Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

KYIV, Ukraine — Makeshift roadblocks have been installed throughout this capital to impede the movements of Russian troops snaking toward the city in a convoy about 15 miles away.

On some strategic thruways, Ukrainians have parked trams and buses to restrict driving access. Checkpoints to inspect IDs have also been established to root out would-be saboteurs. “We have a lot of presents” for the Russians, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an interview. “It’s not sweet. It’s very painful.”


The extended 40-mile parade of Russian armored vehicles, tanks and towed artillery headed from the north on a path toward Kyiv has both alarmed and befuddled watchers of this expanding war. It’s not just its sheer size. It’s also because for days, it has not appreciably been moving.


U.S. officials attribute the apparent stall in part to logistical failures on the Russian side, including food and fuel shortages, that have slowed Moscow’s advance through various parts of the country. They have also credited Ukrainian efforts to attack selected parts of the convoy with contributing to its slowdown. Still, officials warn that the Russians could regroup at any moment and continue to press forward.

In Kyiv, the approaching convoy has mustered much more inspiration than fear, motivating residents to exact revenge on the Russian invasion in any way they can.


“The target in Ukraine is not secret. The target is the capital of Ukraine,” Klitschko said.


Russian troop movements from the north pose a risk, he acknowledged. “And we prepare to give the answer,” he said.


In northern Kyiv, soldiers and volunteers have dug trenches and set up positions and equipment — including an antiaircraft gun — to prepare for the potential arrival of Russian troops in the capital. Nearly every business in the city, except for certain grocery stores, gas stations and pharmacies, has closed. With schools and offices shuttered, residents have largely either fled or joined the resistance.


While U.S. officials say the convoy is designed to replenish and re-equip Russian forces, they acknowledge it is still possible that certain elements could be intended to help the attack.


“Our assessment is that it’s largely meant for resupply — but I can’t rule out that there aren’t combat vehicles,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday. “We can’t even say that it’s all one convoy and not several.”


Still, the convoy’s progress — or lack thereof — continues to capture popular fascination, thanks to a steady stream of satellite images and video recorded and disseminated by Maxar Technologies, a space technology and intelligence company.


The images have put the business of tracking Russian supply lines, normally the occupation of secretive government agencies, into the public sphere, making them staples of TV news broadcasts and inspiring armchair generals around the world to offer their advice on how to attack the column. The massive lineup of military vehicles — sometimes positioned two or three side by side on the road, sometimes spaced by several yards — appears both formidable and foreboding.

While fuel and ammunition transport vehicles tend to stick out, they can be camouflaged, said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at CNA and an expert on the Russian military.


The British defense ministry supports U.S. officials’ assessment that Russia is trying to correct course to overcome logistical challenges, but the move also provides more potential targets for Ukrainians trying to handicap the Russian war effort.


Fuel trucks are exactly the sort of “soft targets” that the Ukrainians should be aiming to attack as they attempt to undermine the more sizable and powerful Russian army’s ability to fight, according to Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), an Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and visited Ukraine in recent weeks.


“You don’t hit the combat units. You don’t hit the tanks. You hit the fuel trucks, the ammunition trucks,” Crow said. “You cut off their supplies, and you also try to strike terror into the minds of the enemy.”


The sight of the stretch of Russian vehicles appears to be helping bolster public opinion toward providing more military aid. Government officials, once reluctant to escalate involvement in the conflict, are now talking about providing aircraft and additional munitions to help Ukraine resist the ongoing invasion.


“I call that 40-mile convoy, by the way, the biggest, fattest target in Ukraine,” retired Navy admiral James Stavridis, who previously led NATO forces as the supreme allied commander Europe, said on MSNBC. Put certain fighter jets “in the hands of the Ukrainians,” he added, “and watch that thing blow up.”


The question of whether to equip Ukraine with enhanced air power has gripped NATO allies over the last week, after an initial plan for European nations to send fighter jets to Ukraine formed but then appeared to fall apart, under Russian threats to mete out “consequences” for countries materially assisting the Ukrainian resistance.


Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made impassioned appeals to world leaders and directly to members of Congress for planes and drones to hold off the Russian advance. Now, there are potential plans under discussion in which the United States could help facilitate Poland sending MiG-29 planes to Ukraine by backfilling the Polish fleet.


On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was “very, very actively” working toward such a plan.


That stands in contrast to the administration’s demonstrated resistance to calls for establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would almost certainly require direct engagement with Russian air forces. President Biden has repeatedly stated that no U.S. troops would be deployed to Ukraine.


U.S. officials have similarly ignored calls from lawmakers to supply attack aircraft to Ukraine directly. A push to send Ukraine, A-10 Warthogs, for example, has gone nowhere, in part because most Ukrainian military pilots are not trained on them.


The country’s forces are more familiar with how to operate, maintain and repair the Soviet-era MiG fighters potentially on offer from Poland, to give them more muscle as they battle the Russians for control of the airspace over key spots, like the convoy.


“More than likely, Russian forces have local air superiority, so it’s doubtful Ukrainian forces have good opportunity to strike,” Kofman said of Kyiv’s current posture. Given that imbalance, he added, “the Ukrainians’ best chance” of damaging the convoy at this point “is with drones.”


Ukraine has had some success striking Russia targets with Bayraktar TB2 drones, which were purchased from Turkey. Last week, Ukraine’s defense minister said in a Facebook post that additional Bayraktar drones had just arrived in the country, but it is unclear how many more drones Kyiv had bought.


Tony Radakin, the head of the United Kingdom’s armed forces, said during an interview with the BBC on Sunday that the Ukrainian attacks on the convoy are “impacting on morale” among Russian troops. Some of those troops are camping out in the nearby forest, Radakin added, for fear of staying in convoy vehicles that might be struck.


It remains to be seen whether Ukraine will be able to cause enough damage to the convoy and other Russian supply lines to hold back the Russian advance — and whether their efforts will be fast enough to change the course of the fight.


