Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1515217286784770048
If this is true and Ukraine has only lost 3k soldiers vs 20k for Russia then just wow

[dead0man]

good article from a former US Commander in Europe

The Ukrainian Training Center at Yavoriv also saw massive changes starting in 2014, likely driven as much by the Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas as by Vorobyov’s vision. In April 2015, elements of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade stationed in Italy again deployed to Yavoriv and established an ongoing operational program called “Fearless Guardian.” The program was progressive, training everything from individual soldier skills to battalion-level operations, all based on lessons learned from the eastern and southern Ukrainian combat zones. The increasing energy at Yavoriv showed the need for a permanent enhanced training center, modeled after the U.S. Army’s training programs in the United States and Germany. In December 2015, U.S. Army Europe formally established Joint Multinational Training Group – Ukraine (JMTG-U), where a multi-national team of Americans, Poles, Canadians, Lithuanians, and Brits began training Ukrainian battalions as combined arms teams. Command Sergeant Major Davenport sent me a note a few years ago saying Ukraine had formally established an NCO corps, with standardized training and leadership requirements. Henadii’s vision had become a reality, accelerated by the urgencies of the Russian existential threat.

As for the Russians, their recent battlefield failures—their staged maneuvers, lack of leadership development, absence of a logistics plan to support operations, inability to coordinate and conduct air-ground-sea joint operations and continued use of conscript soldiers in critical missions—all indicate a larger failure to modernize their army. Just as Russia and Ukraine followed different political courses over the past 30 years, so did their armies, and it shows. While Ukraine’s democracy is still addressing issues of government corruption, those violations pale in significance and scope to the embezzlement, graft, and corruption of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, his predecessor Anatoly Serdyukov, and Vladimir Putin himself. Colonel-General Chirkin had, if nothing else, proved that he was acting in line with the role models in his senior leadership.

[lfromnj]

The interesting thing about the internet is that Russia was basically forced to admit it lost its warship. You can definitely hide smaller casualties to your people but you can't hide such a big loss. In WW2 after Midway, the Japanese Navy not only hid the truth from the public for years, but also the army which was its rival.

Funnily enough the Japanese also performed horribly at Midway due to horrific fire control. 2 full airstrikes couldn't take out an American carrier while a single bomb took out one of Japan's carriers.

[Storr]

The Poles are creating some excellent memes:

https://twitter.com/AWMKrajewski/status/1514986754218024966?s=20&t=UWg69VJ4L...

[Middle-aged Europe]

[Middle-aged Europe]

A traditional political occurence in Germany on Easter are the Easter peace marches. This time they are a bit different and more controversial though, because a part of the peace movement obviously opposes military aid to Ukraine.

Vice-chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) flat-out declared: "Pacifism is a distant dream right now" and urged protestors to protest against Putin.

In Berlin, the movement split into two separate marches: One who was pro-military aid and one who was anti-military aid.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Curious case of the Anti-Ship Mines which have been floating around the Black Sea update...

Naturally reasons to be skeptical on sourcing here, but thus far Ukrainian Information has generally proven to be much more accurate than Russian Information overall when it comes to regarding the War in Ukraine.

Naval mines discovered in Turkish waters in recent weeks are Soviet-era ordnance that had been stored in Crimea, under Russian control since 2014, and may have been deliberately left near Turkey’s coastline by Russian vessels to discourage commercial shipping, a Ukrainian official said Friday.

The appearance of floating mines in the southwest Black Sea set off alarm bells in Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, drove up the costs of insuring cargo ships and stymied local fishermen. Since late March, Turkey’s military has defused at least three mines discovered in its territorial waters, including one in the busy Bosporus Strait, which bisects the country’s biggest city of Istanbul. Romania has also neutralized a stray mine.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Friday warned that “an undetermined number of drifting mines in the western Black Sea … pose a hazard to commercial and passenger vessels” and urged American citizens to reconsider traveling by ship in the area.

Russia has accused Ukraine of laying the mines and alleged that hundreds of them broke free during bad weather in March. Ukraine has denied the Russian assertion. Turkey’s defense minister has said the mines’ origins have not been determined.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-B2OGJKFU4JA5VFBDZWYIA5C53I

Russia loves it’s false flags. I would bet it’s them and blaming the Ukrainians was the plan/goal here.

[2952-0-0]

After the Soviet collapse, Russia lost half of it's population. It was a catastrophic loss for Russia to lose the breadbasket of Ukraine as well as the rest of the former USSR.

Without Ukraine, Russia is a great power, with Ukraine it is a superpower. Putin needs Ukraine to bring back the Russian empire.

It gets worse. A big chunk of the Soviet military-industrial complex was located in Soviet Ukraine, especially ships and engines. Post-USSR, Russia was able to continue using these now Ukrainian resources as long as Russo-Ukraine relations were strong.

Post-2014, these relationships were severed, and Russia has since struggled to cope with these losses. Its only aircraft carrier is now a burnt-out hulk with no timeline for repairs, and it now has to source components for the engines of its fighter jets from China. That was supposed to have been a red flag (pun intended) that the Russian army wasn't as glorious and mighty as its predecessor, but not enough people noticed.

[Storr]

Giving yourself 15 days to conduct a major offensive military operation seems....risky.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1515305427550019585?s=20&t=dW2BNv4k-rQ...

