Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[DINGO Joe]

Lukashenka gonna Luka

https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1525184259102846977

Wonder who the angry guy in the video is.

[NOVA Green]

Really solid updates on the "The Battle of Snake Island"...

You will need to delve into the thread and then do a Google translate on the link below the Twitter links at the bottom of the post.

https://twitter.com/kromark/status/1525134037257535490?s=20&t=rqMMvF86kxrbpi...

https://twitter.com/ArtisanalAPT/status/1525216083556302850?s=20&t=WIRyatLaI...

https://www.svoboda.org/a/chernomorskaya-chernobaevka-crazhenie-za-ostrov-zmeinyy/31848269.html

[Hindsight was 2020]

Ukraine staff is confirming they too Ternova close to the Russian boarder as they look to attack the Izium army from the rear 🇺🇦

[NOVA Green]

Mike Ryan has a Twitter thread out now with his thoughts regarding the wipe out of an entire Russian BTG attempting to cross one pontoon bridge.


https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1525252736757153792?s=20&t=rqMMvF8...

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

The ISW assesses that Russia will pursue one of three strategies:
1. Denial will continue and so will the Donbas offensive, followed by collapse
2. Mobilisation
3. Acceptance (at some point, after offensives stall) that territorial gains are maximal, followed by direct annexation of occupied regions, a (temporary?) halt to offensive operations, and a claim that a Ukrainian counteroffensive on them would fall under Russian nuclear doctrine

IMO, 3. would probably require a ceasefire first, and seems like a really poor idea. It works for South Ossetia, but when it comes to tens of thousands of troops in an active warzone, I would expect some of them to be willing to call any bluff.

1. could well lead to a coup.

Despite the political risk, I’d say 2. is the safest for Russia (of these options). Full mobilisation would at least allow inexperienced conscripts fresh of school to be replaced by reservists or ex-military who’d served for a minimum of one year, and their manpower problems are more acute than their equipment problems.

I think 1 is actually safer for Putin than 2. The backlash from failure is survivable for him, the Russian military proper has little to no pull politically and he has the security services locked down. There just isn’t anyone that can pull of a palace coup.
Full mobilization, however, would be very destabilizing. Contract soldiers are overwhelmingly from marginalized communities and disproportionately coming from remote minority dominated regions in the caucuses and Asiatic Russia and frankly your average man on the street in Petrograd doesn’t give a damn. When it’s masses of white kids from European Russia getting fed into that meat grinder I think he risks significant civil unrest.

[It’s so Joever]

The pontoon bridge that was destroyed was to the north of Bilohorivka. Where the Russians had success crossing the Siversky Donets was to the east of Lyman/Yampil. Confirmed by Livemap and literally the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

I really wish you guys would stop the conclusions.. I talk about what's going on in Kharkiv & genocide going on in the occupied territories, civilians, unlawful annexations, etc.. and I cite my sources now when it's beyond reasonable doubt (geolocation and other 3rd parties) or it's either confirmed by both sides (UA General Staff and RU)

So how on earth is that not good enough?

They only want good news. If not you are either a Russian Teoll if you are a Blue Av, or a doomers if you are a Red Av.

[rc18]

More evidence showing what Russia really thinks about the separatists :

https://twitter.com/poliitikasse/status/1525037160000278528?s=20&t=JnzRfzpo_...

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1525210883630194689?s=20&t=zXvbwVt...

They've always been a geopolitical pawn for the Kremlin.

Related, Ukrainian dogs have more rights...

https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1525141744232407040?s=20&t=0caE60oSxlqC...

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

The pontoon bridge that was destroyed was to the north of Bilohorivka. Where the Russians had success crossing the Siversky Donets was to the east of Lyman/Yampil. Confirmed by Livemap and literally the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

I really wish you guys would stop the conclusions.. I talk about what's going on in Kharkiv & genocide going on in the occupied territories, civilians, unlawful annexations, etc.. and I cite my sources now when it's beyond reasonable doubt (geolocation and other 3rd parties) or it's either confirmed by both sides (UA General Staff and RU)

So how on earth is that not good enough?

They only want good news. If not you are either a Russian Teoll if you are a Blue Av, or a doomers if you are a Red Av.

