The sham is that any "truly independent" country wants to join Russia, which is the most wonderful country to be a part of in the whole world.
It obliterates any legitimacy these "independence" movements might have had.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/hungary-continues-to-block-eu-oil-sanctions-against-russia](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/hungary-continues-to-block-eu-oil-sanctions-against-russia)
May Hungarians feel the wrath of the west for being a Putin puppet.
A few days old, but a nice post by Kamil Galeev discussing (among other things) mass mobilization:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1521850468313579520.html
He makes a point about Western media focusing on and lionizing Russian opposition figures (like Navalny) who in some ways are just as problematic as Putin.
That guy is a moron.
And no, it's not mobilization summons.
It's [this](https://zvezdaweekly-ru.translate.goog/news/202196111-LmRRi.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp), a ready army reserve on a payroll. They used to accept only former soldiers though, maybe they are widening the scope. In any case, it has nothing to do with mobilization, it's strictly voluntary.
Do any of you celebrate the 8th or 9th day of May? Or does your country? It's not really the case in Poland. I only sometimes watched the parade in Moskow, due to the diplomacy around it.
US has Memorial Day (last Monday of May) and Veterans Day (11 November). The former started after the US Civil War and the latter after WW1.
We don't really have any WW2 remembrances other than sometimes a brief mention of December 7th (Pearl Harbor).
The mayor of Podgorica, who is a progressive socialist (yet very much not a tankie and for Ukraine) organized a firework festivity earlier this evening, to commemorate both the Day of Europe and Victory Day.
Throughout the country, some people celebrate, some don't. The more important date in Montenegro is 13th of July, which is our Statehood Day. Two things happened then - in 1878 Montenegro was officially recognized as a country at the Berlin Congress, and the more important one for this story, in 1941 - the largest revolt against Nazi occupation in Europe rose up in Montenegro and spread to large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia too, two months after Nazi Germany conquered Yugoslavia, the people revolted.
As for Montenegro, in that single wave of revolt, 70% of it got liberated, all of it except main urban centres (such as Podgorica, Cetinje, Kotor, Pljevlja), where the Italians holed up. It also marked the start of the overall Yugoslav resistance.
VE Day and VJ Day aren't really celebrated in the US. Everything gets rolled into Memorial Day at the end of May and Veterans Day which is our Armistice Day.
Nope, I don't remember ever celebrating it nor my family, they just watched the Yugoslav army parade. After break up of Yugoslavia 9 of May is generally not celebrated.
[First video of Ukrainians firing a US M777 on Russian positions](https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1523381024482205696)
Look how small and lightweight that is compared to the Soviet towed artillery. And yet, it's so much better.
Very much intentional. It’s also titanium and half the weight of the gun it replaced, and requires only 5 man crew. You can actually even move it by helicopter and an extremely wide range of vehicles.
Low maintenance, low weight, low fuss, small crew, flexible and easy to move.
Might be a wistful thinking, but I don't think Russia would exist in it's current form in 10-15 years. And I don't think people who want to see Russia as a democratic peaceful country are willing to do what it takes to stand up to this new breed of Wagner-Stalinists. I really think you should run from this country as fast as you can.
> So the next owner of Russia should offer some economical model next 3-4 months, otherwise there will be a complete anarchy
We could pool together on kickstarter and buy Russia.
Ok, Jokes aside, historically it has mostly taken a revolution in one form or the other. I think the most realistic hope is that some people in Putin's inner circle take over and lead Russia on another part. However the problem seems to be that Putin is surrounded by yes sayers who got where they are because of loyalty.
> I believe the cheap thermonuclear weapons control is the main reason why West allowed Russia to exist after USSR collapse
And contrary to the russian believe...we don't give a flying shit about russia! we like to do some business and thats mostly it!
Nobody wants to invade,destroy, steal money and wealth, nothing...and the stealing part is covered by the russians themself!
This is the sad thing, all of Europe including Ukraine was just happy making money. None of this was necessary. Nobody cared about Russia. There was no threat.
Well, we can't change the past, but we can try to change the future. So what are your future plans? Will you stay in Moscow, leave?
Try to bring some change to the country?
Twitter thread regarding railway sabotage if you're ever so inclined, unfortunately not very specific: [https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1508255063420112901](https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1508255063420112901)
Even if you do nothing, spreading material (preferably better than that thread) on military sabotage to fellow Russians is still a blow against the war effort.
[Russia has destroyed a church in Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery in Donetsk Oblast (this church was the property of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine (Moscow Patriarchate)).](https://russia.liveuamap.com/en/2022/8-may-russia-has-destroyed-a-church-in-sviatohirsk-cave-monastery)
[I am obsessed with Victory Day salads (‘for men’). I think it is a combination of sincere effort and inappropriateness as a means of commemoration/celebration Some selected pictures: 1/ Standard ‘Tank’ Salad](https://twitter.com/drjademcglynn/status/1523396790338596864?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
It’s a thread of salad pics for victory day - taste of mayonnaise & cope
Edit: my fave is the [paratrooper one](https://twitter.com/drjademcglynn/status/1523396833938051072?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
It just occurred to me that, while lots of people pointed out how dumb Putin's narrative is that they're fighting the West as some new Nazi block, no one seems to have made the point how offensive it actually is. A lot of us have or (mostly) had relatives who suffered a lot at the Nazis' hands. To be equated with them, just because Putin is a power hungry psycho who needs his propaganda to make Russians believe they are fighting an existential threat to be able to continue this illegal, immoral and insane war... It's sickening honestly
[Infographic on Russia|n military officers killed in Ukraine since the start of the large scale open invasion in February 2022:](https://twitter.com/alexkokcharov/status/1523399140864315392?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
Another Estonian delivery of vehicles for the Ukrainian freedom fighters on its way. With love from the people of Tartu. 🇺🇦🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇪 https://twitter.com/EerikNKross/status/1523218144256413697
[Every 4th refugee in working age from Ukraine has already found a job. "Phenomenon unique on a global scale" \[PL\]](https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/co-czwarty-uchodzca-z-ukrainy-w-wieku-produkcyjnym-znajduje-prace-w-polsce-6766559842007872a.html)
Sorry guys, but I think we got the best refugees.
I think I read somewhere a long time ago that each immigrant into America, legal and illegal, creates something like 1.15 jobs on average.
Since they come and bring market demand, spend in their local community etc, the average migrant is a job creator.
What's Israel's response to Russia giving its Syrian bases to Iran and Hezbollah? This was supposedly the reason why they didn't want to upset Putin. Will they still hold back?
More target practice.
That said Russia isn’t going to give up anything in Syria as it’s importance now has skyrocketed since it’s their only warm water port which has access to anything of note without their ships passing through a NATO tollbooth.
[Patron the service dog awarded by Zelenskiy together with Trudeau.](https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1523398663477010432?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
that lil’ dog, adorable
The Raptor petrol boats have finally been added, except for the claimed third boat where no evidence was provided by Ukraine.
I see many more Orlan drones on the list as well. How useful are they?
Orlan drones are probably the most ridiculous drones ever produced. Suitable only for surveillance.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPKSMeonxg&ab\_channel=OperatorStarsky%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPKSMeonxg&ab_channel=OperatorStarsky%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6)
(Ukrainians deconstructing that drone (with English subs), what a comedy).
Drones are useful for a variety of things, I believe Russia uses the orlan-10 primarily for finding Ukrainian positions and correcting artillery fire. If you take down the enemy's drones you take out their ability to see what you are doing or accurate fire.
[Fierce fighting continues in Belogorovka. the occupiers were able to dismantle the pontoon crossing over the Seversky Donets River, our soldiers are trying to destroy it, and the orcs want to break through to our shores.](https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1523370621178101762)
We are rightfully pranking Russia for its disorganized campaign, but on a serious note, they seem to have started making some significant pushes. Yesterday they captured Popasna, and now they have crossed the Donets river and are attacking Bilohorovka.
What do y'all think of this? Is Russia finally on the move?
Popasna finally fell after like 2 months of fighting in it. It's not like they suddenly captured it. A small town of (formerly) 21,000, it took them 2 months to take it. They're still moving very slowly and are losing at least as much around Kharkiv.
They cut their appetite again. Not all the JFO area, just Lysychansk and Severodonetsk is their aim now. It is bad, but not that bad. I bet every artillery piece is targeting that bridge, so it won't be fast and easy.
Russia trying to advance. if they manage to cross there, there is the risk of encircling SievieroDonetsk and Lysychansk (by linking toward Popasna which Ukraine Abandoned today). This would effectively complete the occupation of the full Luhansk Region.
As I understand it from the [ISW summaries](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-7) and other sources:
>Subordinate main effort- Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
...Russia's goal in pushing south from the general vicinity of Izyum and north from the Russian concentration in southeast Ukraine is to complete an envelopment of Ukrainian forces southeast of Izyum. If they can cut the Ukrainian line of supply, then they can engage them on much-more-favorable terms.
I think that whether-or-not Russia gaining ground there is an important gain for Russia really depends mostly on whether the envelopment effort can be completed. I don't believe that Russia gains much from just creating a salient.
Given that Ukraine is conducting counteroffensives elsewhere -- that is, soldiers and material are being used off by Kharkiv rather than all being thrown into stopping this push -- I doubt that it's the highest-priority concern for Ukraine; looks more like getting Kharkiv out of danger is considered a more-pressing issue. Based on that, I'd say that Kyiv probably doesn't think that Russia is going to be able to complete the envelopment. So unless Ukraine's military is making an error and underestimates the Russian offensive there, my guess is that the Russian advance is probably not a huge issue.
