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  1. #1976
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    No-one is going to attack them militarily. The odd terrorist maybe.
    Certainly not NATO, unless Russia does a lot more extremely dumb things, like using nukes. They have moved forces and assets like air defense and tanks away from NATO borders for a while now.

  2. #1977
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    The Russians clump the FSB and OMON into the total army numbers.
    Could be

    I don't know
    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Putin will never deploy those forces to Ukraine because he needs them to suppress dissent internally.


    Could very well be

    You just made a sensible post

    Congrats

  3. #1978
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    The majority of an army are support troops, not combat troops.

  4. #1979
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    I might be a bit late

    Russia in retreat on two fronts as Ukraine steps up counteroffensives

    Russian invasion of Ukraine, as of Oct. 4



    Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian lines on two fronts during audacious counteroffensives in territories Vladimir Putin recently declared to be part of Russia.

    The big picture: Ukraine is recapturing territory with remarkable speed, but may have a narrowing window to gain ground before winter weather makes offensive operations difficult, and before Russia is able to flood in newly drafted soldiers to reinforce their lines.

    Driving the news: Reports have been streaming in over the last several days of Ukrainian breakthroughs near Russian-held Kherson in southern Ukraine.


    • Ukraine recaptured at least at least 10 villages in the Kherson region between Sunday and Tuesday, per Foreign Policy. Kherson is the only regional capital to fall since the invasion began, and recapturing it is a top Ukrainian objective.
    • The recent gains came after a month of difficult fighting in the Kherson campaign had yielded only gradual progress. Ukraine seems to have steadily weakened the Russian lines before breaking through and forcing a retreat to the south, says Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia's military at CNA.
    • If Russian forces continue to fall back, Ukrainian artillery will come within range of the Dnipro River crossings Russia uses to supply its forces in Kherson — potentially leaving the Russians penned in, and making even retreat difficult. "The Russian military position is not just precarious, but visibly deteriorating," Kofman says.



    Meanwhile in the northeast, the key logistics hub of Lyman in northern Donetsk region fell to Ukraine on Friday.


    • While the Kherson offensive had been telegraphed for months, the northeastern push seems to have caught the Russians by surprise. Ukrainian forces have captured an estimated 2,000 sq. miles there in less than a month.


    What they're saying: Putin tacitly acknowledged the recent setbacks in on Wednesday but said, “We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilize.”


    • State TV pundits have sounded unusually pessimistic in recent days, though they regularly repeat that Russia is at war with NATO — which is providing Kyiv with arms and intelligence — not just Ukraine.
    • Putin's two big recent announcements — claiming that 15% of Ukraine is now Russia, and ordering the mobilization of an estimated 300,000 men — come with Russia in retreat on two fronts.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  5. #1980
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    I might be a bit late
    Very late.

  6. #1981
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Russian elite voice growing anger as losses mount in Ukraine

    A growing list of failings and defeats in Ukraine have spawned angry outbursts from Russia's elite, who still support the "military operation" but have gone as far as to suggest army chiefs should face the firing squad.



    Before September saw a series of battlefield reversals, public criticism of the army was rare.


    The offensive had been presented as a sacred, patriotic mission and speaking ill of the armed forces could lead to a long stay in prison.


    Today, nobody among the elite is calling into question the merits of Moscow's viewpoint or the operation against a neighbouring nation.


    But the military setbacks and problems over the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists have led usually quiet public figures to attack the military hierarchy.

    On Wednesday, the head of the lower house of parliament's defence committee, said the army should "stop lying", as daily briefings praise enormous losses supposedly suffered by Ukrainian forces without mention of Russian troop reversals.


    "The people know. Our people are not stupid," warned former general Andrei Kartapolov.


    "And they see that we do not want to tell them even part of the truth. That can lead to a loss of credibility," he told the online show of star presenter Vladimir Solovyov, an ultra-patriot.


    Capital punishment


    Solovyov, who is under EU sanctions, said certain members of the army's top ranks deserved to face a firing squad.


    "The guilty should be punished, we don't have capital punishment unfortunately, but for some of them it would be the only solution.


    "They don't even have an officer's sense of honour because they are not shooting themselves," he said.

    For celebrity war reporter Alexander Kots, writing on his Telegram channel, "There won't be any good news (from the front) in the near future."


    The verbal assaults and an air of defeatism were all the more striking when Vladimir Putin celebrated the annexation of four Ukrainian regions with a concert on Moscow's Red Square.


    "Victory will be ours," blared the president from a giant video screen amid a sea of Russian flags.


    None of the criticism has directly targeted the all-powerful head of state, or even his defence minister Sergei Shoigu.


    But when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov hit out at Russia's generals, urging the use of nuclear weapons and hinting Putin had been ill-informed, the Kremlin had to react.


    Sabotage


    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, saying: "In difficult moments, emotions must be excluded ... We prefer to make measured and objective evaluations (of the situation)."


    Putin was moved to admit publicly to "errors" in the effort to mobilise reservists after an avalanche of documented cases of people without army experience were called up to the front.

    Russia's political opposition has been virtually wiped out with its main leader Alexei Navalny in jail.


    What remains of the opposition operates mostly from abroad and is attempting to rebuild within Russia amid hopes of riding popular discontent.


    "The millions of people who remain in Russia are hostages of Putin and do not want to fight," said Navalny ally Leonid Volkov, who announced on YouTube the re-launch of an activist network in the nation's regions.


    "The struggle can take different forms, with different levels of risk -- we can put out information, offer legal aid, do voluntary work or sabotage the work of military commissariats, some of which burn very well," he noted.

    Russian elite voice growing anger as losses mount in Ukraine

  7. #1982
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    Russia rocked by 'internal power struggle and distrust' as Putin arrests own loyalist

    Footage has emerged of a Russian propagandist being brutally arrested for speaking out against high-ranking Russian officials. Affiliates and members of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group have repeatedly criticised the Russian Armed Forces and its leaders on Telegram.

