Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

The Russians are barbaric orcs raping, pillaging and murdering Ukrainian civilians like a Mongol horde. Russian barbarism runs deep in the country's veins, since the Mongols invaded Russia.

I support Ukraine and oppose Russia, but is this a serious post? There's no need to demonize Russians to this extent.

And the Mongols too. In the time of Genghis Khan, ethical norms in the world did not fit well with modern ones, and modern Mongols suffered enough from the Chinese and the same Russians.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/revishvilig/status/1680803557488902149?s=20

[NOVA Green]

Ruined Crimea vacation

https://twitter.com/FrontlinePol/status/1680769900380319746

This is so rich considering that Russian Summer tourist season into Crimea is hitting peak time, to the point where Russian GVT has been trying to do ferries for civilian traffic, real estate sales for Crimean beachfront condos are peaking to the point where I told my wife a couple weeks back we could buy a nice condo in Crimea for ~$55k USD, while we could not afford anything like that in Oregon.

Needless to say my "Old Maid" vetoed the concept shortly after I explained the potential real estate investment to her.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I vacationed in Sevastopol almost every summer in the 1990s and early 2000s. It was definitely much safer to vacation there than after Crimea being annexed by Russia.

[jaichind]

I wonder if the Crimean Bridge is related to the potential end of the grain corridor deal.  Putin has to make a call today to extend it or not.  Not to extend it will hurt Russia's relationship with Turkey which Russia needs to get imports by proxy to get around the sanctions.  An attack now but with Putin backing down on the grain corridor deal would make Putin look extra weak.   If that is how it plays out then it is a good PR victory for Ukraine.

[jaichind]

Russia officially refuses to extend the grain corridor deal.  This is going to hurt their relationship with Turkey.  I do think there is room to construct a new deal in the coming weeks.

[jaichind]

From a military point of view, the key question is if the Crimean Bridge railroad is running.  The impression I have is that it is still running but on a much more limited basis.  So the key question is how quickly can the Russians repair any damage to the railroad to get it back up to full capacity again.

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1680888453246877696

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/insidermildef/status/1680915305688715265?s=20
🫡

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/insidermildef/status/1680915305688715265?s=20
🫡

The last part of the article is very disturbing.

[CumbrianLefty]

TimTurner's incessant bothsidesism is legitimately sickening.

Agreed. There’s no both sides in this war. You can make the case that there hasn’t been as clear cut good vs. evil war like this since WWII. Russia is irredeemable at this point, its soldiers are thugs and rapists, itss people are sheep, and its leader is a sick ape that desperately needs to be put down

The Russians are barbaric orcs raping, pillaging and murdering Ukrainian civilians like a Mongol horde. Russian barbarism runs deep in the country's veins, since the Mongols invaded Russia.

My man, you're not helping the cause when you're spouting German slogans from the 40s:

The glorious Aryan Wehrmacht fighting the ASIATIC RUSSIAN HORDES!

If they don’t want to be referred to as a rapacious horde of savages, maybe they should stop acting like one and go home.

Your pro Russian takes are utterly sickening and by god I hope your tsar throws you to the front line. You deserve it

Russia and most of its people are disgracing themselves right now, no question.

But racist tropes about whole nations/peoples are never cool - I've actually done it a bit myself, even though I know its both wrong and stupid.

There was similar stuff written about the "immutable" badness of Germans in the 1930s/40s btw. How has that turned out in the longer term?

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1680938647388921857?s=20

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1680863105364942852?s=20

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1680864560243195904?s=20

https://twitter.com/WhatADdoing/status/1680874578560557056?s=20

[jaichind]

https://www.corriere.it/esteri/23_luglio_16/01-esteri-documentobcorriere-web-sezioni-fcf27f5a-2346-11ee-b502-ec4b73fb958b.shtml

"Ukraine is empty: fewer children and inhabitants. "Many don't come back, it's a catastrophe""

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1680992383427653633?s=20

https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/1680852534729031680?s=20

[Storr]

Rest of tweet:

"◾️ Two way traffic is to be opened on 15th September on one part of the bridge. The other side - in November.

◾️One part of the bridge's structure in Kerch direction has been destroyed completely, it will have to be taken off."

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1680993220623233029?s=20

[Storr]

Ironically, the last SARMAT test launch failed:

https://twitter.com/NatalkaKyiv/status/1680680110704189444?s=20

[jaichind]

https://tass.com/society/1648199

"Movement of cars resumes on one lane of Crimean Bridge in reverse mode"

Russian media claims that the movement of cars resumes on Crimera Bridge by using one lane.

It also seems the deck of the Crimea Bridge is damaged but the pylons are intact which means it should be difficult to repair.  Not clear how long it would take though.

[NOVA Green]

Threats of desertion increasing among Russian troops in Ukraine...

Non-Paywall article

Insubordination is spreading through the Russian military in Ukraine after top commanders were fired for questioning the Kremlin's war strategy, according to a report by a think tank.

According to the respected Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing Russian sources, the Kremlin has in recent days fired a series of top commanders in Ukraine, most of whom were leading the defense of Russian positions in occupied Ukraine, specifically in Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia.

"The reported dismissal and arrest of commanders leading combat effective units and formations appears to be associated with cases of insubordination," the ISW said.