This seems to be a more likely scenario:  

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1515333016142426112?s=20&t=-m1dqCDfXm-...

[NOVA Green]

So apparently another Russian Major General KIA in Ukraine to add to the list...

Russian officials said Saturday that another of its generals, deputy commander of the 8th Army Maj. Gen. Vladimir Frolov, was killed in combat in Ukraine. They didn’t provide details, but several other generals have already been killed in the conflict, particularly in the early days in the campaign.

Maj. Gen. Frolov was buried Saturday in St. Petersburg, RIA Novosti reported. The forces he commanded had been deployed to the area around Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov which is currently besieged by Russian forces.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-15/card/russia-loses-another-major-general-in-ukraine-fighting-7bHXbR97hCy4IBVxJsjL

[Storr]

It's not looking good when it comes to the fate of most Moskva crewmembers. That's even when assuming these are actual crew, not stand-ins. I'm guessing if they were going to use stand ins, they would have used more. The camera angles used are obviously meant to make the second row seem as long at the first one, when it's clearly not.

Though, it looks closer to 125 men than 100 claimed in the tweet. But, either way that's nowhere near the 500+ men on a Slava-class cruiser.

https://twitter.com/The_IntelHub/status/1515371014934380548?s=20&t=-2pnm6aZV...

[NOVA Green]

This sounds a bit ominous for a location for some of the survivors "filtrated" out of Mariupol.

https://twitter.com/deankirby_/status/1515242598071472128?s=20&t=iEtW8Nvl1Cw...

https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/1515271641550442505?s=20&t=iEtW8Nvl1Cw7...

[NOVA Green]

More Russian purges:


https://twitter.com/mhmck/status/1515353692219887625?s=20&t=iEtW8Nvl1Cw7WJ6d...

[Storr]

oof

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1515391689246089221?s=20&t=4HBkHyy8INI...

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/highprogressive/status/1515033352251838465?s=20&t=38xHBK...

Ha, that's exactly what had come to my mind too recently and I wanted to try that argument out in online places that are less pro-Ukraine than this one.

Their answer, once you strip away all the flowery pseudo-academic language, would be a simple "Fighting Russia is bad and fighting America is good."

It has literally nothing to do with human life or principles or anything of the sort.

From the chief "America bad" tankie prophet himself:

https://twitter.com/BixRictus/status/1515093417478479877?s=20&t=oEqfS5a_lIY1...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Good for Italy. They also addressed the now commonly used loophole of Russian ships being "leased" to random little Caribbean and Pacific Island countries to avoid Russian flags.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1515313977798139907

[The Dowager Mod]

It's not looking good when it comes to the fate of most Moskva crewmembers. That's even when assuming these are actual crew, not stand-ins. I'm guessing if they were going to use stand ins, they would have used more. The camera angles used are obviously meant to make the second row seem as long at the first one, when it's clearly not.

Though, it looks closer to 125 men than 100 claimed in the tweet. But, either way that's nowhere near the 500+ men on a Slava-class cruiser.

https://twitter.com/The_IntelHub/status/1515371014934380548?s=20&t=-2pnm6aZV...

lol!
https://twitter.com/JanSuurtoll/status/1515406496124780555

[Logical]

"Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" - Voltaire
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1515332903370211333

[Storr]

Another one.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1515359798375628805?s=20&t=EdJtpP...

[Logical]

Another one.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1515359798375628805?s=20&t=EdJtpPK0jT_o1CBf62axWg

The sixth actually, Mordvichev and Tushaev turned up alive.

[lfromnj]

How are they losing so many commanders?

[Storr]

Another one.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1515359798375628805?s=20&t=EdJtpPK0jT_o1CBf62axWg

The sixth actually, Mordvichev and Tushaev turned up alive.

Mordvichev is dead. The only evidence showing otherwise was video of Kadyrov with him supposedly in Mariupol in late March. There's been no evidence Kadyrov has been in Ukraine, and that video was almost certainly old. Tushayev might actually be alive.

[Logical]

Another one.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1515359798375628805?s=20&t=EdJtpPK0jT_o1CBf62axWg

The sixth actually, Mordvichev and Tushaev turned up alive.

Mordvichev is dead. The only evidence showing otherwise was video of Kadyrov with him supposedly in Mariupol in late March. There's been no evidence Kadyrov has been in Ukraine, and that video was almost certainly old. Tushayev might actually be alive.

I follow a bunch of Kadyrovite telegram channels. Annoying TikTok celebrities yes, but since they have 0 OPSEC, you can glean a lot of information from them. Here's Tushaev a few days ago in Mariupol.

On Mordvichev, he appeared on Russian state media a few days after the Ukrainian claim to refute allegations of his death, I don't have the link because I only saw on passing in Twitter. Here's a reliable journalist saying the same though.
https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1515348876424667137

[Storr]

Mostly likely the first of many...

https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1515431102386782208?s=20&t=TSAOmiIYqRwn...

[ugabug]

How are they losing so many commanders?

From what i understand the Russian military doctrine doesn't encourage innovation among its officers instead preferring soldiers and officers to do strictly what they're told which meant that as the Russian army begin to run into trouble at the beginning of the war the generals had to go to the front lines to get a read on the situation and subsequently opened themselves up to being targeted by Ukraine.

I'd also imagine the intelligence failure that Russia has been experiencing since before the war even started also probably doesn't help the life expectancy of Russian generals.