As the Russian ground advance hits snags, its efforts to bombard Ukrainian cities appear to be intensifying. In recent days, Russia has been “increasing its use of long-range firepower to supplement or to make up for the lack of ground movement,” a senior defense official said Monday, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms established by the Pentagon. Civilians are also being hit as they attempt to flee, the official added.


The U.N. high commissioner for refugees estimated Sunday that more than 1.5 million people living in Ukraine have fled since the Russian invasion began, making it “the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.”


Despite the courage and motivation to fight the incoming convoy, Kyiv residents have also watched in desperation the shelling and cutoff escape routes in cities elsewhere.


Although residents are gearing up for the approaching convoy, they know they soon might not have the chance to get out as more roads are overtaken by the Russians. On Monday evening, the central train station in Kyiv was packed with families escaping the capital, many carrying their dogs and cats as they crammed into crowded trains headed west.

MSN

Putin Lost the Digital War Abroad. Will He Lose at Home?

Its diplomatic efforts in tatters, its agencies beset by cyber vigilantes, the Russian government is still choking off the information that fuels its homegrown protest movement.


The Kremlin's vaunted influence operators failed to defuse the nearly universal condemnation of its war on Ukraine, which has led tech companies to turn their backs on the country and provoked digital vigilantes into action against Russian targets. But Vladimir Putin’s accelerating efforts to control information within his own country—and keep his own populace from turning against him—may yet prove successful.


The failure of the external influence effort could perhaps be seen most starkly at the United Nations, where 141 countries voted to condemn the attack and a committee overwhelmingly approved an investigation into alleged Russian human-rights violations in Ukraine. Moscow’s messaging has proven no match for the flow of images and video clips showing the brutal war in Ukraine, said David Kaye, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the freedom of expression.


“Simply the…very images that we're getting from Ukraine, the…social media and communications effort that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy has been undertaking, I think all of those things kind of play into making it easier for diplomats to isolate Russia.”


Emerson T. Brooking, a co-author of Like War, concurred.


“Russia was part of the G8 less than a decade ago. It's been rendered a pariah state in the course of a week. And I think that's due tremendously to the public pressure that Ukrainians were able to exert and the fact that this conflict was playing out on everyone’s smartphone,” Brooking said during an Atlantic Council Digital Forensics Lab event.


The failure is in stark contrast to past hybrid-war campaigns in which Russia has skillfully used information tactics to stave off effective global pushback—for example, when seizing Crimea or pushing into eastern Ukraine eight years ago.


“They pioneered obfuscation of forces, psychological dislocation, mass disinformation campaigns, and repeated denials, which, in 2014—it really frustrated a rapid international response to their actions,” Brooking said. “They didn’t use that playbook this time” because the size of the operation, and the months-long build-up on the Ukrainian border it required, made that impossible, he said.

“There's no way to obscure the fight in the gray zone when you're launching a conventional invasion involving 190,000 soldiers.”


That failure is largely due to U.S. efforts to highlight Russian false-flag operations before they occurred and rally a strong, unified response. But the Russians did themselves no favors in how clumsily they attempted to persuade audiences that Ukrainian forces were committing atrocities in in the Russian-occupied portion of the Donbas, said Nika Aleksejeva, a lead researcher for the Baltics at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.


“It was more like theatrics, like really staged footage or quite poorly edited footage,” she said. Examples include videos that purported to show Ukrainians shelling Donetsk (using obviously timed explosions) and injured civilians (using an amputee actor who had not even bothered to fully remove his prosthetic).


Russia is still pushing messages on social media via bot networks. “We’ve seen reports of some apps being blocked in Russia or taken out to the app stores, but plenty of pro-Russia content continues to be generated,” said McDaniel Wicker, a vice president for strategy at the firm BabelStreet. But those messages simply don’t seem to be landing effectively.


Now the Russian government is losing the ability to influence audiences abroad via its established propaganda channels Sputnik and RT, both of which are now banned in the European Union. The U.S. arm of RT has also shuttered its doors.


Nor is Russia using cyber operations to much effect, outside of a few denial-of-service attacks against Ukraine.


There are several reasons for that, said Liran Tancman, who helped found Israel’s Cyber Command and now leads the Rezilion cybersecurity firm. First, the tools a nation-state might use to steal information from a network are very different from the ones that could destroy it.


“There is always an inherent tension between using cybersecurity for intelligence versus using cybersecurity for attacks,” Tancman said.


That’s one reason why Russia is shooting at television towers rather than attempt to take down media electronically.


Nor would cyberthievery do much good. Though there have been some reports of Russia using credential information possibly stolen from Ukrainian targets to steal data from other governmental targets across Europe, there’s no equivalent to the Russia-backed theft of Democratic Party emails that were used to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential run..


The failure of the external influence operation can also be seen in the way cyber vigilantes have begun acting against Russian agencies and organizations. The Hactivist collective Anonymous has targeted Russian television and other government sites. Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister for Innovation has put together an “IT army” to find vulnerabilities in Russian government and television networks. And new vigilante groups are gathering volunteerss to attack yet other targets.As the world watches Russian artillery shell civilian buildings across Ukraine, it’s a safe bet their numbers will grow.


Russia’s pariah status will undermine its cybersecurity in ways its leaders probably did not expect. Microsoft’s Friday decision to suspend sales in the country means that the many Russian businesses and institutions that use its software won’t be able to buy new versions, leaving them increasingly vulnerable as flaws are inevitably discovered.


The influence war at home


Protests continue to flare across Russia, but government efforts to reduce the flow of information into and around the country may sap dissident communities of vital fuel.


The government has been choking off social media, first slowing down access to Twitter and Facebook and, as of Friday, simply blocking the latter entirely. Meanwhile, it has been turning up its own propaganda efforts, especially on television.


