Ukraine war mega thread

[pickel]

Russia's response is a big "M'ehh". Mine too.

Do you say "M'ehh" every time you're wrong? Some people learn from their mistakes when they start to become common.

[sabang]

I just say m'ehh when it all seems a bit m'ehh. M'ehh. "Up to you" scandihooligans. Them Kurds are terrorists, right?

Some more adult stuff here-


But Kyiv’s right to fight for complete territorial sovereignty does not make doing so strategically wise. Nor should Ukraine’s remarkable success in repelling Russia’s initial advance be cause for overconfidence about the next phases of the conflict. Indeed, strategic pragmatism warrants a frank conversation between NATO and Ukraine about curbing Kyiv’s ambitions and settling for an outcome that falls short of “victory.”

Several considerations call for such restraint. First, the longer the war continues, the greater the death, destruction, and dislocation it will reap. Russia’s invasion has already taken tens of thousands of lives, forced some 12 million Ukrainians to flee their homes (about 6 million have left the country), and destroyed some $60 billion of Ukraine’s infrastructure. Sanctions against Russia and the war’s disruption to supply chains are fueling rising prices in many countries and could spawn a global food shortage.

Second is the risk of escalation. If Russian forces fare well in the east and the south, the Kremlin could eventually decide to enlarge its own war aims and seek to swallow more of Ukraine. Alternatively, if Russian forces falter in the coming weeks and Vladimir Putin faces a further defeat, he could well look to use weapons of mass destruction, or to trigger a wider conflict to change the course of the war. Accidental escalation is also a real risk, with Russia already carrying out strikes near NATO territory and Russian and NATO forces operating in close proximity.

Third, even though the West has demonstrated impressive unity in supporting Ukraine and standing up to Russian aggression, the West’s solidarity may wane over time. Inflation is spiking on both sides of the Atlantic, fueled in part by the knock-on effects of the war. Rising prices are weighing down President Joe Biden’s popularity—despite his strong handling of the war—and his earlier focus on improving the lot of working Americans has effectively been sidelined. Bipartisan cooperation on standing up to Putin could erode.

Differences are starting to emerge among transatlantic allies. The leaders of France, Germany, and Italy last week talked up the need for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement. Meanwhile, Washington and London appear to be backing Ukraine’s intention to achieve, in the words of its foreign minister, “the liberation of occupied territories.”

Electoral outcomes since the war began do not bode well for the West’s collective staying power, either. Viktor Orbán, the self-proclaimed defender of “illiberal democracy,” won reelection in Hungary. He has so far blocked the European Union’s effort to impose an oil embargo on Russia. Although the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron was reelected in France, the hard-right and pro-Russian candidate, Marine Le Pen, garnered more than 40 percent of the vote. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz initially outlined a bold shift in German foreign policy to counter Putin’s move into Ukraine. But Berlin has since wavered on following through, and the Scholz government has been weakened by a political setback in regional elections over the weekend.

In the U.S., buoyed by Donald Trump’s endorsement, J. D. Vance recently won a hotly contested Senate primary in Ohio. His views of the war in Ukraine are rather blunt: “I think it’s ridiculous that we are focused on this border in Ukraine. I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” Amid rampant inflation, the “America First” wing of the Republican Party is poised to surge in the November midterms.

FULL- Ukraine’s Way Out (msn.com)


In short, accept some Territorial loss- and claim Victory.

[pickel]

^
Do you think rape victims should just lie there and take it, and claim victory in court later?

[sabang]

Only if they're Republican.

[pickel]

Only if they're Republican.

Well if they're Republican, maybe they can sue for child support too.

[harrybarracuda]

Yes. Channeling my inner snubby.

No, channeling your fellow wanketeer who has his own drivel thread for this nonsense.

[bsnub]

[Backspin]

1744 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered from Azovstal so far
That's gotta be a record haul in one surrender since WW2.

But hey Russia sucks bruh

[Backspin]

[url=https://www.youtube.com : Russia 'scraping the barrel in terms of deploying equipment' - YouTube[/url]

Russia deployed older stuff at the start of the war and they said it was "scraping the barrel". Now it's sending brand new stuff and its also "scraping the barrel" hahaha.

[David48atTD]

^ BS, what you have there is a YouTube of some tanks being transported somewhere.