    Alexey Slobodenyuk, the head of media for a Russian mercenary group fighting in Ukraine, was pulled from his car by a special branch of the National Guard of Russia known for their unwavering loyalty to Vladimir Putin. Slobodenyuk has been accused of attacking defence minister Sergei Shoigu online, claiming that Russia’s current failings in Ukraine were in part due to organisational failures. The Wagner group, for which Slobodenyuk works, fights alongside the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine but operates as its own entity outside of the jurisdiction of Shoigu, answering instead to a man known as “Putin’s chef”, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

    In the video, members of the Special Rapid Response Unit (SOBR) can be seen kneeling on Slobodenyuk’s back as they push him into the concrete floor.


    It appears that the arresting officers dragged the propagandist out of his car.


    Another officer runs towards the man to help detain him, before barking instructions.


    Two mobile phones, believed to belong to Slobodenyuk, are seen discarded on the floor nearby.

    Commentators have suggested that the use of the SOBR to detain Slobodenyuk, instead of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, is “indicative of an internal power struggle and distrust”.


    Dissidents are often arrested by the FSB but Putin’s relationship with the organisation with which Slobodenyuk works could have made that option difficult.


    The Wagner Group is often considered as Putin’s private army; it is run by the oligarch and former prisoner Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is believed to answer directly to the Russian leader.

    He earned the nickname “Putin’s chef” because his restaurants and catering businesses would host dinners for the Russian autocrat and foreign dignitaries.

    Slobodenyuk’s arrest by Putin loyalists, given that he himself works for a secret mercenary organisation answering directly to the Russian leader, suggests internal conflict.


    US-based Ukrainian analyst Igor Sushko shared footage of the arrest on his Twitter page, commenting: "#Prigozhin's propagandist Alexey Slobodenyuk who's been attacking Shoigu online arrested in #Moscow by SOBR Rosgvardia spetsnaz unit.


    "SOBR are highly loyal to Putin. That this arrest was not made by the FSB, as you'd expect, is indicative of internal power struggle & distrust.


    "Slobodenyuk has been operating a dozen Telegram channels for Prigozhin including "Release the Kraken" (282k subscribers) & "Scanner" (150k subscribers) - an "anti-corruption" project which has openly called for murder of Lavrov, Peskov, Volodin, and others."


    And it is not the first time Slobodenyuk has been arrested for speaking out against the Russian forces.

    Video Russia rocked by 'internal power struggle' as Putin arrests own man | World | News | Express.co.uk

  8. #1983
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    Australia's Bushmasters 'performed masterfully' in combat, says Ukraine's Zelenskyy

    Australian-supplied Bushmaster armoured vehicles have "performed masterfully" on the battlefields, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.
    Key points:

    Mr Zelenskyy said Australia could help Ukraine by supporting it at the UN, continuing defence cooperation and joining further tougher sanctions against Russia
    He thanked Australia for its actions so far and asked for continued assistance
    When asked about the progress of his fast-track NATO application, he said "unfortunately it depends not only on Ukraine"

    In an address to the Lowy Institute on Thursday evening, he said he was grateful for the Bushmasters Australia had sent to Ukraine after he addressed the parliament in March.

    "This equipment has performed masterfully in real combat operations," he said.

    "The more weapons and ammunition we receive … the more Russia would feel the responsibility for violating international law.

    "The aggressor will feel that he has little room for any escalation."

    While not elaborating on exactly what arms Australia was supplying, he revealed more weapons were on the way to Ukraine.

    "I don't want to go into details on what weapons … it is not only small arms but some heavy weapons as well," he said.
    YouTube Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaks to the Lowy Institute.

    Mr Zelenskyy outlined two other ways Australia could continue to support Ukraine, as he warned the war in Ukraine would escalate unless the world responded strongly to Russia's invasion and annexations.
    'Clear and straightforward condemnation of Russia'

    On top of Ukraine's "very meaningful" defence cooperation with Australia, Mr Zelenskyy spoke of the continuing need for diplomatic support at the UN.

    He asked for Australia to do what it could to convince as many other countries as possible not to remain neutral when the United Nations General Assembly meets next week to discuss a resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four regions of Ukraine.
    YouTube Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Bushmaster had "performed masterfully" in combat.

    Russia's total claim amounts to around 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory, though the exact borders are still to be clarified.

    "There is a need for clear and straightforward condemnation of Russia for their attempts to annex Ukrainian territory," he said, via a translator.

    "We must now direct our joint efforts in a way to make the vote at the General Assembly for this resolution as unanimous as possible."

    Russia vetoed a condemnation in the UN Security Council last week, but in the General Assembly every country has a vote and none can veto resolutions.

    Mr Zelenskyy also called for further and tougher sanctions against Russia, and thanked Australia for being part of the international sanctions applied so far.

    "Now is the time to increase this pressure, when Russia has staged this sham referendum and staged this annexation," he said.

    "The consequences must be tough."
    Read more on Russia's invasion of Ukraine:

    Russia prepares to formally annex areas of Ukraine
    Kremlin claims victory in controversial Ukraine referendums set to pave way for annexation
    European leaders divided on giving asylum to fleeing Russians

    'We know what neighbours we have'
    Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
    Play Video. Duration: 44 seconds
    Volodymyr Zelenskyy announces an "accelerated procedure" to join NATO.

    In response to President Putin's annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the biggest expansion of Russian territory in at least half a century, Mr Zelenskyy has applied for fast-track membership of NATO.
    Putin orders Russian operator to take over Ukraine nuclear plant

    Vladimir Putin is ordering his government to take control of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, in Ukraine's south, as his military is struggling to control annexed territory.
    A Ukrainian serviceman and journalists walk between destroyed Russian equipment placed in the street.
    Read more

    The Ukrainian leader also said Kyiv remained committed to the idea of co-existence with Russia "on equal, honest, dignified and fair conditions", but that it was unlikely while Mr Putin remained in power.

