Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Huge ammunition depot in Belgorod, Russia, blew up this night. Huge and continuing explosions.



Russian sources say, no casualties.

HIMARS attack was said, but unconfirmed.

The Kerch Bridge will be gone soon.

Originally Posted by pickel

The Kerch Bridge will be gone soon.

I think they are just warming up for the grand finale.

Originally Posted by pickel

The Kerch Bridge will be gone soon.

Now that would be a blast.

I think the Kerch bridge will stand for now. The scum need a way to retreat.

Poor old puffy's been trying to keep all his fuck ups under wraps but all these people scarpering out of Crimea back to russia with their tails between their legs are telling everyone back home about it and fucking it up for him.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with UN chief, Turkish President in Lviv for talks on how to end Ukraine war


The UN chief and the presidents of Turkey and Ukraine have discussed ways to end the war started by Russia and secure Europe's largest nuclear power station.
Key points:

• Antonio Guterres said he was gravely concerned about circumstances at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
• The leaders said they wanted to build on a recent positive atmosphere to revive peace negotiations
• Russia is keeping up steady bombardment of Kharkiv to tie down Ukrainian forces, the UK says

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters after talks in Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday he was gravely concerned about circumstances at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and called for military equipment and personnel to be withdrawn.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he, Mr Guterres and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed building on a recent positive atmosphere to revive peace negotiations with Russia that took place in Istanbul in March.

In a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement in July for Russia to lift a blockade of Ukrainian grain shipments, and exports resumed at the beginning of August.

NATO member Turkey has maintained good relations with Russia, an important trade partner, and sought to mediate in the conflict, which began six months ago when Russian forces invaded neighbouring Ukraine.

"Personally, I maintain my belief that the war will ultimately end at the negotiating table. Mr Zelenskyy and Mr Guterres have the same opinion in this regard," Mr Erdogan said.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

FULL- Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with UN chief, Turkish President in Lviv for talks on how to end Ukraine war - ABC News

ODESSA, Ukraine—A series of explosions rocked Crimea and a border region inside of Russia overnight, punctuating a new phase of the war in which Ukraine is targeting enemy bases and infrastructure deep behind the front line.

An ammunition depot in Russia’s southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine ignited late Thursday, the region’s governor wrote on his social-media pages. Around the same time, unverified videos on social media showed billowing clouds of smoke and fire in the city of Kadiivka in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, which Russian forces captured in early July. Russian-installed authorities in Luhansk said Ukrainian forces had struck the city with U.S.-supplied Himars mobile rocket launchers. Air-defense systems were also activated in the occupied city of Kerch, Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, wrote on his Telegram channel.

Residents in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, reported explosions at the local military airfield Thursday night, and a Western official said Friday that the attack put more than half of that fleet’s naval aviation combat jets out of use. Sevastopol’s governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, wrote on his Telegram channel that a drone had been shot down near the airfield but denied the airfield had suffered an attack.

Ukrainian officials have typically stopped short of claiming responsibility for successful attacks behind Russian lines, but they have hinted at involvement. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych listed on Twitter all of the sites that had been targeted and wrote: “As you understand, we have nothing to do with it.”
Russian officials didn’t immediately comment on the series of blasts.

On Wednesday, Mykhailo Podolyak, another adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, had suggested that the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia is a legitimate military target for Ukraine. Mr. Kryuchkov wrote Thursday that Kerch and the bridge weren’t in danger.

The explosions near Russian ammunition depots, airfields and bridges appeared to intensify the strategy Ukrainian forces have adopted in recent weeks—hitting Moscow’s supply lines in hopes of starving Russian troops west of the Dnipro River in the occupied Kherson region of resources and ultimately forcing them to retreat.

Thursday was the first day since early July without evidence or Russian claims of any territorial gains, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

The two sides are also trading accusations about plans to attack the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense forces, said on Thursday that Ukraine was planning to cause “a minor accident at the nuclear power plant and, thereby, disrupting the normal and safe operation of the nuclear power plant, blaming Russia for this.”

Ukrainian intelligence, meanwhile, posted on Facebook that employees from Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation, have been advised to stay away from the plant on Friday, because the Russians are planning to “organize a real terrorist attack on Europe’s largest nuclear facility.”

