The Ukraine war thread
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War Crime
Warning: Graphic video.
"The Russian military posted a video of the shooting of a captured soldier who refuses to take off his chevron with the national flag and dies with the words "Glory to Ukraine". If anyone recognizes this person and can tell where and under what circumstances he could have been captured, write to me. please. We must find out all the circumstances of this yet another terrible war crime committed by the Russian Federation," said Butusov's telegram
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War Crime
Warning: Graphic video.
"The Russian military posted a video of the shooting of a captured soldier who refuses to take off his chevron with the national flag and dies with the words "Glory to Ukraine". If anyone recognizes this person and can tell where and under what circumstances he could have been captured, write to me. please. We must find out all the circumstances of this yet another terrible war crime committed by the Russian Federation," said Butusov's telegram
@George-K Wow!!!
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@Mik said in The Ukraine war thread:
Pure unadulterated balls. I am quite sure he is in Valhalla.
Drengr. Hann er Drengr.
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@jon-nyc Peace in our time!
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How nice that Fox patriotically edited out the comment.
Journalistic excellence FTW!
Oh, sorry, sorry, mustn't shoot the messenger.
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As John Bolton stated in a recent interview “Putin thought Trump was a fool who could be easily manipulable if he could get him the right situations”. Putin certainly recognized that Trump admired the other strong man leaders like Erdogan, Xi and Kim. Moreover, he saw Trump as a force set out to weaken if not altogether dissolve NATO.
Trump sold out the Kurds to Erdogan so why, in his little narcissistic brain, should the Ukrainians be not be sold out to Putin?
Elbows up!
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Sidelining Prigozhin:
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
Sidelining Prigozhin:
Is this a big deal?
Wagner seems to have played a big role in the "special military operation." Will it continue to do so with Prigozhin on the outs?
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
Sidelining Prigozhin:
Is this a big deal?
Wagner seems to have played a big role in the "special military operation." Will it continue to do so with Prigozhin on the outs?
Given the Byzantine nature of Kremlin politics, I don’t think anyone on the outside knows. Suffice to say though that Prigozhin accumulated a lot power over the course of a dozen or so years. Up until recently he has been treated as a palatine prince. That privileged status appears to be waning as of late.
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Russia has lost an estimated five men for every Ukrainian soldier its forces have killed in the battle for Bakhmut, according to a Nato official.
Speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, the official said that Nato intelligence showed that Russia’s losses in the assault on the eastern salt-mining town far outweighed Ukraine’s.
The official also said, however, that Ukraine’s losses defending the city were significant.
Russia’s use of costly wave attacks have prompted comparisons to the First World War and the commander of the mercenary forces leading the assault has described the battle as a “meat grinder” for Russian troops.
Russia has been assaulting Bakhut since August, in what has become the longest and costliest battle of the war.
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Interesting perspective.
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Good and concise presentation. The author is, of course, saying what John Bolton, Timothy Snyder and several other analysts have been saying for awhile now; that the West remains fearful of enabling Ukraine to obtain a decisive military victory over Russia and a return to the 1991 borders.
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Is Putin losing control of the message? Interesting note from two days ago:
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed that there is infighting in
the Kremlin inner circle, that the Kremlin has ceded centralized control over the Russian information space, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently cannot readily fix it. Kremlin journalists, academics, and Novorossiya supporters held a forum on the “practical and technological aspects of information and cognitive warfare in modern realities” in Moscow on March 11.[2] During a panel discussion Zakharova stated that the Kremlin cannot replicate the Stalinist approach of establishing a modern equivalent to the Soviet Information Bureau to centrally control Russia’s internal information space due to fighting among unspecified Kremlin “elites.”[3]Zakharova’s statement is noteworthy and supports several of ISW’s longstanding assessments about deteriorating Kremlin regime and information space control dynamics. The statement supports several assessments: that there is Kremlin infighting between key members of Putin’s inner circle; that Putin has largely ceded the Russian information space over time to a variety of quasi-independent actors; and that Putin is apparently unable to take decisive action to regain control over the Russian information space.[4] It is unclear why Zakharova — a seasoned senior spokesperson — would have openly acknowledged these problems in a public setting. Zakharova may have directly discussed these problems for the first time to temper Russian nationalist milbloggers’ expectations regarding the current capabilities of the Kremlin to cohere around a unified narrative — or possibly even a unified policy..
Source: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-11-2023
Elbows up!
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Is Putin losing control of the message? Interesting note from two days ago:
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed that there is infighting in
the Kremlin inner circle, that the Kremlin has ceded centralized control over the Russian information space, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently cannot readily fix it. Kremlin journalists, academics, and Novorossiya supporters held a forum on the “practical and technological aspects of information and cognitive warfare in modern realities” in Moscow on March 11.[2] During a panel discussion Zakharova stated that the Kremlin cannot replicate the Stalinist approach of establishing a modern equivalent to the Soviet Information Bureau to centrally control Russia’s internal information space due to fighting among unspecified Kremlin “elites.”[3]Zakharova’s statement is noteworthy and supports several of ISW’s longstanding assessments about deteriorating Kremlin regime and information space control dynamics. The statement supports several assessments: that there is Kremlin infighting between key members of Putin’s inner circle; that Putin has largely ceded the Russian information space over time to a variety of quasi-independent actors; and that Putin is apparently unable to take decisive action to regain control over the Russian information space.[4] It is unclear why Zakharova — a seasoned senior spokesperson — would have openly acknowledged these problems in a public setting. Zakharova may have directly discussed these problems for the first time to temper Russian nationalist milbloggers’ expectations regarding the current capabilities of the Kremlin to cohere around a unified narrative — or possibly even a unified policy..
Source: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-11-2023
@Renauda in the early stages of the war, it seems like the Russian populace bought Putin's rhetoric and flag-waving. "De-Nazification!" "Re-uniting Russia!" all sounded pretty good.
And now, 13 months later, with tens of thousands of body bags flowing into Russia it might be hitting home that, well, this was a bad idea. Probably everyone knows someone who has lost someone in the war, or who has sustained a life-crippling injury.
You can't keep that shit up forever with rhetoric.
You have to show gains and "winning." The current battle in Bakhmut is, from what I gather, not strategically important, but from a morale standpoint, it's a must-win for Russia.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
