Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Stop backspin. You’re laughable.

Originally Posted by Backspin

Bsnub will come along and say that Russia threw its 1.1 million active forces personnel at Ukraine in February 2022.

The ruzzians didn't have a 1.1 million man army, skiddy. You were lied too. The argument you are attempting and failing to make is laughable. The ruzzians will not suddenly pull off some kind of Rocky comeback in Ukraine. They have already lost the war, it is only a matter of how long it will take the Ukrainians to kick them back across the border.

Senior lieutenant Pavel Kuzin took his position at the machine gun - the only soldier still able to fight. Everyone else in his troop lay dead or injured.


Suffering from shell-shock and with one arm bandaged, the 37-year-old fired at the waves of Russian soldiers trying to storm his position. They didn't even try to take cover, but simply walked towards him across the open field.

It was clear Pavel wouldn't be able to hold the position for long, but he needed to buy time for a rescue team to arrive. His final action in life was to ensure his wounded comrades got to safety.

The Ukrainian military says Bakhmut is now the scene of many "unprecedentedly bloody" battles like this, where they now have to repel up to 50 attacks on their positions every day. Russia has concentrated massive forces in this area, and their brutal strategy of launching human wave attacks helps them to advance slowly - but at a very high cost.

Pavel was in charge of a forward observation group that consisted of six Ukrainian soldiers. On 17 February, shortly after the start of their watch, they came under heavy fire. A tank began hammering their position.

Unlike relentless mortar rounds, the tank's aiming was chillingly accurate. Shells were landing a few metres from their trenches. Two soldiers were wounded and Pavel told them to go into a dugout. A combat medic went down to tend to their injuries and prepare them for an evacuation. Moments later, the wooden shelter was directly hit by a shell.

"There was a bright flash," one of the wounded soldiers with a callsign Tsygan told the BBC. "I was thrown onto the logs with such force that it nearly crushed me. I couldn't understand whether I was dead or alive. Someone was shouting, it seemed the sound was coming from 100m away."

It was Pavel's voice who was checking on them. The other soldier was half-buried under dirt and logs. He was dead.

Tsygan could barely move and Pavel had to drag him up over the splintered logs that blocked the way. It was painfully slow to move Tsygan just a few metres away into a nearby trench. When the shelling paused briefly, Pavel went back trying to find others.

Two minesweepers arrived to clear the logs and find the bodies. But yet another shell hit the dug out, killing one of the men and injuring the other. The tank kept firing.

At that moment, Russian troops started storming their position. Pavel called for a support group to evacuate the wounded and rushed back to his Browning machine gun to stop the Russian infantry.

The 206th Battalion in which Pavel served had fought in the southern Kherson and north-eastern Kharkiv regions. But the battles over Bakhmut were very different from what they had seen before.

"The intensity of fighting to break through our positions was shocking," says Mykola Hlabets, platoon commander. "Sometimes, [Russian soldiers] would get as close as 20 metres from us, crawling and moving under a treeline or across an open field. This is where we had our first gunfights at such proximity."

"They would just stand and walk towards our positions without any cover. We wiped out one group after another, but they kept coming."

Hlabets described them as a suicide squad. Others call them cannon fodder.

A number of videos have been shared on telegram channels recently where newly mobilized Russian soldiers appealed to President Vladimir Putin and the authorities to stop what they called "illegal orders" to send them "to be slaughtered".

Last month mobilised soldiers from Belgorod posted a video saying that they were sent for an assault mission without proper training. After suffering heavy losses, they said they refused to carry out their orders.

Often these poorly trained soldiers are reportedly forced to keep pushing forward. The assault group Storm of the 5th Brigade of the Russian army said in a video appeal that they couldn't leave their position because of zagryad otryad, or blocking troops - detachments that open fire at their own men who try to retreat.

These wave attacks are similar to World War One tactics, when troops charged the enemy and engaged in close combat. And despite their lack of training and experience, sending newly recruited soldiers to such assaults are bringing some results for Russia, albeit at a very high cost.

Ukrainians expose their positions when they open fire to stop those attacks. That allows Russian artillery to identify the target and destroy it, as happened with Pavel's post.

Also, soldiers at forward positions run out of ammunition while trying to repel numerous wave attacks. They then become an easy target.

That was the risk Pavel knew he faced as he rushed to his Browning machine gun. But as long as he kept firing, his wounded brothers-in-arms had a chance to be rescued.

Tsygan was bleeding in the trench where Pavel had left him. Shrapnel had smashed his pelvis. Another piece had gone through his thigh, and a third had hit his abdomen, "turning the internal organs upside down", he said. He was barely conscious.