Neither side provided any evidence for their claims, but alarm about the safety of the plant is growing worldwide.

On Thursday, after meeting Mr. Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he was gravely concerned about the safety of the facility and reiterated his call for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to be immediately allowed to visit the plant from Kyiv.

“Military equipment and personnel should be withdrawn from the plant,” he said. “The area needs to be demilitarized.” The U.S. and European Union have also called for a demilitarized zone around the facility.

Russian officials have said inspectors should travel to the plant via Russian territory, which Ukraine opposes. In addition, they have refused to withdraw troops from the facility, saying they are necessary to defend it against potential attacks.

In his call with Mr. Macron, Mr. Putin agreed to the deployment of IAEA inspectors to the site, according to Mr. Macron’s office. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin confirmed Russia’s readiness to provide the inspectors with the necessary assistance.

Gen. Kirillov said on Thursday that Russia would also consider taking the plant offline entirely. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of scheming to steal electricity from the plant, which supplied approximately a fifth of Ukraine’s power before the war, and reroute it to serve the Russian grid.

In a video posted online late Thursday night after his meeting with Mr. Guterres and Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Zelensky called on the foreign leaders to heap pressure on Russia to withdraw from the plant. He also decried Russian plans to hold votes in occupied Ukrainian territory on whether to join the Russian federation.

“I called on both Mr. President and Mr. Secretary-General to voice the strictest possible position regarding Russia’s planned pseudo-referendums in the occupied territory,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Any pseudo-referendum will be a slap in the face to the international community.”

Meanwhile, shelling from both sides continued across the country.

Ukraine’s military southern command said Friday it had conducted four strikes on Moscow’s bases in the Kherson region, and said it had destroyed repairs Russians were making to a key bridge in the region.

Twelve people were killed in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, by shelling Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, Mr. Zelensky said.

Residential buildings were hit by Russian rockets midday on Thursday, military officials said. And the Sumy region in the north was hit with more than 100 pieces of ordnance Thursday night, according to the governor.

In Washington, officials announced a new $775 million military aid package for Ukraine that will include mine-resistant vehicles, drones, new missile systems and other new types of military assistance.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/bla...es-11660907876

Originally Posted by sabang

Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with UN chief, Turkish President in Lviv for talks on how to end Ukraine war

Easy, Russia fucks off out of Ukraine . . . you know, the nation they invaded without provocation.

Russian commanders have fled the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian forces using U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, have targeted key strategic bridges in recent weeks as part of a counteroffensive to reclaim the Russian-occupied Kherson region. They caused significant damage after striking the last working bridge over the Dnipro river into the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian army's Operational Command South announced on Saturday.

Some Russian command staff has now begun leaving the city and moving to the river's right bank, as a result, said Nataliya Gumenyuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military's southern command.

"There are recorded facts that after our strikes on the command posts of the occupying forces...their command staff very quickly moves in the direction 'beyond the bridge'—that is, to the left bank, so as not to be cut off in ways to move to a safer territory," Gumenyuk said at a news briefing, according to Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet.

Russian forces "don't have any logistical route that is safe and that would satisfy their military needs precisely in terms of providing for the military group located near Kherson," Yuri Sobolevsky, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, said on Ukrainian television on Sunday. "Most of them have already left Kherson."

Vitaliy Kim, the governor of the Mykolaiv region, said commanders had abandoned Russian troops in the city. "Not really, but a little sorry for the stupid orcs who were abandoned on the right bank of the Dnipro," he wrote on Telegram on Saturday. "The entire management team is moving beyond the Dnipro."

The British Ministry of Defence said Saturday that damage to bridges across the river means that "ground resupply for the several thousand Russian troops on the west bank is almost certainly reliant on just two pontoon ferry crossing points."

The ministry added that Russian forces had managed to make only "superficial repairs" to the Antonivsky bridge, which was rendered unusable after a rocket strike in July.

"Even if Russia manages to make significant repairs to the bridges, they will remain a key vulnerability," the update said. "With their supply chain constrained, the size of any stockpiles Russia has managed to establish on the west bank is likely to be a key factor in the force's endurance."