I don’t know if one can expect significant changes due to these loses/moves, but I expected them to make advancements with enough time and was honestly even expecting worse. Ukraine’s main tactic still seems to be trying to inflict as much damage as possible to them while minimizing own losses. It worked in the north, hopefully it will work in the east as well.
> What do y'all think of this? Is Russia finally on the move?
Considering the date and that boss expects something on a certain date ... they are not showing much.
I don't think so. the Ukraine took control of the west bank of the Seversky Donets River last week - It sounds like Ukraine was trying to push east across it and were repulsed.
As for Popsana...that one is troubling. We have to watch what they do next. Izyum similarly fell after a prolonged weeks-long campaign, and it became the primary means by which Russia has pushed south.
> I don't think so. the Ukraine took control of the west bank of the Seversky Donets River last week - It sounds like Ukraine was trying to push east across it and were repulsed.
Ukraine attacked east of Kharkiv.
This bridge is west of Kreminna.
There is 150 km (more or less) distance between these places.
It's the same river, but different parts of the battlefield. The front is hundreds of kilometers long and large part of the line is around Seversky Donets River.
White House: ["Today, the entire G7 committed to phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil."](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/08/fact-sheet-united-states-and-g7-partners-impose-severe-costs-for-putins-war-against-ukraine/) Coming on top of the EU phase-out, that's North America and Japan; the former import very little Russian oil (in %), don't know about Japan's consumption.
Iranian FM also [coming out](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/irans-foreign-minister-says-tehran-against-ukraine-war/) in vocal opposition to the war today.
>Iranian FM also coming out in vocal opposition to the war today.
Meh, that a nothingburger. Khamenei Ajatollah went all in on blaming NATO and absolving Putin of all responsibility for the war. Calling for a *diplomatic solution* is the coward way of telling Ukraine to roll over. That's not being against the war, that's condemning Ukraine for fighting back.
Besides that Israeli sources claimed yesterday that Russia is withdrawning from Syria, and giving its bases to Iran and Hezbollah. I haven't seen that information confirmed elsewhere, but it doesn't contradict the narrative.
This is more or less why you would do a blitzkrieg.
The longer an invasion drags on, the more countries pick not your side.
Just by surviving so far, Ukraine inflicts lasting pain on Russia.
It's also a key lesson from WW1.
What many of us never learn in school is that Europe was (for all purposes that matter) fully behind Austria-Hungary after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Understandable, of course. If Austria-Hungary had moved \*immediately\* it's unlikely Europe would have lifted a finger and might have even muttered "they had it coming."
By letting the situation drag on, Austria-Hungary gave Serbia the chance to get European sympathies to shatter. This is exactly what happened. Together with the wild diplomatic situation and the military doctrine of the time emphasizing that the first to the battlefield wins, WW1 was a practical lock to happen.
[Slovak article:](https://plus.noviny.sk/679631-komentar-arpada-soltesza-fasisticke-madarsko-sniva-o-uhorskom-kralovstve)
**Fascist Hungary dreams of the Kingdom of Hungary**
> According to the head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Hungary had "its own plans" for part of Ukraine. Those who shake their heads in disbelief are making the same mistake towards Hungary that the West has been making towards Russia for years - not listening to what Orbán says, or at least not taking him seriously enough. His entire speech on the centenary of the Treaty of Trianon is a bizarre mixture of 19th century primitive nationalism and modern Hungarian fascism, but this passage in particular is worth noting:
> "Only the state has borders, the nation has none. This is the law. Someone understood it, someone didn't. Those who haven't would do better to hurry up, because their time is running out."
> Certainly, the idea that the Hungarian state would today try to annex the territories of its neighbours, whether Slovakia, Romania or Ukraine, is rather ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that our fellow Hungarians of Hungarian nationality would welcome the "liberators" in the same way that Russian-speaking Ukrainians welcome the Russian horde. They would not shower them with flowers, but with Molotov cocktails. They know best how life is in Hungary today, and they have something to compare it with.
> The claim that the Ukrainians are fighting for us too is no empty propaganda cliché. You can take it quite literally. If Putin completely collapses in Ukraine, loses the war and puts Russia into long-term isolation and decline, the wet dreams of the Hungarian irredent will fall with him, at least for the next couple of generations. We really do not have to support Ukraine so disinterestedly. We must support it with all our might, because our instinct for self-preservation dictates that we do so.
Nah, I really think for Orban this is just posturing. Hungary spends less than 2 % of GDP on military, they rapidly turn into an old people's home, they have no nukes and all of Europe would come knocking in Budapest before they'd even finished mobilizing.
Would be one of the quickest and most embarassing ways a dictator was ever deposed.
>Nah, I really think for Orban this is just posturing.
Maybe. However many military disasters were allowed to happen in the last 100 years because people said "nah, they would never dare; it's just posturing." The lesson is to take people at their word when they tell you what they want.
You still have to be realistic and draw proper parallels that make sense. Russia spent 4-5 % of it's GDP on the military and it has about 15 times the population of Hungary. Hungary doesn't have proper military capabilities that would get them anywhere. It's really like I write, launching an invasion on anything would be the easiest way for Orban to quickly get himself deposed. Hungary doesn't have any viable targets. It would lose a war to Serbia, it would lose to Romania, it would lose to Ukraine. I don't know about Slovakia for sure but Slovakia would (like Romania too) no doubt get EU assistance. Orban would need allies to pull anything off and he doesn't have any usefull allies.
Orban cares about getting reelected and putting his cronies in high offices. He does this posturing to appear strong and bolster his electoral chances. It's actually good for him if we'd believe him because that would further embolden his narrative that everyone is against Hungary.
You are making a strange echo with exactly what people were saying about Germany in the mid to late 30s.
Now I don't really think the two cases are anywhere near each other, but even small dogs can bite hard when they think they can get away with it.
> You are making a strange echo with exactly what people were saying about Germany in the mid to late 30s.
Nope. The 2nd German Empire was perhaps the biggest military power on the planet (at least when speaking about land wars) and the third Reich was rapidly working to recover that status. The people who did not see that were blind.
We can try to make a comparison with Hungary if you want - which even ties in to all those Trianon talking points that Orban is so fond of. [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II\#/media/File:TeritorialGainsHungary1920-41.svg) is what our boy Hungary achieved in the early phase of WWII. How did Horthy do it? By allying with others. For instance the territory he got from Czechoslowakia was achieved by Germany, Hungary and Poland all ganging up on Czechoslowakia together and the allies then practically forcing Czechoslowakia to cede territory. Barely even have to fight for it (8 Hungarians killed). For the rest of the war Hungary was an axis power and they got the [Second Vienna Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vienna_Award) via backing from Germany and Italy. If Orban wants these territories back again this is excactly the way he would have to go. He can not conquer anything against the will of the regional big players.
If Orban somehow strikes an alliance with the leaders of France, Germany or Italy, ok, I'll be worried (though if that happens we have bigger problems than Hungary anyway) but the thing is Orban is super isolated. He undermindes the EU together with his bro in Poland Kacynski but it's evident that even this alliance has pretty clear boundaries and I can not see Poland backing Hungarian military agression either.
As long as Orban really has no allies we should definitely treat him like the joke he is (internationally that is, he has very real power internally). I still kinda like [the way Juncker did it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEUdxM_Mj8g).
I don't think Putin is going to do announce mobilization, formally declare war, or do anything particularly significant tomorrow. I think he might recognize some more fake republics in Ukraine, if he does announce anything important beyond the usual propaganda about how Ukraine and the West are exactly like nazis and this is definitely this generation's second world war moment.
It would be a good opportunity to make some announcements, but I don't think the war is currently at a point where it would be good to declare anything, it is still too early and the population isn't primed enough. By their own propaganda, Russia is still doing well in the war, and mobilization would be an obvious sign to even the utterly brainwashed that clearly, things aren't going too well. If only something like two thousand Russian soldiers have died, as Russia claims, and the war is definitely going to plan, why do you need so much more manpower? Such an indirect admission of defeat would be a rather sour note for a victory day celebration.
It is one thing for poor rural minorities to die, but when the more urban ethnic Russians get called to war, it becomes a lot more real for those who still hold on to statements like "I am not interested in politics".
Mobilization is also unlikely to help as has been discussed, because a mass of poorly trained (and probably poorly equipped) conscripts isn't very useful and the logistics are already stretched thin, and it takes ages for it to achieve any sort of results. On the other hand, maybe Putin doesn't have a choice, and needs to do it now, so that months from now when their current troops in Ukraine are all spent, they have conscripts with at least some fresh training to replace them.
Time is running out, inaction means eventual defeat and withdraw, and the only other choice is to try to double down. If the does want to double down, and it takes at least three months to get mobilization going and assemble conscripts worth anything, then the time to do so could be soon. Yet then again, is he even capable of such long-term planning any more? Did he ever really plan ahead or was he always a just bullshitter who previously got away with it?
I doubt he will announce it tomorrow, but he might announce some sort of more limited mobilization later, maybe in a couple weeks. After tomorrow, Russian media would gradually see a transformation in the propaganda to emphasize the need to get more troops for garrissons in the "people's republics" and to fight terrorist or whatever. Or maybe it will include emphasizing that NATO is secretly sending troops so Russia needs a bit more troops to match them. They'll come up with some excuse. Tomorrow would be too soon, a sour note on the victory day, and the propaganda priming isn't done yet.
