Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[DINGO Joe]

Seems like Lukashenko has more sense then Putin.

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1506466784815288327

 Whoever expected that Lukashenko would play the role, albeit even tentatively and borderline, as an FF in this conflict?

Well, we're talking about the Belarus "army" here and Lukashenko cares about himself first and foremost so he ain't FF out of the goodness of his own heart.

[DINGO Joe]

A hero returns home: https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-snake-island-border-guard-160358031.html

Ukraine's postal service even said it would release a stamp that says "Russian warship, go f#ck yourself" to commemorate the border guards of Snake Island.

Well, I haven't collected stamps in decades, but I'd buy a sheet of those at an outrageous markup.

[DINGO Joe]

I can't make heads or tails of this word salad from the NYT's:

"Belying its claims of de-escalation, Russia increased bomb and artillery attacks in Ukraine on Wednesday and sent conflicting signals about the prospects for peace, suggesting new tensions in the Kremlin hierarchy about the course of the war.

'The contradictory messaging came as a newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessment suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had been misinformed about the war’s trajectory by subordinates, who were fearful of his reaction to the Russian military’s struggles and setbacks."

Somehow Putin had no idea how badly the war was going, but now having found out, is getting more bellicose, with Russian command and control in chaos. I am too senior challenged to connect the dots here.

It seems that the messengers decided that Putin would probably shoot them, so they chose not to share the news, but I guess after a month he figure out something must be off.  Clever guy.

[DINGO Joe]

spicy speed bumps:

https://twitter.com/tomhyppanen/status/1509255544925736960?s=20&t=jc4eIAOBlh...

And yet, somehow much safer than driving I-81 in PA

https://www.wgal.com/article/video-of-interstate-81-pileup-happening-schuylkill-county-pennsylvania/39582170

[DINGO Joe]

Regarding India, I was rather surprised to realize how much oil they've been buying from the US lately

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTNTUSIN2&f=M

[DINGO Joe]

Given how long ago Chernobyl was and how many of the Russian "grunts" come from rather obscure distant parts of the Empire, it's actually quite plausible that many didn't even know what Chernobyl was upon their entry in the zone.  Whether they've truly been exposed to lethal radiation or whether it's a rank and file psyop freak out, I wouldn't know.

[DINGO Joe]

Airborne troops are sitting ducks when the other side knows you're coming. There's a reason the allies dropped airborne forces within 15 minutes of the Navy starting to shell German defenses.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512146421084008449?s=20&t=XE0D7CWLxpVH81...

Yeah, for all the attention on the atrocities committed by lesser quality Russian forces,   it's quite a big deal that the Russian A teams took such a beating through a combination of extremely accurate intelligence, a Ukrainian army skilled at using the weapons they have, and a really, really bad Russian strategy that basically left these troops out to die. 

[DINGO Joe]

A NYT article via yahoo (thus free to read) on the Russian shift to the East, the loss of the A team and how they're trying to scrap up troops and mercs for the Eastern push

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-recruiting-mercenaries-syrians-ukraine-115514041.html

At the risk of being too glib for an actual war, it almost feels like the plot for "Blazing Saddles"  when every villain in the West (and then some) was signed up to attack Rock Ridge.   It's a pity that the Ukrainians can't build a fake town for the Russians to attack, because they might actually fall for it.

[DINGO Joe]

Huge Russian convoy near Kharkiv

The images show a 13-kilometer-long military convoy moving south through the town of Velykyi Burluk in eastern Ukraine on April 8.

Maxar reported that the convoy consists of "armored vehicles, trucks with towed artillery and support equipment."

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said that Russian forces were regrouping in eastern Ukraine and planning to advance to Kharkiv.

CNN:

Comrade Woodbury seems to have forgotten that when Russian invaded North Ukraine they had a 40 mile convoy.  I guess 8 miles is all they have left.