"I didn't see much, it was all white," he said. "I lay on the snowy ground for two hours and I didn't feel cold or anything."

Next to him was another wounded soldier. The rescue team on an armoured personnel carrier hastily picked them up as shelling resumed. They didn't even have time to close the hatch, Tsygan says.

By that time, Pavel's machine gun had fallen silent. He died from a head wound: a piece of shrapnel had pierced his helmet.

Commanders of the 206th battalion decided to send a group to retrieve the bodies of Pavel and the other soldiers.

The next day in the evening, three groups of two soldiers each set off to bring the bodies back.

"The plan looked good on paper, but things quickly went wrong," junior sergeant Vasyl Palamarchuk, who was in the lead group, remembers. They got lost and nearly ran into Russian positions in the dark. When they got close to the dugout, Russians spotted them and opened fire from a tank.

Russian tanks and artillery had continuously shelled that post in those days, but the Ukrainian big guns had largely stayed quiet. The reason was a massive shortage of shells.

"Once we counted that the Russians had fired up to 60 shells a day, whereas we could allow only two," Palamarchuk explains. "They destroyed trees and everything else and you had no place to hide."

Ukraine is struggling to find ammunition for its Soviet-era artillery. Getting shells for weapons donated by Ukraine's western partners has its own limits. As the secretary general of the Nato military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said recently: "The current rate of Ukraine's ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production."

Palamarchuk's group eventually picked up Pavel's body just a few hours before Russian troops seized the area. Heavy snow turned into a freezing rain. After numerous breaks on the way back, crawling through craters left by shells, they finally arrived. The whole operation over just a kilometre's distance lasted for six hours.

It was past midnight but the entire battalion gathered at the evacuation point to pay their respects to Pavel, who is survived by his daughter and wife.

"It was a huge loss for our unit," Palamarchuk says. "He saved two people but died himself."

Ukraine war: Bakhmut defender remembered by comrades - BBC News

I am going to put this somber video in here rather than the doghouse thread. It shows no live combat. It has an important message about the horror and futility of war.

Originally Posted by bsnub

It has an important message about the horror and futility of war.

Yep. Amazing as a species we haven't evolved to the point we just don't kill each other. In another 1,000 years if we survive.

Originally Posted by Norton

Amazing as a species we haven't evolved to the point we just don't kill each other.

All the more reason that the war in Ukraine can not be forgotten. In today's world, it is so easy to change the channel. Switch it off.

That must be stopped. We must focus on the front of a war. It is happening now. Good men are dying to fight evil.

Originally Posted by bsnub

I am going to put this somber video in here rather than the doghouse thread. It shows no live combat. It has an important message about the horror and futility of war.

Yes wars are horrible and futile. Politicians start them but they don't go out to fight and die.

Originally Posted by Stretchy

Politicians start them but they don't go out to fight and die.

Fortunate Son, by CCR was spot on.

Originally Posted by Stretchy

Yes wars are horrible and futile. Politicians start them but they don't go out to fight and die.

I guess WW1 was an exception, however, it should be mentioned that many UK politicians fought in the war and several were killed. Also many political leaders from leading nations had earlier fought in WW1.

Can anyone name the PMs that had fought in WW1 (there were 4)

Attlee, Macmillan, Churchill and Eden - sadly our current politicians aren't of the sort of patrician breed, they are all a bit third tier.

Originally Posted by david44

of course the outstanding figure and youngest sargeant major in Austro Hungarian army was Tito conscripted and later head of Yugoslavia resisting Monarchists British Russians and Americans and a leader of the much maligned non aligned movement, His partisans in WW2 tied down many axis forces,and holding together the S Slavs.

Yes.

Originally Posted by david44

Unlik etheh British officers he got down and dirty

Unfortunately only to turn to be a ruthless dictator and opressor of the people.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Unfortunately only to turn to be a ruthless dictator and opressor of the people.

good point indeed, sometimes even national heroes sour esp little men like Mao, Hitler , Lenin as if to compensate ? Of course plenty of big bullies Trump, Johnson, Stalin too so maybe my analysis is flawed.

I hadn't realized MacMillan was old enough to have served.

While days of Kings Sultans and Princes riding horseback into the fray might make foreign and defence ministers a little more diplomatic if they too and all their boys sent to to the front line /combat zones automatically. Of course won't happen and as we see in the present unpleasantness in Sudan and Ukraine it is old men sending young boys "over the top".

For the faults of the American and French republics have 2 strikes and out presidency seems a good idea .