It names the dismissed officers as Major General Vladimir Seliverstov, Major General Alexander Kornev, and Major General Ramil Ibatullin. It cited Russian military bloggers, an important source of information about the Russian military, saying that authorities were also preparing to arrest Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky.

The report says that the defiance towards Russia's top commanders appears to be spreading through the ranks.

It cites an audio recording from Russian airborne units, known in Russian as VDV, in the occupied Kherson region. In the audio, soldiers said they would abandon their positions if their commanding officer, Teplinsky, is arrested.

"This audio appeal, if legitimate, is a threat of mass desertion in the face of the enemy on behalf of Teplinsky. Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offense in many militaries. The VDV servicemen are blackmailing the Russian MoD to ensure that Teplinsky continues to command troops in Ukraine," the ISW said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/threats-of-desertion-are-spreading-in-russia-s-military-as-troops-openly-disrespect-their-commanders-experts-say/ar-AA1dY7sc?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=55c9b232b90e47079a8087e30f81a8ec&ei=22

[NOVA Green]

Since the subject of Electronic Warfare (EW) was recently brought up a couple days back in context of Russian jamming of Ukrainian missiles and drones, here is a somewhat related story I saw earlier, although this one focuses more specifically on Russian Counter Battery capabilities.

Again, Non-Paywall website.

Relentless and brutal artillery battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces are a key feature of ongoing fighting, leaving both sides dependent on counter-battery detection to find and attack enemy fire.

But Moscow's troops lack enough critical radars to defeat Kyiv's artillery, with only a few hard-to-replace systems likely remaining, according to a new Western intelligence assessment.

"Russian ground forces survivability relies on effectively detecting Ukrainian artillery and striking against it, often with its force's own artillery," Britain's defense ministry said in a Monday intelligence update. "A key component of this approach is counter-battery radars, which allow commanders to rapidly locate enemy gun lines."

But the defense ministry noted that Russia is "suffering from a worsening shortage of counter-battery radars, especially its modern Zoopark-1M. Only a handful of the originally deployed Zoopark fleet are likely to remain operational in Ukraine."

According to an analysis by the open-source intelligence site Oryx, at least 38 Russian radars have been destroyed, damaged, or captured in Ukraine. This includes as few as eight Zoopark-1Ms, high-value systems that allow Russia to track and detect Ukrainian munitions, though they are vulnerable to detection because of their active electromagnetic signature.

Britain's defense ministry said Ukrainian forces earlier this month had destroyed a Zoopark near the location of Russia's 58th Combined Arms Army (58 CAA), which is fending off Ukrainian advances along the southern Zaporizhzhia region's front lines.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-forces-are-running-out-of-the-critical-radars-they-need-to-defeat-ukraine-s-artillery-uk-intel-says/ar-AA1dYZOU?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=55c9b232b90e47079a8087e30f81a8ec&ei=31

[NOVA Green]

Threats of desertion increasing among Russian troops in Ukraine...

Non-Paywall article

Insubordination is spreading through the Russian military in Ukraine after top commanders were fired for questioning the Kremlin's war strategy, according to a report by a think tank.

According to the respected Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing Russian sources, the Kremlin has in recent days fired a series of top commanders in Ukraine, most of whom were leading the defense of Russian positions in occupied Ukraine, specifically in Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia.

"The reported dismissal and arrest of commanders leading combat effective units and formations appears to be associated with cases of insubordination," the ISW said.

It names the dismissed officers as Major General Vladimir Seliverstov, Major General Alexander Kornev, and Major General Ramil Ibatullin. It cited Russian military bloggers, an important source of information about the Russian military, saying that authorities were also preparing to arrest Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky.

The report says that the defiance towards Russia's top commanders appears to be spreading through the ranks.

It cites an audio recording from Russian airborne units, known in Russian as VDV, in the occupied Kherson region. In the audio, soldiers said they would abandon their positions if their commanding officer, Teplinsky, is arrested.

"This audio appeal, if legitimate, is a threat of mass desertion in the face of the enemy on behalf of Teplinsky. Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offense in many militaries. The VDV servicemen are blackmailing the Russian MoD to ensure that Teplinsky continues to command troops in Ukraine," the ISW said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/threats-of-desertion-are-spreading-in-russia-s-military-as-troops-openly-disrespect-their-commanders-experts-say/ar-AA1dY7sc?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=55c9b232b90e47079a8087e30f81a8ec&ei=22

Here is a link to the ISW article on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1680775043456937984?s=20

[NOVA Green]

More about demoralization of Russian front-line troops...

This one live from Bakhmut:

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1680978265048055816?s=20

[NOVA Green]

Satellite images of the damaged locations on the Kerch bridge.

https://twitter.com/Maxar/status/1681014950704340993?s=20

[NOVA Green]

Russian counter attack coming?

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1680995745984393216?s=20

[CanadianDemocrat]

The Russians are barbaric orcs raping, pillaging and murdering Ukrainian civilians like a Mongol horde. Russian barbarism runs deep in the country's veins, since the Mongols invaded Russia.

I support Ukraine and oppose Russia, but is this a serious post? There's no need to demonize Russians to this extent.

And the Mongols too. In the time of Genghis Khan, ethical norms in the world did not fit well with modern ones, and modern Mongols suffered enough from the Chinese and the same Russians.

I was comparing the Russian army in Ukraine being similar to Genghis Khan, not Mongolia. The mass war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is similar to Genghis Khan. Mongolia is a peace loving country.