Russian Leaders Flee City, Abandon Troops, Amid Counter-Attack: Ukraine

Originally Posted by panama hat

Easy, Russia fucks off out of Ukraine . . . you know, the nation they invaded without provocation.

Would seem the obvious solution.

Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief speaks about the difficult situation of the Ukrainian Army


17.08.2022 14:48


Valery Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian Army was experiencing a difficult situation on the front.



According to the message that Zaluzhny posted on his Telegram channel, the Russian army was advancing along the entire front line while increasing the intensity of artillery shelling.

The Russian forces strike the positions of the Ukrainian military 700-800 times a day, he added. The Russian Armed Forces use from 40 to 60 thousand shells daily, he also wrote.

On August 17, Mikhail Sheremet, State Duma deputy from the Crimea, announced that the combat potential of the Ukrainian army had been destroyed. According to him, it is the forces of the collective West that confront the Russian army in Ukraine. The official referred to large-scale supplies of Western weapons to Kyiv, as well as a large number of foreign mercenaries in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Western countries started the crisis in an attempt to maintain the unipolar world.


Earlier, Sergei Shoygu, the Russian Ministry of Defense, indicated that the troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the territorial defense were suffering huge losses, but the Kiev leadership was concealing the real numbers from the public.

See more at Just a moment...

Originally Posted by sabang

Valery Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian Army was experiencing a difficult situation on the front.

If the article is eal te the guy is simply discussing life on the front lines . . . whereas the Russian aparatchicks are too frightened and lie through their teeth to please their dictator-in-chief

Accusations fly between Ukraine and Russia over Europe's largest nuclear power plant. And the world frets.

Kyiv and Moscow continued to accuse each other on Friday of shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant, stoking international fears of a catastrophe on the continent as Russian President Vladimir Putin said independent inspectors should visit the Zaporizhzhia plant "as soon as possible."


"The Russian side confirmed its readiness to provide the (International Atomic Energy) Agency inspectors with the necessary assistance," the Kremlin said in a statement after a call between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron - their first call in nearly three months, the AFP news agency reported.


"The two presidents will speak about this subject again in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission," a French readout of the call said.

MORE Accusations fly between Ukraine and Russia over Europe's largest nuclear power plant. And the world frets. - CBS News

Putin warns Macron of ‘catastrophe’ at Ukraine nuclear plant

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed that a team of independent inspectors can travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant via Ukraine, the French presidency said on Friday.


The apparent resolution of a dispute over whether inspectors travel to the plant via Ukraine or Russia came as a senior US defence official said Ukraine’s forces had brought the Russian advance to a halt.


“You are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the official said, speaking to reporters on grounds of anonymity.


According to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office, Putin had “reconsidered the demand” that the International Atomic Energy Agency travel through Russia to the site, after the Russian leader himself warned fighting there could bring about a “catastrophe”.


It specified that Putin had dropped his demand that the IAEA team travel to the site via Russia, saying it could arrive via Ukraine.


Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Moscow’s forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant in south Ukraine not to disconnect the facility from the grid and potentially cut supplies to millions of Ukrainians.

Putin warns Macron of 'catastrophe' at Ukraine nuclear plant - Insider Paper

Ukraine’s Zelensky faces unprecedented criticism over war warnings

KYIV, Ukraine — Until this week, Ukrainians seemed to see President Volodymyr Zelensky as beyond reproach, a national hero who stayed in Kyiv despite the risk to his personal safety to lead his country against invading Russian troops.


Comments he made to The Washington Post justifying his decision to not share with Ukrainians details of repeated U.S. warnings that Russia planned to invade have punctured the bubble, triggering a cascade of public criticism unprecedented since the war began.


People tweeted their experiences of chaos and dislocation after an invasion for which they were unprepared, describing how they might have made different choices had they known what was coming. Public figures and academics wrote harsh critiques on Facebook of Zelensky’s decision to downplay the risk of an invasion, saying he bears at least some responsibility for the atrocities that followed.


In the interview with The Post, published Tuesday, Zelensky cited his fears that Ukrainians would panic, flee the country and trigger economic collapse as the reason he chose not to share the stark warnings passed on by U.S. officials regarding Russia’s plans.