Others can evaluate teh dpeth and value of forthcoming elections but at least locals have a limited chance t shout , let of steam and ndge senate as to theor preferred snout. I think the courts will use the Pheua Thai 0k bribe as means to thwart the SHins again?

China will work to mediate peace, Xi tells Zelenksy in first call since war

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, fulfilling a longstanding goal of Kyiv which had publicly sought such talks for months.


Zelenskiy immediately signaled the importance of the chance to open closer relations with Russia's most powerful friend, naming a former cabinet minister as Ukraine's new ambassador to Beijing.


Describing the phone call as "long and meaningful," Zelenskiy tweeted: "I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine's ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations."

Xi told Zelenskiy that China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, Chinese state media reported.


Xi, the most powerful world leader to have refrained from denouncing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, made a state visit to Russia last month. Since February, he has promoted a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, greeted with skepticism from the West but cautiously welcomed by Kyiv.

China will focus on promoting peace talks, and make efforts for a ceasefire as soon as possible, Xi told Zelenskiy, according to the Chinese state media reports.


"As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a responsible major country, we will neither sit idly by, nor pour oil on fire, still less seek to profit from it,” Xi said.


Ukraine calls on Beijing to influence Russia


Ukrainian officials have long been calling on Beijing to use its influence in Russia to help end the war.


Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a "no limits" partnership agreement weeks before Putin ordered the invasion.


Since then, China has denounced Western sanctions against Moscow but has held back from openly supporting the invasion. China has also become Russia's biggest economic partner, buying up oil that can no longer be sold in Europe, often at steep discounts.


Following the Xi-Zelenskiy talks, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: "We note the readiness of the Chinese side to make efforts to establish a negotiation process."


The United States has said in recent months it was worried about China providing weapons or ammunition to Russia, although Beijing denies any such plans.
China says it is positioned to help mediate the conflict because it has not taken sides.

"What China has done to help resolve the Ukraine crisis has been above board," said Yu Jun, deputy head of the foreign ministry's Eurasian department.


Western countries say China's 12-point peace proposal is too vague, offers no concrete path out of the war, and could be used by Putin to promote a truce that would leave his forces in control of occupied territory while they regroup.


Earlier this week, European countries raised alarm after China's ambassador to France said states such as Ukraine that won independence with the break-up of the Soviet Union "don't have actual status in international law."


Beijing said its position on the independence of ex-Soviet states was unchanged.

China will work to mediate peace in Ukraine war, Xi tells Zelenksy - The Jerusalem Post

Originally Posted by misskit

China will work to mediate peace, Xi tells Zelenksy in first call since war

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, fulfilling a longstanding goal of Kyiv which had publicly sought such talks for months.

Nothing to do with the embarrassing shit his stupid ambassador came out with, I'm sure.

They have been doing this in Ukraine since 2014, but it has been something that they have been doing for decades in an attempt to spread their cancerous diaspora.

Moscow has been accused of trying to destroy Ukrainian identity by repopulating territories it occupies with Russian citizens.Ukraine's deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Wednesday that Moscow was involved in the large-scale resettlement of people from poorer and remote regions of Russia into Ukraine, most significantly in the occupied eastern Luhansk region. She also said that Russia was deporting Ukrainian citizens and forcibly resettling them in Russia.

She wrote on Telegram that Russian settlers in occupied parts of Ukraine were given financial help, accommodation, and employment, while local residents, often accused of following pro-Ukrainian positions, were deported.

Kyiv has been adamant that it would only consider peace talks once Russian troops have vacated the entirety of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin has, in various declarations, denied Ukraine's national identity as well as its legitimacy as a sovereign nation.

"In this way, the enemy seeks to destroy Ukrainian statehood and the national self-identity of society in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories," she said, according to a translation. "The aggressor country is trying to influence the change in the ethnic composition of the population," of the areas Russia occupies.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said on Wednesday that Moscow's intentions may be to deepen Russia's social, political, and economic integration in occupied land "thereby complicating conditions for the reintegration of these territories into Ukraine."

The ISW had previously described such a depopulation and repopulation campaign as part of "a deliberate ethnic cleansing effort" that would violate the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The think tank had also reported how Russian authorities had overseen the depopulation and repopulation of occupied Ukraine, particularly in the southern Kherson region in 2022. Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson in November 2022 but still occupy much of the region.

Ukrainian sources said in October 2022 that Russian authorities in then-occupied parts of the Kherson region deported many Ukrainian residents to Russia under the guise of humanitarian evacuations and then repopulated their homes with Russian soldiers. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.