    When asked if he had received a response from NATO, Mr Zelenskyy said without Ukraine, NATO was not as strong as it could be.

    "We know what neighbours we have, what risks we have," he said.

    NATO needed to demonstrate that it was not afraid of Russia, he added.

    While not giving a direct answer or time frame, he did indicate that Ukraine was still waiting to hear from NATO.

    "How fast [membership approval] is going to be, unfortunately it depends not only on Ukraine," he said.

    https://www.abc .net.au/news/2022-10-06/ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-lowy-kyiv-putin-bushmaster/101510182


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  9. #1984
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    Rivers At Their Backs And Ukrainian Brigades Closing In, A Lot Of Russian Troops Might Need To Learn To Swim

    It took a few weeks, but the Ukrainians in recent days finally picked up momentum in the south. The 17th Tank Brigade is advancing toward the outskirts of Kherson. The 35th Marine Brigade is advancing toward Davydiv Brid. And the 128th Mountain Brigade and 60th Infantry Brigade are rolling along the Dnipro River.

    Pay particular attention to the 35th Marine Brigade and 128th Mountain Brigade. The 128th is chasing the Russians southwest toward Kherson while the 35th cuts southeast from the Inhulets toward the Dnipro. If the 35th arrives at the Dnipro before the Russians can cross the brigade’s axis of advance, the Russians will be cut off—with the 128th’s tanks at their backs.

    “They are going to end up with a much bigger encirclement than I thought originally,” commented Mike Martin, a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College in London.

    There are two ways out for the Russians. One—ford the Inhulets and reach Kherson city to join the rest of the 49th CAA. Two—cross the Dnipro at Nova Kakhovka. The former would be a brief reprieve, as Ukrainian brigades including the 17th Tank now are bringing Kherson city into artillery range. The latter amounts to quitting the battlefield, for now.

    And to be clear, either way out is a perilous one. River-crossings are complex and dangerous even when no one’s shooting at you. The Russians might have to cross the Inhulets or Dnipro while the Ukrainians are dropping artillery and rockets on their heads.

    It’s still possible for the Russian army to escape the encirclement forming east of Kherson. But the escape could be a bloody one that further weakens the 49th CAA.

    Rivers At Their Backs And Ukrainian Brigades Closing In, A Lot Of Russian Troops Might Need To Learn To Swim
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  10. #1985
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    Morale is plummeting in Putin’s private army as Russia’s war in Ukraine falters

    The Ukrainians’ bodies lay side-by-side on the grass, the earth beside them splayed open by a crater. Dragged to the spot by Russian mercenaries, the victims’ arms pointed to where they had died.

    “Let’s plant a grenade on them,” a voice says in husky Russian, in what appears to be a plan to booby-trap the bodies.

    “There is no need for a grenade, we will just bash them in,” another says of the Ukrainian soldiers who will come to collect the bodies. The mercenaries then realize they have run out of ammunition.

    These events seen and heard on battlefield video, exclusive to CNN, along with access to Wagner recruits fighting in Ukraine, and candid, rare interviews CNN has conducted with a former Wagner commander now seeking asylum in Europe, combine to give an unprecedented look at the state of Russia’s premier mercenary force.

    While problems of supply and morale, as well as allegations of war crimes have been well documented among regular Russian troops, the existence of similar crises among Wagner mercenaries, often described as President Vladimir Putin’s off-the-books shock troops, is a dire omen for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    In the shadow of the Kremlin

    Wagner forces have for several years enjoyed global notoriety. But as Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine comes apart at the seams, and the announcement of a “partial mobilization” for much-needed conscripts has prompted more than 200,000 Russian citizens to flee to neighboring countries, the cracks in this supposedly elite force are showing.

    Since its creation in 2014, Wagner’s mandate, international footprint and reputation have swelled. Widely considered by analysts to be a Kremlin-approved private military company, its fighters have battled in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2014 and in Syria, as well as operating in several African countries, including Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Mali and the Central African Republic.

    With a reputation in Russia as a reliable and valuable force, Wagner private soldiers have bolstered Moscow’s global interests and military resources, already stretched fighting a war in Syria in support of the Assad regime. As CNN has reported, their deployments have often been key to Russian control of lucrative resources, from Sudanese gold to Syrian oil.

    Flaunting modern equipment in recruiting videos, with heavy weapons and even helicopters, they resemble US Special Forces.

    “I am convinced that if Russia did not use mercenary groups on such a massive scale, there would be no question of the success that the Russian army has achieved so far,” Marat Gabidullin – a former Wagner commander who was once in charge of 95 mercenaries in Syria – told CNN.

    In touch with former comrades now fighting in Ukraine, Gabidullin said that Russia’s use of mercenaries has ramped up as the Kremlin’s execution of its war has fallen into disarray. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told CNN that Wagner troops were being deployed in the “most difficult and important missions” in Ukraine, playing a key role in Russian victories in Mariupol and Kherson.

    The Kremlin did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    Limited official information about Wagner and long-standing Kremlin denials about its existence and ties to the Russian state have only added to its infamy and allure, while helping the group to cloud analysis of its exact capabilities and activities.

    In reality, though, Wagner – like Russia – is struggling in Ukraine, according to the video testimony of the group’s own mercenary fighters.

    Lack of experience

    More than seven months of fighting have thrown a harsh light on failings in Russia’s military performance in Ukraine. Russia’s small gains, especially compared to Putin’s initial ambitious targets in the war, have come at huge cost, decimating frontline units and starving many of manpower, as well as critically important experience.

    Battlefield experience is one of two factors ex-Wagner commander Gabidullin – who left the group in 2019 and has since published a memoir of his time working for them – says separates mercenaries from regular Russian troops, the other being money.

    “The backbone of these groups was always made up of very experienced people who had passed through several wars anyway,” he told CNN.