“There are reports [that] if you check programming of Kremlin-owned TV channels, the air times for propaganda talk shows was increased,” said Aleksejeva of the Digital Forensic Research Lab.


She said much of the faked footage purporting to show Ukrainian atrocities was likely aimed at domestic audiences.


“I think it was more intended to generate headlines for…Kremlin-owned media, to basically create this alertness in the news cycle and convince internal audiences, because the international audience was clearly unconvinced,” Aleksejeva said.


This may be worsening the generation gap in Russian perceptions of the war, because older people are more likely to get their information from television, she said.


The Russian government is also increasing the punishment for speaking out, passing a law on Friday that prescribes up to 15 years in prison for spreading “fake information” about the military or the war in Ukraine.


Kaye and Aleksejeva worry that Western efforts to shut down Russian outlets in their own countries, which has in some cases prompted Moscow’s counter-reaction, are also reducing the ability of dissidents within Russia to gather information and recruit others to their cause.


As well, Kaye said, “There has been a push by some in the Ukrainian government to…say to the companies, ‘Don't allow access to those tools in Russia.’ I think that it was a serious miscalculation...It's just politically sort of counterproductive because you want to make sure that people who support your perspective, or who might support your perspective, have access to information about what's actually happening.”


Even Aleksejeva, who said she favors a ban on RT and other propaganda channels in Europe, said banning Facebook and other sites make it harder to get information from abroad.


“So if people are lazy, if they just stick with their habit of just watching TV and sourcing their understanding from there, then it's quite bad,” she said.


Putin Lost the Digital War Abroad. Will He Lose at Home? - Defense One

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says Open to ‘Compromise’ with Russia on Crimea, Separatist Territories

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed willingness to discuss Russia’s demands for Kyiv to recognize annexed Crimea and the breakaway pro-Moscow territories in an interview with ABC News published Tuesday.


“I think that items regarding temporarily occupied territories and pseudo-republics not recognized by anyone but Russia, we can discuss and find a compromise on how these territories will live on,” Zelenskiy said.

The Kremlin said Monday that it was ready to stop its deadly military campaign “in a moment” if Ukraine met its demands to recognize Crimea as a Russian region and the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent republics.

“What’s important to me is how the people in those territories who want to be part of Ukraine are going to live,” Zelenskiy told ABC News.


But he refused to give in to ultimatums which Russia’s negotiating team has put forward in three rounds of dialogue that have so far failed to achieve a ceasefire.


“The question is more difficult than simply acknowledging them. This is another ultimatum and we’re not prepared for ultimatums,” Zelensky said.


“I’m ready for dialogue, we’re not ready for capitulation.”


The Kremlin also said Monday that it wants Kyiv to cease military action and enshrine neutrality in its constitution, a proposal that Zelenskiy also appeared open to.


“I have cooled over the issue a long time ago after we understood that NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.


The Ukrainian leader reiterated his calls for Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a ceasefire with him directly, calls the Kremlin has so far rejected.


“What needs to be done is for President Putin to start talking, start dialogue instead of living in an information bubble without oxygen.”


Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says Open to ‘Compromise’ with Russia on Crimea, Separatist Territories - The Moscow Times

Ukraine Says Russia Violating Mariupol Evacuation Corridor

Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russia of violating a humanitarian corridor aimed at enabling civilians to leave the beleaguered southern port city of Mariupol.


"The enemy has launched an attack heading exactly at the humanitarian corridor," the defense ministry said on Facebook, adding the Russian army "did not let children, women and elderly people leave the city.”

"Such actions are nothing other than a genocide," it added.

Late Monday, Russia named Mariupol as one of four cities where evacuation corridors would be opened.


"Ceasefire violated!" tweeted Ukraine's foreign ministry.


"Russian forces are now shelling the humanitarian corridor from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol. 8 trucks + 30 buses ready to deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol and to (evacuate) civilians to Zaporizhzhia," it added.

Kyiv said it had carried out de-mining activities along the 250-kilometer (150-mile) route to Zaporizhzhia in the northwest to allow the evacuation of the roughly 450,000 people living in Mariupol.


The city has been under siege by the Russian army for several days.


It is a key strategic location due to its proximity to the Russia-controlled Crimean peninsula and the Donbas region where Russian separatists are based.


Attempted evacuations involving some 300,000 civilians from Mariupol have failed on several occasions in recent days, with both Kyiv and Moscow blaming the other side for the failures.


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there had been "guarantees" on evacuating Mariupol civilians but that these "did not work."

Ukraine Says Russia Violating Mariupol Evacuation Corridor - The Moscow Times

An atomic physics lab in Ukraine under international safeguards has been destroyed by Russian troops advancing to capture Kyiv, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

Officials from the global nuclear watchdog said that a neutron generator at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology was destructed in an attack on Sunday.

One of Ukraine’s key labs, it was used in research and to provide medical isotopes for health care works.

“The facility in north-eastern Ukraine is used for research and development and radioisotope production. Because the nuclear material in the facility is always subcritical and the inventory of radioactive material is very low, the IAEA’s assessment confirmed that the damage reported to it would not have had any radiological consequence,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of IAEA, said in a statement.

Stating that “we cannot go on like this”, Mr Grossi said he was ready to meet Ukrainian and Russian officials at a location of their preference over the stand-off to secure the safety of atomic sites as the Moscow-ordered invasion continues for the 13th straight day.

“We have already had several episodes compromising safety at Ukraine’s nuclear sites,” the director general said, adding that the physical integrity, communication channels and supply chains of the facilities need to be guaranteed.

Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s atomic physics lab, IAEA says (msn.com)

Moscow explains how it’ll do business with firms from ‘unfriendly states’

The Ministry of Finance has set up a special subcommittee to control foreign investment

Russian companies wishing to work with firms from countries which oppose Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine will have to receive government permission for the deals, the press service of Russia’s Ministry of Finance said on Monday. Permission will be granted by the Government Commission for the Control of Foreign Investments. It includes representatives from Russia’s Central Bank (Bank of Russia) and the presidential administration.