MORE Ukraine’s Zelensky faces unprecedented criticism over war warnings | Stars and Stripes

oops





Daughter of 'spiritual guide' to Putin's Ukraine invasion killed in car explosion: Russian media - CNN

Probably another Anne Heche, but they love to milk it.

Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine

(Reuters) -Russia's defence ministry accused Ukraine on Saturday of poisoning some of its servicemen in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia in late July.


An adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said in response that the alleged poisoning could have been caused by Russian forces eating expired canned meat.


The Russian defence ministry said a number of Russian servicemen had been taken to a military hospital with signs of serious poisoning on July 31. Tests showed a toxic substance, botulinum toxin type B, in their bodies, it said.


"On the fact of chemical terrorism sanctioned by the (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy regime, Russia is preparing supporting evidence with the results of all the analyses," the ministry said in a statement.


It did not say how many servicemen had suffered or what their condition was now. It did not say what the "supporting evidence" was.


Botulinum toxin type B is a neurotoxin that can cause botulism when ingested in previously contaminated food products, but it can also have medical uses.


Ukraine's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko commented on the Russian allegation on the Telegram messaging app.


"The department (Russian defence ministry) does not clarify whether the poisoning could have been caused by expired canned meat, in which botulinum toxin is often found. Overdue rations have been massively complained about by the occupying forces since the first days of the invasion of Ukraine," he said.


The Russian defence ministry said it was conducting an additional investigation into an incident in which Volodymyr Saldo, the Russian-installed administration in Ukraine's occupied Kherson region, was taken ill.


Saldo, a former mayor of the city of Kherson who was appointed to head the region of the same name when Russian troops overran it in early March, fell ill in early August.


Russia says its "special military operation" launched on Feb. 24 is aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and protecting Russian speakers on what President Vladimir Putin called historical Russian land.


Ukraine and Western countries view it as an unprovoked war of conquest aimed at wiping out Ukraine's national identity.

Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine

RIGA, Latvia — Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise.

In early April, the 34-year-old Filatyev was evacuated after being wounded. Over the next five weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it.

His damning 141-pagejournal,posted this month on Vkontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, is the most detailed day-by-day account to date of the attacks on Kherson and Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine as seen through the eyes of a Russian soldier.

The document describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless and terrified, equipment old and rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled. He tells of soldiers shooting themselves in the legs to collect the $50,000 promised by the government to injured servicemen. He describes units being wiped out by friendly fire. He blasts Russian state media for trying to justify a war that the Kremlin had no “moral right” to wage.

“They simply decided to shower Ukraine with our corpses in this war,” he wrote.

In an exchange of messages on Telegram this week with The Washington Post, Filatyev said he knew that posting his views carried risks. Though technically still in the army, he left Russia this week with the help of the human rights organization Gulagu.net. He declined to give his location because of security concerns.

With his permission, The Post is publishing excerpts of his writings; they have been edited only for conciseness and clarity. The Post has not been able to independently verify his account. But Filatyev provided his military ID as proof that he served in the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment based in Crimea, as well as documents showing that he was treated for an eye injury after his return from the front.

“It may not change anything,” he wrote, “but I will not participate in this madness.”

Feb. 15: Gearing up before the invasion

I arrived to the training ground [in Stary Krym, Crimea]. Our entire squadron, about 40 people, all lived in one tent with plank boards and one makeshift stove. Even in Chechnya, where we only lived in tents or mud huts, our living conditions were organized better. Here we had nowhere to wash up and the food was horrible. For those who arrived later than the rest, me and about five other people, there was neither a sleeping bag, nor camo, armor, or helmets left.

I finally received my rifle. It turned out that it had a broken belt, was rusty and kept getting stuck, so I cleaned it in oil for a long time trying to put it in order.

Around February 20, an order came for everyone to urgently gather and move out, packing lightly. We were supposed to perform a forced march to some unknown location. Some people joked that now we would attack Ukraine and capture Kyiv in three days. But already then I thought it is no time for laughter. I said that if something like this were to happen, we would not capture anything in three days.

Feb. 23: Bracing for something serious

The division commander arrived and, congratulating us on the [Defender of the Fatherland] holiday, announced that starting from tomorrow, our salary per day would be $69. It was a clear sign that something serious is about to happen. Rumors began spreading that we are about to go storm Kherson, which seemed to be nonsense to me.

