Russia, Ukraine and the West

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  • Carlin
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2011
    • 3332

    Mariupol is gone, Kherson is gone, Melitopol is gone, Donbass is falling.

    Kherson, as of today, started using the Russian ruble. A Russian chain supermarket opened up in Melitopol. Prices displayed in rubles and hryvnia. Also, in Melitopol, the Banner of Victory was raised:


    Dangerous Crossroads: Putin Warns the US to Back Off in Ukraine

    Comment

    • Carlin
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2011
      • 3332

      Macron has abandoned at least 50 French officers to death in Mariupol. There are French military & intelligence officers in Azovstal Factory who are there for training Ukrainian forces. Macron forbid them to disclose or surrender before the elections.

      Comment

      • Phoenix
        Senior Member
        • Dec 2008
        • 4671

        Originally posted by Carlin View Post
        Macron has abandoned at least 50 French officers to death in Mariupol. There are French military & intelligence officers in Azovstal Factory who are there for training Ukrainian forces. Macron forbid them to disclose or surrender before the elections.
        There has been much speculation as to the presence of foreign nationals in the bowels of Azovstal, talk the other day suggested a high ranking (military) Canadian national had been captured trying to escape and had already been taken prisoner and transferred to Moscow for interrogation (???).

        To discard any notion that foreign military personnel, in the form of contractors and advisors are not in Ukraine en masses assisting the locals would be totally naive - they are there for sure, only their exact numbers are a mystery at the moment but the Russians will get on top of that.

        Azovstal is very similar to the situation in Aracinovo 2001 but I’m sensing the Russians, unlike the Macedonian forces at the time, won’t be dealing with the situation with their hands tied behind their backs.

        All of these situations come with the disclaimer of plausible deniability so that foreign states are protected if shit goes south but it will still be very interesting on how the west will spin the story if their people are captured.

        Comment

        • kompir
          Member
          • Jan 2015
          • 537

          The EU has lost the plot:

          ‘It will not be easy’: EU unveils plans to ban all Russian oil imports

          Zaporizhzhia: European Union countries will stop importing Russian oil and refined products, the head of the bloc’s executive European Commission said, as she proposed a sixth round of sanctions against Moscow for waging a war on Ukraine.

          “We will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year,” Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament, prompting applause from politicians. “This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined.”

          “It will not be easy. Some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it,” von der Leyen said of the proposal, which requires approval from all 27 EU countries to take effect.

          As well as oil, the sixth round of sanctions would also affect Sberbank, Russia’s top lender, diplomats told Reuters, adding it to several banks that have already been excluded from the SWIFT messaging system.

          If agreed, the sanctions would mark a watershed for the 27 countries long dependent on Russian energy. There would still be exemptions for some countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, and natural gas has yet to be targeted with sanctions.

          Mariupol bunkers attacked

          The plans for new sanctions have been introduced as Russia escalates its offence in the east of Ukraine, strikes power stations in the western city of Lviv and sends its battalions into the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the ruined southern port of Mariupol, where hundreds of civilians have been sheltering from the daily bombardment.

          Scores of evacuees who managed to leave the city under UN and Red Cross auspices reached the relative safety of Ukraine-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday after cowering for weeks in bunkers beneath the sprawling plant.

          Weary-looking evacuees, including children and old people, clambered off buses after escaping the ruins of their home town in southeastern Ukraine where Russia now claims control.

          “We had said goodbye to life. We didn’t think anyone knew we were there,” said Valentina Sytnykova, 70, who said she sheltered in the plant for two months with her son and 10-year-old granddaughter.

          Russia is targeting Mariupol as it seeks to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and connect Russian-controlled territory in the south and east. Parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk were held by Russian-backed separatists before President Vladimir Putin launched the February 24 invasion.

          More than 200 civilians remain in the plant, according to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, with 100,000 civilians still in the city.

          “Where am I to go? Let them blow me up here,” a 67-year-old woman told Reuters in the city, as she boiled water on an open fire amid the rubble of a destroyed apartment block.

          Russia showed no signs of backing down nearly 10 weeks into what it calls a “special military operation,” a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities and driven 5 million Ukrainians to flee abroad. Russia’s own $US1.8 trillion economy is heading for its biggest contraction since the years following the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.

          Putin raised the economic stakes for Kyiv’s Western backers by announcing plans to block exports of vital raw materials.

          Railways bombed

          Russian forces have turned their heaviest firepower on Ukraine’s east and south after failing to take Kyiv, the capital, in the opening weeks of the war.

          But there were also new attacks in the west on Tuesday. The mayor of Lviv said Russian missile strikes had damaged electricity and water networks in the city near the Polish border, across which flow Western arms supplies for Ukraine’s military.

          Russian forces also struck six railway stations in the centre and west of the country, the head of Ukraine’s railways, Olesksandr Kamyshin, said. There were no injuries to civilians, he added on Twitter.