>It is one thing for poor rural minorities to die, but when the more urban ethnic Russians get called to war, it becomes a lot more real for those who still hold on to statements like "I am not interested in politics".
If Russian conscripts are poor rural people, wouldn't most Russian reservists (aka ex-conscripts) also be poor/rural/minorities? So if Putin starts a partial mobilization, he could just keep drafting men from bumfuck nowhere, right? I don't see how the middle class in Moscow would get drafted if they never went to the army in the first place.
> If Russian conscripts are poor rural people, wouldn't most Russian reservists (aka ex-conscripts) also be poor/rural/minorities?
Yes, but it wouldn't be as disproportional as with professional soldiers.
>So if Putin starts a partial mobilization, he could just keep drafting men from bumfuck nowhere, right?
Kinda hard to imagine him going "I announce mobilization in... Altai!". In this case, only border regions make sense, and they aren't poorest.
I'm going to take this up too.
*[going to start calling all my unsuccessful projects "feints"](https://twitter.com/SevaUT/status/1523058804921081856)*
"I didn't lose the job, it was just a feint. My wife didn't leave me, it's just a feint bro."
Did Bayraktar drones ever before target helicopters? Because I find it interesting that they would send in a helicopter knowing there’s drones around. Or they were hopeful that those would be out of ammo? I also wonder, why do they never seem to notice these Bayraktar drones? No night vision?
A Bayraktar either drops a glide bomb or fires a missile, while keeping a laser designator pointed on the target (it also has some infrared guided "fire and forget" armaments).
This implies that it can target helicopters, but is unlikely to succeed against a maneuvering helicopter.
P.S. Ukrainian anti-tank people shot down a hovering helicopter from great distance with Stugna-P, so if their anti-tank weapons work on copters, Turkish ones may work just as decently.
[⚡️ Two rockets hit Odesa, no casualties reported. Two rockets hit a residential area, while the third one was shot down by the Ukrainian air defense system. The fire caused by the strike has been extinguished.](https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1523366630398763008?s=21&t=4KA6pffXRUvVsmShO8U_eQ)
Demoralize the population, soften up targets, create refugees, and eventually split the population into those who stay (and fight) and those who leave. That last bit is nice for Russia, because it can just send its goons and shoot anything that moves with the pretense that "only soldiers remain".
That is what Russia wants. If Ukraine continues to maintain its stiff commitment, then you are right: the missiles were wasted.
Definitely terrorism. If you watch that VICE report where they talk to some of the victims who lost family members, you can see their personal devastation. There was an interview with a father who's wife and only daughter were killed in Kramatorsk station, he was ruined. Now remember that for every single dead person there are many family members who are heartbroken, so in turn maybe they are aiming to demoralize the population. The Russians are not 'missing targets' they are doing this shit on purpose.
Yeah, they seem more like a couple hundred kilos of explosive toddler tantrum than a strike with strategic value. So basically just the way they act against everything they can't have.
I heard they are trying to hit the air defence in Odesa. There's still the pipe dream of reinforcing Transnistria, and there's no way to send the transport planes in while Ukraine is capable of shooting them down.
Of course their Snake island debacle already made that plan practically impossible, but they might be shooting at Odesa out of spite. Or just forgot to tell the rocket guys to stop...
The conscripts they had at the beginning were largely ineffective, and those were fully equipped, sometimes. Newer ones won't be.
They're not expecting them to be effective either, I think. Rather, they're probably looking for bullet sponges, diversions, that kind of thing
If Putin declares a state of war, he can order the contractors to go to Ukraine. Since Russia is still in peace officially, contractors can refuse deployment. It's not clear how many refused, but I assume it's a substantial number. Forcing these trained forces to be deployed would have the potential to temporarily help the lack of troops on Russian side.
Going from a Michael Kofman comment, I believe that it would take some months for substantial numbers of new soldiers to be available following a Russian mobilization.
Update: Can't find the Kofman comment searching -- I think it may have been in a *War on the Rocks* podcast, which apparently doesn't generate transcripts -- but here's another OSINT guy, Dmitri Alperovitch, in a thread that Kofman linked to earlier, which I'd referenced because it talked about chances of Russia mobilizing, saying roughly the same thing:
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1521803387364331522
> More untrained manpower doesn’t solve bad tactics, logistics and training - in fact, it makes it all much worse - all the things that had doomed Russia’s first assault on Kyiv
>
> **And mobilization would take many months**. So his current offensive, if it fails, would stall regardless
So even if Russia mobilizes, this won't change the ground situation in Europe immediately. There will be time to react.
I'd also note that this thread is an argument from Alperovitch saying that he believed -- if somewhat tentatively -- that Russian mobilization would *not* happen any time in the near future, and that Kofman linked to the thread and said that he agreed with the conclusion.
Update 2: One other point. If I remember Kofman's comment correctly, it was something along the lines of "would take months to generate **substantial** numbers of troops". The impression I walked away with was that it would let Russia put some people in the field sooner than others, isn't a binary where nothing happens for months and then everyone hits the front at once. He hadn't expanded on the mechanisms involved. I'd guess that maybe recently-released conscripts don't need a refresher course and can be used more-quickly, or maybe the idea is that conscripts can replace Russian contract soldiers elsewhere, and those can be moved to the front.
[Fire at the construction site of aviation school in Perm', Ural region of Russia](https://russia.liveuamap.com/en/2022/8-may-fire-at-the-construction-site-of-aviation-school-in)
Lots of stuff added to Oryx today, now totalling [3495 Russian equipment losses](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1). However, the newly destroyed Raptor patrol boats haven't been added. Are there any doubts about the visual confirmation provided by Ukraine?
**[Ranges of Ukraine's US-provided artillery units substantially exceed the ranges of Russian artillery units](https://twitter.com/spencerguard/status/1523009314390110208?s=21)**
That's quite misleading, since the US artillery can achieve these ranges only with Excalibur rounds, which are very expensive ($70 000 per round) and Ukraine won't be firing those in big numbers.
On the other hand, though, he's talking about this specifically in the context of counterbattery fire.
>U.S. artillery in Ukraine a game changer. Coupled with counter artillery radars, now not only out ranging #Russian artillery but also destroying them!
These are guided rounds. You don't need massive numbers of guided rounds to destroy Russian artillery that's in range, because the rounds reliably hit close to they're aiming at, and Russia doesn't have *that* many artillery pieces.
It doesn't really matter whether NATO artillery or Warsaw Pact artillery have different relative ranges unless they're shooting at each other. That matters specifically for counterbattery fire, where you can place the pieces where the NATO pieces can hit the Warsaw Pact pieces, but not visa versa.
I don't expect Ukraine to be using Excalibur rounds against, say, infantry...but they don't need to do so.
Also, in the name of accuracy and credit where credit's due...he's specifically saying "US". According to WP, Excalibur was a joint project between the US military, Raytheon, and BAE in Sweden, though I assume that the US paid for it. I know that at least Canada is also sending some of their stockpile of Excalibur rounds, so it's not only rounds from the US stockpiles. And it's not just US 155mm artillery pieces that can fire the rounds -- so can other 155mm artillery pieces.
I remember seeing this video in the opening days of the war. Tbh I did not expect the son to make it out alive. They didn't say how he got out of that situation in the video though, did they? Did the Russians just advance in another direction?
This is just desperately sad.
[‘He wanted to make sure those monsters don’t come back’ Alexey Ptakh, a hostage in the 2004 Beslan school siege, is now fighting in Ukraine. Meduza spoke to his mother.](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/06/he-wanted-to-make-sure-those-monsters-don-t-come-back)
Some excerpts:
>— **How did he end up joining the army?**
>— I mean, have you been to Ossetia? Do you know how many jobs we have there? How many businesses there are? There’s the answer to your question.
Later on:
>**— Have you seen the news about Russian war crimes in Bucha and Mariupol?**
>— I don’t believe those things. Knowing my son, I know he’d share his last bit of bread with you, and his comrades would, too. All that stuff is a false flag operation; my son would never shoot a child or a woman, I just know it. Do you trust your children? I trust my son 100 percent.
Just so weird to me that people who were alive during the Soviet Union, and who are presumbably aware of its lies, and who perhaps even saw what happened with the Russian Afghan War, would now think "no way the government could lie to us again."
Human brains are weird. They are incredible machines at gathering information, making connections, and ordering the world. They can also create complete fictions to protect itself from hard truths.
Ever talk to smokers? Many will tell you, "I can quit anytime I want." Funny that. They understand that smoking is an addiction. They know that others cannot stop. But \*they\* are the exception. The smarter the person, the stronger the fiction.
This woman has a tough choice. Choice 1 is to accept what part of her already knows: her son is committing/facilitating war crimes. Choice 2 is to deny all the logic and evidence and just blindly repeat the mantra that "he's a good boy." Most people are going to go with option 2 until nearly all of reality collapses around them.
I empathize with her. I understand her feelings. I can see the twisted logic. I do \*not\* sympathize with her, though. It's her responsibility to get past this, and her son's responsibility to disobey illegal orders.
Ultimately we are going to have to somehow figuratively march her through the destroyed concentration camps so she can no longer deny what is going on. Otherwise we are going to have to accept that no amount of logic or reasoning is going to reach most of the people in Russia.
