Ukraine war mega thread

[David48atTD]

I enjoyed this clip, not for the bla bla, but for the footage I've not seen elsewhere of Ukraine blowing up Russian assets.

Sweet

[bsnub]

Terror-stricken Russians anticipate the delivery of foreign arms to the Armed Forces of Ukraine - conversation intercepted by the Security Service of Ukraine


The Security Service of Ukraine has published another intercepted conversation between Russian soldiers. In that conversation, the aggressors express their envy that Ukrainians have Bayraktars (medium-altitude long-range unmanned combat aerial vehicles), and they are terror-stricken at the prospect of the delivery of foreign weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Source: Security Service of Ukraine on Telegram

Quote from a Russian soldier fighting in Zaporizhzhia: "I wish we had the f*cking drones, like their Bayraktars. The situation would be f*cking awesome. They [Bayraktars] don’t work in the daytime, they work at night. The birds take off, get our coordinates and we’re f*cked."

Details: He [the Russian soldier] himself ridicules talk about Russia’s "glory", since Russia "itself stirred up this special operation" but didn’t arm its soldiers properly. At present, according to the aggressor, they [Russian soldiers] are forced to beg for everything from their sponsors - farmers and children collect money for quadcopters (drones with four rotors) for Russian soldiers.

The invaders are also following with alarm news of new deliveries of foreign weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They are particularly frightened by reports that "the Poles have delivered 2,000 - or 200 - tanks to Ukraine."

The Security Service of Ukraine has pointed out that Ukraine has news of "new guns and lend-lease", so that the aggressors will have "a lot of discoveries - not only in the news but also on the battlefield."

Terror-stricken Russians anticipate the delivery of foreign arms to the Armed Forces of Ukraine - conversation intercepted by the Security Service of Ukraine

[bsnub]

Good vid about the pontoon bridge the Ukrainians destroyed. Russians lost an entire battalion there. Massive losses. This vid shows why it was such a slaughter...

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[David48atTD]

The special forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are hunting for a Russian T-80 tank in the Kharkiv region

[David48atTD]

Sicheslav brigade destroys BMP and "lost" occupiers

[misskit]

Russia Says 1,000 Azovstal Defenders Have Surrendered This Week


Russia said Wednesday that another 694 Ukrainian soldiers defending Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have surrendered over the past 24 hours as Kyiv's effort to retain its last holdout in the devastated southern port comes to a close.


They join the 265 soldiers that Russia’s Defense Ministry said had surrendered earlier, bringing the total to 959 in 48 hours.

The second group of Azovstal defenders includes 29 wounded, joining the 51 seriously wounded soldiers who were part of the first evacuation.


The fate of the Ukrainian soldiers remains unclear, with high-ranking officials in Moscow deploying increasingly violent rhetoric despite the Kremlin’s promise to treat them “in accordance with international standards.”


Ukraine has not acknowledged the soldiers' surrender and says they will be swapped for Russian prisoners of war at a later date.


But Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, ordered lawmakers Tuesday to draft a standing order prohibiting the exchange of Azovstal troops for Russian prisoners of war.


Senior lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, who chairs the Duma’s International Relations Committee, called for an exception to the death penalty moratorium to execute the troops, who he called “Nazi beasts.”


Russia’s Justice Ministry petitioned the Supreme Court to declare the Azov regiment — which originated as a far-right unit in 2014 and was mostly stationed in Mariupol at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine — a terrorist organization, opening up the possibility of prosecuting the evacuated fighters.


Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it plans to interrogate the surrendered soldiers without indicating whether they would be treated as suspects.


“Russian investigators will identify the nationalists, check their involvement in crimes against civilians and compare the obtained information with other available data in criminal case files,” it said Tuesday.


The leader of the Moscow-backed separatist Donetsk People’s Republic said later Wednesday that the fate of those soldiers would be determined by a court, Reuters reported, citing local media.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday evening that “influential mediators” were involved in what Kyiv calls an evacuation of the soldiers.


Ukraine’s military effectively ceded control of Mariupol to Russia with an announcement Tuesday that the mission to defend Azovstal was over.


An undisclosed number of troops still remains inside the sprawling steel factory.


Mariupol, a key land corridor between annexed Crimea and mainland Russia, has suffered some of the war’s most brutal shelling since its encirclement in the early days of Russia’s invasion.


Russia Says 1,000 Azovstal Defenders Have Surrendered This Week - The Moscow Times

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[bsnub]

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

[sabang]

Truly the TikTok war.