According to the resolution establishing the procedure, which was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, a Russian resident company or foreign company from an “unfriendly state” must apply for permission for any business deal.

“[The application] should contain comprehensive information about the applicant, including information on the beneficial owners of the company. Based on the analysis of the documents received and the nature of the future agreement, a decision will be made to approve or refuse to implement it,” the press service said, stressing that “the main goal of this work is to ensure the country’s financial stability in the face of external sanctions pressure.”

READ MORE: Russian companies are now allowed to pay foreign creditors in rubles

The government on Monday also unveiled an updated list of countries which have been deemed “unfriendly states” for their positions on the Ukraine conflict. It includes the United States and Canada, the countries of the EU bloc, the UK (including Jersey, Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, and Gibraltar), Ukraine, Montenegro, Switzerland, Albania, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, North Macedonia, and also Japan, South Korea, Australia, Micronesia, New Zealand, Singapore, and China’s self-ruled territory of Taiwan.

The countries and territories were added to the list after they imposed or joined the sanctions against Russia in connection with the ongoing military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.

According to the government decree, Russian citizens and companies, the state itself and its regions and municipalities will now also have to pay for obligations to foreign creditors from countries on the list in rubles. The new temporary procedure applies to payments exceeding 10 million rubles per month, or a corresponding amount in foreign currency.

READ MORE: Bank of Russia resumes gold buying amid sanctions

The measures have been introduced by Moscow to support the Russian economy after Western states placed Russia under heavy sanctions over the past 10 days. A number of Russia’s largest banks have been cut off from SWIFT and had their foreign assets frozen, restrictions were placed on certain Russian imports, and a growing number of companies from all sectors have been shutting down operations in the country.

Moscow explains how it’ll do business with firms from ‘unfriendly states’ — RT Business News

Originally Posted by David48atTD

Mate, it's the News thread, not an opinion thread.

Originally Posted by panama hat

Untermensch? Nah, more like armseliger hirntoter möchtegern-wichser.

So..hows it going, David

Please click on the link below:

See Photos on the Ground in Ukraine - The New York Times



Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario - The New York Times

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNRzDizV...pg&name=medium

As Russia’s Military Stumbles, Its Adversaries Take Note

CONSTANTA, Romania — When it comes to war, generals say that “mass matters.”


But nearly two weeks into President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — Europe’s largest land war since 1945 — the image of a Russian military as one that other countries should fear, let alone emulate, has been shattered.


Ukraine’s military, which is dwarfed by the Russian force in most ways, has somehow managed to stymie its opponent. Ukrainian soldiers have killed more than 3,000 Russian troops, according to conservative estimates by American officials.


Ukraine has shot down military transport planes carrying Russian paratroopers, downed helicopters and blown holes in Russia’s convoys using American anti-tank missiles and armed drones supplied by Turkey, these officials said, citing confidential U.S. intelligence assessments.


The Russian soldiers have been plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages. Some troops have crossed the border with MREs (meals ready to eat) that expired in 2002, U.S. and other Western officials said, and others have surrendered and sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting.


To be sure, most military experts say that Russia will eventually subdue Ukraine’s army. Russia’s military, at 900,000 active duty troops and two million reservists, is eight times the size of Ukraine’s. Russia has advanced fighter planes, a formidable navy and marines capable of multiple amphibious landings, as they proved early in the invasion when they launched from the Black Sea and headed toward the city of Mariupol.


And the Western governments that have spoken openly about Russia’s military failings are eager to spread the word to help damage Russian morale and bolster the Ukrainians.

But with each day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky holds out, the scenes of a frustrated Russia pounding, but not managing to finish off, a smaller opponent dominate screens around the world.


The result: Militaries in Europe that once feared Russia say they are not as intimidated by Russian ground forces as they were in the past.


That Russia has so quickly abandoned surgical strikes, instead killing civilians trying to flee, could damage Mr. Putin’s chances of winning a long-term war in Ukraine. The brutal tactics may eventually overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses, but they will almost certainly fuel a bloody insurgency that could bog down Russia for years, military analysts say. Most of all, Russia has exposed to its European neighbors and American rivals gaps in its military strategy that can be exploited in future battles.


“Today what I have seen is that even this huge army or military is not so huge,” said Lt. Gen. Martin Herem, Estonia’s chief of defense, during a news conference at an air base in northern Estonia with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Herem’s colleague and the air force chief, Brig. Gen. Rauno Sirk, in an interview with a local newspaper, was even more blunt in his assessment of the Russian air force. “If you look at what’s on the other side, you’ll see that there isn’t really an opponent anymore,” he said.


Many of the more than 150,000 largely conscripted troops that Moscow has deployed across Ukraine have been bogged down north of Kyiv, the capital. The northeastern city of Kharkiv was expected to fall within hours of the invasion; it is battered by an onslaught of rocket fire and shelling, but still standing.


Every day, Pentagon officials caution that Russia’s military will soon correct its mistakes, perhaps shutting off communications across the country, cutting off Mr. Zelensky from his commanders. Or Russia could try to shut down Ukraine’s banking system, or parts of the power grid, to increase pressure on the civilian population to capitulate.


Even if they don’t, the officials say a frustrated Mr. Putin has the firepower to simply reduce Ukraine to rubble — although he would be destroying the very prize he wants. The use of that kind of force would expose not only the miscalculations the Kremlin made in launching a complex, three-sided invasion but also the limits of Russia’s military upgrades.


“The Kremlin spent the last 20 years trying to modernize its military,” said Andrei V. Kozyrev, the foreign minister for Russia under Boris Yeltsin, in a post on Twitter. “Much of that budget was stolen and spent on mega-yachts in Cyprus. But as a military advisor you cannot report that to the President. So they reported lies to him instead. Potemkin military.”


