Bush", and "Cheney" intentionally lied so they could subsidize the military industrial companies of their friends and associates.  Why is this so hard to accept?  Is it cause Cheney hate Trump so she must be good.  I wonder how much money she's making with the Ukraine conflict.

What's interesting about the information you're providing about the Bath Party being prevented from work in the public sector is the fact that their Russians in Ukraine claiming that they weren't allowed public jobs cause of their associations with Russia.  They couldn't run for government positions, and they were routinely harassed.  Now you're saying it's a pattern? Yeah.  I saw the pattern for this Ukraine Conflict coming way back in 2018, and then I was sure it would happen when Biden won the election.  

The fact of the matter is that if I was a Russian Dictator that had promised to bring parts of the Soviet Empire back into the fold, I would absolutely take Ukraine for its economic and military importance as soon as Biden took office.  And boneheads will still continue to push for this absurd money-making Iranian deal for John Kerry, despite this administration being made fool of by multiple 'potential' and 'current' allies.    

And honestly, what we should have done in Iraq was left Saddam Hussein cause he was doing a good job managing an Iraqi population where almost 50% were inbreeding, and an eye-dropping small minority are estimated to be pedophilias cause that's a religion.  We couldn't even consider your suggestion about the Bathist, because the Bush Administration and Intelligence Agencies consistently and continuously lied about the situation.  Why wasn't anyone in the integrity Administration of Bush 2 brave enough to leak that information like was done for Trump?  

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Okay.  But our media is saying that Putin is not loved by a majority of citizens.  They say the same thing about all our enemies.  Most French People loved Napoleon even though he took dictatorial powers, and conquered the Austrians.  It was a different story in Spain. 

Where things went wrong?  You're the first person to not say "Mueller", "Bush", and "Cheney" intentionally lied so they could subsidize the military industrial companies of their friends and associates.  Why is this so hard to accept?  Is it cause Cheney hate Trump so she must be good.  I wonder how much money she's making with the Ukraine conflict.

What's interesting about the information you're providing about the Bath Party being prevented from work in the public sector is the fact that their Russians in Ukraine claiming that they weren't allowed public jobs cause of their associations with Russia.  They couldn't run for government positions, and they were routinely harassed.  Now you're saying it's a pattern? Yeah.  I saw the pattern for this Ukraine Conflict coming way back in 2018, and then I was sure it would happen when Biden won the election. 

The fact of the matter is that if I was a Russian Dictator that had promised to bring parts of the Soviet Empire back into the fold, I would absolutely take Ukraine for its economic and military importance as soon as Biden took office.  And boneheads will still continue to push for this absurd money-making Iranian deal for John Kerry, despite this administration being made fool of by multiple 'potential' and 'current' allies.   

And honestly, what we should have done in Iraq was left Saddam Hussein cause he was doing a good job managing an Iraqi population where almost 50% were inbreeding, and an eye-dropping small minority are estimated to be pedophilias cause that's a religion.  We couldn't even consider your suggestion about the Bathist, because the Bush Administration and Intelligence Agencies consistently and continuously lied about the situation.  Why wasn't anyone in the integrity Administration of Bush 2 brave enough to leak that information like was done for Trump? 

There's a lot you said in this post I disagree with, but if what you said is true - that some people are claiming they were being blacklisted from public jobs because of associations with Russia - then it seems fair to say that Petro Poroshenko didn't exactly do Ukraine favors with his policies. And you are quite right; the media claims the same things for all our opponents, rivals, and adversaries, regardless of the real truth. For the time being, here's a recommend.

[ugabug]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1500696413788938241

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1500696413788938241

Reminds me a bit about the "Coalition of the Willing" here. I.e. the US tries to get wide-ranging European support, fails, decides to just go it alone with some closer European allies (Denmark, UK, etc).
This war keeps minting Iraq 2003 parallels. It's eerie.

[Middle-aged Europe]

During the weekend I had two experiences, one in person and one by hearsay, that confirmed what some media outlets have started to report around here: The correlation (causation?) between being pro-Putin or "neutral" and being anti-vaxxer. I find it maybe the most bizarre political development of these past two years. It amounts to the dawn of a form of political tribalism along the line between vaccinated and unvaccinated. I for myself happen to maintain a relatively hawkish stance on Russia and this happens to be the case because I'm also vaccinated against COVID. Of course, the deeper issue here is that anti-vaxxers tend to be far more critical and more suspicious of the official government line and this seems to be spill over to other topics like Ukraine/Russia.

[ugabug]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1500696413788938241

Reminds me a bit about the "Coalition of the Willing" here. I.e. the US tries to get wide-ranging European support, fails, decides to just go it alone with some closer European allies (Denmark, UK, etc).
This war keeps minting Iraq 2003 parallels. It's eerie.

I see where you're coming from but i don't think that parallel works here because i think the countries that aren't going along are still sympathetic to what we're doing here (certainly more sympathetic than when we invaded Iraq) but are currently to entwined with Russian oil to want to make a clean break just yet.

[ugabug]

https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1500637716601458688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

https://mobile.twitter.com/vptevo/status/1500307182818054145

Nixon should have never resigned.