Meanwhile, British defense officials said this week that Russian troops were forcing residents in occupied areas to accept Russian Federation passports.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Monday that Moscow's authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine, including Kherson, were coercing locals to accept a Russian passport by June or be deported and have their property seized. This was part of a "Russification" process it employed in the easter regions of Donetsk and Luhansk before the start of the full-scale invasion, the ministry added.
This comes amid a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive and recent reports that Kyiv's troops have crossed the Dnieper River in the Kherson region.

The ISW said on Wednesday that comments made by Russian officials and prominent voices in the Russian information space, including from Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, show a "pervasive anxiety" over Ukraine's next move.

One Russian military blogger suggested that Kyiv's counteroffensive could be timed to ruin Victory Day celebrations on May 9, marking the end of World War II.

Putin Is Flooding Ukraine With Russian Citizens: ISW

he Russian commander known as "the Butcher of Mariupol" has been removed from his position, according to a Russian war correspondent.Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev has garnered a reputation for ruthless brutality in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He is particularly associated with the bombardment of the southern port city of Mariupol, which Moscow claimed in May 2022.

Mizintsev was appointed deputy defense minister for logistics in late September 2022, state media reported. The "butcher will build a new slaughterhouse," Ukraine's defense ministry tweeted as the news broke.

He has now been "fired" from his position, according to a Telegram post from Alexander Sladkov, a correspondent for the state-run newspaper Izvestia.

"Mikhail Mizintsev has had an interesting fate this year," Sladkov wrote on Thursday, describing the commander as a "friend."

He added that Mizintsev had "had no direct relation to the storming of the city" of Mariupol.

In a follow-up post, Sladkov said Alexei Kuzmenkov, reportedly the deputy head of Russia's National Guard, would replace Mizintsev in the logistics role.

The Russian military blogger, WarGonzo, also posted on Telegram about Mizintsev's dismissal.

Before taking the defense ministry role, Mizintsev had been head of the National Defense Management Center since December 2014.

On March 31, 2022, he was sanctioned by the British government for his "reprehensible" actions in Syria and Ukraine.

"Mizintsev is the Chief of the National Defence Command and Control Centre, where all Russian military operations are planned and controlled worldwide," the U.K. government said at the time.

"Mizintsev is known for using reprehensible tactics, including shelling civilian centres in both Aleppo in 2015-16 and now in Mariupol—where atrocities are being perpetuated against Ukrainian people."

Mizintsev was born in 1962, according to the Kremlin-backed Tass news agency, and graduated from the Kalinin Suvorov Military School in 1980.

Back in April 2022, Mizintsev was a little-known figure who was largely "obscure" and limited to "effectively administrative" roles in Russia's military, The Washington Post reported at the time. In the initial months of all-out war in Ukraine, the city of Mariupol, from which Mizintsev earned his nickname, endured heavy bombardment and fatal strikes such as on a theater and a maternity hospital in the now-captured city.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.

Putin Fires 'Butcher of Mariupol' Russian General, Mikhail Mizintsev

U.S. Wires Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts

The United States is wiring Ukraine with sensors that can detect[at][at] bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker.


In part, the goal is to make sure that if Russia detonates a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil, its atomic signature and Moscow’s culpability could be verified.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, experts have worried about whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would use nuclear arms in combat for the first time since the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The preparations, mentioned last month in a House hearing and detailed Wednesday by the National Nuclear Security Administration, a federal agency that is part of the Energy Department, seem to constitute the hardest evidence to date that Washington is taking concrete steps to prepare for the worst possible outcomes of the invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s second largest nation.


The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or NEST, a shadowy unit of atomic experts run by the security agency, is working with Ukraine to deploy the radiation sensors, train personnel, monitor data and warn of deadly radiation.


In a statement sent to The New York Times in response to a reporter’s question, the agency said the network of atomic sensors was being deployed “throughout the region” and would have the ability “to characterize the size, location and effects of any nuclear explosion.” Additionally, it said the deployed sensors would deny Russia “any opportunity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine without attribution.”


That statement goes to the fog of nuclear war and how the United States could use the new system to pierce it.


In one scenario, Washington could use information gathered by the network to rule out the possibility of misidentifying the attacker who set off a nuclear blast. That might seem like an unnecessary step given the distinctiveness of a mushroom cloud. But if a weapon was delivered by a truck, tank or boat instead of a conspicuous missile with a trackable flight path, figuring out its origins might prove near impossible.


Public knowledge of such defensive planning, nuclear experts say, can deter Moscow by letting it know that Washington can expose what is called a false-flag operation.


