Russia Invades Ukraine

[pipistrelle]

If already posted, I missed it.

Wagner Group employs 'Trumpian tactics' in bizarre video that appears aimed at recruiting US veterans to fight for Russia, historian says

Russia may have its sights set on a new and unexpected crop of military recruits to aid its struggling war efforts in Ukraine: United States veterans.

A brazen Russian recruitment video targeting American citizens comes as both Russia and Ukraine prepare massive offensives after a slow but violent winter. Russia is placing its hopes in tens of thousands of new conscripts as it aims to turn the tide of a so-far failing war in neighboring Ukraine.

In the minute-and-a-half video clip that's been circling social media in recent days, a thick-accented Russian voice seems to speak directly to disillusioned American vets as Russian subtitles roll over images of US warfare and global chaos.

"You were a hero to your country, giving your best years in the army. You dreamed of defeating evil, you dreamed of doing much to make America great again," the narrator says in an apparent reference to former President Donald Trump's slogan.

[keith]

I wasn't completely clear: my point was that some "falls" from high windows might be deliberate suicide to avert a horrible fate. Clearly many/most are not.

Voluntary defenestration sounds like a difficult way to go. I believe the doctor who managed to fall during a call lived a while, or one of the other ones about that same time did, presumably horribly mangled for however long it took to die in hospital. Coincidentally the doctors were critical of the government's response to COVID. Coincidentally.

I'm no expert nor wish to be but there are options that aren't as awful. Or shall we say public.

I know of a guy that fell from the 14th floor and lived to tell about it.

He told the folks on the 12th floor, the 11th floor, the 10th floor...

[neeneko]

If already posted, I missed it.

Makes me wonder how well the 'hey european men! move to russia, we have cheap gas, beautiful women, and they will not talk back!' video worked.

[Volkonski]

Steve Herman
@w7voa@journa.host
President Biden has made an unannounced visit to Kyiv. He met with #Ukraine President Zelenskyy in a bilateral meeting and the two leaders delivered brief remarks afterwards.

[Lani]

I posted about it in the Biden & Zelensky file. There are some films of them speaking, and then Biden had to leave. CNN & Msnbc are talking about it.

[Lani]

CNN article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/politics ... index.html

[Lani]

Biden just gave a 2nd speech in Kyiv, but in a different location. Everyone is smiling and shaking hands with Biden.

[RTH10260]

As I mentioned in the other thread, a bold move.

I guess a certain senior in FL would have brown stained his Depends.

[RTH10260]

Boss of Wagner mercenary group accuses Russian army chiefs of ‘treason’
Yevgeny Prigozhin says Moscow is refusing to supply the group with munitions and other supplies in Ukraine

Guardian staff and agencies
Wed 22 Feb 2023 00.38 GMT

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has said Moscow’s military chiefs are refusing to supply the group with munitions and are seeking to destroy it, accusing them of “treason”, in an escalation of the war of words between senior Russian officials and the private army boss.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenary force, which has recruited from prisons across Russia to bolster its ranks, is playing a key role in the efforts to capture the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s east. The battle has exposed tensions between the Wagner group and the Russian army, though the Kremlin denies any rift.

“[Moscow’s] chief of general staff and the defence minister give out orders left and right not only to not give ammunition to PMC Wagner, but also to not help it with air transport,” Prigozhin said in a voice message shared by his press service on Tuesday.

“There is just direct opposition going on, which is nothing less than an attempt to destroy Wagner. This can be equated to high treason,” he added.

Prigozhin also accused the military high command of having prohibited the delivery of shovels for Wagner fighters to dig trenches.

In the past, Prigozhin has criticised Russia’s regular army in Ukraine and recently slammed Moscow’s “monstrous bureaucracy” for slowing military gains. He has also accused the Russian military of attempting to “steal” victories from Wagner.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... kraine-war

[John Thomas8]

[John Thomas8]

[jemcanada2]

A heckler tried to interrupt an event marking the one year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine. I think Trudeau shut them down pretty well.

[Kriselda Gray]

A heckler tried to interrupt an event marking the one year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine. I think Trudeau shut them down pretty well.

Very well!

[Volkonski]

AP

A Ukrainian chef is promoting borsch — a traditional beet-and-beef soup — as a way to reclaim the nation’s culture and identity. He even helped get UNESCO to declare it a bite of cultural heritage in need of preserving.

https://apnews.com/article/soviet-union ... 79c0eec911

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/ ... /101072484

The underground network of Belarusians sabotaging Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and plotting a revolution at home

[Dave from down under]

The walls are going back up..

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/ ... /102036830

Finland has begun constructing its planned 200-kilometre fence on the Russian border, amid fears within Helsinki that Moscow could use migrant flows at the frontier for political purposes.

Key points:
The fence is expected to cost about $597 million
Russia and Finland share a 1,300 kilometre border
The fence is designed to stop large-scale illegal entries from Russian territory



At present, Finland's borders are secured primarily by light wooden fences, mainly designed to stop livestock from wandering to the wrong side.

Fearing that Moscow could use migrants to exert political pressure on Helsinki, Finland passed new amendments to its Border Guard Act in July to facilitate the erection of sturdier fences.

Although the Finland-Russia border has "worked well" in the past, Brigadier General Jari Tolppanen told AFP in November that the war in Ukraine had changed the security situation "fundamentally".

He said the border fence was "indispensable" to stop large-scale illegal entries from Russian territory.

Finland saw an influx of Russians in September after President Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilisation of reservists to fight in Ukraine.

Estonia, Latvia and Poland have also increased security on their borders with Russia or are planning to do so.