[Astatine]

Denmark looking to vote on 6/1/22 Referendum on EU Defense Opt-Out


 Denmark to hold referendum on scrapping EU defence opt-out

[snip]

First poll out for this out already:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1500554951864598528

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Seems like a fighter jet transfer is coming through with Poland.

Still unclear - it seems that the US is on board but the countries with Russian jets aren’t: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44608/poland-still-isnt-interested-in-transferring-its-mig-29s-to-ukraine

The US has about 30 MiG-29s and Su-27s (not counting the planes used by contractors and other private owners), but the military probably wants to hang onto those for testing. This would be short-sighted because they could buy more after the war, but I expect them to be short-sighted and jealously guard these ageing assets.

IMO the failure of this to get anywhere is partially filibustering discussions of other measures that could be taken and thereby harming progress on other fronts. Ukranians demanding military support (and those prepared to finance them) should highlight the need for bigger/longer-range SAMs that could also be transferred from Europe (without the problems of flying them into Ukranian airspace). These would be more expensive than jets (Poland bought some of its MiGs from Germany for €1 each a couple of decades ago) but could fit within the $10 billion budget recently announced, as there is a limited number in NATO and EU states to begin with.

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

So it seems the Russians HAVE actually set up real evacuation corridors that are not death traps.

They go to Russia.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Russia releases footage of their troops in snow-clad Kyiv:

https://www.twitter.com/Reuters/status/1500804706666303491
The only problem is that there is currently no snow in Kyiv. Wtf has happened to their propaganda machine?

[CumbrianLefty]

Though it does say "Kyiv region" - how much bigger is that than the city itself?

[afleitch]

Hollywood, ramblings with a point are permitted. Ramblings without a point are not.

[Adam Griffin]

Though it does say "Kyiv region" - how much bigger is that than the city itself?

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Though it does say "Kyiv region" - how much bigger is that than the city itself?

Fair point, but the WSJ correspondent in Ukraine claims there’s none near Kyiv either (although that depends on what he defines as near, I suppose).

[Logical]

Will post maps and roundups again since people want them.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-update-16

Key Takeaways March 5-6

• Russian forces spent the past 24 hours largely regrouping and preparing to renew offensive operations around Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mykolayiv.
• The Ukrainian General Staff reports the presence of a large concentration of Russian forces west of Kharkiv that it assesses will launch a wide offensive southwest toward the Dnipro River, although no such offensive has begun as of this publication.
• Russia violated two Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire agreements, collapsing efforts to establish a humanitarian corridor to help evacuate civilians from Mariupol and Volnovakha on March 5 and 6.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has not demonstrated any willingness to de-escalate with Ukraine or the international community, nor has he provided reasonable demands that would lay the groundwork for de-escalation or negotiations.
• The Kremlin is likely laying the domestic information groundwork for a declaration of martial law in Russia should Russian President Vladimir Putin decide that mass mobilization and conscription are necessary to achieve his objectives.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed for the confiscation of assets belonging to “corrupt” Russian officials on March 6, likely to acquire new revenue streams at the expense of alienating some supporters.
• The Kremlin is attempting to deter US or European bans on Russian oil exports by claiming that a ban would devastate world oil markets.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Western sanctions to a “declaration of war” on March 5 as the Kremlin began to retaliate against foreign businesses.

[Logical]

VDV getting a kicking. 3 dead commanders and many failed missions.
https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1499437829159538696
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1500791872637345793
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1500797331255570438

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1500812687009267712
Putin offered to graciously allow durg-addled jewish neo-nazi Zelensky to remain the puppet president puppet of his Ukrainain puppet if he appoints Putins favoured crony as PM

[GoTfan]

I honestly don't see how Ukraine survives as a nation for much longer if it can't accept Crimea and Donbass are lost.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1500812687009267712
Putin offered to graciously allow durg-addled jewish neo-nazi Zelensky to remain the puppet president puppet of his Ukrainain puppet if he appoints Putins favoured crony as PM

How long is Boyko supposed to remain PM according to Russia? 30 days? The next 20 years? Does Russia retain the right also to appoint his successors? What if a revolution happens against him like the one we already had in 2004 and 2014? Will every protester get shot by the Russian Army then?

Ukraine would effectively become a semi-autonomous, but dependent territory of Russia, like Putin & Co. probably always wanted. But it tells you a lot about the understanding these people have of the terms "democracy" or "sovereign nation".

[rc18]

At this point I reckon the West should demand Russia stops arming Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1500835678229250050?s=20&t=_fHRJFXgpid7...

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The Soviet Union’s last four armoured trains were retired by Russia in the mid-2000s after use in the Chechnya wars. Restoration was announced in 2015 (planned to be completed in 2019), and it looks like they’re in service here.

https://www.twitter.com/aldin_ww/status/1500838282829172742

This old kit must be quite vulnerable near the frontlines, but it could help with Russia’s logistical issues.

[AndyHogan14]

I honestly don't see how Ukraine survives as a nation for much longer if it can't accept Crimea and Donbass are lost.

The issue with Russia's demands really isn't the Crimea/Donbas recognition, but the fact that Russia gets to demand who the PM gets to be. Also, what are the borders of the DPR/LPR? Why should Ukraine give up the entirety of those oblasts? The people outside the former line of control clearly have no desire to join the Russian-backed separatist states and it would be particularly offensive to make places like Mariupol to join the DPR considering what they have gone through in this war.