Is it current, or filmed months ago?
The cringe footage of two (assumed) Russian woman opening some sentimental pictures from children is cringe/staged/pure propaganda.
And, are they actually the latest T-90M Tank?

The image from the clip ...


That could be any old tank.


What a confirmed T-90M Tank looks like.

The front profiles don't match.

[David48atTD]

^^ As for the credibility of the news source for your tank video, not so sure it's a substantive channel.

In a month since it first posted, there are hundreds of clips, all pro Russian.

Here ... Military Operation - YouTube

They have a little over 1,600 subscribers ...

[pickel]

Now it's sending brand new stuff and its also "scraping the barrel" hahaha.

Russia's Best Tank Destroyed Just Days After Rolling into Ukraine—Report

[bsnub]

Skiddy is totally clueless as he lives in a fantasy world. He is fully consumed by propaganda and posts shit from fake news sites. So his shit is just sandcastles in the sky and not based in reality.

What a confirmed T-90M Tank looks like.

Even if it was actually a T-90, it matters not, they go boom just like the T-72 does when slammed by a western anti-tank missile. They dead.

[David48atTD]

Even if it was actually a T-90, it matters not, they go boom just like

Like this?

[David48atTD]

As mentioned before the convicts sent over a few guns as well ...

The M777 as their next-generation Medium Force weapon.

The howitzer has a 39-caliber barrel and can fire normal rounds up to 24.7 kilometers and EFRB (Extended Range Full Bore) rounds up to 30 kilometers. It can also fire the M982 Excalibur GPS-guided munition, which has a range of up to 40 kilometers and allows for pinpoint accuracy.

The M777 can fire at a rate of 2 rounds per minute for a prolonged period of time and up to 5 shots per minute in extreme situations.

Due to its lighter weight and smaller dimensions, the M777 can be easily transported by USMC MV-22 Osprey, CH-47 helicopter, or truck, allowing it to be deployed and re-deployed more frequently than the M198 howitzer, maximizing its survivability.

American M777 Howitzers 'Wreak Havoc' On Russian Military As Ukraine Strikes Back To Save Donbas

[bsnub]

Lessons are being learned from the Ukrainian battlefield...

[bsnub]

Wait what? Why would they do that if the war was going well? The only morons that think it is going well for Russia are the Three Stooges. They swallow fake news hook, line and sinker.

Moscow over recent weeks has fired senior military commanders for failures in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence pointed to Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, whose forces failed to capture Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv. Also suspended was Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet until its flagship, the Moskva, was sunk in April.

Valeriy Gerasimov, Russian Chief of the General Staff, “likely remains in his post,” but it’s unclear whether President Vladimir Putin retains confidence in him.

The press office of the Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an intelligence update, the British ministry predicted that Russia will face difficulty regaining the initiative in its war against Ukraine, because generals and other officials will want to seek cover by deferring to their superiors on key decisions.

“Many officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine will likely be increasingly distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russia’s operational setbacks,” the Ministry of Defence said.

Live updates: Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

[bsnub]

[misskit]

Russia Uses Ukraine’s Azovstal POWs in Demented New Propaganda Plot

After weeks of setbacks in Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Kremlin has now seized on a chance to use prisoners of war as part of new propaganda efforts, while Ukrainian authorities warn many of them are actually being held in a “concentration camp.”


Russia’s Defense Ministry on Thursday said a total of 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers from Mariupol’s decimated Azovstal steel plant had surrendered this week alone, with 771 fighters supposedly laying down their weapons over the past 24 hours. Ukrainian authorities have been reluctant to divulge too many details, warning that it could derail the “rescue operation,” but confirmed Tuesday that 53 severely wounded troops had been taken to a hospital in the occupied Donetsk region, and another 211 had been evacuated to the occupied village of Olenivka.


Ukraine’s deputy defense minister cautioned against buying into Russian claims, however.

“Russia has its own political processes, their own political groupings… which is why we must take their [claims] as political declarations aimed at a propagandistic effect and propagandistic goals for internal Russian consumption,” Anna Malyar told reporters on Thursday.


The warning was a timely one, as Russia’s Defense Ministry has begun to release snippets of footage of Ukrainian prisoners praising the conditions their captors are keeping them in.