    After serving as a junior officer with an airborne unit in the dying days of the Soviet Union, Gabidullin returned to military life as a Wagner recruit following Russia’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine. He said many key Wagner personnel may, like him, have previously fought in Ukraine as well as in Syria, gaining valuable combat experience alien to most regular Russian troops.

    “They have more weighty, more meaningful experience than the army. The army are young soldiers who were forced to sign a contract, they have no experience,” he said.
    It’s what makes such paramilitary forces in Ukraine, of which Wagner is just one, so valuable to Russia.


    “The Russian army cannot handle [the war] without mercenaries,” according to Gabidullin, adding that there’s “a very big myth, a very big obfuscation about a strong Russian army.”

    Today, at least 5,000 mercenaries tied to the Wagner group are operating with Russian forces in Ukraine, Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency who has been monitoring Wagner in Ukraine, told CNN. This figure was backed up by a French intelligence source who noted that some Wagner fighters had left the African continent to bolster the group’s efforts in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin has increasingly relied on Wagner fighters as assault troops, according to Ukraine’s defense ministry. Hidden from official Russian death counts and available for deniable operations, they’ve borne a burden of casualties that have been politically sensitive for Putin in Russia.

    “Wagner has been suffering high losses in Ukraine, especially and unsurprisingly among young and inexperienced fighters,” according to a senior US defense source speaking in September.

    A simple equation underlies the employment of Wagner forces, according to Gabidullin: “Russian peace for American dollars.”

    The mercenaries can earn up to $5,000 per month.

    Wagner fighters have even been offered bonuses – all paid in US dollars – for wiping out Ukrainian tanks or units, according to a senior Ukrainian defense source and based on the intelligence gathered on Wagner since the start of the war by Ukrainian authorities.

    According to the UK’s Ministry of Defense, Wagner fighters have also been allocated specific sectors of the front line, operating almost as normal army units, a stark change from their history of distinct, limited missions in Ukraine.

    Yusov also said that Wagner is increasingly being used to patch holes in the Russian front line. This was also confirmed by a US senior defense official, who added that Wagner is being used across different front lines unlike Chechen fighters, for instance, who are focused around the Russian offensive aimed at Bakhmut.

    That has led to significant logistical challenges, he says, with the need to supply Wagner troops with ammunition, food and support for extended operations, all while Ukraine has upped its attacks on Russia’s logistics.

    Bodycam footage purportedly from Wagner fighters in August passed to CNN by the Ukrainian defense ministry shows mercenaries complaining of a lack of body armor and helmets. In another video a fighter complains about orders to attack Ukrainian positions when his unit is out of ammunition.

    Shoes to fill

    Wagner’s ranks have also been depleted by battlefield losses. In response, they’ve turned to unusually public recruitment.

    Billboards have sprung up in Russia calling for new recruits to Wagner. Adorned with a phone number and picture of camouflage-clad fighters, their slogan – “Orchestra ‘W’ Awaits You” – alludes to Wagner’s past nickname as the “orchestra.”

    The wide net cast by the group’s recruiting efforts matches a shift from its past secrecy. Even Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin finally admitted his role as Wagner chief in late September, having spent years trying to distance himself from the mercenary group through repeated denials, and even taking Russian media outlets investigating him to court.

    Wagner’s invitations to contact recruiters have also spread via social media and online. One recruiter contacted by CNN offered a monthly salary of “at least 240,000 rubles” (about $4,000) with the length of a “business trip” – code for a deployment – of at least four months. Much of the recruiter’s message listed medical conditions that excluded applicants from joining: from cancer to hepatitis C and substance abuse.

    In contrast to its image as a military elite organization, a Wagner recruiter had one startling admission regarding recruits when contacted by a CNN journalist: no military experience necessary.
    The message finished with a code word – “Morgan” – that applicants were to give at the gate of the Wagner facility in Krasnodar, Russia.

    Jailhouse recruits

    In September, video surfaced appearing to be Prigozhin recruiting prisoners from Russian jails for Wagner His offer: a promise of clemency for six months’ combat service in Ukraine, propping up Russia’s flailing invasion.

    It’s a move that would have been unthinkable months ago for the private military company once considered one of the most professional units in the Kremlin’s arsenal.

    “An act of desperation” is how the ex-Wagner commander Gabidullin described the appeal.

    Prigozhin’s apparent jailhouse recruitment drive matches broader Russian efforts to mobilize the country’s prison population for combat, offering monthly salaries worth thousands of dollars and death payments of tens of thousands of dollars to recruits’ families.

    For both Wagner comrades and their Ukrainian adversaries, that’s worrying.

    “[Wagner] are ready to send anyone, just anyone,” Ukrainian Prosecutor Yuriy Belousov, told CNN. “There is no criteria for professionalism anymore.”

    Working on Ukrainian investigations into possible Russian war crimes, Belousov fears that this lax recruiting will see the scale of war crimes increase.

    Although direct recruitment from prisons is a new step, Gabidullin said that a criminal record hadn’t been an obstacle to employment with Wagner. He himself says he had served three years in prison for murder and told CNN of prominent Wagner commanders who had served around the world with the group after prison sentences.

    The enemy within

    Wagner’s struggles in Ukraine have set in motion a wider problem: discontent in its ranks. For a group that depends on the appeal of its salaries and work, that’s critical.

    From intercepted phone calls, Ukrainian intelligence services in August noted a “general decline in morale and the psychological state” of Wagner troops, Ukrainian defense intelligence spokesman Yusov said. It’s a trend he’s also seen in Russian troops more broadly.

    The reduction in Wagner recruitment requirements point to demoralization too, he said, and the number of “truly professional soldiers who are willing to volunteer to fight with Wagner” is also decreasing.

    Ex-commander Gabidullin, who says he talks to his old comrades on an almost daily basis, explained that this demoralization was due to their dissatisfaction “with the overall organization of the fighting: [the Russian leadership’s] inability to make competent decisions, to organize battles.”