I mean, if you actually read the tone of his posts, ‘Big News! Major Breakthrough at x! Combined with exclusively reporting claimed Russian advances, it’s hard to not read them as being typed with one hand.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://mobile.twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1525381369685331971

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://mobile.twitter.com/abcnews/status/1525413801301975042

[urutzizu]

https://www.reuters.com/world/exclusive-turkey-not-closing-door-sweden-finland-nato-entry-erdogan-advisor-says-2022-05-14/

And as predicted, Turkey's "no" is not actually a "no", if the price is right. And mainly aimed at Swedish entry, not Finland:

Turkey 'not closing door' to Sweden, Finland NATO entry, Erdogan advisor says.

Turkey has not shut the door to Sweden and Finland joining NATO but wants negotiations with the Nordic countries and a clampdown on what it sees as terrorist activities especially in Stockholm, President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said on Saturday.

"We are not closing the door. But we are basically raising this issue as a matter of national security for Turkey," Erdogan's top foreign policy advisor Ibrahim Kalin says.

"What needs to be done is clear: they have to stop allowing PKK outlets, activities, organisations, individuals and other types of presence to...exist in those countries," Kalin said.

[dead0man]

https://twitter.com/P_Militarny/status/1525412573151170560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7...

The Russians fled back over the border, but won't let the LPR fighters come with them and they have no idea what to do.  Try not joining the Orc side next time losers.

[Storr]

Keep in mind you don't publicly announce your plans unless there's a reason. Maybe this is an attempt to distract the Russians from their current focus, the Severodonetsk area?

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1525467973556789248?s=20&t=hlte-6...

[Storr]

The sign says "border" in Ukrainian.

https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1525475316612882438?s=20&t=hlte-6Zo5...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

The pontoon bridge that was destroyed was to the north of Bilohorivka. Where the Russians had success crossing the Siversky Donets was to the east of Lyman/Yampil. Confirmed by Livemap and literally the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

I really wish you guys would stop the conclusions.. I talk about what's going on in Kharkiv & genocide going on in the occupied territories, civilians, unlawful annexations, etc.. and I cite my sources now when it's beyond reasonable doubt (geolocation and other 3rd parties) or it's either confirmed by both sides (UA General Staff and RU)

So how on earth is that not good enough?

They only want good news. If not you are either a Russian Teoll if you are a Blue Av, or a doomers if you are a Red Av.

I mean, if you actually read the tone of his posts, ‘Big News! Major Breakthrough at x! Combined with exclusively reporting claimed Russian advances, it’s hard to not read them as being typed with one hand.

But it's much easier to be a contrarian for contrarians sake

[NOVA Green]

On the subject of Russian back separatist forces in Ukraine, which several had posted above a little bit upthread, looks like there might be some tensions brewing...

Short article, so not tons more in the WP article but if I see something more detailed will try to post.

A former commander for Moscow-backed separatist forces in Ukraine on Friday accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of “criminal negligence” over Moscow’s stop-start military campaign in Ukraine.

“I have no grounds to accuse [Shoigu] of treason, but I would suspect it,” said Igor Girkin, who went by Igor Strelkov when he led pro-Russian forces eight years ago in the breakaway region of Donetsk, in a video interview.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/14/russia-ukraine-war-news-live-updates/#link-ZPPXF3AQT5GBJMSY64DLESEQTM

[President Johnson]

Did you just create this? Awesome!

[NOVA Green]

More regarding the scale of the Russian defeat in the attempting river crossings around Bilohorivka.

This from the Wall Street Journal today... long article, but this is the relevant part:

An entire Russian Battalion refusing orders to attempt another crossing?!

The full scale of this Russian setback is emerging only now, with satellite imagery showing more than 70 Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and other armor destroyed after Ukrainian artillery and airstrikes sank three pontoon bridges and shelled the Russian beachhead in Bilohorivka.

“We have never seen such dumb stubbornness, going with a frontal assault and trying to build pontoons in the same place three times in a row. But they still keep trying,” said Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai. He added that Ukrainian artillery keeps shelling the area and, according to intelligence intercepts, an entire Russian battalion is refusing orders to attempt yet another crossing in Bilohorivka. That claim couldn’t be independently confirmed.