Everything changed that day. I noticed how people began to change, some were nervous and tried not to communicate with anyone, some frankly seemed scared, some, on the contrary, were unusually cheerful.

Feb. 24: Rolling into war with no plan

At about 4 a.m. I opened my eyes again and heard a roar, a rumble, a vibration of the earth. I sensed an acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. I look out of the truck and see that the sky is lit bright from volleys.

It was not clear what is happening, who was shooting from where and at whom, but the weariness from lack of food, water and sleep disappeared. A minute later, I lit up a cigarette to wake up, and realized that the fire is coming 10-20 kilometers ahead of our convoy. Everyone around me also began to wake up and smoke and there was a quiet murmur: ‘It’s started.’ We must have a plan.

The convoy became animated and started to slowly move forward. I saw the lights switch on in the houses and people looking out the windows and balconies of five-story buildings.

It was already dawn, perhaps 6 a.m., the sun went up and I saw a dozen helicopters, a dozen planes, armored assault vehicles drove across the field. Then tanks appeared, hundreds of pieces of equipment under Russian flags.

By 1 p.m. we drove to a huge field where our trucks got bogged down in the mud. I got nervous. A huge column standing in the middle of an open field for half an hour is just an ideal target. If the enemy notices us and is nearby, we are f---ed.

Many began to climb out of the trucks and smoke, turning to one from another. The order is to go to Kherson and capture the bridge across the Dnieper.

I understood that something global was happening, but I did not know what exactly. Many thoughts were spinning in my head. I thought that we couldn’t just attack Ukraine, maybe NATO really got in the way and we intervened. Maybe there are also battles going on in Russia, maybe the Ukrainians attacked together with NATO. Maybe there is something going on in the Far East if America also started a war against us. Then the scale will be huge, and nuclear weapons, then surely someone will use it, damn it.

The commander tried to cheer everyone up. We are going ahead, leaving the stuck equipment behind, he said, and everyone should be ready for battle. He said it with feigned courage, but in his eyes I saw that he was also freaking out.

It was quite dark and we got word that we are staying here until dawn. We climbed into sleeping bags without taking off our shoes, laying on boxes with mines, embracing our rifles.

Feb. 25: Collecting corpses from the road

Somewhere around 5 in the morning they wake everyone up, telling us to get ready to move out.

I lit a cigarette and walked around. Our principal medical officer was looking for a place to put a wounded soldier. He constantly said that he was cold, and we covered him with our sleeping bags. I was told later that this guy had died.

We drove on terrible roads, through some dachas, greenhouses, villages. In settlements we met occasional civilians who saw us off with a sullen look. Ukrainian flags were fluttering over some houses, evoking mixed feelings of respect for the brave patriotism of these people and a sense that these colors now somehow belong to an enemy.

We reached a highway at around 8 a.m. and … I noticed the trucks of the guys from my squadron. They look kind of crazy. I walk from car to car, asking about how things are. Everyone answers me incomprehensibly: “Damn, this is f---ed up,” “We got wrecked all night,” “I collected corpses from the road, one had his brains all out on the pavement.”

We are approaching a fork and signs point to Kherson and Odessa. I am thinking about how we will storm Kherson. I don’t think the mayor of the city will come out with bread and salt, raise the Russian flag over the administration building, and we’ll enter the city in a parade column.

At around 4 p.m. our convoy takes a turn and settles in the forest. Commanders tell us the news that Ukrainian GRAD rocket launchers were seen ahead, so everyone must prepare for shelling, urgently dig in as deep as possible, and also that our cars almost ran out of fuel and we have communication problems.

I stand and talk with the guys, they tell me that they are from the 11th brigade, that there are 50 of them left. The rest are probably dead.

Feb. 26-28: Advancing on Kherson

Filatyev’s convoy made its way to Kherson and surrounded the local airport, looting storesin villagesalong the way. On the third day, the convoy received the order to enter Kherson. Filatyev was told to stay behind and cover the front-line units with mortar fire if necessary. He recountedhearing distant fighting all day. The southern port city would become the first major Ukrainian city that Russia captured in its invasion.