[Dave from down under]

viewtopic.php?t=135&sid=8187065b959bb06 ... c&start=50

Russian officials say Ukrainian drones have flown deep inside Russian territory, including one that got within 100 kilometres of Moscow.

Key points:
The drones did not cause any injuries or significant damage, Russian authorities said
Small Ukrainian-made drones have a range of up to 800 kilometres but no capacity to carry a large load of explosives
Russian forces have been targeting the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson with artillery strikes

The incursions signalled breaches in Russian defences as President Vladimir Putin ordered stepped-up protection at the border.

Officials said the drones caused no injuries and did not inflict any significant damage during the attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning (local time).

Ukrainian officials did not immediately take responsibility, but they have similarly avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for past strikes and sabotage, while emphasising Ukraine's right to hit any target in Russia.

[RTH10260]

Belarus partisans say they blew up Russian plane near Minsk
Group says it used drones to hit early warning aircraft at Machulishchy airfield 12km from Minsk

Andrew Roth in Moscow and Peter Beaumont in Dnipro, Ukraine
Mon 27 Feb 2023 11.23 GMT

Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.

BYPOL, the Belarusian partisan organisation, said it had used drones to strike the Machulishchy airfield 12km from Minsk, severely damaging a Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft (Awacs).

“One of the nine Awacs of the Russian aerospace forces worth $330m (was destroyed),” the group said. “These were drones. The participants of the operation are Belarusians. (They have attained) ‘Victory’ and are now safely outside the country. Everyone has escaped.”

The plane “definitely won’t fly anywhere”, it added.

According to some reports, the aircraft was hit by munitions dropped by two drones. A second munition reportedly hit close to the cockpit. “The front and middle section of the aircraft were damaged, as well as avionics and a radar antenna,” said a report attributed to BYPOL.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... mage-claim

[Volkonski]

NYT: Russia loses 'epic' tank battle in Vuhledar, 130 vehicles destroyed

https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/n ... -destroyed

According to the New York Times article published on March 1, the Ukrainian forces have destroyed at least 130 tanks and armored personnel carriers over a three-week fight in Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast.

Ukrainian officials stated this was the “biggest tank battle of the war so far, and a stinging setback for the Russians,” according to the article.

The article suggests that the lack of expertise, alongside the fact that most of the professional Russian military personnel had been demolished earlier, contributed to such a large-scale defeat.

Vuhledar remains one of the most crucial targets for Russia in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast.

Earlier on Feb. 13, Politico reported that Russia might have lost its entire elite brigade of 5,000 soldiers near Vuhledar.

[RTH10260]

One take for me from viewing some Ukraine drone footage is that the Russian tank crews have little training, including their command.

Many of these larger mechanised attacks tended to be straight forward on existing roads and preexisting dirt tracks. Ukraine forces uses very effecively drone observation, at heights of 1500 feet above ground, hard to detect if even someone would poke their head out of a tank. The command post then directs howizers to mine that approach, it's a special shell that disperses like ten anti-tank mines over its target, no need to lay a large mine field in advance. The first Russian tank then blows up. Rather than advance with some distance around the casuality I have seen a case where four further tanks attempted to pass at arms lenght and got themselves blown up too. Alternative when the first blows up, they turn and run. Or they approach and make a big turn to drive back, one after the other like ducklings, not turn in place. The Ukrainian drone observators signal the coordinates of that turn spot and artillery takes out more than one cause ducks in a row continue thru said turn. Getting the first tank hit can make the crews of the following tanks abandone their vehicle and flee by foot.

Fun fact: the Ukrainians have smaller low flying adapted consumer grade drones, some for kamikaze missions. The Russians try to shoot them down with rifles, hardly any success cause the distance to a moving object is hard to estimate. It's recently been feported that Russians are shooting at anything, taking down their own drones by chance.

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-04/ ... /102053690

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has provoked laughter after referring to the invasion of Ukraine as "the war which was launched against us" during a diplomatic forum in India.

Key points:

Sergei Lavrov had been speaking on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in New Delhi after his US counterpart
Antony Blinken said earlier Russia could not be allowed to wage war in Ukraine with impunity
The Russian minister went on to accuse Washington of "trying to militarise" the Quad
Mr Lavrov had been speaking at the Raisina Dialogue conference, on the sideline of G20 foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi, and was responding to a question about Russia's strategy towards energy when he made the comments.

"The war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us, using…" he said as the crowd's laughter cut him off.

"Using Ukrainian people," he tried to go on, as the laughter continued and a voice interjected, "come on."

Me: he needs to keep away from windows…

Putin: “Throw him out of a window!”
3 hours later..
Putin: “How come it took so long to kill him?”
Henchman: “Sir, we had to do it a number of times.. it was a ground floor window.”

[Dave from down under]

In the link is footage!!!

Not if the window, but the laughter

[much ado]

"The war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us, using…" he said as the crowd's laughter cut him off.

It's very east to stop that war. Simply withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine. Amazing hypocrisy.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I loved reading that article. Lavrov has cried "wolf" too many times.

[jcolvin2]

Foreign Minister Lavrov said:

"The war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us, using…" he said as the crowd's laughter cut him off.

"Using Ukrainian people," he tried to go on, as the laughter continued and a voice interjected, "come on."

The assertion that Ukraine started the war conflicts with prior Russian propaganda. Until quite recently, the Russians referred to the conflict as a “special action” to remove Zelenskyy and “de-Nazify” Ukraine, rather than a “war.” How can a “special action” to achieve these goals have been started by Ukraine?