Though Russia’s state-controlled media emphasized that one of the prisoners said conditions were “better than expected,” the handful of Ukrainians shown in one of the videos seemed clearly reluctant to be giving such glowing assessments.


In another video said to be shot at a medical facility in the occupied city of Olenivka, about a dozen Ukrainian prisoners were seen crowded in a room with bunk beds, some of them injured.


It wasn’t immediately clear which facility they were being held at, but Reuters cited witnesses to report on Tuesday that many prisoners were taken to a former prison colony.


Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Mariupol, said many ordinary Mariupol residents were also being held at the same site after being deemed “disloyal” to Russia.

“The situation there is fairly critical. The information we get from there is minimal. There are certain people who escaped from there. They are in terrible condition, telling [us] what went on there. It’s a real concentration camp: torture, [a chance to use] the toilet once a day, no walks,” Andryushchenko told Current Time.


The International Committee of the Red Cross, meanwhile, confirmed that it has registered “hundreds” of Ukrainian prisoners of war from Mariupol’s Azovstal plant.


The registration process “allows the ICRC to track those who have been captured and help them keep in touch with their families,” the organization said in a statement.


Since Ukraine confirmed Tuesday that hundreds of Ukrainian forces at Azovstal had surrendered after spending weeks under heavy Russian bombardment fighting to save Mariupol, fears have grown that they will be used as pawns in Moscow’s twisted efforts to sell the bogus narrative that the Russian invasion was launched to stop “Nazis.”


Immediately after reports broke of the Ukrainian troops falling into the hands of Russia’s military, Russian lawmakers proposed banning a prisoner exchange for the “Nazi criminals” and lifting a moratorium on the death penalty “to show the whole world that Ukrainian nationalists are worthy of only the maximum punishment.”


Perhaps even more alarming, there are signs the POWs could be used by the Kremlin as part of a demented campaign to pin Russia’s myriad alleged war crimes in Mariupol on Ukrainian forces.


Andryushchenko, the adviser to the Mariupol mayor, revealed on Telegram earlier this week that residents who stayed behind in the war-ravaged city had spoken of being offered financial compensation from Russian authorities in exchange for written declarations that the city was “destroyed by Ukrainian forces” and residents “killed by the Ukrainian army.”


Mariupol residents have also reportedly been offered payment—in rubles—for help clearing away dead bodies from the site of a theater bombing where an estimated 600 civilians were killed in a Russian airstrike in mid-March. On Thursday morning, locals took to Telegram to report that Russian authorities were still visible at the site packing the bodies up into trucks to be transported to an unknown location, presumably to hide evidence of Russian war crimes.

Russia Uses Ukraine’s Azovstal POWs in Demented New Propaganda Plot

[OhOh]

Ukraine can now win this battle with superior range and better artillery, thanks to NATO.

us army m777 has superior range to the russian guns. Not to mention the guided shells that are just fucking the Russians up rn.

If only they had the hardware.


Russian attack drones, artillery wipe out US-made M777 howitzers in Ukraine — top brass

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/.

Russian attack drones supported by artillery units eliminated a Ukrainian firing position of US-made 155mm M777 howitzers near the settlement of Podgornoye, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

"In the area of the settlement of Podgornoye, the Russian teams of unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery reconnaissance systems established the coordinates of a firing position of US-made 155mm M777 howitzers used by the Ukrainian military. The operators of unmanned aerial vehicles delivered a missile strike on the firing position of the battery of American howitzers, damaging several guns," the ministry said in a statement.

After the missile strikes by the Russian drones, the Ukrainian forces tried to hide in a forest and shelter the towed M777 howitzers there, the ministry said.

"As soon as the Ukrainian militants concentrated prime movers and guns in the forest, they came under an artillery strike. All the equipment and American howitzers were eliminated," the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The M777 is a 155mm field howitzer developed by the British defense firm BAE Systems. It can fire Excalibur guided shells and has an effective firing range of 40 km. The M777 howitzer is operational with the ground forces of the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine. The howitzer was first employed in combat during the war in Afghanistan.

https://tass.com/politics/1452683

Ukrainian forces use medical facilities to deploy combat positions — Defense Ministry

19 May, 03:46

A UAF stronghold has been deployed at the regional clinical hospital in Podolsk, Odessa Region, with armored vehicles and
artillery deployed nearby in large numbers, Mizintsev said

MOSCOW, Mya 18. /TASS/.