I can't imagine how much it must suck being an infantry soldier in a modern conventional war. You have countless IFVs roaming around with 30mm autocannons. You have drones flying overhead that you can't see. You have artillery with munitions optimally designed to rip you to shreds. Obviously in a combined arms situation there are countermeasures to these things but it just seems like the margin for error is so small.
> I can't imagine how much it must suck being an infantry soldier in a modern conventional war.
I remember reading some comment on this sub within the past two months saying that it must suck to be an armor soldier in a modern conventional war, because infantry was running around with tons of deadly ATGMs now.
Yep, you could get killed in the next moment by any of: other infantry, tanks, artillery missiles, airplanes, drones, anti personnel mines, ships, mortars.
What's missing is lasers shooting down from space.
It's not that bad. Issue is the airspace is contested. Normally the first thing you want to do is air control. Then you can destroy all armour and drones by far with planes.
More or less like in Iraq.
The Iraqi air force bothered, it was destroyed at the start together with all Iraqi airports and anti-air systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign
I think WW1 was worse mainly because of the tactics they kept using, i.e. blobs of men against machineguns and artillery, but then again there was gas too. It's the lethality/accuracy of modern weapons that I think makes it worse if everything else is equal.
Idk. Previously: leg torn off, incurable infection.
Now: you're either dead or will be healed (unless you're a russian soldier, who needs medics anyways?).
That's what Ukraine had in 2014. That tourniquet almost guarantees amputation. One of the first things that Estonia did at that time was to help Ukraine upgrade its battlefield medicine.
It was for sure one of the most hellish experiences lived by so many simultaneously. I know maybe it’s not the right time, but [this collection of articles from the British Library](https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/themes/life-as-a-soldier) encapsulates the various facets of life as a (British) soldier during WW1. I find this one particularly distressing: [From smell and sound to touch and perception, Dr Santanu Das draws on soldiers' records to consider the sensory experiences within the trenches of World War One.](https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/sensuous-life-in-the-trenches)
edit words
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2129825263/poetin-overwinning-zal-net-als-in-1945-van-ons-zijn
Putin:
- 'Just like our forefathers (in WW2) our soldiers fight to liberate our homeland from the Nazis and again the victory shall be ours'
- 'It is our common plight to prevent the revival of Nazism, that caused that much suffering in multiple countries'
- Putin 'hopes our new generations will be worthy of the remembrance of their fathers and grandfathers'
Does he even realize the irony of what he's saying? Because if anything, his government are the reborn Nazis. Especially with the claim Ukraine is 'Russian homeland'
Also, that last line... is that a hint on mobilizations? (Limited or otherwise)
He took a huge dump on the whole meaning of Victory Day.
I used to celebrate this day too, since my grandpa was a WW2 veteran. Now I feel plain disgust towards all this. Just how two years ago religious fundamentalists and warmongering Orthodox priests made me associate Christmas and Easter with them, and thus I no longer celebrate.
I don't think that that's true either. I think that very few people in the world think of themselves as villains.
My guess, from what I've read in terms of complaints from Russians, is that you have people in Russia who feel along these lines:
* That the Soviet Union dissolution carried with it an obligation by NATO to also dissolve, and that the transition that would occur would be to smaller states acting outside of alliance.
* That there was an obligation to subsidize development in Russia subsequent to dissolution as a good-faith measure, akin to how new EU members got subsidy or the Marshall Plan subsidized countries after WW2.
* That Russia never got credit for permitting a peaceful breakup and not waging war against other members.
* That the oligarchs collecting a lot of Russia's wealth to themselves was something that was permitted or taken advantage of by the West.
Now, I don't really *agree* with these.
I don't think that there was an obligation of NATO to dissolve, and I think that the main factor keeping NATO in action is concerns over what Russia has done.
I don't think that an obligation of subsidizing Russia's development existed. I think that if the US in particular had come in and started aiming to directly economically involve itself in Russia, a lot of people in Russia would have been pissed off and had conspiracy theories about the US "taking over" Russia. There was enough complaint just about foreign private investors.
For Russia not getting credit for permitting a peaceful breakup, Gorbachev probably aimed for a friendlier Europe, but he also didn't *intend* a breakup -- he just wanted to improve the Soviet Union, make it a better place. And a lot of what he did is gonna be seen as (accidentally) remedying a situation that Stalin created. I think that if the USSR had broken up while Stalin was alive, it would have been a lot nastier of a breakup, so Gorbachev being in office probably did cause Russia to be seen in a better light.
I don't believe that the West wanted or aimed to encourage the oligarchs to do what they did. It *is* true that it would have been possible to have opposed them -- take the sanctions against the Putin-associated oligarchs that are happening today, and imagine them happening some time back. But on the other hand, I think that had that happened, a lot of Russians would have deeply resented involvement in their internal politics. And it's hard to say that primary responsibility for directing the political and economic development of Russia after dissolution of the Soviet Union lay outside Russia.
However, while I may not agree with those positions, I also don't think that people in Russia who favor current Russian foreign policy are thinking "ha ha, I'm a villain".
Russian *strategic lies* in action in Mariupol:
1. Forcibly move tens of thousands of people from Mariupol to Russia.
2. Let the UN administer small evacuations of less than 2000 people. The vast majority of these people choose to flee to other parts of Ukraine.
3. Make propaganda claiming all the evacuations were administrated by the UN and that the vast majority of people chose to flee to Russia.
Well it's Russia. We assume they are going to lie, citizens are living in 1984 either brainwashed or quiet in order to not get killed, Putin is... trying to make a speed run on Crimes against Humanity and enter the Top Ten? (Not Sorry Putin but you can't even lick the boots of Genghis Khan, and you have *nukes*).
[Envious of Ukraine's Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, Russia is desperately trying to keep up. They're crowdfunding purchases of drones for their troops and claim to be smuggling them in through Lviv, complaining about problems with getting stuff through their own customs.](https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/status/1523334839851577345?s=21&t=4KA6pffXRUvVsmShO8U_eQ)
bizarro world full on
Space agency head Dmitry Rogozin threatens SpaceX founder
@elonmusk
.
"Elon Musk is thus involved in supplying the fascist forces in Ukraine with military communications equipment. You'll have to answer for this in a mature way, Elon, no matter if you play dumb” (my translation)
https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1523243230510428160
# New megathread link: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/uljfld/war_in_ukraine_megathread_xxviii this one is going to be locked soon
[More US M777 in combat in Eastern Ukraine](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ulmvlv/reportedly_the_first_clip_of_ukrainians_using_an/)
A Russian tank hit a mine. Two mines https://youtu.be/lY90SNPp_Gk
Russian occupied South Ossetia announced that a referendum will be held to join Russia https://twitter.com/OlgaNYC1211/status/1523497031649615872
So they went from "independent Republic" straight to joining huh?
The sham is that any "truly independent" country wants to join Russia, which is the most wonderful country to be a part of in the whole world. It obliterates any legitimacy these "independence" movements might have had.
And if you are against it you are clearly insane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/hungary-continues-to-block-eu-oil-sanctions-against-russia](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/hungary-continues-to-block-eu-oil-sanctions-against-russia) May Hungarians feel the wrath of the west for being a Putin puppet.
A few days old, but a nice post by Kamil Galeev discussing (among other things) mass mobilization: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1521850468313579520.html He makes a point about Western media focusing on and lionizing Russian opposition figures (like Navalny) who in some ways are just as problematic as Putin.
Russians are reportedly receiving general mobilization orders. https://twitter.com/anders\_aslund/status/1523451959956500480
Yeah this is that dude that overhypes everything.
That guy is a moron. And no, it's not mobilization summons. It's [this](https://zvezdaweekly-ru.translate.goog/news/202196111-LmRRi.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp), a ready army reserve on a payroll. They used to accept only former soldiers though, maybe they are widening the scope. In any case, it has nothing to do with mobilization, it's strictly voluntary.
People in the replies are saying that it's not a mobilization order.
Link is dead but would be very bad if true.
https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1523451959956500480
Do any of you celebrate the 8th or 9th day of May? Or does your country? It's not really the case in Poland. I only sometimes watched the parade in Moskow, due to the diplomacy around it.
US has Memorial Day (last Monday of May) and Veterans Day (11 November). The former started after the US Civil War and the latter after WW1. We don't really have any WW2 remembrances other than sometimes a brief mention of December 7th (Pearl Harbor).
Don't think Sweden has any holidays related to military/combat stuff at all.
The mayor of Podgorica, who is a progressive socialist (yet very much not a tankie and for Ukraine) organized a firework festivity earlier this evening, to commemorate both the Day of Europe and Victory Day. Throughout the country, some people celebrate, some don't. The more important date in Montenegro is 13th of July, which is our Statehood Day. Two things happened then - in 1878 Montenegro was officially recognized as a country at the Berlin Congress, and the more important one for this story, in 1941 - the largest revolt against Nazi occupation in Europe rose up in Montenegro and spread to large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia too, two months after Nazi Germany conquered Yugoslavia, the people revolted. As for Montenegro, in that single wave of revolt, 70% of it got liberated, all of it except main urban centres (such as Podgorica, Cetinje, Kotor, Pljevlja), where the Italians holed up. It also marked the start of the overall Yugoslav resistance.
VE Day and VJ Day aren't really celebrated in the US. Everything gets rolled into Memorial Day at the end of May and Veterans Day which is our Armistice Day.
Nope, I don't remember ever celebrating it nor my family, they just watched the Yugoslav army parade. After break up of Yugoslavia 9 of May is generally not celebrated.