    For one mercenary who contacted Gabidullin for advice, that incompetence was too much. “He called me and said: ‘That’s it, I won’t be there anymore. I’m not taking part in this anymore,’” Gabidullin told CNN.

    And as Russia’s prospects of victory in Ukraine – or even claiming a positive outcome – look thin, life as a Russian mercenary doesn’t hold the same appeal it might once have had.
    “It may be that the money isn’t worth it anymore,” Ukrainian prosecutor Belousov said.

    In one of the many videos streaming out of Ukraine’s frontlines, the grim reality of Wagner’s war is plain to see in footage provided to CNN, which allegedly shows the group’s operations.

    In one clip, a fallen Wagner mercenary lies, in death, almost peacefully, his left hand gently gripping the black earth. Around him, the battlefield smolders alongside dead bodies and the flaming wreckage of their armored vehicles. Occasional shots crackle through the smoke.

    “I’m sorry, bro, I’m sorry,” the soldier’s comrade says, lightly patting his back, stripped of his shirt by the battle that killed him. “Let’s get out of here, if they shoot us, we’ll lie next to him.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/06/europ...ntl/index.html

  11. #1986
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    "We have to stop lying," Russian lawmaker urges senior officials to tell the truth about battle developments

    The head of Russia’s State Duma Defense Committee demanded officials report the truth about developments on the battlefield in Ukraine, telling a journalist that senior figures need to "stop lying."


    “First of all, we need to stop lying. We brought this up many times before… But somehow it's apparently not getting through to individual senior figures," Col. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov said in an interview with Vladimir Solovyov, which was posted on Solovyov's Telegram channel on Wednesday.


    “Our Russian city of Valuyki… is under constant fire,” Kartapolov said in the interview. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. But no one else."
    "The reports from the Ministry of Defense do not change in substance. They say they destroyed 300 rockets, killed Nazis and so on. But people know. Our people are not stupid. But they don’t want to even tell part of the truth. This can lead to a loss of credibility,” he continued, using Russian President Vladimir Putin's false accusations of Nazism to justify his war in Ukraine.


    Valuyki is in the region of Belgorod in western Russian, near the border with Ukraine.

    It'''s nighttime in Kyiv. Here'''s what you need to know

  12. #1987
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    If one wants to watch/ hear telephone intercepts of Russian soldiers speaking to their mothers/ wives, I recommend the YT channel "Insights from Ukraine and Russia".

    Also "Zack the Russian" - he has regular livestreams (I just watch the replay) and he posts/ watches vids from Russian social media or news and translates them into English. He's 21 years old & went to the US as an exchange student for a semester. He joined a protest in Feb (when the war started) and evaded the police. (The police dispersed the protesters and were arresting ppl.) He left Moscow a few days after and made his way to Tbilisi, Georgia. Brave young man - he speaks openly against the war (and calls it a war, not SMO, unlike other Russian vloggers).

    In one of the vids that he posted, there was a Russian guy who asked his friend to break his leg, just to avoid being drafted. You could hear the pain when his leg broke & also the pain/ sorrow in his friend's body language (the one who did the leg breaking). Viewer discretion advised. Both looked like very young men. Horrible (that they had to resort to that).

    Zack has also showed vids of the Russian soldiers being oriented by a female officer - the one who said that they (soldiers) must get tampons/ pads to stop the bleeding of wounds. He also recently showed vids of Russian soldiers saying that many of them have colds/ are sick & they had to lie on the floor of their lodgings.

    I saw the vids on his channel and after a few days, saw the vid (abt the tampons) on mainstream news channels. It's understandable since mainstream news channels have to vet & verify their sources, while Zack gets it from Russian social media & translates it for his audience.

  13. #1988
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    Over 500 civilian bodies have been found in territory recaptured by Ukraine, Kharkiv police say

    has recently been retaken from Russian forces, according to Ukrainian police.


    Most of the remains — 447, according to Ukrainian forces — were found at what was described as a mass burial site in the town of Izium, which Ukrainian forces liberated from Russian occupation in early September. Russian troops had been using Izium as a launchpad for attacks southward into the Donetsk region.


    As Ukrainian forces liberated more land in the northeast, new burial sites are being discovered.


    “We found the bodies of 534 civilians from the de-occupied territories," said Serhii Bolvinov, the head of the investigative department of the regional police,
    They included 226 women and 19 children, Bolvinov added.

    Live updates: Russia'''s war in Ukraine

  14. #1989
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    More Putin war crimes. Hang him.

  15. #1990
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    Putin 'in a corner' with options narrowing


    US President Joe Biden admitted this week that American diplomats still did not know how Russian President Vladimir Putin could bring an end to his faltering war in Ukraine and save face. Western analysts see no good options.



    The question of Putin's "off-ramp" -- or decisions that allow him to end the fighting without admitting defeat -- has exercised Western policymakers and foreign policy experts since the very start of the war in February.


    "Where does he find a way out?" Biden asked on Thursday while talking in New York. "Where does he find himself in a position that he does not, not only lose face, but lose significant power within Russia?"


    A French diplomat, talking recently on condition of anonymity, stressed that European allies were no closer to reading Putin's thinking, other than his desire to secure what appears to be an increasingly unlikely military victory.


    "There's a war that he is not managing to win, but what would satisfy him? We don't have the answers," the diplomat said.

    Instead of looking for a negotiated climbdown, Putin has escalated in recent weeks, formally annexing four regions of Ukraine on September 30 and approving a partial mobilisation of up to 300,000 men for the war.


    "He may think the battlefield situation isn't great but things will settle down during the winter, that Ukrainian offences will come to an end, that they'll be able to mobilise," Eliot A. Cohen, a military historian and former US State Department adviser, told AFP.


    "I think he's mistaken. I think the Russians are in a serious world of hurt," added Cohen, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at the US-based Johns Hopkins University.