During a trip through the Eastern European countries that fear they could next face Mr. Putin’s military, General Milley has consistently been asked the same questions. Why have the Russians performed so poorly in the early days of the war? Why did they so badly misjudge the Ukrainian resistance?


His careful response, before reporters in Estonia: “We’ve seen a large, combined-arms, multi-axis invasion of the second-largest country in Europe, Ukraine, by Russian air, ground, special forces, intelligence forces,” he said, before describing some of the bombardment brought by Russia and his concern over its “indiscriminate firing” on civilians.


“It’s a little bit early to draw any definitive lessons learned,” he added. “But one of the lessons that’s clearly evident is that the will of the people, the will of the Ukrainian people, and the importance of national leadership and the fighting skills of the Ukrainian army has come through loud and clear.”


While the Russian army’s troubles are real, the public’s view of the fight is skewed by the realities of the information battlefield. Russia remains keen to play down the war and provides little information about its victories or defeats, contributing to an incomplete picture.


But a dissection of the Russian military’s performance so far, compiled from interviews with two dozen American, NATO and Ukrainian officials, paints a portrait of young, inexperienced conscripted soldiers who have not been empowered to make on-the-spot decisions, and a noncommissioned officer corps that isn’t allowed to make decisions either. Russia’s military leadership, with Gen. Valery Gerasimov at the top, is far too centralized; lieutenants must ask him for permission even on small matters, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.


In addition, the Russian senior officers have proved so far to be risk-averse, the officials said.


Their caution partly explains why they still don’t have air superiority over all of Ukraine, for example, American officials said. Faced with bad weather in northern Ukraine, the Russian officers grounded some Russian attack planes and helicopters, and forced others to fly at lower altitudes, making them more vulnerable to Ukrainian ground fire, a senior Pentagon official said.


“Most Russian capabilities have been sitting on the sidelines,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute, in an email. “The force employment is completely irrational, preparations for a real war near nonexistent and morale incredibly low because troops were clearly not told they would be sent into this fight.”


Russian tank units, for instance, have deployed with too few soldiers to fire and protect the tanks, officials said. The result is that Ukraine, using Javelin anti-tank missiles, has stalled the convoy headed for Kyiv by blowing up tank after tank.


Thomas Bullock, an open source analyst from Janes, the defense intelligence firm, said Russian forces have made tactical errors that the Ukrainians have been able to capitalize on.


“It looks like the Ukrainians have been most successful when ambushing Russian troops,” Mr. Bullock said. “The way the Russians have advanced, which is that they have stuck to main roads so that they can move quickly, not risk of getting bogged down in mud. But they are advancing on winding roads and their flanks and supply routes are overly exposed to Ukrainian attacks.”


Russian battlefield defeats, and mounting casualties, also have an impact.


“Having the Ukrainians just wreck your airborne units, elite Russian units, has to be devastating for Russian morale,” said Frederick W. Kagan, an expert on the Russian military who leads the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “Russian soldiers have to be looking at this and saying, ‘What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?’”


Most of Russia’s initial attacks in Ukraine were relatively small, involving at most two or three battalions. Such attacks demonstrate a failure to coordinate disparate units on the battlefield and failed to take advantage of the full power of the Russian force, Mr. Kagan said.


Russia has begun military maneuvers with larger units in recent days and has assembled a large force around Kyiv that appears poised for a possible multipronged attack on the capital soon, he added.


Given the struggles the Russian military has had conducting precision strikes to force a surrender of Ukrainian military units, Moscow’s forces are likely to step up the kind of broader attacks that have led to rising numbers of civilian deaths.


But in the end, military officials say they still expect that mass will matter.


“The Russian advance is ponderous,” retired Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, a former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, said at a virtual Atlantic Conference event on the crisis last Friday. “But it is relentless, and there’s still a lot of force to be applied.”

As Russia’s Military Stumbles, Its Adversaries Take Note – DNyuz

^
Excellent article Misskit!

‘They were sent as cannon fodder’: Siberian governor confronted by relatives of Russian unit


A Russian governor in Siberia has been confronted by angry citizens who blamed him for deploying a local riot police unit to Ukraine to become “cannon fodder”, a video clip circulating online showed.

The footage, first posted by Radio Free Europe (RFE) on Monday, showed a fiery exchange between Sergei Tsivilyov, the governor of the Kemerovo region, and people in the city of Novokuznetsk.

“They lied to everyone, they deceived everyone … Why did you send them there?” one woman asks Tsivilyov, saying that the soldiers thought they were going for military drills in Belarus.

“They didn’t know their objective … They were sent as cannon fodder,” the woman adds.

The governor would not have been responsible for the decision to deploy the unit, which would have been made by the country’s national guard, a separate internal military force directly subordinated to the president, Vladimir Putin.

According to RFE, the confrontation took place on Saturday at the gymnasium of the training base for riot police units, some of whose officers were killed or captured in Ukraine.

As the fighting in Ukraine nears its third week, more and more relatives of killed and captured Russian soldiers have expressed their opposition to the war, saying their loved ones were not told in advance about the country’s plans to invade Ukraine. Videos of captured Russian soldiers issued by the Ukrainians also appear to show that Russian troops were not informed of the invasion until the very end.

Western military experts have raised questions about Russian troops’ morale and preparedness in Ukraine, which could explain why Moscow’s blitzkrieg plan to overwhelm Ukraine and take Kyiv has so far failed.

Russia has revealed very little information about the state of its soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Last week, Russia’s defence ministry said that 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine. Ukraine’s military claimed on Sunday that more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed since the invasion of Ukraine began.

In the video, Tsivilyov defended the invasion, saying that Russia’s actions in Ukraine “shouldn’t be criticised”.

“Look, you can shout and blame everyone right now, but I think that, while a military operation is in process, one shouldn’t make any conclusions,” Tsivilyov said.

Russian officials, as well as state media, have been referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion”.

