Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Mopsus]

What exactly are the borders of these “states” that Putin just recognized? It’s in contention, no?

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Also, where are all the anti-Imperialist leftists in this thread?

They’ve been criticizing the imperialist regime in Moscow. Where have you been?

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The sheer numbers of casualties so far, especially on the Russian side, have been astonishingly violent for this type of war. The waste of life on a tyrant's post-imperial brooding...

As much as I want the war to end quickly, I don’t have it in me to rejoice over the deaths of Russian soldiers. On a human level the waste of life is too distressing.

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Updated battlefield situation:

Russians are still slow & ineffective, but slowly gaining ground and encircling areas with stiff resistance.

https://twitter.com/TruthsUnchained/status/1498806054418845701

That maps looks like a map of a Russian 'Sudetenland'.

Russia will probably assert some time or another that the unconquered parts of Ukraine form the "new" borders of the country.

The most likely next development is that the Russian forces coming in from the south and northeast are going to encircle the Ukrainian forces in the east, then form a united front and push to the Dnieper. The question is, what are the Russians going to do then? Call a ceasefire and set up a puppet government in the east? Then even if the remaining Ukrainian rump state joins NATO it won’t technically be a NATO country on Russia’s border...

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It’s amusing that all of these puppet states call themselves “people’s republics”, something Russia itself no longer does. What a throwback.

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https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1507442015323234305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...Putin is calling in some more Nazis

Whatever you do, don’t Google “Hezbollah Roman salute”!

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Oh god Zelensky please don’t. If he gives up 1 yard of Ukraine soil he’ll just be inviting Putin to try this again in the future and would effectively kill the UN charter which forbids the seizure of land via force

I'm not so sure about this. In principle, I agree that I hate the idea of conceding anything to Putin, but I think the best way to put an end to this nightmare is to get Russia out of Ukraine and then immediately regroup and rearm Ukraine to the greatest extent possible. A Ukraine with a military that is armed to the teeth with western military tech (especially its air force) and prepared around the clock for an invasion from its uncivilized neighbor, similar to South Korea, would be impossible for Russia to defeat in the future. The biggest takeaway from this is that Russia's military is an absolutely joke, incapable of conquering anything. A prepared Ukraine will be able to exist just fine. It doesn't even need to be part of NATO because Russia sucks so much.

At this point I think the best deal the Ukrainians can hope for is formal cession of those lands already occupied by Russia on 2/23 plus official neutrality regarding NATO, in exchange for immediate accession to the EU, a Marshal Plan style aid package from the West, and maxed-out defensive war capabilities.

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https://twitter.com/The_IntelHub/status/1509223828001464320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

I notice some Ukrainian progress towards Mariupol. Is there any chance at all that they will attempt to lift the siege, or is it foolish to even hope for that?

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https://twitter.com/The_IntelHub/status/1509223828001464320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

I notice some Ukrainian progress towards Mariupol. Is there any chance at all that they will attempt to lift the siege, or is it foolish to even hope for that?

Earlier today, at least two Ukrainian helicopters made a flight into Mariupol and at least one was shot down on the way out with wounded people from the city. Russia claims three entered, were all shot down, and that the passengers were Azov Battalion leadership.

Given the risks involved in flying a chopper into Russia territory and a besieged urban pocket, I think it’s likely they were trying to evacuate some important people (although perhaps not Azov) and thought they couldn’t afford to wait for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to get any closer to Mariupol. That suggests they think the city’s defence is doomed.

That’s disappointing. I guess the upshot is that the amount of time it’s taken the Russian Army to take the city, plus their recently aborted attempt to overrun Kiev, prove that they’re going to get bogged down at every major urban area they try to take.

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https://twitter.com/Blake_Allen13/status/1510340727489892357?cxt=HHwWisC4_fa45_U...

But compucomp said Putin was justified because apparently all 2.6 billion people in China and India support him.

It's time for NATO to send in armored cars, tanks, anti ship missiles, helicopters and fighter jets. Sending in offensive weapons is the only way to prevent a genocide.