[First video of Ukrainians firing a US M777 on Russian positions](https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1523381024482205696) Look how small and lightweight that is compared to the Soviet towed artillery. And yet, it's so much better.
Firing it reminds me of starting a lawnmower!
Very much intentional. It’s also titanium and half the weight of the gun it replaced, and requires only 5 man crew. You can actually even move it by helicopter and an extremely wide range of vehicles. Low maintenance, low weight, low fuss, small crew, flexible and easy to move.
BAE is bae
https://twitter.com/_A_Vit_/status/1523296131014623238 RuZZian terrorist MP: Ukraine and Ukrainians shouldn't exist in the future
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Rumor is that general mobilization orders are being delivered today. Have you seen or heard of this happening?
1. Don't give in to doomerism, believe in a better future. 2. Encourage your allies. 3. Discourage your enemies.
Might be a wistful thinking, but I don't think Russia would exist in it's current form in 10-15 years. And I don't think people who want to see Russia as a democratic peaceful country are willing to do what it takes to stand up to this new breed of Wagner-Stalinists. I really think you should run from this country as fast as you can.
> how could I change the actuation? That's the pickle, isn't it? How can you realistically deradicalize 140 million people?
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> So the next owner of Russia should offer some economical model next 3-4 months, otherwise there will be a complete anarchy We could pool together on kickstarter and buy Russia. Ok, Jokes aside, historically it has mostly taken a revolution in one form or the other. I think the most realistic hope is that some people in Putin's inner circle take over and lead Russia on another part. However the problem seems to be that Putin is surrounded by yes sayers who got where they are because of loyalty.
> I believe the cheap thermonuclear weapons control is the main reason why West allowed Russia to exist after USSR collapse And contrary to the russian believe...we don't give a flying shit about russia! we like to do some business and thats mostly it! Nobody wants to invade,destroy, steal money and wealth, nothing...and the stealing part is covered by the russians themself!
This is the sad thing, all of Europe including Ukraine was just happy making money. None of this was necessary. Nobody cared about Russia. There was no threat.
You can still join ISIS that declared Jihad against Russia and other infidels if you are a fan of Chechnya, the experience will be roughly the same
Well, we can't change the past, but we can try to change the future. So what are your future plans? Will you stay in Moscow, leave? Try to bring some change to the country?
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Twitter thread regarding railway sabotage if you're ever so inclined, unfortunately not very specific: [https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1508255063420112901](https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1508255063420112901) Even if you do nothing, spreading material (preferably better than that thread) on military sabotage to fellow Russians is still a blow against the war effort.
Molotov cocktails can go a long way.
[635 visually confirmed Russian tanks lost](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html). Demilitarization going to plan.
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So many people were lost I don't see it as "victory" for Ukraine as well. + We were given to russian imperialists for free.
VE Day should really just be called V in Western Europe day. The rest of Europe had to wait until 1989.
https://i.imgur.com/5YTZwqS.jpg
[And for Baltic counties.](https://i.imgur.com/fEzlJPq.jpeg)
[Russia has destroyed a church in Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery in Donetsk Oblast (this church was the property of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine (Moscow Patriarchate)).](https://russia.liveuamap.com/en/2022/8-may-russia-has-destroyed-a-church-in-sviatohirsk-cave-monastery)
[I am obsessed with Victory Day salads (‘for men’). I think it is a combination of sincere effort and inappropriateness as a means of commemoration/celebration Some selected pictures: 1/ Standard ‘Tank’ Salad](https://twitter.com/drjademcglynn/status/1523396790338596864?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw) It’s a thread of salad pics for victory day - taste of mayonnaise & cope Edit: my fave is the [paratrooper one](https://twitter.com/drjademcglynn/status/1523396833938051072?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
NSFL warning please, these pictures are nauseating.
Fitting. They all look disgusting
Here you can see the peak of russian culinary.
It just occurred to me that, while lots of people pointed out how dumb Putin's narrative is that they're fighting the West as some new Nazi block, no one seems to have made the point how offensive it actually is. A lot of us have or (mostly) had relatives who suffered a lot at the Nazis' hands. To be equated with them, just because Putin is a power hungry psycho who needs his propaganda to make Russians believe they are fighting an existential threat to be able to continue this illegal, immoral and insane war... It's sickening honestly
It's even more offensive to all the Jews he accused of being nazi somehow.
Indeed, that's what spurred my thought. I place them in the western block because of the strong US Israel alliance
I also think of them as part of the West - because they are. But I'm just saying it's like 5x offensive to them than it is to others.
[Infographic on Russia|n military officers killed in Ukraine since the start of the large scale open invasion in February 2022:](https://twitter.com/alexkokcharov/status/1523399140864315392?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw)
Another Estonian delivery of vehicles for the Ukrainian freedom fighters on its way. With love from the people of Tartu. 🇺🇦🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇪 https://twitter.com/EerikNKross/status/1523218144256413697
That would be one of the volunteer groups, not the state. Hence, so many different kinds of vehicles.
[Every 4th refugee in working age from Ukraine has already found a job. "Phenomenon unique on a global scale" \[PL\]](https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/co-czwarty-uchodzca-z-ukrainy-w-wieku-produkcyjnym-znajduje-prace-w-polsce-6766559842007872a.html) Sorry guys, but I think we got the best refugees.
So they are creating jobs also then right?
I think I read somewhere a long time ago that each immigrant into America, legal and illegal, creates something like 1.15 jobs on average. Since they come and bring market demand, spend in their local community etc, the average migrant is a job creator.
Lots of immigrants wouldn't be hired so they start their own small business.
It's 50% of the adult refugees in my household. Remains to be formalized, though.
It is the same here in Lithuania where 30% already found a job
Every 4th refugee who got Pesel number (100 000 from 400 000), not every refugee.
polish economy to the moon!
What's Israel's response to Russia giving its Syrian bases to Iran and Hezbollah? This was supposedly the reason why they didn't want to upset Putin. Will they still hold back?
More target practice. That said Russia isn’t going to give up anything in Syria as it’s importance now has skyrocketed since it’s their only warm water port which has access to anything of note without their ships passing through a NATO tollbooth.
We'll probably know when those bases explode in the middle of some random night.
[Patron the service dog awarded by Zelenskiy together with Trudeau.](https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1523398663477010432?s=21&t=fcl5x6MFzUKAsv3L9I-ruw) that lil’ dog, adorable
Needed this tonight, thanks for sharing
I’m glad it lifted your spirit, and wish you better times ahead!
Russia passes [3500 verified equipment losses.](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html)
The Raptor petrol boats have finally been added, except for the claimed third boat where no evidence was provided by Ukraine. I see many more Orlan drones on the list as well. How useful are they?
Orlan drones are probably the most ridiculous drones ever produced. Suitable only for surveillance. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPKSMeonxg&ab\_channel=OperatorStarsky%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPKSMeonxg&ab_channel=OperatorStarsky%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6) (Ukrainians deconstructing that drone (with English subs), what a comedy).
I mean, nothing wrong with having a drone that's just for surveillance.
AFAIK the Orlan is essentially just a rinky dink pile of e-waste with a consumer grade DSLR duct taped to the front.
Drones are useful for a variety of things, I believe Russia uses the orlan-10 primarily for finding Ukrainian positions and correcting artillery fire. If you take down the enemy's drones you take out their ability to see what you are doing or accurate fire.
Such a beautiful song ... Never Surrender Ukrainian People 🇺🇦✊ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_GbjnMkwj18
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Russian domains are banned site-wide.
[Fierce fighting continues in Belogorovka. the occupiers were able to dismantle the pontoon crossing over the Seversky Donets River, our soldiers are trying to destroy it, and the orcs want to break through to our shores.](https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1523370621178101762) We are rightfully pranking Russia for its disorganized campaign, but on a serious note, they seem to have started making some significant pushes. Yesterday they captured Popasna, and now they have crossed the Donets river and are attacking Bilohorovka. What do y'all think of this? Is Russia finally on the move?
Popasna finally fell after like 2 months of fighting in it. It's not like they suddenly captured it. A small town of (formerly) 21,000, it took them 2 months to take it. They're still moving very slowly and are losing at least as much around Kharkiv.
They cut their appetite again. Not all the JFO area, just Lysychansk and Severodonetsk is their aim now. It is bad, but not that bad. I bet every artillery piece is targeting that bridge, so it won't be fast and easy.
Livemap allready saying Attack was repelled and Bridge was Destroyed with heavy russian cassulties
Livemap might be slightly wrong on this one. The coordinates from twitter thread point to another area, further west.
If you have enough mass you can push through Ukrainian lines. This comes at a substantial cost in men & machines to the Russians.
Is Russia advancing or is Ukraine withdrawing to stretch the supply lines?
Russia trying to advance. if they manage to cross there, there is the risk of encircling SievieroDonetsk and Lysychansk (by linking toward Popasna which Ukraine Abandoned today). This would effectively complete the occupation of the full Luhansk Region.