While Moscow hasn’t acknowledged the events in Bilohorivka, accounts from Russian military officers and observers on Telegram have described it as one of the Russian military’s most catastrophic defeats in this war, calling for the dismissal and punishment of generals who devised the failed operation.

Reverse Side of the Medal, a channel close to the Wagner private military contractor that is actively involved in the war in Ukraine, pointed out sardonically that the Russian commanders in the Bilohorivka operation were “guided by the principle that the shell doesn’t fall into the same place twice and that if you don’t see the enemy, he cannot see you.”

Ukrainian artillery managed to destroy at least a battalion’s worth of Russian armor because it is employing drones and sophisticated reconnaissance technology to achieve precision, Wagner’s channel added. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine use the Western system of smart battle management, and we use a ruler on a paper map,” it said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-launches-counteroffensive-to-disrupt-russian-supply-lines-11652531731?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[Storr]

The Ukrainians blew up a dam on the Luhan River in Myronivka to slow down/prevent Russian advances in the area. The Myronivs'ke Reservoir is located about halfway between Horlivka and Popansa, the latter of which the Russians fully captured on May 8th after weeks of heavy fighting. The Ukrainians previously used a similar defensive flooding strategy successfully earlier in the war along the Irpin River, north of Kyiv.

Note in the satellite image that there appears to be an even larger dam and reservoir further west (labeled on google maps as the Vuhlehirske Reservoir) which has not been blown up...yet?

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1525457733545345025?s=20&t=sd8-pgI0iFfNT4...

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1525457773416292353?s=20&t=sd8-pgI0iFfNT4...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Did you just create this? Awesome!

Wasn't me.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1525356022541459456

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-14/eu-drafts-plan-for-buying-russian-gas-without-breaking-sanctions

"EU Drafts Plan for Buying Russian Gas Without Breaking Sanctions"

The latest in the EU pay for gas in RUB saga. 

The  sequence of events are:

Putin: EU has to pay for Russian gas in RUB

EU: No

Putin: OK, how about EU companies open two accounts in Gazprombank, one in EUR and one in RUB.  EU companies can deposit EU in the EUR account, Gazprombank then converts it to RUB and redeposits into the RUB one where Gazprom will then take payment.

EU: No

Then some EU companies do this while Putin shuts down gas flows for some countries that refuse to go open two accounts.

EU: OK, how about this.  We will give instruction to EU companies that consider payment into the EUR account at Gazprombank to mean the transition is final and we will not object to EU companies opening a "totally separate" and "totally unrelated" RUB account if they so wish.  What Gazprombank do after payment is paid in EUR in the EUR account is their business and has nothing to do with us.

So with a bunch of clever lawyer-like technically games it seems we have a deal.  I guess anything to keep the gas and the money flowing.

[The Dowager Mod]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1525556432959070208

[Omega21]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-14/eu-drafts-plan-for-buying-russian-gas-without-breaking-sanctions

"EU Drafts Plan for Buying Russian Gas Without Breaking Sanctions"

The latest in the EU pay for gas in RUB saga. 

The  sequence of events are:

Putin: EU has to pay for Russian gas in RUB

EU: No

Putin: OK, how about EU companies open two accounts in Gazprombank, one in EUR and one in RUB.  EU companies can deposit EU in the EUR account, Gazprombank then converts it to RUB and redeposits into the RUB one where Gazprom will then take payment.

EU: No

Then some EU companies do this while Putin shuts down gas flows for some countries that refuse to go open two accounts.

EU: OK, how about this.  We will give instruction to EU companies that consider payment into the EUR account at Gazprombank to mean the transition is final and we will not object to EU companies opening a "totally separate" and "totally unrelated" RUB account if they so wish.  What Gazprombank do after payment is paid in EUR in the EUR account is their business and has nothing to do with us.

So with a bunch of clever lawyer-like technically games it seems we have a deal.  I guess anything to keep the gas and the money flowing.

I mean, the EU should just stop virtue signalling.

One would have to be mentally handicapped to sanction Russian gas while we are entering stagflation.

Send the Ukrainians all the shiny military equipment they ask for, sanction all other Russian sectors that wont ruin our own economy and thats it, fairly simple.