    The Ukrainians are continuing to win back occupied territory in the northeast and south, while the Kremlin's mobilisation has led to rare dissent in Russia amid evidence that many recruits lack adequate weapons and kit.


    "Russia's behaviour is irrational," wrote Joris van Bladel, a fellow at the Belgian Royal Institute for International Relations think-tank. "The only 'rational' element the Kremlin is counting on is time."


    "Russia tries to buy time in the hope that the European countries will collapse before Russia’s downfall," he added.


    'Dangerous moment'


    Putin's escalation on the ground has also been accompanied by new rhetoric about the possible use of nuclear weapons which is directed at Western countries.


    Some analysts see it as a bluff and others as a sign of desperation.


    "His hope is that references to nuclear weapons will deter the democracies from delivering weapons to Ukraine, and buy him enough time to get Russian reserves to the battlefield to slow the Ukrainian offensive," Timothy Snyder, an American historian of Russia and Ukraine, wrote this week.


    But Biden said Thursday that he believed Putin was "not joking" with his threats, adding that it was difficult to imagine how this did "not end up with Armageddon."

    Western nations have signalled that they would feel compelled to react in some way if Russia crossed the nuclear threshold, raising the risk of direct conflict between the NATO military alliance and Moscow.


    "It's a very, very dangerous moment," former US secretary of state John Kerry said late last month.


    Putin is "more in a corner than anyone would like him to be because that's not good for anybody", Kerry told MSNBC on September 28.


    Cohen said Putin could authorise the use of chemical or biological weapons instead -- less provocative than a low-yield nuclear weapon -- "but the military utility of those might not be all that great".


    - 'Journey to hell' -


    With the Russian president continuing to raise the stakes, another "off-ramp" is one that sees Putin bundled out of power, either through a popular uprising or -- more likely -- a "palace coup" in which he is replaced by a rival.


    More problems with the mobilisation, a significant military collapse or a successful new Ukrainian offensive on a separate part of the frontline could increase the domestic pressure on Putin, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Friday.


    "The key question is whether Russia's elites and broader society are prepared to accompany their president on this journey to hell," wrote Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political scientist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think-tank.


    Marie Dumoulin, a Russia specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations cautioned that "we shouldn't take our dreams for a reality. Nobody knows when it will happen, in what circumstances, and what will come after Putin."


    "There are tensions inside the system, that's for sure, but it seems to me to be about internal clans competing for power without contesting the authority of Putin," she told AFP.


    For the moment, it's "not so much people taking a swing at him but taking a swing at each other," Cohen said.

    Putin 'in a corner' with options narrowing
    Last edited by misskit; 09-10-2022 at 08:22 AM.

  16. #1991
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere


    With the Kremlin distracted by its flagging war more than 1,500 miles away in Ukraine, Russia’s dominium over its old Soviet empire shows signs of unraveling. Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill.


    On the mountain-flanked steppes of southwestern Kyrgyzstan, the result in just one remote village has been devastating: homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench emanating from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens.

    All fell victim last month to the worst violence to hit the area since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union — a brief but bloody border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both members of a Russia-led military alliance dedicated to preserving peace but which did nothing to halt the mayhem.


    “Of course, they are distracted by Ukraine,” Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sadyr Japarov, lamented in an interview in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.


    Before President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Russia played an outsize role in the affairs of Central Asia and also the volatile Caucasus region, in what had passed for a far-flung Pax Russica. In January, it rushed troops to Kazakhstan to help the government there calm a wave of violent domestic unrest. In 2020, it sent around 2,000 armed “peacekeepers” to the Caucasus to enforce a Moscow-mediated truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan.


    Today, Armenia is fuming. Its president, Nikol Pashinyan, who has been a close ally, appealed to Moscow in vain last month for help to halt renewed attacks by Azerbaijan. Furious at Russia’s inaction, Armenia is now threatening to leave Moscow’s military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization.


    The Kazakh government that Mr. Putin helped prop up in January is veering far from the Kremlin’s script over Ukraine, and is looking to China for help in securing its own territory, parts of which are inhabited largely by ethnic Russians, and which Russian nationalists view as belonging to Russia.

    And here along the mountainous border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, long-running quarrels between farmers over land, water and smuggled contraband escalated last month into a full-scale conflict involving tanks, helicopters and rockets, as the armies of the two countries fought each other to a standstill.


    The conflict, according to Kyrgyz officials, killed scores of civilians and drove more than 140,000 people from their homes. It also left many local residents and officials in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, asking why Moscow — long seen as an attentive guardian of stability on the combustible fringes of the former Soviet empire — had barely lifted a finger.


    “Russia could have stopped all this in a second. But it did nothing. Why did it let this happen?” asked Zaynaddin Dubanaev, a 75-year-old Russian-language teacher at the burned-out school in Ak-Sai, a Kyrgyz village next to a fenced-off patch of Tajik territory.


    Moscow’s security alliance has long been touted by Mr. Putin as Russia’s answer to NATO and an anchor of its role as the dominant (and often domineering) force across vast swaths of the former Soviet Union. But now the bloc is barely functioning. Five of its six members — Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan — have been involved in wars this year, while the sixth, Kazakhstan, has seen violent internal strife.


    In response, China is newly asserting itself, while the United States also sees an opening, pressing Kyrgyzstan to sign a new bilateral cooperation agreement. It would replace one scrapped in 2014 after Russian pressure forced the closure of an American air base outside Bishkek that had been set up to fuel warplanes flying over Afghanistan.


    “Until Ukraine, China and Russia were not interested in open competition in Central Asia,” said Asel Doolotkeldieva, a senior lecturer at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, a center for postgraduate studies focused on security issues. “There was a tacit division of labor: security for Russia, economics for China. But Russia is not doing its job anymore. It has shown that it is unable, or unwilling, to protect the region.”