[Backspin]

Thanks NATO for supplying $40,000 garbage cans

[Backspin]

MORE UKRAINIAN SQUIRRELS FOR THE DESPERATE WEST TO CHASE

The surrender of the remaining Ukrainian forces hiding in the bowels of the Avostal steel plant in Mariupol is just another brick in the wall of the sepulcher Russia is constructing for the Ukraine military and the Ukrainian Nazis (don’t forget Putin’s objectives–de-militarize and de-nazify). And what is Ukraine’s response? Pretend this is not happening. Nope, they are pushing the nonsense that this is an orderly withdrawal and a great victory. Looks like Ukraine has taken Baghdad Bob’s course on how to polish a turd (note–you cannot polish feces). In addition, Ukraine embarked on repackaged propaganda memes to try to distract the world’s attention from the havoc Russia is raining down on the Ukrainian army and its weapons depots.



In an interview with Sky News which aired Saturday, Ukrainian Gen. Kyrylo Budanov touted the success of Ukrainian defenses against Russian invasion forces and predicted the war would reach a major turning point by August and be over by the end of the year. Budanov also said Putin is seriously ill with cancer and a coup to oust him from power is already moving forward.

Ukraine cannot endure anymore “successful” defensive stands like Mariupol or Popasnaya. The Ukrainian psyop keeps tossing jello at the media wall hoping something will stick. Is it cancer or Parkinson? Perhaps early Alzheimers. Ukrainian General Budanov is whistling past the flaming crematorium. Indulging a desperate fantasy that does not change the reality on the ground and in the air–Russian troops are methodically eliminating Ukrainian defensive positions in the Donbass and poised to encircle as many as 15,000 Ukrainian fighters in the vicinity of Severodonetsk.

More Ukrainian Squirrels for the Desperate West to Chase

[Backspin]

From MOD

-A total of 959 militants have surrendered since 16 May, including 80 wounded, of whom 51 need hospital treatment have been admitted to Novoazovsk hospital in the Donetsk People's Republic.

[Troy]

^^^ That "garbage can" has proved to be a pretty effective short range weapon against armour. It's also about 10 times cheaper than it's bigger cousin, the Javelin.

Russians are still in the burn & learn stage of countering them.

[David48atTD]

‘The whole world is against us’: Russian military analyst gives damning assessment of Ukraine war on state TV

Key Points

• In a country where independent media and commentary has all but disappeared, it’s become unusual to hear dissenting voices on the many state-controlled TV networks in Russia.
• Voices critical of the Kremlin or the invasion have been rare as the country is at war with Ukraine.
• But one well-known military analyst and veteran has stood out this week after he appeared on state TV and gave a damning assessment of the invasion, or what Russia calls a “special military operation.”

“The situation, frankly speaking, will get worse for us,” Mikhail Khodaryonok, a retired Russian army colonel, told the “60 Minutes” talk show on Rossiya-1 TV program hosted by Olga Skabeyeva, who’s renowned for her pro-Kremlin stance.

“You should not swallow informational tranquilizers,” Khodaryonok told the host as he warned that Ukraine was in no way near being beaten by Russia, and that Kyiv could mobilize and arm a million men if it wanted to.

Khodaryonok, who is also a defense columnist for the gazeta.ru newspaper and a graduate of one of Russia’s elite military academies, according to Reuters, had previously warned Russia against invading its neighbor Ukraine, saying it was not in Russia’s national interests.

Russia military veteran Khodaryonok in damning assessment of Ukraine war

[Backspin]

Well done
❗Zakharova said that Russia's response to Finland's decision to join NATO will be a surprise, and the measures will be military.

[sabang]

Finland and Sweden may join Nato – but even they can’t guarantee that will make them safer



To an unusual degree, the national identities of Sweden and Finland are bound up with their foreign policy: Swedes identify with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality, whereas Finns point to their talent for realpolitik, making the best of their volatile geography, which includes an 830-mile border with Russia. As both countries now formally submit their applications to join the North Atlantic alliance, each of them will forgo this deviation from the European norm. Finland in particular now seems poised to adopt a more standard-issue foreign policy. But at what price?

Since the end of the second world war, Finland’s political elite has nimbly navigated between Russian and western power. In a tight spot, the Finns played their hand with exceptional skill. In the postwar decades, Finland went from being the poorest state in Europe in 1945 to the economic level of the rest of western Europe – and maintained a much more equal society. Now, Finland is abandoning this careful strategy of tacking between two zones of power for a wholesale embrace of the west, as the country hurtles into the Nato alliance.

On the Finnish right, commentators speak of the country finally clinching its identity as a “western” nation with its entry into Nato. Among Finnish liberals, there is talk of improving and reforming the alliance from within, making it less hawkish, with the help of Sweden. In general, there is the sense that a country whose leaders have long had their finger on the pulse of the Kremlin has lost touch. “There used to be the sense: we know these people; they know us,” the Finnish thinker and legal theorist Martti Koskenniemi told me. “But you can’t negotiate with a power that no longer knows where its interests lie. And if the power is more powerful than you are – and becomes in a sense crazy – then membership in Nato becomes reasonable.”