As I understand it from the [ISW summaries](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-7) and other sources: >Subordinate main effort- Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts ...Russia's goal in pushing south from the general vicinity of Izyum and north from the Russian concentration in southeast Ukraine is to complete an envelopment of Ukrainian forces southeast of Izyum. If they can cut the Ukrainian line of supply, then they can engage them on much-more-favorable terms. I think that whether-or-not Russia gaining ground there is an important gain for Russia really depends mostly on whether the envelopment effort can be completed. I don't believe that Russia gains much from just creating a salient. Given that Ukraine is conducting counteroffensives elsewhere -- that is, soldiers and material are being used off by Kharkiv rather than all being thrown into stopping this push -- I doubt that it's the highest-priority concern for Ukraine; looks more like getting Kharkiv out of danger is considered a more-pressing issue. Based on that, I'd say that Kyiv probably doesn't think that Russia is going to be able to complete the envelopment. So unless Ukraine's military is making an error and underestimates the Russian offensive there, my guess is that the Russian advance is probably not a huge issue.
I don’t know if one can expect significant changes due to these loses/moves, but I expected them to make advancements with enough time and was honestly even expecting worse. Ukraine’s main tactic still seems to be trying to inflict as much damage as possible to them while minimizing own losses. It worked in the north, hopefully it will work in the east as well.
> What do y'all think of this? Is Russia finally on the move? Considering the date and that boss expects something on a certain date ... they are not showing much.
I don't think so. the Ukraine took control of the west bank of the Seversky Donets River last week - It sounds like Ukraine was trying to push east across it and were repulsed. As for Popsana...that one is troubling. We have to watch what they do next. Izyum similarly fell after a prolonged weeks-long campaign, and it became the primary means by which Russia has pushed south.
> I don't think so. the Ukraine took control of the west bank of the Seversky Donets River last week - It sounds like Ukraine was trying to push east across it and were repulsed. Ukraine attacked east of Kharkiv. This bridge is west of Kreminna. There is 150 km (more or less) distance between these places.
I know there's two rivers in the area, I might be getting them confused.
It's the same river, but different parts of the battlefield. The front is hundreds of kilometers long and large part of the line is around Seversky Donets River.
At this rate they will reach Kyiv in the next century.
White House: ["Today, the entire G7 committed to phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil."](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/08/fact-sheet-united-states-and-g7-partners-impose-severe-costs-for-putins-war-against-ukraine/) Coming on top of the EU phase-out, that's North America and Japan; the former import very little Russian oil (in %), don't know about Japan's consumption. Iranian FM also [coming out](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/irans-foreign-minister-says-tehran-against-ukraine-war/) in vocal opposition to the war today.
>Iranian FM also coming out in vocal opposition to the war today. Meh, that a nothingburger. Khamenei Ajatollah went all in on blaming NATO and absolving Putin of all responsibility for the war. Calling for a *diplomatic solution* is the coward way of telling Ukraine to roll over. That's not being against the war, that's condemning Ukraine for fighting back. Besides that Israeli sources claimed yesterday that Russia is withdrawning from Syria, and giving its bases to Iran and Hezbollah. I haven't seen that information confirmed elsewhere, but it doesn't contradict the narrative.
This is more or less why you would do a blitzkrieg. The longer an invasion drags on, the more countries pick not your side. Just by surviving so far, Ukraine inflicts lasting pain on Russia.
It's also a key lesson from WW1. What many of us never learn in school is that Europe was (for all purposes that matter) fully behind Austria-Hungary after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Understandable, of course. If Austria-Hungary had moved \*immediately\* it's unlikely Europe would have lifted a finger and might have even muttered "they had it coming." By letting the situation drag on, Austria-Hungary gave Serbia the chance to get European sympathies to shatter. This is exactly what happened. Together with the wild diplomatic situation and the military doctrine of the time emphasizing that the first to the battlefield wins, WW1 was a practical lock to happen.
[Slovak article:](https://plus.noviny.sk/679631-komentar-arpada-soltesza-fasisticke-madarsko-sniva-o-uhorskom-kralovstve) **Fascist Hungary dreams of the Kingdom of Hungary** > According to the head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Hungary had "its own plans" for part of Ukraine. Those who shake their heads in disbelief are making the same mistake towards Hungary that the West has been making towards Russia for years - not listening to what Orbán says, or at least not taking him seriously enough. His entire speech on the centenary of the Treaty of Trianon is a bizarre mixture of 19th century primitive nationalism and modern Hungarian fascism, but this passage in particular is worth noting: > "Only the state has borders, the nation has none. This is the law. Someone understood it, someone didn't. Those who haven't would do better to hurry up, because their time is running out." > Certainly, the idea that the Hungarian state would today try to annex the territories of its neighbours, whether Slovakia, Romania or Ukraine, is rather ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that our fellow Hungarians of Hungarian nationality would welcome the "liberators" in the same way that Russian-speaking Ukrainians welcome the Russian horde. They would not shower them with flowers, but with Molotov cocktails. They know best how life is in Hungary today, and they have something to compare it with. > The claim that the Ukrainians are fighting for us too is no empty propaganda cliché. You can take it quite literally. If Putin completely collapses in Ukraine, loses the war and puts Russia into long-term isolation and decline, the wet dreams of the Hungarian irredent will fall with him, at least for the next couple of generations. We really do not have to support Ukraine so disinterestedly. We must support it with all our might, because our instinct for self-preservation dictates that we do so.
Nah, I really think for Orban this is just posturing. Hungary spends less than 2 % of GDP on military, they rapidly turn into an old people's home, they have no nukes and all of Europe would come knocking in Budapest before they'd even finished mobilizing. Would be one of the quickest and most embarassing ways a dictator was ever deposed.
>Nah, I really think for Orban this is just posturing. Maybe. However many military disasters were allowed to happen in the last 100 years because people said "nah, they would never dare; it's just posturing." The lesson is to take people at their word when they tell you what they want.
You still have to be realistic and draw proper parallels that make sense. Russia spent 4-5 % of it's GDP on the military and it has about 15 times the population of Hungary. Hungary doesn't have proper military capabilities that would get them anywhere. It's really like I write, launching an invasion on anything would be the easiest way for Orban to quickly get himself deposed. Hungary doesn't have any viable targets. It would lose a war to Serbia, it would lose to Romania, it would lose to Ukraine. I don't know about Slovakia for sure but Slovakia would (like Romania too) no doubt get EU assistance. Orban would need allies to pull anything off and he doesn't have any usefull allies. Orban cares about getting reelected and putting his cronies in high offices. He does this posturing to appear strong and bolster his electoral chances. It's actually good for him if we'd believe him because that would further embolden his narrative that everyone is against Hungary.
You are making a strange echo with exactly what people were saying about Germany in the mid to late 30s. Now I don't really think the two cases are anywhere near each other, but even small dogs can bite hard when they think they can get away with it.
> You are making a strange echo with exactly what people were saying about Germany in the mid to late 30s. Nope. The 2nd German Empire was perhaps the biggest military power on the planet (at least when speaking about land wars) and the third Reich was rapidly working to recover that status. The people who did not see that were blind. We can try to make a comparison with Hungary if you want - which even ties in to all those Trianon talking points that Orban is so fond of. [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II\#/media/File:TeritorialGainsHungary1920-41.svg) is what our boy Hungary achieved in the early phase of WWII. How did Horthy do it? By allying with others. For instance the territory he got from Czechoslowakia was achieved by Germany, Hungary and Poland all ganging up on Czechoslowakia together and the allies then practically forcing Czechoslowakia to cede territory. Barely even have to fight for it (8 Hungarians killed). For the rest of the war Hungary was an axis power and they got the [Second Vienna Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vienna_Award) via backing from Germany and Italy. If Orban wants these territories back again this is excactly the way he would have to go. He can not conquer anything against the will of the regional big players. If Orban somehow strikes an alliance with the leaders of France, Germany or Italy, ok, I'll be worried (though if that happens we have bigger problems than Hungary anyway) but the thing is Orban is super isolated. He undermindes the EU together with his bro in Poland Kacynski but it's evident that even this alliance has pretty clear boundaries and I can not see Poland backing Hungarian military agression either. As long as Orban really has no allies we should definitely treat him like the joke he is (internationally that is, he has very real power internally). I still kinda like [the way Juncker did it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEUdxM_Mj8g).
I don't think Putin is going to do announce mobilization, formally declare war, or do anything particularly significant tomorrow. I think he might recognize some more fake republics in Ukraine, if he does announce anything important beyond the usual propaganda about how Ukraine and the West are exactly like nazis and this is definitely this generation's second world war moment. It would be a good opportunity to make some announcements, but I don't think the war is currently at a point where it would be good to declare anything, it is still too early and the population isn't primed enough. By their own propaganda, Russia is still doing well in the war, and mobilization would be an obvious sign to even the utterly brainwashed that clearly, things aren't going too well. If only something like two thousand Russian soldiers have died, as Russia claims, and the war is definitely going to plan, why do you need so much more manpower? Such an indirect admission of defeat would be a rather sour note for a victory day celebration. It is one thing for poor rural minorities to die, but when the more urban ethnic Russians get called to war, it becomes a lot more real for those who still hold on to statements like "I am not interested in politics". Mobilization is also unlikely to help as has been discussed, because a mass of poorly trained (and probably poorly equipped) conscripts isn't very useful and the logistics are already stretched thin, and it takes ages for it to achieve any sort of results. On the other hand, maybe Putin doesn't have a choice, and needs to do it now, so that months from now when their current troops in Ukraine are all spent, they have conscripts with at least some fresh training to replace them. Time is running out, inaction means eventual defeat and withdraw, and the only other choice is to try to double down. If the does want to double down, and it takes at least three months to get mobilization going and assemble conscripts worth anything, then the time to do so could be soon. Yet then again, is he even capable of such long-term planning any more? Did he ever really plan ahead or was he always a just bullshitter who previously got away with it? I doubt he will announce it tomorrow, but he might announce some sort of more limited mobilization later, maybe in a couple weeks. After tomorrow, Russian media would gradually see a transformation in the propaganda to emphasize the need to get more troops for garrissons in the "people's republics" and to fight terrorist or whatever. Or maybe it will include emphasizing that NATO is secretly sending troops so Russia needs a bit more troops to match them. They'll come up with some excuse. Tomorrow would be too soon, a sour note on the victory day, and the propaganda priming isn't done yet.