"Ukrainian Armed Forces use medical facilities to deploy their combat positions, Russian National Defense Control Center head Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said Wednesday.

"A UAF stronghold has been deployed at the regional clinical hospital in Podolsk, Odessa Region, with armored vehicles and artillery deployed nearby in large numbers. Firing positions have been deployed in buildings of regional children’s tuberculosis sanatorium on Sinitskogo Street and School number 2 on Lesi Ukrainki Street in Kamenets-Podolskiy, Kmelnitsky Region, with artillery and rocket systems deployed nearby. Meanwhile, the medical staff and residents of nearby buildings are being held captive as human shields," Mizintsev said.

According to his assessment, these and other similar cases of gross violation of international humanitarian law remain unnoticed by the international community and the "hypocritical Western human rights activists and politicians who strive not to notice the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists," despite Russia’s numerous statements.

Nearly 110 requests for evacuation to Russia, the Donetsk or Lugansk People’s Republics, or to Ukrainian areas controlled by the Russian Armed Forces, have come from Ukrainians and foreign nationals on a hotline of the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response, as well as government agencies and public organizations, in the past day, Mizintsev said.

"In the past 24 hours, the hotline of the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response, federal executive authorities, subjects of the Russian Federation and a wide range of public organizations have received 109 requests from foreigners and Ukrainian citizens, asking to evacuate them to Russia, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and those areas in the Zaporozhye, Nikolayev, Kharkov and Kherson Regions that are controlled by the Russian Armed Forces," said Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters in Ukraine.
To date, 2,756,034 applications from 2,135 populated localities of Ukraine are in the database, he said."

https://tass.com/defense/1452937

Another 771 Ukrainian militants surrender at Azovstal plant — Russian top brass

Overall, 1,730 militants, including 80 wounded servicemen, have surrendered since May 16," Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said

19 May, 16:00

MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/.

"Over 770 militants of Ukraine’s Azov nationalist battalion surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in the past 24 hours, with a total of 1,730 Ukrainian forces laying down their arms, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday.

"In the past 24 hours, 771 militants of the Azov nationalist battalion holed up in the Azovstal steel works surrendered. Overall, 1,730 militants, including 80 wounded servicemen, have surrendered since May 16," the spokesman said.

All the Ukrainian servicemen who need in-patient care are receiving medical assistance at health institutions in Novoazovsk and Donetsk, the general said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on May 17 that Ukrainian nationalists and forces sealed off at the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol had begun to surrender.

The battle of Mariupol lasted almost two months and ended in the victory of the Russian and Donetsk forces. On April 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on the complete liberation of Mariupol.

The head of state then handed down a directive calling off a looming assault on Azovstal as inexpedient and ordered that the industrial zone there be tightly sealed off so that even a fly "couldn’t get through." By that time, over 2,000 Ukrainian forces or about a third of the city’s initial garrison were holed up in Azovstal, according to the Russian Defense Ministry’s data."

https://tass.com/politics/1453109

[harrybarracuda]

More state propaganda.

i.e. more utter horseshit.

[OhOh]

Finland, Sweden have 'full' US backing in Nato bid - Biden

48 minutes ago

"President Joe Biden has said Sweden and Finland have the "full, total, complete backing" of the US in their historic decision to apply for Nato membership.

Both countries submitted their applications this week to be part of the defence alliance, a drastic shift in European geopolitics.

The move by the two Nordic nations has been opposed by Nato ally Turkey"

Finland, Sweden have '''full''' US backing in Nato bid - Biden - BBC News

Only Turkey opposed? Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria ....



Not sure if NaGastan can utilise the full NATO backed commitment ?

NaGastan may have the two applicants back, who needs any more than a NaGastan promise or two.

They always deliver.

Well, sometimes they cut and run from their Embassy roofs, other times in the middle of the night .... But we don't talk about those.

[bsnub]

More state propaganda.

It really is utterly laughable that these lemmings have to turn to fake news propaganda to push their phony narrative.

Sad clowns.

[Backspin]

Maybe I'll get into the brOSINT autism game too.

Russia captures 4 settlements

[bsnub]