Authorities have also introduced a number of new laws aimed at stifling public opposition to the war.

On Friday, Putin signed into law a bill that introduced jail terms of up to 15 years for intentionally spreading “fake” or “false” news about the Russian army, forcing many Russian and international outlets to cease their coverage of the events.

And while the authorities have been successful at getting a large segment of the population behind its war efforts, videos such as the Novokuznetsk footage circulating online suggest the war is deeply unpopular among those who have lost friends and relatives in Ukraine.

The Guardian previously spoke to family members of a Russian sniper captured in Ukraine, who similarly expressed anger and shock about their relative’s involvement in the war.

“Young boys are thrown like cannon fodder, and most importantly for what? For palaces in Gelendzhik?” the close family member of the captured sniper Leonid Paktishev said, referring to the palatial mansion on the Black Sea that Russian independent journalists have said is linked to Putin.

‘They were sent as cannon fodder’: Siberian governor confronted by relatives of Russian unit | Ukraine | The Guardian

One of the tragic aspects of this 'War that should never have happened' is that some 9 million Russians have blood relatives in Ukraine.

Originally Posted by sabang

One of the tragic aspects of this 'War that should never have happened' is that some 9 million Russians have blood relatives in Ukraine.

Yes and if they stand up and tell Putin they don't want his phony war they get arrested.

Originally Posted by sabang

What would we do without Google translate.

I don't need it . . .

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Easy for you to say.

. . . but I forgot to capitalise 'Wichser'.

Originally Posted by panama hat

but I forgot to capitalise 'Wichser'.

For our Sole monoglot may I suggest brain dead would be tosser, is close?

Chinas Foreign Ministry has called on the US to disclose information on Pentagons alleged biological laboratories in Ukraine "as soon as possible".On Monday, the Russian military said Ukrainian authorities had been destroying pathogens studied at its laboratories. Moscow claimed that 30 US-financed Ukrainian biolabs have been actively cooperating with the American military, RT reported.

Kiev has denied developing bioweapons. According to the website of the US Embassy in Kiev, the US Department of Defense's Biological Threat Reduction Program only "collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks" of infectious diseases. In 2020, the Embassy had termed such theories about US-funded biolabs in Ukraine as "disinformation".

Speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claimed that, according to his country's information, the laboratories in Ukraine are just "a tip of an iceberg" and that the US Department of Defense "controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world".This is done under the pretext of "cooperating to reduce biosecurity risks" and "strengthening global public health", Zhao said, RT reported.

It is the first time that Beijing has disclosed the alleged figures. Zhao said that according to data "released by the United States itself", there are 26 US laboratories in Ukraine. In light of Russia's military offensive in the country, he urged "all parties concerned" to ensure the safety of the labs.The CAS Court Office has initiated two separate arbitration procedures and, in accordance with the Code of Sports-related Arbitration (the arbitration rules governing CAS procedures), will seek the position of the respondent parties with respect to the FUR’s requests to stay the execution of the Challenged Decisions and as to the organization and planning of each arbitration procedure.The CAS anticipates being able to share further information on the proceedings in a few days’ time, once a decision has been issued with respect to the requests for a stay.

China asks US to disclose info on Pentagon's alleged biological labs in Ukraine

March 08, 2022 06:27 PM

The State Department is concerned that Russian forces are trying to gain control of "biological research facilities" within Ukraine.
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that the United States is "now quite concerned Russian troops ... may be seeking to gain control of [the facilities], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach."


Her admission came after Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio asked her if Ukraine has “chemical or biological weapons." Following her response, the senator claimed there was a Russian plan putting out disinformation that they “uncovered a plot by Ukrainians to release biological weapons in the country and with NATO’s coordination.“

Should such an attack occur in Ukraine, Nuland said there’s “no doubt in my mind” that Russia would be behind it and called the planned move a “classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they’re planning to do themselves.”

Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon responded to requests for more information about these facilities.

Already during the fighting, Russian forces converged on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine. A Russian projectile hit the plant, situated in the southeastern part of the country, early Friday morning, igniting a localized fire that resulted in widespread concern of a radiological disaster, though those fears never materialized.

Russian forces control the plant and have also overrun the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.


In a recent update, the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concern about workers who have been held against their will working for days on end at these facilities.

“I’m deeply concerned about the difficult and stressful situation facing staff at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and the potential risks this entails for nuclear safety. I call on the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...ussian-control

Originally Posted by sabang

Chinas Foreign Ministry has called on the US to disclose information on Pentagons alleged biological laboratories in Ukraine "as soon as possible".

The chinkies should shut the fuck up instead of joining Puffy Putin's propaganda bullshit.

Russia, Ukraine Agree Day-Long Evacuation Corridors: Ukraine Official

Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday agreed on a day-long ceasefire around a series of evacuation corridors to allow civilians to escape the fighting, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.


Vereshchuk said Moscow vowed to respect the truce from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm around six areas that have been heavily hit by fighting, including regions around Kyiv, in Zaporizhzhia in the south, and some parts of Ukraine's northeast.


Civilians in areas around the capital, including Irpin and Bucha to the northwest, will be evacuated into Kyiv to escape fierce bombardment by Russian forces.


Civilians have been braving shellfire and aerial bombardments to escape the cluster of towns on Kyiv's northwestern edge, which have been largely occupied by Russian forces.


An exploding shell killed four people who were trying to reach Kyiv by foot on Sunday.

On Tuesday, some 60 buses in two convoys were able to evacuate civilians out of Sumy, 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of Kyiv, Kyrylo Timoshenko of the Ukraine president's office told local media.

More than 5,000 people were evacuated from Sumy, a town of 250,000 that lies close to the Russian border and has been the scene of heavy fighting.


The UN refugee agency UNHCR has estimated the total number of refugees at 2.1 to 2.2 million.