[DINGO Joe]

Well I was  greeted this morning to the bullet points in the NYT regarding Ukraine, and the takeaway for me is that Putin has put in place a general (Aleksandr V. Dvornikov) who "earned" his reputation in Syria for the mass killing of civilians by fire bombing them from the air (his "first course" for this round perhaps being the bombing of that train station on Friday), and Russia in addition to Chechnyans, is now beefing up its depleted military with men discharged from the military within the past 10 years, plus recruits from from Transnistria (I finally bothered to read up on that particular sliver of real estate and don't plan to place it on my itinerary any time soon).

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/10/world/ukraine-russia-war-news

Biden, Putin is doubling down, and then doubling down again, you are not deflecting him, and you will need to do what is necessary to not allow Putin to expand his real estate empire by incinerating its existing inhabitants from high tech weapons falling from the sky from far away. If your "red line" needs to be moved, move it. The whole world is watching. And Europe needs to take a bigger economic hit to accelerate the pace of de-funding Putin's war of terror. Its oil and gas is blood money.

Seems like there was mass killing of civilians in Ukraine before this guy took over so I don't see what he brings new to the table.

[DINGO Joe]

Based Boris!

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1512818337415372802?s=20&t=Fn1yKXh5R...

 Generally not a fan of bojo, but d***** if he hasn't been a true leader in Western Europe regarding supporting Ukraine.

This is an occasion where his lack of consistency and underlying principles has come in useful.

Yes, he did big up Russia and Putin previously - but that genuinely doesn't matter now.

He's not been consistent in his hostility to the Russian government, but this response is consistent with his historical interests. BoJo is a performer, and probably quite comfortable with the familiar Churchill cosplay he's using right now.

https://twitter.com/NikaMelkozerova/status/1513190467743236103

Well, the gods were good enough to have Boris gifted with a ceramic rooster which he had to graciously accept while not making a quip which the video showed he desperately wanted to.

[DINGO Joe]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/ukraines-iron-general-zaluzhnyy-00023901
Article about Ukraine's general.

I think lost behind Russian incompetence is Ukraine competence .

From what I can glean (being as knowledgeable about these things as everyone else here, which is basically zero), there are three things going on:

1) Poor Russian planning and outdated military strategy=huge incompetence and reliance on savagery.

2) Ukrainian forces that are highly skilled with the weapons they've been using over the last 8 years (plus fancier versions that have reached them in the battlefield, like Javelins, etc...)  Really, it seems like a high tech guerilla warfare. 

3) extremely accurate intelligence (mainly via NATO) and also thanks to Russian incompetence and outdated communications equipment.  As I mentioned earlier in thread, what happened at Hostemel in the North against the best Russian troops is extremely notable as the Ukrainians knew exactly what was coming and were able to totally bring it to a standstill until the Russians had to exit.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1513917595459674124

Perhaps my "Blazing Saddles" plan isn't too far fetched

Maybe the Ukraines can build a fake appliance store to draw the Russians in

[DINGO Joe]

Ukraine needs tanks, jets, and offensive weapons. That is the only way Russia will be totally expelled from Ukraine.

Plus, time and training to learn how to use those things.   The idea that they have a bunch of guys who know how to drive tanks or fly planes effectively seems pretty far fetched to me. 

[DINGO Joe]

A WaPo interview with a Ukrainian Air Force pilot

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/13/ukrainian-fighter-pilots-mig-29-russians/

Nowhere is that divide more evident than in the proposed air materiel transfers. Juice flies MiG-29s, which are a Soviet-era staple of the Ukrainian air force. But he said Ukrainian pilots are “just targets” for Russian adversaries who fly far more advanced jets. Obtaining more outdated MiGs would not improve Ukraine’s position in the skies, he said.

“We have losses almost everyday in our air force,” he added. “You won’t see this on TV because everything is classified right now, but actually we have a lot of losses. That’s why we need to be technically equal with the Russians. Just our mental advantage is not enough to fight with these technologies.”
...........