          In the east, Russian attacks in Donetsk on Tuesday killed 21 civilians and injured 27, regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

          Attacks and shelling also intensified in Luhansk, with the most difficult area being Popasna, where it was impossible to organise evacuations, regional Governor Serhiy Haida said.

          “There are no safe cities in Luhansk region,” he said on the Telegram messaging service.

          In a daily update on the conflict zone, British military intelligence said Russia has deployed 22 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine’s eastern city of Izium in an effort to advance along the northern axis of the Donbas region, and added that it was likely that Russian forces intended to capture the cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk.

          Ukraine’s general staff said its forces had repelled an attempted Russian advance through Dovgenke, about 108 km east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

          In the south, Russia said it had struck a military airfield near the Black Sea port of Odesa with missiles, destroying drones, weapons and ammunition supplied by the West. Ukraine said three missiles targeted the Odesa region and all were intercepted.

          The assault on the Azovstal steelworks began almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant to finish off the defenders but to seal it off. The first — and so far only — civilians to be evacuated from the shattered plant got out during a brief cease-fire over the weekend, in an operation overseen by the UN and the Red Cross.

          “We will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year,” Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
          Доста бе Вегето една, во секоја манџа се мешаш

          Comment

          • Phoenix
            Senior Member
            • Dec 2008
            • 4671

            Originally posted by kompir View Post
            ...Zaporizhzhia: European Union countries will stop importing Russian oil and refined products, the head of the bloc’s executive European Commission said, as she proposed a sixth round of sanctions against Moscow for waging a war on Ukraine.

            “We will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year,” Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament, prompting applause from politicians. “This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined.”

            “It will not be easy. Some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it,” von der Leyen said of the proposal, which requires approval from all 27 EU countries to take effect...
            Lets see how this pans out, particularly for those EU members who are close to 100% dependent on Russia for their energy needs...many commentators on this issue are saying that EU countries will just buy Russian oil and gas through third party arrangements that will cost them extra.

            Originally posted by kompir View Post
            ...As well as oil, the sixth round of sanctions would also affect Sberbank, Russia’s top lender, diplomats told Reuters, adding it to several banks that have already been excluded from the SWIFT messaging system.
            This could incentivise Russia, China and others to start their own SWIFT type system...already both Russia and China are working to bypass the US dollar in international trade

            Originally posted by kompir View Post
            ...Russian forces have turned their heaviest firepower on Ukraine’s east and south after failing to take Kyiv, the capital, in the opening weeks of the war.
            The MSM has been relentless in reporting this claim that the Russians couldn't take Kyiv which seems to be at odds with what many military pundits are suggesting.

            The Russian - Plan A was apparently to move toward Kyiv in an effort to pressure the Zelenskyy government into negotiations without too much destruction and the loss of life on both sides.
            This softly softly approach was costly to the Russians because Zelenskyy refused to negotiate forcing the Russians into the Plan B they are conducting at the moment.

            Just a few points, the Russians don't have enough troops in Ukraine to occupy the country.
            The Russians have no strategic reason to occupy/take Kyiv...it would be a total waste of resources and manpower to do so.

            Once Plan B was initiated the Russian troops around Kyiv were used in a feint manoeuvre to force the Ukrainians into concentrating a large force around Kyiv to defend the capital...in other words a relatively small Russian force had skilfully managed to hold in place a numerically superior Ukrainian force, thereby restricting the Ukrainians the ability to control the movement of their own forces and to reinforce in other parts of Eastern Ukraine.

            The Russians then called a ceasefire allowing their forces around Kyiv to move quickly toward the Donbas theatre and deny the far larger Ukrainian force around Kyiv to be used to reinforce Ukrainian troops who were quickly being surrounded in Donbas.

            Some 60K Ukrainian troops are said to be in the Donbas region and they're slowly being choked and encircled by Russian forces. The Ukrainians in Donbas are struggling to be resupplied and reinforced. The large Ukrainian force that protected Kyiv would have to travel hundreds of kilometres across open country to reinforce their troops in Donbas and with the Russian airforce controlling the skies that would seem to be an impossible and futile task.

            Comment

            • Solun
              Member
              • Sep 2012
              • 166

              Zelensky asking for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to visit Kiev on May 9

              Zelensky working hard on organising for his (and our) Azov Warriors to be airlifted out of the Steelworks to another country

              Maybe he should focus on organising this through Scholz for his (and our) Warriors be taken to Germany. I'm sure there are locations in Germany to which his (and our) Warriors would like to be taken. Oh the Irony

              Comment

              • Phoenix
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2008
                • 4671

                Originally posted by Solun View Post
                ...Zelensky working hard on organising for his (and our) Azov Warriors to be airlifted out of the Steelworks to another country...
                Surely there's foreign military imbedded with the Azov nazi's at the steelworks, there's something really fishy going on there.

                On one hand there's been relentless talk of numerous high risk evacuation attempts from the Ukrainian side and on the other hand there's an obvious reluctance from the Russians to obliterate the entire site.