Russia, Ukraine Agree Day-Long Evacuation Corridors: Ukraine Official - The Moscow Times

U.S., Britain, EU Move to Block Russian Energy Exports Over Ukraine Invasion

The U.S. has banned the import of Russian oil products in a move set to squeeze Moscow’s key source of income following its invasion of Ukraine.


The White House said the unprecedented step would “further deprive President Putin of the economic resources he uses to continue his needless war of choice.”

The ban also affects the import of coal and liquified natural gas from Russia. The U.S. imported just shy of 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia in 2021 — accounting for around 10% of Russia’s total exports.


The measures are the first sanctions aimed at Russia’s key industry, which Western policymakers had previously been hesitant to target for fear of triggering rising prices at home.

Britain also pledged to stop importing Russian oil products by the end of the year, while the EU — which buys 40% of its natural gas from Russia — also said it would dramatically cut its reliance on Russian imports.


Brussels said it would slash its gas imports from Russia by two-thirds before the end of the year — delivering another multi-billion-euro blow to the Russian economy. The EU also published a plan to completely wean itself off Russian gas “well before 2030.”


“It’s hard — bloody hard — but it’s possible if we’re willing to go further and faster than we’ve done before,” the EU’s climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said Tuesday.


The announcement is a landmark moment for the 27-member bloc, which just three weeks ago was poised to start receiving record Russian gas flows through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — the $11-billion Gazprom project which Germany called off upon the invasion.


Even without sanctions and despite surging prices, Russia’s oil industry has come under heavy pressure since the invasion of Ukraine, with major companies and traders such as Shell and Total announcing they will stop buying Russian energy products.

British officials estimated Tuesday that 70% of Russian oil was “currently struggling to find a buyer.”


Russia exported $180 billion of oil and $65 billion of gas around the world last year.


In the months leading up to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was accused of stoking an energy price crisis in Europe and the U.S. by restricting exports.

U.S., Britain, EU Move to Block Russian Energy Exports Over Ukraine Invasion - The Moscow Times

Sign Me Up for Ukraine Fight: Not So Fast Say SE Asia Govts

Ukraine is setting up a foreign legion and thousands apparently have volunteered from countries across the world. But recruiting fighters in Southeast Asia may prove difficult for Kyiv.


“I lived in the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, for two decades. I love Ukraine and the Ukrainians, I want to support their just cause,” said Pham Van Hai, a Vietnamese army veteran from the southern province of Vung Tau who has volunteered to join the foreign legion in Ukraine.


Hai, who studied at the Kyiv Institute of Civil Aviation in the 1980s, has sent a couple of petitions to the Vietnamese government asking to be allowed to leave for Ukraine.


“I will pay my own air ticket and all expenses, I only need their permission,” he told Radio Free Asia, a sister entity of BenarNews, adding: “No reply yet but I suspect they won’t give it to me.”


Vietnam had endured many wars in the past, and thousands of Vietnamese were among the Indochinese contingent fighting in the French foreign legion in World War I and World War II.


Hai is one of dozens Vietnamese citizens who have been communicating online to express their willingness to fight for Ukraine – notwithstanding the growing death toll and destruction following the Russian invasion. The actual number of Vietnamese volunteers is unknown as their action may be illegal under Vietnam’s Criminal Code.


Article 425 of the code stipulates that “any person who works as a mercenary to fight against a nation or sovereign territory shall face a penalty of 5 to 15 years’ imprisonment.”


In fact, there are differences between mercenaries, who are contracted to fight but are not formally part of the military of the state they are fighting for; and legionnaires who are recruited as members of a state’s armed forces although they are not its citizens.


Regardless of those distinctions, Russia has warned that all foreigners who want to fight for Ukraine are “not combatants under international humanitarian law and not entitled to prisoner of war status” but will be treated as criminals.


On March 3, the Russian Ministry of Defense said: “We urge citizens of foreign countries planning to go to fight for the Kyiv nationalist regime to think twice before the trip.”


Ukraine’s international legion


On Feb. 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country was establishing an “international legion” for foreigners who want to fight for the nation and appealed to international volunteers to join.


By March 7, “more than 20,000 people from 52 countries have already volunteered to fight in Ukraine,” according to Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.


Kuleba, however, did not say how many of them had arrived in Ukraine. Nor did he name their home countries.


Ukrainian embassies and consulates across the world have been actively rallying support and a website was launched to provide detailed step-by-step instructions on how to join the international legion.


People with combat experience are encouraged to join what Ukraine calls “the resistance against the Russian occupants and fight for global security.”


Volunteers are arriving in Ukraine, mostly from European countries such as Lithuania, the Netherlands, the U.K. and France, according to media reports.


Ukraine received more than 3,000 applications from U.S. citizens who want to join the fight against Russia, according to a defense official at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington. The U.S. State Department’s travel advisory still formally advises all Americans not to travel to Ukraine.

Southeast Asia’s response


Zelenskyy’s appeal was also heard in Southeast Asia, where some citizens want to join the Ukrainian defense legion although governments are generally against the idea.


Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday said his government “will not allow anyone to go to Ukraine.”


Speaking at a hospital inauguration ceremony, Hun Sen urged Cambodian citizens to “not pour gasoline on the fire”


“I will not allow our people to die in Ukraine. Our constitution does not allow that,” the prime minister said.


“The only ones who can go abroad for [such] missions are our Blue Helmet troops, but it’s under the auspices of humanitarianism of the United Nations,” he added.


Singapore is taking a similar stance with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan saying on Feb. 28 that “Singapore cannot support the promotion or organization of armed groups, whatever their justification, into other countries.”


Balakrishnan reminded Singaporean people that “your duty is to Singapore,” and “to defend our national interests.”


Thailand seems to be the only country that does not hold back its citizens.


Thai government spokeswoman Ratchada Thanadirek was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that “there is no law preventing Thai citizens from joining foreign volunteer forces.”