Ukrainian pilots were able to improvise from there. Juice said the fight in the sky doesn’t feel fair when he’s going up against a more modern Russian jet. He often has to just avoid his adversary entirely to stay alive. Sometimes he and his fellow pilots manage to trick the Russians into flying into an area where the Ukrainians have an air-defense system ready and waiting.

"Juice" thinks he could learn to fly an F-series in a few weeks since he knows English and the terminology, but other voices in the article are skeptical of that and note that it's a whole supply and maintenance chain that has to go along with that.

Actually both "Juice" and the other voices seem to agree that advanced air defense systems would probably be of the greatest help in the near term.

[DINGO Joe]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61044063

Ukraine: Inside the spies’ attempts to stop the war

A free BBC article about the efforts of the American-Anglo intelligence community and how the information was publicly utilized to try and stop the war or at the very least least prevent false flag operations by Russia being viewed as plausible. 

The gist is that the A-A community had lost credibility over Iraq so they were still being viewed skeptically by many European countries, however, their public accuracy made it easier to rally European sentiment for Ukraine.

[DINGO Joe]

I always knew you'd turn into NOVAGreen one day, just not so soon.

[DINGO Joe]

Per internet memes it's status should be changed to "Promoted to Submarine"

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/EmineDzheppar/status/1502545496614789126?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...

Well, they've chosen a design but I guess they aren't on sale yet.

[DINGO Joe]

The Ukraine versions of Beavis and Butthead got themselves a Russian tank



https://twitter.com/Rklawton/status/1514379230330687494

[DINGO Joe]

Russians just aren't very good at handling combustible materials

It should be noted that Belgorod is supposedly the rally point for the troops that exited Northern Ukraine to "rest and refit"  before moving to the Donbas.  Nice of the Ukrainians  to provide them with a bonfire.

[DINGO Joe]

Remember last nights strike against Kiev?

Guess it was a logical target, he needs something to sell as "retribution" for the massive loss of Moskva.

A Ukrainian military factory outside Kyiv that produced missiles allegedly used to hit Russia's Moskva warship was partly destroyed by overnight Russian strikes, an AFP journalist at the scene saw Friday.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220415-russian-strike-hits-missile-unit-outside-kyiv-afp

 One has to frankly wonder why Russia hasn't previously already gone for such an obvious military target. Unless they are seriously low on missiles missiles and have to use them  So sparingly only for revenge raids like this?

Well, you see a sound war plan is to focus on raping and pillaging civilians and then get around to military targets when they may become important.

[DINGO Joe]

Remember last nights strike against Kiev?

Guess it was a logical target, he needs something to sell as "retribution" for the massive loss of Moskva.

A Ukrainian military factory outside Kyiv that produced missiles allegedly used to hit Russia's Moskva warship was partly destroyed by overnight Russian strikes, an AFP journalist at the scene saw Friday.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220415-russian-strike-hits-missile-unit-outside-kyiv-afp

 One has to frankly wonder why Russia hasn't previously already gone for such an obvious military target. Unless they are seriously low on missiles missiles and have to use them  So sparingly only for revenge raids like this?

Well, you see a sound war plan is to focus on raping and pillaging civilians and then get around to military targets when they may become important.

You just summarized my Civ V strategy.

Well, I guess we should have gotten Putin and the gang a Steam subscription and they would have left the real world alone.

[DINGO Joe]

So is Russia finally being open about the fact that Ukraine destroyed it?

LoL.  No they'll just do the same schitzo crap they always do.

[DINGO Joe]

Solovyov is not pleased:

https://twitter.com/KCCOvilla88/status/1515632132592660485?s=20&t=1AuLHftW88...

Spoiler for Solovyov: Ultimately, it was Putin's fault.

No, no, no certainly there have to be at least half a dozen Admirals and Generals who should be arrested/fall out of windows for this.