Russian invasion of Ukraine

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Kherson sounds like a Brazilian wonderkid tipped as the next big thing, who never quite filled his potential and spent most of his career at Real Betis.

[doulikefish]

9 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Putin has said that they will use "volunteers" from the Middle East in the war.  They are also allegedly trying to mobilise volunteers from Dagestan, offering large salaries to sign up.

None of this suggests great levels of preparedness from the Russian Army.  

Also the Kremlin admitted conscripts are being used aswell a few days ago 

Volunteers are easy to hide away and blame after war crimes have been committed 

[ICTChris]

5 minutes ago, doulikefish said:

Also the Kremlin admitted conscripts are being used aswell a few days ago 

Volunteers are easy to hide away and blame after war crimes have been committed 

I think that it's specifically illegal in Russia to use conscripts in war.  Putin will be acutely aware that having loads of 19 year olds killed on mandatory military service will be very unpopular - this was a big social factor in the first Chechen War.

The Russian Army has moved to a professional/contract basis but in reality what happens is that conscripts are pressured into signing contracts so they can be sent into conflict.  This was documented to have happened with the Russian invasion of the Donbas.  Noyava Gazeta published an acocunt at the start of the war where conscripts who refused to sign contracts were made to spend days moving heavy boxes of ammo back and forward in a gymnasium until they signed.  One of the kids who did this, signed the contract, was sent into Ukraine and was killed on the first day. 

[Savage Henry]

Absolute minuter for our resident right wing conspiracy theorists to see the USA accusing Russia of “false flag” operations.   More mental gymnastics required, I’m sure, to turn this into a Russia = good, NATO = bad situation. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

From Guardian :-
The regional governor of Kharkiv has condemned today’s attack on a psychiatric hospital, saying it was “a war crime against civilians”.

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of hitting a psychiatric hospital near the eastern Ukrainian town of Izyum.

Oleh Synegubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said 330 people had been at the hospital at the time - including some who were in wheelchairs or unable to move and that 73 people had been evacuated, reports Reuters. He said the number of casualties was still being established.

“This is a war crime against civilians, genocide against the Ukrainian nation,” he wrote on Telegram.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify the report. Russia has denied targeting civilians.

[ICTChris]

There are reports that Putin has placed the head of the FSB foreign intelligence and his deputy under house arrest.  The FSB seem to be being blamed for the failure of intelligence about Ukraine and the nature of the state.

I read a thread somewhere that for all the closeness of Ukraine to Russia there doesn't appear to be much of an understanding of the country and the societal changes that hvae taken place there among the Russian elites.  In the last 10 years or so, particularly since 2014 there's been a sea change in teh attitudes of Ukrainians towards Russia and that doesn't appear to have translated.  The reports about the dissatisfaction with the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian leaders pre-invasion seem to have lead Russian intelligence to assume that this would mean people would welcome or at least be ambivelent to the invasion but events have not borne this out.

[craigkillie]

I'm by no means a sociologist or a historian, but I'd imagine one of the risks of being a despotic dictator is that you end up surrounded by yes men and can end up totally out of touch with what is actually happening outside your bubble.

Edited March 11, 2022 by craigkillie

[Savage Henry]

1 minute ago, craigkillie said:

I'm by no means a sociologist or a historian, but I'd imagine one of the risks of being a despotic dictator is that you end up surrounded by yes men and can't end up totally out of touch with what is actually happening outside your bubble.

It’s known as the Gordon Strachan theory of International Relations.

[Suspect Device]

3 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Vlad sacking generals isn't great. There will be no shortage of folk willing to do the job and try to prove themselves to him. The path to escalation.

He'll be looking for a 'new general bounce' but I can tell him from one red army supporter to another that it doesn't always happen. I predict a few draws in the coming battles but no good win yet.

[welshbairn]

36 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

Russia has denied targeting civilians.

Lavrov claimed the maternity hospital in Mariupol was the Azov Battalion HQ yesterday.

 

[Guest Flash]

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I'm by no means a sociologist or a historian, but I'd imagine one of the risks of being a despotic dictator is that you end up surrounded by yes men and can't end up totally out of touch with what is actually happening outside your bubble.

The second series of Rise of the Nazis - Dictators at War is quite good on this.

BBC iplayer

[Dons_1988]

15 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

He'll be looking for a 'new general bounce' but I can tell him from one red army supporter to another that it doesn't always happen. I predict a few draws in the coming battles but no good win yet.

Is this new general also just trying to see this immediate shitshow through to the summer when the conscripts arrive and just praying it doesn’t get significantly worse in the intervening period?

[Suspect Device]

21 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Lavrov claimed the maternity hospital in Mariupol was the Azov Battalion HQ yesterday.

 

The battalion must have moved on to the psychiatric hospital targeted today.

 

[vikingTON]

12 hours ago, deegee said:

Looking back to the period between 1945 until 1989, it is incredible to think a land war was avoided in Europe. As a child brought up in the 70s (and military “career” was a couple years in the TA on the mid 80’s), it was thought inevitable that we’d have some sort of nuclear war.

With the exception of Berlin, the European Cold War was a stable enough system. Eisenhower refused to intervene during the 1953 uprisings in East Germany/Poland and Hungary in 1956. The spheres of influence was ultimately accepted just as Stalin had set them out in the Percentages Agreement with Churchill during WW2. It is only since the 1990s that we have abandoned rational geopolitics for empty posturing about states having unlimited sovereignty, and so here we are. 

[Caledonian1]

2 hours ago, ICTChris said:

There are reports that Putin has placed the head of the FSB foreign intelligence and his deputy on a spike in his back gairden......  The FSB seem to be being blamed for the failure of intelligence about Ukraine and the nature of the state.

I read a thread somewhere that for all the closeness of Ukraine to Russia there doesn't appear to be much of an understanding of the country and the societal changes that hvae taken place there among the Russian elites.  In the last 10 years or so, particularly since 2014 there's been a sea change in teh attitudes of Ukrainians towards Russia and that doesn't appear to have translated.  The reports about the dissatisfaction with the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian leaders pre-invasion seem to have lead Russian intelligence to assume that this would mean people would welcome or at least be ambivelent to the invasion but events have not borne this out.

FTFY

[scottsdad]

 

[DiegoDiego]

“This is a war crime against civilians, genocide against the Ukrainian nation,” he wrote on Telegram.

Stop getting genocide wrong!

[Benjamin_Nevis]

2 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

He'll be looking for a 'new general bounce' but I can tell him from one red army supporter to another that it doesn't always happen. I predict a few draws in the coming battles but no good win yet.

Not sure these guys are going to bounce particularly well when they "fall out of" their apartment windows tbh. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I'm by no means a sociologist or a historian, but I'd imagine one of the risks of being a despotic dictator is that you end up surrounded by yes men and can end up totally out of touch with what is actually happening outside your bubble.

Too right sir. Very astute posting. Bravo.

[Detournement]

There's a lot of Through The Looking Glass stuff on the thread.

Speculation about Putin killing his generals, complete amnesia about Ukraine's security services executing a negotiator last week Comments about people falling out windows in Moscow without a thought about poor old White Helmets creator James Le Mesurier who fell out a window after getting caught with his fingers in the till.