“But people should consider the potential grave danger as Russian forces pound Ukrainian cities with heavy weapons,” she was quoted as warning the Thais.


Hundreds of Thai citizens have sent the Ukrainian embassy emails to apply to sign up for the international legion, according to a Facebook group created about the endeavor.


A Ukrainian embassy official told BenarNews last week that scores of Thai citizens had phoned the embassy in Bangkok, and around 40 of them had shown up there to express interest in volunteering.

Sign Me Up for Ukraine Fight: Not So Fast Say SE Asia Govts — BenarNews

Ukraine crisis: China accuses NATO of pushing Russia to 'breaking point'

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has accused US-led NATO of pushing Russia to a ''breaking point'' in the Ukraine crisis.


At a daily news briefing, he urged the United States to take China's concerns seriously and avoid undermining its rights or interests in handling the Ukraine issue and ties with Russia.

The Chinese Red Cross will also provide a batch of humanitarian assistance worth 5 million yuan ($791,540) to Ukraine, consisting of daily necessities, Zhao added.

Beijing has refused to condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine or call it an invasion while asking Western countries to respect Russia's "legitimate security concerns."

It comes after the CIA's director said Tuesday he believes China leader Xi Jinping has been "unsettled" by Russia's difficulties in invading Ukraine, and by how the war has brought the United States and Europe closer.


"I think President Xi and the Chinese leadership are a little bit unsettled by what they're seeing in Ukraine," Central Intelligence Agency boss William Burns told US lawmakers during a hearing on global threat assessments.


"They did not anticipate the significant difficulties the Russians were going to run into."

Nearly two weeks into the invasion, Russian forces are bogged down in Ukraine, suffering as many as 4,000 fatalities, according to the Pentagon's estimate, and encountering unexpectedly strong resistance from Ukrainian forces.


Even if Beijing wanted to, its ability to support President Vladimir Putin by importing more Russian gas and other goods is limited.


Relations with Moscow have warmed since Xi took power in 2012, motivated by shared resentment of Washington, but their interests can conflict. While their militaries hold joint exercises, Putin is uneasy about the growing Chinese economic presence in Central Asia and Russia’s Far East.


“China-Russia relations are at the highest level in history, but the two countries are not an alliance,” said Li Xin, an international relations expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

“China doesn’t want to get so involved that it ends up suffering as a result of its support for Russia,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics.


Chinese trade with Russia rose to $146.9 billion last year, but that is less than one-tenth of China’s total $1.6 trillion in trade with the United States and EU.


“It all hinges on whether they’re willing to risk their access to Western markets to help Russia, and I don’t think they are,” said Williams. “It’s just not that big a market.”


China, the world’s second-largest economy, is the only major government not to have condemned the invasion.


China’s multibillion-dollar purchases of Russian gas for its energy-hungry economy have been a lifeline for Putin following trade and financial sanctions imposed in 2014 over his seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.

Ukraine crisis: China accuses NATO of pushing Russia to 'breaking point', World News | wionews.com

A severe cold snap could push Russian troops to desert a convoy that has been stalled outside of Kyiv for the last few days, a military advisor to Ukraine's armed forces has said. Arctic air moving through Russia and Ukraine will combine with an easterly wind to make the temperature feel as cold as minus 20 by Wednesday, according to forecasts.

Russian troops are expected to find these conditions tough as they remain stuck in a column around 20 miles outside of the Ukrainian capital that has barely moved since last week.

"A metal tank is just a fridge at night if you are not running the engine," said Glen Grant, a senior defense expert at the Baltic Security Foundation who advised Ukraine on its military reform."

"The cold weather is going to demoralize troops even further and will create even more refrigerators," he told Newsweek.

Grant said that the weather will add to the logistical problems Russian troops already face and he expects many to simply quit their vehicles.

"The boys won't wait. They will get out, start walking to the forest, and give themselves up," he said.

"You just can't sit around and wait because if you are in the vehicle you are waiting to be killed. They are not stupid."

The presence of Russia's 40-mile-long convoy, with an estimated 15,000 troops, first sparked alarm that an advance on the Ukrainian capital was imminent and speculation that it could encircle Kyiv to allow a siege on the city.

But the British ministry of defense said the convoy had stalled because of mechanical problems as well as "staunch Ukrainian resistance."

Now, having barely moved in days, there is a lack of fresh information over the threat the convoy poses and whether it is simply waiting for logistical supplies before an assault on Kyiv.

But Grant said that the mistakes made in fuel supplies for the convoy cannot be rectified.

"The whole thing about the battle group concept is that the supplies should be integral to the battle group. In other words, if you take a wheeled battle group, and it's got its own fuel then it can go a long long way before resupply.

"But these guys, it looks as though they crossed the border without integral fuel to the battle group," said Grant, who added that all the fuel lorries were collected together at the back of the convoy.

"They are backed up against each other so there is nowhere to go. They can't get off the roads, they are stacked back," he said.

"If you have got all your lorries behind and the road is blocked, that's it, there is no way you are bringing them forward.

"It has been relatively cold there anyway, so they have been running the vehicles to keep themselves warm," he said. Plunging temperatures and a poor supply line will further drain fuel and Russian troops will be targets for highly motivated Ukrainian troops and territorials.

The cold front in which temperatures will fall to their coldest between Thursday and Saturday, according to AccuWeather, may put the Russian convoy at a disadvantage, but will also add to hardships for refugees fleeing the conflict.

Also, Moscow-led attacks have left more than 900 communities in Ukraine without electricity, water or heating, Reuters reported. Ukraine's energy ministry said 646,000 people had no power and that 130,000 were without gas.

Russia's advance in the war declared by President Vladimir Putin on February 24 appears to be slow but forces have captured Kherson in the south and are pushing further west, with a focus on Mariupol.

However, Ukraine said Monday it had retaken the city of Chuhuiv from Russian troops.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukra...-putin-1685806