Anything that Ukraine asks for, NATO and the EU should give.

Surely there are thousands of well-trained and well-armed Polish and Finnish troops itching to take their shot at Putin’s army. Let them all go to Ukraine, and let them have as much equipment as they can carry, drive, and fly.

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^ I wonder why Wikipedia’s map hasn’t been updated to show Ukrainian gains in the northeast.

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Estimation of frontlines:
https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1512220132348727297

After completely giving up their territory in the north, Russian gains now look downright pathetic, considering they’re 6 weeks and 10,000 dead into the war.

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https://www.twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1512818345489408006

The idiotic "threat of NATO to Russia" as an explanation for why this war is happening arguments need to go away.

It won't. Russia is a deeply sick nation.

https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1512750008222859266?s=20&t=ev19H4tWod1pxTe...

I’d be really curious to hear what NATO has to do with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were carried out before NATO was formed...

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Transcript of briefing from Yesterday...


https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1512754909623590916?s=20&t=bxI5Jk...

He says that there are 30-35,000 Russian troops in the Donbass, I wish he had said how many Ukrainian troops are there to defend the region. If they can at least match Russian forces they should stand a good chance of being able to hold them off completely.

[Mopsus]

So naturally when it comes to the Naval War following the Russian Invasion and Occupation of Russian-Ukrainian War 2.0 (?!?), waiting to see if one of my favorite Tweeters on the subject has any new updates.

Same dude who did some really great coverage of the destruction of of Orsk a bit back which I covered, but was essentially ignored by the vast majority of posters on this thread...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44925/russian-navy-ship-that-exploded-in-ukrainian-port-seen-totally-destroyed-in-satellite-image

DUDE KNOWS HIS S**T (Free Link at my bottom tail Links)

The Russian Ministry of Defense says that the Project 1164 Slava class cruiser Moskva suffered serious enough damage to force the entire crew to evacuate after a fire broke out while it was sailing the Black Sea, causing munitions aboard to explode. This follows reports that the ship was on fire after being struck by Ukrainian Neptune shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles.

The exact current status of the Moskva, which is the flagship of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, is unclear. The Russian Ministry of Defense's statement, as relayed by Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti, does not say whether or not the ship had sunk, was sinking, or is otherwise in danger of doing so. How many Russian sailors were on board when the fire started is unclear, but a typical crew complement for a Slava class warship is around 510 people. There is also no apparent word yet on any fatalities or injuries.

There are separate, equally unconfirmed reports that one of Ukraine's Turkish-made armed TB2 drones might have been involved in the attack on Moskva, possibly to distract it from the incoming missiles. The drone could have been used to positively identify the ship, helping to avoid accidentally hitting commercial vessels in the Black Sea, and then get its corodinates to cue the missiles to the target area, as well. Interestingly, the Russian Ministry of Defense did recently release a video it says shows the Project 11356R Admiral Grigorovich class frigate Admiral Essen engaging a TB2 while sailing the Black Sea.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/russias-black-sea-flagship-has-exploded-off-ukraine

The fact that the ship was abandoned by its entire crew strongly implies that it was sunk, doesn’t it? Unless “crew” excludes the captain and whoever else he would need to steer the damaged ship to shore.

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Ukraine is using a bit of a ghoulish strategy as part of their asymmetrical IT warfare in an attempt to influence Russian public opinion against the Invasion and Occupation of Ukraine.

Not really sure how I feel about this from a moral perspective when it comes to public display of dead enemy combatants, plus "rules of war", without even going into Clearview as a company with all of their shady history even within the US of A with LEA and Domestic Protest Movements.

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since the war began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.

The country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used those identifications to inform families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.

The Ukrainians champion the use of face-scanning software from the U.S. tech firm Clearview AI as a brutal but effective way to stir up dissent inside Russia, discourage other fighters and hasten an end to a devastating war.

Clearview AI’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That, told The Washington Post that more than 340 officials across five Ukrainian government agencies now can use its tool to run facial recognition searches whenever they want, free of charge.