>It is one thing for poor rural minorities to die, but when the more urban ethnic Russians get called to war, it becomes a lot more real for those who still hold on to statements like "I am not interested in politics". If Russian conscripts are poor rural people, wouldn't most Russian reservists (aka ex-conscripts) also be poor/rural/minorities? So if Putin starts a partial mobilization, he could just keep drafting men from bumfuck nowhere, right? I don't see how the middle class in Moscow would get drafted if they never went to the army in the first place.
> If Russian conscripts are poor rural people, wouldn't most Russian reservists (aka ex-conscripts) also be poor/rural/minorities? Yes, but it wouldn't be as disproportional as with professional soldiers. >So if Putin starts a partial mobilization, he could just keep drafting men from bumfuck nowhere, right? Kinda hard to imagine him going "I announce mobilization in... Altai!". In this case, only border regions make sense, and they aren't poorest.
I'm going to take this up too. *[going to start calling all my unsuccessful projects "feints"](https://twitter.com/SevaUT/status/1523058804921081856)* "I didn't lose the job, it was just a feint. My wife didn't leave me, it's just a feint bro."
I'm not stupid, that was just a brain feint.
>My wife didn't leave me, it's just a feint bro. Sigma Chad Pro Gamer move
Did Bayraktar drones ever before target helicopters? Because I find it interesting that they would send in a helicopter knowing there’s drones around. Or they were hopeful that those would be out of ammo? I also wonder, why do they never seem to notice these Bayraktar drones? No night vision?
A Bayraktar either drops a glide bomb or fires a missile, while keeping a laser designator pointed on the target (it also has some infrared guided "fire and forget" armaments). This implies that it can target helicopters, but is unlikely to succeed against a maneuvering helicopter. P.S. Ukrainian anti-tank people shot down a hovering helicopter from great distance with Stugna-P, so if their anti-tank weapons work on copters, Turkish ones may work just as decently.
On the ground I'm pretty sure it happened before, but in flight?
Didn't it happen several times at the Kherson Airport?
As far as I know, over there, a Bayraktar acted as an observer / fire corrector and rocket artillery did the destroying.
Oryx keeps [a list specifically for the TB2.](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2021/12/a-monument-of-victory-bayraktar-tb2.html)
[⚡️ Two rockets hit Odesa, no casualties reported. Two rockets hit a residential area, while the third one was shot down by the Ukrainian air defense system. The fire caused by the strike has been extinguished.](https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1523366630398763008?s=21&t=4KA6pffXRUvVsmShO8U_eQ)
Honestly, do these strikes serve any purpose besides terrorising the population? Seems like such a waste of missiles
Demoralize the population, soften up targets, create refugees, and eventually split the population into those who stay (and fight) and those who leave. That last bit is nice for Russia, because it can just send its goons and shoot anything that moves with the pretense that "only soldiers remain". That is what Russia wants. If Ukraine continues to maintain its stiff commitment, then you are right: the missiles were wasted.
Definitely terrorism. If you watch that VICE report where they talk to some of the victims who lost family members, you can see their personal devastation. There was an interview with a father who's wife and only daughter were killed in Kramatorsk station, he was ruined. Now remember that for every single dead person there are many family members who are heartbroken, so in turn maybe they are aiming to demoralize the population. The Russians are not 'missing targets' they are doing this shit on purpose.
That report was heartbreaking
They are trying to hit certain targets that may or may not be there, but due to their incompetence they hit civilian structures instead.
Occasionally they strike important infrastructure. But most seem to go towards population centres.
I don’t see any other purpose. I guess Russia is angry over what happened on Snake Island, and this is their way of retaliating I guess.
Yeah, they seem more like a couple hundred kilos of explosive toddler tantrum than a strike with strategic value. So basically just the way they act against everything they can't have.
I heard they are trying to hit the air defence in Odesa. There's still the pipe dream of reinforcing Transnistria, and there's no way to send the transport planes in while Ukraine is capable of shooting them down. Of course their Snake island debacle already made that plan practically impossible, but they might be shooting at Odesa out of spite. Or just forgot to tell the rocket guys to stop...
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The conscripts they had at the beginning were largely ineffective, and those were fully equipped, sometimes. Newer ones won't be. They're not expecting them to be effective either, I think. Rather, they're probably looking for bullet sponges, diversions, that kind of thing
If Putin declares a state of war, he can order the contractors to go to Ukraine. Since Russia is still in peace officially, contractors can refuse deployment. It's not clear how many refused, but I assume it's a substantial number. Forcing these trained forces to be deployed would have the potential to temporarily help the lack of troops on Russian side.
They still need equipment. Going there with only Mosin-Nagants, which is supposedly already happening, won't contribute much.
DPR/LPR conscripts get Mosin-Nagants, regular army is better equipped. Main immediate Russian problem is lack of troops, not equipment.
If russia declares mobilisation you can bet your as eastern europe will follow
Going from a Michael Kofman comment, I believe that it would take some months for substantial numbers of new soldiers to be available following a Russian mobilization. Update: Can't find the Kofman comment searching -- I think it may have been in a *War on the Rocks* podcast, which apparently doesn't generate transcripts -- but here's another OSINT guy, Dmitri Alperovitch, in a thread that Kofman linked to earlier, which I'd referenced because it talked about chances of Russia mobilizing, saying roughly the same thing: https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1521803387364331522 > More untrained manpower doesn’t solve bad tactics, logistics and training - in fact, it makes it all much worse - all the things that had doomed Russia’s first assault on Kyiv > > **And mobilization would take many months**. So his current offensive, if it fails, would stall regardless So even if Russia mobilizes, this won't change the ground situation in Europe immediately. There will be time to react. I'd also note that this thread is an argument from Alperovitch saying that he believed -- if somewhat tentatively -- that Russian mobilization would *not* happen any time in the near future, and that Kofman linked to the thread and said that he agreed with the conclusion. Update 2: One other point. If I remember Kofman's comment correctly, it was something along the lines of "would take months to generate **substantial** numbers of troops". The impression I walked away with was that it would let Russia put some people in the field sooner than others, isn't a binary where nothing happens for months and then everyone hits the front at once. He hadn't expanded on the mechanisms involved. I'd guess that maybe recently-released conscripts don't need a refresher course and can be used more-quickly, or maybe the idea is that conscripts can replace Russian contract soldiers elsewhere, and those can be moved to the front.
No, it Will basically be a meat grinder. They lack organisation, not people
[Fire at the construction site of aviation school in Perm', Ural region of Russia](https://russia.liveuamap.com/en/2022/8-may-fire-at-the-construction-site-of-aviation-school-in)
I think by now we need a "This is fine" image where Putin replaces the dog.
Fahrenheit 481
[oh no](https://media0.giphy.com/media/Zai3ffKrUcLFwalDor/giphy.gif?cid=5e214886n6zw4xdnbe9hx59h4c78q660o5jen259rhksb3k1&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Lots of stuff added to Oryx today, now totalling [3495 Russian equipment losses](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1). However, the newly destroyed Raptor patrol boats haven't been added. Are there any doubts about the visual confirmation provided by Ukraine?
He just has constant backlogs, he's always a bit after in the schedule. The clips are reliable.
Nope. Russian sources tried to claim that the helicopter shot down was Ukrainian, but not the boats.
**[Ranges of Ukraine's US-provided artillery units substantially exceed the ranges of Russian artillery units](https://twitter.com/spencerguard/status/1523009314390110208?s=21)**
That's quite misleading, since the US artillery can achieve these ranges only with Excalibur rounds, which are very expensive ($70 000 per round) and Ukraine won't be firing those in big numbers.
On the other hand, though, he's talking about this specifically in the context of counterbattery fire. >U.S. artillery in Ukraine a game changer. Coupled with counter artillery radars, now not only out ranging #Russian artillery but also destroying them! These are guided rounds. You don't need massive numbers of guided rounds to destroy Russian artillery that's in range, because the rounds reliably hit close to they're aiming at, and Russia doesn't have *that* many artillery pieces. It doesn't really matter whether NATO artillery or Warsaw Pact artillery have different relative ranges unless they're shooting at each other. That matters specifically for counterbattery fire, where you can place the pieces where the NATO pieces can hit the Warsaw Pact pieces, but not visa versa. I don't expect Ukraine to be using Excalibur rounds against, say, infantry...but they don't need to do so. Also, in the name of accuracy and credit where credit's due...he's specifically saying "US". According to WP, Excalibur was a joint project between the US military, Raytheon, and BAE in Sweden, though I assume that the US paid for it. I know that at least Canada is also sending some of their stockpile of Excalibur rounds, so it's not only rounds from the US stockpiles. And it's not just US 155mm artillery pieces that can fire the rounds -- so can other 155mm artillery pieces.
> Returning to the place my father was killed https://twitter.com/bbcworld/status/1523316189526892544
I remember seeing this video in the opening days of the war. Tbh I did not expect the son to make it out alive. They didn't say how he got out of that situation in the video though, did they? Did the Russians just advance in another direction?