March 1: Acting like savages

We marched to the city on foot … [around 5:30 p.m.] we arrived at the Kherson seaport. It was already dark, the units marching ahead of us had already occupied it.

Everyone looked exhausted and ran wild. We searched the buildings for food, water, showers and a place to sleep, someone began to take out computers and anything else of value.

Walking through the building, I found an office with a TV. Several people sat there and watching the news, they found a bottle of champagne in the office. Seeing the cold champagne, I took a few sips from the bottle, sat down with them and began to watch the news intently. The channel was in Ukrainian, I didn’t understand half of it. All I understood there was that Russian troops were advancing from all directions, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv were occupied, they began to show footage of broken buildings and injured women and children.

We ate everything like savages, all that was there was, cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, coffee. … Nobody cared about anything, we were already pushed to the limit.

March 2-6: Wandering in the woods

Filatyev’s exhausted convoy was ordered to push ahead to storm Mykolaiv and Odessa, though the Russian campaign had already begun to stall. Filatyev described how his unit wandered in the woods trying to reach Mykolaiv, about 40 miles away.He recalled asking a senior officer about their next movements. The commander said he had no clue what to do.

The first reinforcements arrived: separatist forces from Donetsk, mostly men over 45 in shabby fatigues. According to Filatyev, they were forced to go to the front lines when many regular Russian army soldiers refused.

Into mid-April: Holding from front-line trenches

From now on and for more than a month it was Groundhog Day. We were digging in, artillery was shelling us, our aviation was almost nowhere to be seen. We just held positions in the trenches on the front line, we could not shower, eat, or sleep properly. Everyone had overgrown beards and were covered in dirt, uniforms and shoes began to fray.

[Ukrainian forces] could clearly see us from the drones and kept shelling us so almost all of the equipment soon went out of order. We got a couple of boxes with the so-called humanitarian aid, containing cheap socks, T-shirts, shorts and soap.

Some soldiers began to shoot themselves … to get [the government money] and get out of this hell. Our prisoner had his fingers and genitals cut off. Dead Ukrainians at one of the posts were plopped on seats, given names and cigarettes.

Due to artillery shelling, some villages nearby practically ceased to exist. Everyone was getting angrier and angrier. Some grandmother poisoned our pies. Almost everyone got a fungus, someone’s teeth fell out, the skin was peeling off. Many discussed how, when they return, they will hold the command accountable for lack of provision and incompetent leadership. Some began to sleep on duty because of fatigue. Sometimes we managed to catch a wave of the Ukrainian radio, where they poured dirt on us and called us orcs, which only embittered us even more. My legs and back hurt terribly, but an order came not to evacuate anyone due to illness.

I kept saying, “God, I will do everything to change this if I survive.” … I decided that I would describe the last year of my life, so that as many people as possible would know what our army is now.

By mid-April, earth got into my eyes due to artillery shelling. After five days of torment, with the threat of losing an eye looming over me, they evacuated me.

Aftermath: Remaining silent no longer

I survived, unlike many others. My conscience tells me that I must try to stop this madness. … We did not have the moral right to attack another country, especially the people closest to us.

This is an army that bullies its own soldiers, those who have already been in the war, those who do not want to return there and die for something they don’t even understand.

I will tell you a secret. The majority in the army, they are dissatisfied with what is happening there, they are dissatisfied with the government and their command, they are dissatisfied with Putin and his policies, they are dissatisfied with the Minister of Defense who did not serve in the army.

The main enemy of all Russians and Ukrainians is propaganda, which just further fuels hatred in people.

I can no longer watch all this happen and remain silent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...soldier-diary/

Ukrainian spies snuck into Russia ahead of the invasion and found a lot of drunk Russian troops had traded supplies for alcohol: report


In the days leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, Ukrainian spies were sent into Russia to conduct surveillance on the Russian military and encountered "a lot" of drunk soldiers, according to a new Washington Post report.

The Russian troops had apparently traded fuel and other supplies for alcohol. "A lot of them were drunk," a Ukrainian official who saw reports from the spies told the Post.

Their observations, which also included tank formations without crews or maintainers, suggested that Russia was unprepared for war and reportedly fueled some degree of disbelief among some officials in Ukraine that Russia would actually attempt an invasion. In many ways, as has since been demonstrated, Russia wasn't ready, but it moved forward anyway.