Clearview employees now hold weekly, sometimes daily, training calls over Zoom with new police and military officials looking to gain access. Ton-That recounted several “‘oh, wow’ moments” as the Ukrainians witnessed how much data — including family photos, social media posts and relationship details — they could gather from a single cadaver scan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-P53WP7UTMZHAFMXLUVFFE6AN5M

I watched a video the other day in which an Ukranian soldier used a phone swiped off a dead Russian to video call the guy's girlfriend and tell her that her boyfriend was dead. He was quite happy to break the bad news, and it's not hard to sympathize with him. But it was still sad to see.

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https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1515633540129558530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7C...

I strongly believe that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth should be revived at all costs. This would be a great start.

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Looks like stiffer US sanctions coming, which might hit larger swathes of the Russian economy than those thus far:

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that there would be additional sanctions against Russia as punishment for Moscow’s continued invasion of Ukraine. Psaki did not specify what those sanctions would be but said the Biden administration was “continuing to review” its options and would probably have more information in the coming days.

Psaki also noted that the chairwoman of the Russian central bank had recently warned that the sanctions will “begin to increasingly affect the real sectors of the economy” in Russia and that “the period during which the [Russian] economy can live on reserves is finite.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/18/russia-ukraine-war-news-mariupol-live-updates/#link-5ME5SIA755CJDDZN3UYK7GXJOU

Why haven’t we already implemented every sanction imaginable? What on earth are Western governments holding out for? Come on, people.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1517402211407568897
So Russia grand strategy (and other sources and Russia movements points to this being the idea) is to pull off a pincer movement via north and south. However, this is a flawed idea on Russia’s part as 1) a pincer movement relies on speed and Russia forces are not moving quickly and between the mud and urban fight that will take place there is no reason for the pace to pick up and 2) they don’t have the numerical advantages to pull such a move off

Still, steady Russian gains on the front lines are a worrying trend. I don’t know enough to say whether Ukrainians are just falling back to a more defensible position while bleeding the attackers dry, but I’d feel more optimistic about the future of the war if the Ukrainians were holding the line or making gains in some places.

[Mopsus]

https://mobile.twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1517402211407568897
So Russia grand strategy (and other sources and Russia movements points to this being the idea) is to pull off a pincer movement via north and south. However, this is a flawed idea on Russia’s part as 1) a pincer movement relies on speed and Russia forces are not moving quickly and between the mud and urban fight that will take place there is no reason for the pace to pick up and 2) they don’t have the numerical advantages to pull such a move off

Still, steady Russian gains on the front lines are a worrying trend. I don’t know enough to say whether Ukrainians are just falling back to a more defensible position while bleeding the attackers dry, but I’d feel more optimistic about the future of the war if the Ukrainians were holding the line or making gains in some places.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the gains as they seem to be marginal gains at the edges

How long does it take for marginal gains to add up to major gains though? Especially considering that Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk doesn't have any major cities for them to fortify themselves in.

[Mopsus]

So how exactly do you fight back against mass artillery strikes?

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So how exactly do you fight back against mass artillery strikes?

Drag it out and defense in depth.  Do not pull all your men and equipment at the front and be ready to retreat to the next line of defense.  Slowly bleed the Russians of equipment even as they advance by trading space for time.  At some point, the Russian economy will not be able to support the sustained losses. 

Well that does appear to be what the Ukrainians are doing. I guess the question is how much land they have to lose before attrition renders Russian advances untenable.

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https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1521228157961089024

I hope the Ukrainians are able to put an end to the Russian Army’s genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas as soon as possible.

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Huge news

https://twitter.com/KonotopW/status/1522505047426453507

Is Putin going to replace him with anyone or is he just going to be assuming more and more control for himself?

[Mopsus]

Huge news

https://twitter.com/KonotopW/status/1522505047426453507

Is Putin going to replace him with anyone or is he just going to be assuming more and more control for himself?

If it’s the latter, credit to Putin for going full Czar Nicholas II.

I was going to say, if it’s the latter, that’s a great sign for the Ukrainians, considering which leaders have done things like that in the past.