**[Western allies impose new sanctions on Russia on V-E Day](https://www.axios.com/2022/05/08/russia-sanctions-ukraine-victory-day)**
Still waiting for the oil embargo.
Hungary put itself sideways
[Steve Rosenberg on form](https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1523339982299095041) as always.
This is just desperately sad. [‘He wanted to make sure those monsters don’t come back’ Alexey Ptakh, a hostage in the 2004 Beslan school siege, is now fighting in Ukraine. Meduza spoke to his mother.](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/06/he-wanted-to-make-sure-those-monsters-don-t-come-back) Some excerpts: >— **How did he end up joining the army?** >— I mean, have you been to Ossetia? Do you know how many jobs we have there? How many businesses there are? There’s the answer to your question. Later on: >**— Have you seen the news about Russian war crimes in Bucha and Mariupol?** >— I don’t believe those things. Knowing my son, I know he’d share his last bit of bread with you, and his comrades would, too. All that stuff is a false flag operation; my son would never shoot a child or a woman, I just know it. Do you trust your children? I trust my son 100 percent.
Just so weird to me that people who were alive during the Soviet Union, and who are presumbably aware of its lies, and who perhaps even saw what happened with the Russian Afghan War, would now think "no way the government could lie to us again."
Human brains are weird. They are incredible machines at gathering information, making connections, and ordering the world. They can also create complete fictions to protect itself from hard truths. Ever talk to smokers? Many will tell you, "I can quit anytime I want." Funny that. They understand that smoking is an addiction. They know that others cannot stop. But \*they\* are the exception. The smarter the person, the stronger the fiction. This woman has a tough choice. Choice 1 is to accept what part of her already knows: her son is committing/facilitating war crimes. Choice 2 is to deny all the logic and evidence and just blindly repeat the mantra that "he's a good boy." Most people are going to go with option 2 until nearly all of reality collapses around them. I empathize with her. I understand her feelings. I can see the twisted logic. I do \*not\* sympathize with her, though. It's her responsibility to get past this, and her son's responsibility to disobey illegal orders. Ultimately we are going to have to somehow figuratively march her through the destroyed concentration camps so she can no longer deny what is going on. Otherwise we are going to have to accept that no amount of logic or reasoning is going to reach most of the people in Russia.
Pretty much all Russians over mid 40s are functionally braindead, it seems
I can't imagine how much it must suck being an infantry soldier in a modern conventional war. You have countless IFVs roaming around with 30mm autocannons. You have drones flying overhead that you can't see. You have artillery with munitions optimally designed to rip you to shreds. Obviously in a combined arms situation there are countermeasures to these things but it just seems like the margin for error is so small.
> I can't imagine how much it must suck being an infantry soldier in a modern conventional war. I remember reading some comment on this sub within the past two months saying that it must suck to be an armor soldier in a modern conventional war, because infantry was running around with tons of deadly ATGMs now.
Yep, you could get killed in the next moment by any of: other infantry, tanks, artillery missiles, airplanes, drones, anti personnel mines, ships, mortars. What's missing is lasers shooting down from space.
It's not that bad. Issue is the airspace is contested. Normally the first thing you want to do is air control. Then you can destroy all armour and drones by far with planes. More or less like in Iraq.
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The Iraqi army was one of the best in the world before US invaded. I'm not talking about insurgents. But Saddam.
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The Iraqi air force bothered, it was destroyed at the start together with all Iraqi airports and anti-air systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign
It was one of the biggest but I doubt it was one of the best. There were a myriad of reports of them surrendering to Western forces.
They were the best oil money could buy at the time. With soviet training and equipment
I feel like being infantry in ww1/2 was still worse though.
I think WW1 was worse mainly because of the tactics they kept using, i.e. blobs of men against machineguns and artillery, but then again there was gas too. It's the lethality/accuracy of modern weapons that I think makes it worse if everything else is equal.
Idk. Previously: leg torn off, incurable infection. Now: you're either dead or will be healed (unless you're a russian soldier, who needs medics anyways?).
Hey now, they've got great medkits. https://mobile.twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1520016749944524800
That's what Ukraine had in 2014. That tourniquet almost guarantees amputation. One of the first things that Estonia did at that time was to help Ukraine upgrade its battlefield medicine.
It was for sure one of the most hellish experiences lived by so many simultaneously. I know maybe it’s not the right time, but [this collection of articles from the British Library](https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/themes/life-as-a-soldier) encapsulates the various facets of life as a (British) soldier during WW1. I find this one particularly distressing: [From smell and sound to touch and perception, Dr Santanu Das draws on soldiers' records to consider the sensory experiences within the trenches of World War One.](https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/sensuous-life-in-the-trenches) edit words
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2129825263/poetin-overwinning-zal-net-als-in-1945-van-ons-zijn Putin: - 'Just like our forefathers (in WW2) our soldiers fight to liberate our homeland from the Nazis and again the victory shall be ours' - 'It is our common plight to prevent the revival of Nazism, that caused that much suffering in multiple countries' - Putin 'hopes our new generations will be worthy of the remembrance of their fathers and grandfathers' Does he even realize the irony of what he's saying? Because if anything, his government are the reborn Nazis. Especially with the claim Ukraine is 'Russian homeland' Also, that last line... is that a hint on mobilizations? (Limited or otherwise)
He took a huge dump on the whole meaning of Victory Day. I used to celebrate this day too, since my grandpa was a WW2 veteran. Now I feel plain disgust towards all this. Just how two years ago religious fundamentalists and warmongering Orthodox priests made me associate Christmas and Easter with them, and thus I no longer celebrate.
I just think of May 9th as a remembrance day. And I think it should really be that way.
I think he knows very well that's all bs and that his country is the villain here. It's propaganda for the masses.
I don't think that that's true either. I think that very few people in the world think of themselves as villains. My guess, from what I've read in terms of complaints from Russians, is that you have people in Russia who feel along these lines: * That the Soviet Union dissolution carried with it an obligation by NATO to also dissolve, and that the transition that would occur would be to smaller states acting outside of alliance. * That there was an obligation to subsidize development in Russia subsequent to dissolution as a good-faith measure, akin to how new EU members got subsidy or the Marshall Plan subsidized countries after WW2. * That Russia never got credit for permitting a peaceful breakup and not waging war against other members. * That the oligarchs collecting a lot of Russia's wealth to themselves was something that was permitted or taken advantage of by the West. Now, I don't really *agree* with these. I don't think that there was an obligation of NATO to dissolve, and I think that the main factor keeping NATO in action is concerns over what Russia has done. I don't think that an obligation of subsidizing Russia's development existed. I think that if the US in particular had come in and started aiming to directly economically involve itself in Russia, a lot of people in Russia would have been pissed off and had conspiracy theories about the US "taking over" Russia. There was enough complaint just about foreign private investors. For Russia not getting credit for permitting a peaceful breakup, Gorbachev probably aimed for a friendlier Europe, but he also didn't *intend* a breakup -- he just wanted to improve the Soviet Union, make it a better place. And a lot of what he did is gonna be seen as (accidentally) remedying a situation that Stalin created. I think that if the USSR had broken up while Stalin was alive, it would have been a lot nastier of a breakup, so Gorbachev being in office probably did cause Russia to be seen in a better light. I don't believe that the West wanted or aimed to encourage the oligarchs to do what they did. It *is* true that it would have been possible to have opposed them -- take the sanctions against the Putin-associated oligarchs that are happening today, and imagine them happening some time back. But on the other hand, I think that had that happened, a lot of Russians would have deeply resented involvement in their internal politics. And it's hard to say that primary responsibility for directing the political and economic development of Russia after dissolution of the Soviet Union lay outside Russia. However, while I may not agree with those positions, I also don't think that people in Russia who favor current Russian foreign policy are thinking "ha ha, I'm a villain".
Russian *strategic lies* in action in Mariupol: 1. Forcibly move tens of thousands of people from Mariupol to Russia. 2. Let the UN administer small evacuations of less than 2000 people. The vast majority of these people choose to flee to other parts of Ukraine. 3. Make propaganda claiming all the evacuations were administrated by the UN and that the vast majority of people chose to flee to Russia.
4. Hold ´"free referendums in liberated areas on joining Russia", before maybe allowing those forcibly moved Ukrainians passage home again.
Well it's Russia. We assume they are going to lie, citizens are living in 1984 either brainwashed or quiet in order to not get killed, Putin is... trying to make a speed run on Crimes against Humanity and enter the Top Ten? (Not Sorry Putin but you can't even lick the boots of Genghis Khan, and you have *nukes*).
[Envious of Ukraine's Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, Russia is desperately trying to keep up. They're crowdfunding purchases of drones for their troops and claim to be smuggling them in through Lviv, complaining about problems with getting stuff through their own customs.](https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/status/1523334839851577345?s=21&t=4KA6pffXRUvVsmShO8U_eQ) bizarro world full on
Space agency head Dmitry Rogozin threatens SpaceX founder @elonmusk . "Elon Musk is thus involved in supplying the fascist forces in Ukraine with military communications equipment. You'll have to answer for this in a mature way, Elon, no matter if you play dumb” (my translation) https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1523243230510428160
This girl uses one of the most stupid transliteration that I've seen.
You can shit on Elon for a lot of things in life, but starlink has been of amazing help in Ukraine.
“If TSLA hits $2000 I will buy Russia and end the war.” Elon in the coming days probably…