                If foreign (NATO) contractors/advisers are there and can be captured alive it will be a huge embarrassment for the West and it will be game over for Ukraine...no wonder Zelensky and his handlers are shitting themselves.

                Comment

                • Carlin
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2011
                  • 3332

                  All civilians have been evacuated from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol and the forces of the "People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic" now have a "free hand," the head of the "Donetsk People's Republic" Denis Pushilin told Rossiya 1 TV channel on Wednesday.

                  Comment

                  • Carlin
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2011
                    • 3332

                    Russian missile Sarmat (aka Satan-2) is capable of destroying an area size of Texas or England in a single strike


                    Finland to request NATO membership tomorrow, Sweden to follow (Carl Bildt)



                    (Virtual certainty that Russia will reinforce its ground forces and air defenses and deploy significant naval forces in the Gulf of Finland.)
                    Last edited by Carlin; 05-11-2022, 06:19 PM.

                    Comment

                    • Carlin
                      Senior Member
                      • Dec 2011
                      • 3332

                      Russian official threatens military attacks against Finland, Sweden.

                      Dmitry Polyansky, a deputy representative of Russia at the United Nations, said that Sweden and Finland joining NATO would turn them into enemy countries.

                      Comment

                      • Phoenix
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2008
                        • 4671

                        Originally posted by Carlin View Post
                        Russian official threatens military attacks against Finland, Sweden.

                        Dmitry Polyansky, a deputy representative of Russia at the United Nations, said that Sweden and Finland joining NATO would turn them into enemy countries.
                        I don't think Sweden and/or Finland joining NATO would be a surprise or an unanticipated move to Russia.
                        That outcome would have been in Russian contingency planning for decades...both Sweden and Finland have been considered to be within the Western sphere of influence and if the shit hit the fan in any armed conflict between the West and Russia, Sweden and Finland would without doubt be places that would host Western/NATO forces and logistical operations anyway.

                        This is merely just another MSM headline parroting the USA/UK anti-Russia narrative that the unhinged Russian's are eager to recklessly widen the operation in Ukraine and that the whole of Europe is under threat...which is a total crock of shit.

                        This is merely a deflection headline used by the West to turn people away from the reality unfolding on the ground in Ukraine which consists of the systematic obliteration of Ukraine's military by the Russian side.

                        The rabid anti-Russia narrative must be front and centre in the news cycle to justify the billions of dollars in aid being pumped into this futile effort by the USA/UK to bring Russia to its knees and to prop up Biden and Johnson in the popularity stakes at home by trying to portray them as strong war-time leaders that are squaring up to Putin.

                        Comment

                        • Carlin
                          Senior Member
                          • Dec 2011
                          • 3332

                          Ukraine orders Azovstal fighters to surrender to Russia. The 2 month siege in Mariupol appears to be over (Ukraine didn’t ‘end’ its combat mission in Mariupol. They were defeated by the Russians.)

                          UkraineNews twitter:

                          Comment

                          • Carlin
                            Senior Member
                            • Dec 2011
                            • 3332

                            French Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Guillemain: “Ukrainian soldiers are entrenched in the cities”

                            Full interview here:



                            CO: Why is the German practice of creating “Festung” – fortress cities with civilians as “human shields” – visible in the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)?

                            JG: Urban warfare is the response of the weak to the strong. It is estimated that in open terrain, the balance of power between the attacker and the defender must be 3 to 1 to ensure victory. But it increases to 6 or 10 to 1 in an urban war. An exorbitant cost for the attacker. A suicidal option that Putin refused in Kiev. There is no question of conquering the city district by district, house by house. There is no question of razing a city of 2.5 million inhabitants and adding up the civilian casualties, as the enemy does not hesitate to take over inhabited buildings, hospitals and even schools to protect itself from the Russian artillery.

                            It is obvious that the Ukrainian army has no chance of resisting the Russian army in a frontal clash in open terrain. The Ukrainians have never carried out any large-scale attacks and have totally suffered the invasion of the first three days of the war. Since then, the front has stabilized over 1000 km long and 150 km wide. The Ukrainians understood that urban warfare was their salvation, and this is what they practice, which explains the destruction in many cities, even if the Russians target only military objectives, not wanting to raze the cities and kill civilians.

                            Comment

                            • Carlin
                              Senior Member
                              • Dec 2011
                              • 3332

                              Ukraine slams Henry Kissinger for saying country must cede land to Russia


                              'I did not have "Kiev beefing with Henry Kissinger because he called for Ukraine to surrender to Russia in a proxy world war" on my 2022 bingo card.'


                              Ukr. front collapsed at Popasna. Those who were able to save their lives retreated.
                              Last edited by Carlin; 05-26-2022, 05:12 AM.

                              Comment

                              • Carlin
                                Senior Member
                                • Dec 2011
                                • 3332

                                - Russian and #LDNR forces have now cut the road from #Bakhmut (Artëmovsk) to #Lisichansk

                                - #Severodonetsk is reported to be surrounded

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