The Post's report, which relies heavily on a trove of sensitive materials gathered by Ukrainian officials and other security services, offers intricate details on Russian intelligence failures ahead of the war.

Russia began laying the groundwork for an invasion years ago, according to the report, and cultivated a significant network of agents in Ukraine with the ultimate goal of toppling the government and subjugating the former Soviet republic.

Prior to the invasion, it was widely believed that if Russia did launch a military incursion it would be able to defeat Ukrainian forces in a matter of days, but that's not how the conflict has played out.

The Russian military failed to take Kyiv, as the Ukrainian military put up a much stiffer resistance than many expected. The fight has now lasted nearly six months, with Russia making only incremental progress as the conflict has morphed into a grinding war of attrition.

In many respects, the invasion has been humiliating for the Russian military, which has suffered massive troop and equipment losses.

Russia's primary spy agency, the FSB, bears much of the responsibility for the failed war plans and the overconfidence that catalyzed the Russian military's ambitious objectives, according to the Post's report.

The FSB, for example, reportedly offered the Kremlin misleadingly positive assessments that suggested Ukrainians would welcome Russia with open arms.

"There was plenty of wishful thinking," a senior Western security official told the Post, adding that the FSB had the sense "there would be flowers strewn in their path." The FSB apparently thought that a rapid assault would quickly bring down the Ukrainian government. But, according to the Post report, FSB officers ultimately ended up retreating from Kyiv alongside Russian troops.

Previous reports suggested that Putin received bad intel because his advisors are "too afraid" to give him negative assessments. Individuals who have angered or displeased the Russian leader have at times ended up dying in violent or mysterious ways, while others have landed in prison.

"We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth," a US official said in late March.

"Putin," the official said, "didn't even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president."

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukra...ort-2022-8?amp

^ Drunk Russians? Who’d thunk.


As Attacks Mount in Crimea, Kremlin Faces Rising Domestic Pressures

Nearly six months into the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin still refers to its invasion as a “special military operation” while trying to maintain a sense of normalcy at home.

But a series of Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that President Vladimir V. Putin illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is puncturing that narrative.


And as Ukrainian attacks mount in the strategically and symbolically important territory, the damage is beginning to put domestic political pressure on the Kremlin, with criticism and debate about the war increasingly being unleashed on social media and underscoring that even what the Russian government considers to be Russian territory is not safe.

On Saturday, a drone slammed into the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, sending a plume of smoke over the port city of Sevastopol. Separately, in western Crimea, Russian troops launched antiaircraft fire at unidentified targets, the region’s Russian governor said.


Local Russian officials blamed the drone attack on Ukraine and urged residents and beachgoers not to panic, while insisting there had been no injuries and that Russian air defenses were functioning properly.


But as images of antiaircraft fire streaking through the blue Crimean sky ricocheted through social media, the visceral reality of war was becoming more and more apparent to Russians — many of whom have rallied behind the Kremlin’s line, hammered home in state media, that the “special military operation” to save Ukraine from Nazi domination is going smoothly and according to plan.


“People are beginning to feel that the war is coming to them,” Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government, said in a phone interview. “I think this is serious.”

Ukraine has been engaged in a campaign to target Russian forces on the Crimean peninsula. The attacks in Crimea appear to have begun in earnest on Aug. 9 with a strike on the Saki air base in which eight fighter jets were destroyed.


“One can literally feel in the air of Crimea that the occupation there is temporary, and Ukraine is returning,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Saturday in his nightly address to the nation.


Mr. Kortunov said the Kremlin is likely to view the Ukrainian attacks not as a military threat but as “irritating,” showing Ukraine’s ability to threaten Russian lives deep behind the front lines. But it remained unclear how — or if — Mr. Putin would respond to the attacks, even as pro-Kremlin commentators called for retaliatory strikes.


Russia continues to retain military superiority, and the recent strikes in Crimea haven’t resulted in territorial gains for Ukraine. But they nevertheless appear to have dealt a psychological blow to Russia, undercutting the previous perception of Russian invincibility in a peninsula that exerts a strong hold on the Russian psyche.