Whether Finland and Sweden will actually be safer in Nato is another question. Their declarations have only drawn a mild rebuke from the Kremlin, which has warned against a military buildup in both countries. Vladimir Putin’s regime has never suggested the possibility of hostilities against either country, with which it has consistently enjoyed cordial relations. Memories of past Russian-Finnish military confrontations suggest that anyone thinking about an incursion into Finland should consider medical treatment (Finland has historically been able to mobilise vast swathes of its population; the country also produces its own version of the AK-47, and its elaborate bunker system may make even nuclear weapons less effective against it).

One sensitive point in the Finland-Nato question is that Russians make up the largest minority in Finland. Their main representative organisation has made it clear that it can resolve any of its political issues through the procedures of Finnish politics. But some Finnish officials fear Putin could still use Russian grievances inside Finland as a pretext for hostilities. Perhaps an even more salient pretext is Finland is virtually a member of Nato already. Since 1996, Finland has participated in joint Nato exercises in the Baltic states and Nato missions in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Some Finnish politicians now believe that if they are already de facto members they might as well get into Nato proper before it is too late. Putin could, they argue, use Finland’s quasi-Nato status as a reason to stop real membership from happening.

By joining Nato, Finland appears to be giving up an unusual confidence in its own ability to conduct realpolitik. Finland’s peculiarly delicate foreign policy – balanced between Russia and western Europe – typically goes by the name “Finlandization”. Finlandization was a West German invention, forged by the cold war liberals Walter Hallstein and Richard Lowenthal, who fashioned it as a conceptual bludgeon against Chancellor Willy Brandt’s “Ostpolitik” in the 1960s. They feared that Brandt’s attempts to open West Germany to more negotiation with the east risked making West Germany into a zone of semi-Soviet influence. Finlandization, in this sense, was almost always a pejorative that implied subservience to a greater power.

But it is a pejorative that most Finns do not recognise in their history. In practice, the country benefited from its good relations with the Kremlin and with Europe. “Moscow went so far as to make Finland into an example of what friendly relations with the Soviet Union could bring,” the Finnish sociologist Juho Korhonen told me.

In the 1950s, Moscow made a point of sending oil to a Finnish oil refinery and buying back the finished product. “The country’s cold war foreign policy can be usefully thought of as a tango,” says Koskenniemi. “It was two steps forward, one step back.” Meanwhile, Helsinki’s warm relations with western Europe made it increasingly attractive for investment.

With Finland now on the verge of joining Nato, the memory of Finlandization risks being retrofitted into its history as a kind of stumbling detour before the country’s foreordained entry into the west. But this would be a pity for the future shape of Europe. It is not that other countries can pursue a policy of Finlandization; suggestions for the “Finlandization” of Ukraine or Georgia do not quite make sense, since neither are in the position to reap the same advantages. But when Finland’s type of aloof posture becomes unsustainable, when there are no longer any zones of ambiguity in Europe, when the continent becomes a more Manichean space, awash with symbolic politics where more extreme measures are required to prove bona fides, then peace is ever more imperilled.

Few Finnish elites seem to think they will be manifestly safer in Nato, and no one is fooled about the sacredness of Nato’s article 5. “Nato’s defence of its members is an open-ended negotiation process,” Koskenniemi freely admits. He sees Finland’s entry into Nato operating at the level of appearances. “It’s not that we were very insecure yesterday, and will be very secure in Nato tomorrow,” he says. “It’s that this is a negotiation with a country that can no longer negotiate, and so Nato membership helps clarify our position to them.” But Koskenniemi is fully aware that with Nato membership, another striking feature Finland once exhibited to the world will recede. The very possibility of a state going its own way in Europe now seems slightly more distant.

• Thomas Meaney is a fellow at the Max Planck Society in Göttingen
  
  Finland and Sweden may join Nato – but even they can’t guarantee that will make them safer (msn.com)

Sweden wants to join, but has said it will accept no Nato bases or nukes. It will probably hurt Finland economically in it's 'special' trading relationship with Russia- plus it has a sizable Russian minority. Turkey, so far, is vetoing their application- until/unless they declare some Kurdish groups terrorist. Russia's response is a big "M'ehh". Mine too.

[Backspin]

[bsnub]

Thanks NATO for supplying $40,000 garbage cans

Every one of those empty means a dead Russian tank or apc.

MORE UKRAINIAN SQUIRRELS FOR THE DESPERATE WEST TO CHASE

More crap from the fake news site. You lemmings are desperate.

The Three Stooges world is falling apart.

[sabang]

[bsnub]

Hypocrite. You are far more of an apologist cheerleader than I am. You are so desperate to paint Putin in a positive light that you post fake news and outright falsehoods.

[sabang]

"2/4/6/8- Who do we appreciate!"

[pickel]

^
Bit childish for the news thread, innit?

[sabang]

Yes. Channeling my inner snubby.