    Russia still has tremendous leverage in Central Asia. Its biggest foreign military base is in Tajikistan, and it has a small air base in Kyrgyzstan, a poor, remote country that remains heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies and remittances from more than a million Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia.


    Mr. Japarov, the Kyrgyz president, aware of his country’s vulnerability, has stalled on signing the new agreement with the United States. Doing that would be perceived in Moscow as a “stab in the back and they would be right,” he said.


    “Russia is obviously focused on other things right now, not Central Asia, but the moment it wants to lay down the law, it just has to hint that it will make life difficult for migrant workers in Russia,” said Peter Leonard, Central Asia editor for Eurasianet, a media outlet that reports on the region.


    But the recent border war between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan unsettled longstanding assumptions about Russian power. It erupted just as Mr. Putin was in neighboring Uzbekistan for a summit meeting of a Chinese-sponsored regional grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was attended by President Xi Jinping of China, as well as leaders of India, Turkey, Azerbaijan and four Central Asian countries.


    Overshadowed by the Chinese leader, Mr. Putin endured a series of humiliating protocol snafus that left him waiting awkwardly in front of the cameras as other leaders, including Mr. Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, showed up late to meet him.


    “This was of course not deliberate,” Mr. Japarov said. “No slight was intended.”


    But widely circulated videos of an uncomfortable-looking Mr. Putin; a public rebuke from the prime minister of India, who stated that “today’s era is not of war”; and an acknowledgment from the Russian leader that China had “questions and concerns” over the war in Ukraine all reinforced an image of shrinking clout and diminished appeal.


    “Putin is no longer the great invincible leader that everyone wants to meet,” said Emil Dzhuraev, a researcher in Bishkek with Crossroads Central Asia, a research group. “He has lost his aura.”


    By contrast, Mr. Xi has become more assertive. On a visit to Kazakhstan last month, he pledged to “resolutely support Kazakhstan in the defense of its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a remark widely interpreted as a warning to Moscow not to try anything.


    A few days later, after Tajik forces advanced, China issued a similar pledge with respect to Kyrgyzstan, horning in on Russia’s longstanding role as the guardian of Central Asian borders.


    China also delivered another affront during the summit meeting by signing an agreement with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan that fixed the route of a proposed new railway line to get Chinese exports to Europe by land without going through Russia.


    The massive project, which is expected to cost more than $4 billion and still faces immense obstacles, had long been on hold, largely because China already had rail links to Europe through Kazakhstan and Russia, and did not want to risk Moscow’s wrath by building an alternative that would break its chokehold on land transport across Eurasia.


    Mr. Japarov, a nationalist politician who has often spoken of the need to strengthen his country’s sovereignty, said he had “not asked Russia for permission” to build the railway line “and had not been told not to.” He added: “Even if they tell me not to, we will, God willing, still build it.”


    Mr. Japarov complained that when the border fighting erupted with Tajikistan, Russia’s military alliance “did nothing at all,” adding that the Russians are “taking care of so many problems of their own.”


    Some officials in Bishkek wonder if Russia winked at the military action by Tajikistan, a tightly controlled dictatorship ruled by the same leader since 1994, even longer than Mr. Putin has been in control of the Kremlin. Kyrgyzstan, by contrast, is considered the only Central Asian country with a modicum of real democracy and a relatively free press.


    The view of Mr. Putin siding with Tajikistan — rather than being an unbiased umpire between two members of his military alliance — gained more ground this past week when the Kremlin declared that it was giving the veteran Tajik dictator, Emomali Rahmon, a prestigious state award for his contribution to “regional stability and security.”


    Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry said the award, announced by Moscow “while the blood of innocent victims has not yet cooled on Kyrgyz soil,” had caused “bewilderment.”


    In Batken, the southwestern region of Kyrgyzstan where the border fighting broke out, the rolling steppes, studded with rocky outcrops, sustain a jumble of rival ethnic groups — impoverished farmers and herders who, armed with farm implements, have for decades skirmished sporadically in what they called the “shovel wars.”


    But last month this fight quickly became a real war, with shells even landing in the regional capital, Batken city, scores of miles from the disputed border.


    Particularly gruesome is the scene in the village of Ak-Sai, where the cages of a large farm are now filled with thousands of dead chickens that apparently died from suffocation when their brick-and-mud coop was set on fire.


    The Kyrgyz owner of the business, who stayed behind to guard his chickens, according to local officials, was shot in his office by marauding Tajiks. Feathers and bullet casings litter the ground outside.


    “The perverse aspect of this is that both sides are members of the same military alliance of which Russia is in charge,” said Mr. Leonard, the Eurasianet editor. “The days when Russia dictated these countries’ military posture has clearly gone out the window.”


    The head of the district administration, Jorobaev Imamalievich, said he was dismayed.


    “Russia was silent. It is busy in Ukraine and is not paying attention,” he said. “It is just not here anymore.”

    A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere – DNyuz

  17. #1992
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    bloody border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Armenia is now threatening to leave Moscow’s military alliance
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    The Kazakh government that Mr. Putin helped prop up in January is veering far from the Kremlin’s script over Ukraine

    And the big bogeyman is ever-present
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    China

  18. #1993
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    The Ukrainian capital was targeted by at least four missiles on Monday morning, the first strikes in several months, as other Ukrainian cities also came under Russian attack in the wake of Saturday’s huge explosion that hit a key Russian built bridge in the Crimea.

    Guardian reporters in Kyiv heard several missiles pass over head with at least one striking, while a fourth detonation could be heard a little later.

    Ukrainians had been bracing for a harsh Russian reprisal after the blast that brought down part of the Kerch bridge linking the occupied Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland early on Saturday.

    Among the targets hit overnight were the city of Zaporizhzhia which was hit for the third night in a row and the port city of Mykolaiv.