Crimea is more than a pivotal military base. A sun-splashed resort and staging ground for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Crimea has particular symbolic resonance for Mr. Putin, who has called it Russia’s “holy land.”

Crimea is where czars and Politburo chairmen kept vacation homes. As home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, it also helps Russia exert control over the sea, including a naval blockade that has crippled Ukraine’s economy.


On the social network Telegram, one of Russia’s best-known state television hosts, Vladimir Solovyov, shared a post describing the attacks in Crimea and in Russian regions near the Ukrainian border as “some kind of surrealism.”

“Are we fighting or what are we doing?” the post by a pro-Kremlin military blogger asked. “Tough, cardinal measures must be taken, every day we pay for half-measures with human lives.”


While the military impact of the attacks may be minimal, there are mounting signs that local people are becoming unsettled by them, prompting officials to issue soothing reassurances about their safety.


“I understand that many are worried,” the Russian governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on his social media page on Saturday. “But that is exactly what the Ukrainian Reich” — a reference to Russia’s false characterization of Ukraine as a Nazi state — “wants to achieve.”


In an interview over a messaging app on Saturday, one resident of Sevastopol said she had never imagined that she would live to see the events of the last six months — both the war and the booms of antiaircraft fire that she said she had heard herself recently. She said that her solution was to try to continue living her life and to avoid the news.


“When you read the news, chaos erupts in your head,” said the woman, Elena, 34, who requested her last name be withheld for her security. “You get the feeling that all around you everything is exploding and burning and that you are in hell.”


To bolster national morale or, perhaps, to poke another stick in the Kremlin’s eye, Ukraine staged a brazen act of defiance on Saturday, with captured Russian tanks rolling into downtown Kyiv on flatbed trucks. Collected from battlefields in the east and south of the country, they were placed on the elegant thoroughfare in the center of the capital that leads to Independence Square, the site of the pro-Western uprising in 2014.


The disarray in Crimea comes as Russia’s war effort appears stalled on multiple fronts. Fighting in Kherson, in the south, and the Donbas region, in the east, has largely ground to a standstill. A Russian offensive to seize Donetsk Province, part of the Donbas, has temporarily halted — partly, American officials said, because Moscow rushed several thousand troops to the south to counter the anticipated Ukrainian offensive there.


In a reflection of the challenges Moscow is facing, the Russian state news media also reported Friday that the Kremlin had replaced the commander of the Black Sea Fleet after a series of setbacks that include the loss of its flagship vessel, Moskva, in April. Ukraine said it had used Neptune missiles to sink the Moskva, a strike Russia dismissed as an onboard accident. It was the biggest warship lost in combat in decades.

As Ukraine stoked instability in Russian-controlled Crimea, there finally appeared to be some movement to get international inspectors into the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which is occupied by Russian troops and where anxiety has been growing that shelling in the area could lead to a devastating meltdown.

In a conversation late Friday, Mr. Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia “had reconsidered” its insistence that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first travel through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to the French presidency.


The I.A.E.A. — the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and monitoring agency — has met with several obstacles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to get into the Zaporizhzhia plant since at least June.


Ukraine objected to the idea that the inspectors would enter through Russian-occupied territory, an option that would have seemed to underscore Russian control of the plant, which provides at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations had significant security concerns about having inspectors travel through the front lines of this bitter war, with so much shelling.


The war also continued to reverberate outside of Ukraine, including in ongoing concerns that the Kremlin was using Russia’s vast energy resources as a weapon to punish the West.


The Russian energy giant Gazprom said it would close the taps of its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 to replace a turbine with the help of its manufacturer, Siemens. Gazprom has said Western sanctions have slowed repairs, reducing gas flows by up to 60 percent. But Berlin has accused Gazprom of playing politics on Moscow’s behalf.


“The Russian side’s justification is simply a pretext,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, told reporters in Berlin in June. “It is obviously the strategy to unsettle and drive up prices.”

MSN

Originally Posted by misskit

Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine

Originally Posted by misskit

the alleged poisoning could have been caused by Russian forces eating expired canned meat.

The fucktards are poisoning themselves . . . but didn't the murderous Russians invade Ukraine? Didn't they murder tens of thousands of Ukrainians? Why are Russians such whiny little girls?

Why do so many greet them as Liberators?