For instance, Moscow could falsely claim that Kyiv set off a nuclear blast on the battlefield to try to draw the West into deeper war assistance. But in theory, with the sensor network in place, Washington would be able to point to its own nuclear attribution analyses to reveal that Moscow was in fact the attacker.


Last fall, Russia, without offering any evidence, claimed repeatedly that Ukraine was planning to explode a bomb designed to spread radioactive material, a so-called dirty bomb. Washington warned that the Kremlin was trying to create a false-flag pretext to escalate the war.


The science of nuclear attribution underwent rapid development in the United States after the September 2001 terrorist attacks raised the issue of domestic nuclear terrorism. While the science has secretive aspects, its outlines are publicly known.


Now, this newly acquired capability is being used on foreign soil in the context of a potential nuclear war or a Russian attack on Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors at four power generation sites.


“If a nuclear emergency were to occur in Ukraine, whether a radiation release from a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon detonation,” the security agency said in its statement, “scientific analyses would be rapidly provided to U.S. government authorities and decision-making centers in Ukraine and the region to make actionable, technically informed decisions to protect public health and safety.”


Nuclear experts say such defensive precautions could face their greatest test in coming weeks as the Ukrainian army launches its spring offensive. China has leaned on Russia to discontinue its nuclear saber rattling and Mr. Putin has not recently invoked a nuclear threat. But Western experts worry that Russia’s battlefield failures are making Mr. Putin, if anything, more dependent on his nuclear arsenal, and they worry that fresh setbacks could increase his willingness to pull the nuclear trigger.


The security agency reports to Jennifer M. Granholm, the energy secretary. Last month she told Congress of the general precautions for radiation detection in Ukraine and said the objective of the U.S. assistance was “to make sure that the Ukrainians are safe and not exposed.” She gave few details, however, saying that would require a closed session.


The Energy Department and the security agency say they are spending roughly $160 million on the atomic precautions in Ukraine this year, with a similar amount requested for 2024.


Jeffrey T. Richelson, author of “Defusing Armageddon,” a 2009 book on the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, reported that it often teamed up with the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite military unit so secretive that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.


Experts say Ukraine needs all the help it can get because its nuclear infrastructure is so extensive and has faced heavy attacks by Russia over the past 14 months.


Shortly after the start of the invasion, Russian forces seized control of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant, which in 1986 suffered a meltdown that sent radioactive clouds over parts of Europe and locally left a wasteland of contaminated soil. The Russian troops dug up a nearby section of earth, increasing radiation levels in the area but not enough to endanger workers.


The Russian forces also fired on and captured Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, a complex of six reactors. A fire broke out during the assault, but safety officers detected no radiation.


A main Ukrainian site for nuclear research in Kharkiv — the sprawling Institute of Physics and Technology — suffered 100 strikes from Russian shells and missiles in the conflict’s early days. The salvos damaged a nuclear facility used for the production of medical isotopes, but experts found no radiation leaks. The overall complex lost power for more than a month.


In Kyiv, Russian projectiles hit the Institute for Nuclear Research, starting a fire in a warehouse. The institute’s small reactor was undamaged, and no radiation leaks were found.


Ukraine’s other atomic infrastructure includes additional power plants; storage sites for spent nuclear fuel; and facilities across the nation, including hospitals, that use radioactive materials for research and medical therapies.


The Energy Department, in addition to NEST’s assistance, says it is providing support to partner agencies in Ukraine on measuring aerial radiation, modeling atmospheric plumes of radiation, countering nuclear smuggling and treating radiation injuries.


Edwin Lyman, a nuclear power expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists who has closely monitored the Ukrainian war, said a federal official told him of a possible reactor threat scenario. It posits that Russia, if it suffered a humiliating defeat and withdrew from Ukraine, might retaliate by firing on a reactor or its spent fuel storage areas in order to release high radioactivity into the environment.


“That’s one of the biggest dangers,” Dr. Lyman said. “If they wanted to render as much of the countryside as they could uninhabitable, those reactors might become targets.”


He was heartened, Dr. Lyman added, to learn that NEST and the Energy Department were “being proactive and taking these threats seriously.”

U.S. Wires Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts – DNyuz

Originally Posted by misskit

U.S. Wires Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts

Not an expert in the subject, but I am sure we would not need radiation sensors to detect a nuclear blast in the Ukraine.

…can confirm the identity of the attacker.

Originally Posted by misskit

…can confirm the identity of the attacker.

Yes indeed, we would not want the Russians to be accused for something the Canadians did

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

Not an expert in the subject, but I am sure we would not need radiation sensors to detect a nuclear blast in the Ukraine.

Dirty bombs cause radiation but not nuclear explosions.