    The strikes follow reports of an uptick in activity by Russian strategic bombers with some of the missiles fired from the area of the Caspian sea

    Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv hit by missiles as several Ukrainian cities come under Russian attack | Ukraine | The Guardian
    "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect,"

  19. #1994
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    The Ukrainian capital was targeted by at least four missiles on Monday morning
    It is going to be far bigger than that, and it is nationwide. Almost all on civilian targets.

  20. #1995
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    Missile Strikes on ‘Many Cities’ of Ukraine

    Missile strikes on "many" Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv left people dead and wounded on Monday, the country's presidency said, a day after Moscow blamed Ukraine for an explosion on a bridge connecting Crimea to Russia.


    "Ukraine is under missile attack. There is information about strikes in many cities of our country," Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president's office, said on social media, calling on the population to "stay in shelters."


    In Kyiv, AFP reporters heard several loud explosions starting at around 8:15 a.m. local time — during Monday morning rush hour.


    Russia's last strike on Kyiv took place on June 26.


    One AFP journalist in the city said one of the projectiles landed near a children's playground, and that smoke was rising from a large crater at the impact site.


    Several trees and benches nearby were charred from the blast, while several ambulances had arrived in the area.


    "The capital is under Russian terrorists' attack!" Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media, adding that the strikes had hit the city center.


    "If there is no urgent need, it is better not to go to the city today. I am also asking the residents of the suburbs about this — do not go to the capital today."


    Videos posted on social media showed black smoke rising above several areas in the city.


    "Air raid sirens are not subsiding around Ukraine... Unfortunately there are dead and wounded. Please do not leave the shelters," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media, accusing Russia of wanting to "wipe us from the face of the Earth."


    "Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Let's hold on and be strong."


    Bridge attack
    The strikes came a day after Moscow blamed Ukraine for the blast on a bridge linking Crimea to Russia, leaving three people dead.


    "The authors, perpetrators and sponsors are the Ukrainian secret services," Russian President Vladimir Putin said of Saturday's Crimea bridge bombing, which he described as a "terrorist act."


    Putin was speaking during a meeting with the head of the investigation committee he has set up to look into the bombing, Russian news agencies reported.


    The Russian leader is gearing up for a meeting with his Security Council later Monday, the Kremlin told local news agencies.


    "Tomorrow the president has a planned meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.


    The blast that hit the bridge sparked celebrations from Ukrainians and others on social media.


    But Zelensky, in his nightly address on Saturday, did not directly mention the incident, and officials in Kyiv have made no direct claim of responsibility.


    On Saturday, Russia said some road and rail traffic had resumed over the strategic link, a symbol of the Kremlin's 2014 annexation of Crimea.


    The 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge is a vital supply link between Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula.


    Some military analysts argue that the blast could have a major impact if Moscow sees the need to shift already hard-pressed troops to Crimea from other regions — or if it prompts a rush by residents to leave.


    Mick Ryan, a retired Australian senior officer now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that even if Kyiv was not behind the blast, it constituted "a massive influence operation win for Ukraine."


    "It is a demonstration to Russians, and the rest of the world, that Russia's military cannot protect any of the provinces it recently annexed," he said on Twitter.

    Missile Strikes on 'Many Cities' of Ukraine - The Moscow Times

  21. #1996
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Well what do you know.


    Moscow Stock Exchange Down Nearly 12% at Opening

    The Moscow stock exchange plunged nearly 12% in early trading on Monday following multiple strikes on Ukrainian cities and a weekend explosion that partially destroyed the bridge connecting Crimea to Russia.


    The benchmark ruble-denominated MOEX index dropped 11.9% to 1,780.39 points at 10:03 a.m., briefly falling below the 1,800 mark for the first time since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.


    The dollar-denominated RTS index slumped by 13% to 909.26 points.


    The sharp movements came as Russia was unleashing widespread missile attacks across Ukraine on Monday, after the partial destruction of the bridge linking Russia and the Crimea peninsula the Kremlin annexed in 2014.


    President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused Ukraine of being behind the deadly explosion, which damaged the bridge, and reprisals were expected due to the symbolic importance of the infrastructure.


    The ruble, which had been recovering for several months, was also trading lower on Monday against the dollar and the euro.


    One dollar was being traded for around 62.9 rubles late Monday morning.

    Moscow Stock Exchange Down Nearly 12% at Opening - The Moscow Times

  22. #1997
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    It is going to be far bigger than that, and it is nationwide. Almost all on civilian targets.
    Sure is. Vlad is pissed and thowing a temper tantrum. Time for India and China to condemn it and do something other than just talk and take no action.

  23. #1998
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    Vlad is pissed and thowing a temper tantrum. Time for India and China to condemn it and do something other than just talk and take no action.
    I agree. Xi has a lot on his plate at the moment, I'm not sure he is about to say much to Putin, or that Putin will listen anyway. We can but hope.

  24. #1999
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    ‘We’ll end up in World War III’: Trump says US ‘saying exactly the wrong thing’ to Russia

    Former US president Donald Trump has slammed the United States for “saying exactly the wrong thing” to Russia following President Joe Biden’s remarks on the “prospect of Armageddon” amid President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats.

    Mr Trump said the Biden administration should be pushing Russia and Ukraine to sue for peace – warning the conflict could be heading toward “World War III”, according to The Hill.

    “And now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying,” he said during a rally in Arizona on Sunday.

    “We must demand immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will never be a war like this.”

    ‘We’ll end up in World War III’: Trump says US ‘saying exactly the wrong thing’ to Russia | Sky News Australia


    You have really got to ask yourself what on earth is happening inside the Beltway, when The donald starts sounding like one of the few adults in the room.

  25. #2000
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    What you and the Donald view as negotiation, is actually capitulation. So no, he doesn't sound like the adult in the room, and neither do you. If you were adults, you'd start blaming Putin and tell him to go home. You think it's up to America, or Zellensky, but the Ukrainians are fighting for Ukraine and days like today only fuel their resolve and morale.
    Originally Posted by sabang
    Maybe Canada should join Nato.

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