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[Ukraine]: Where Russia is up to no good. Again. Still.
Knuckle Dragger
Explosive Ovine DisposalRegistered User regular
Explosive Ovine DisposalRegistered User regular
It is currently Day 580 of Russia's 3-day invasion of Ukraine. The Russians are still being assholes about it.
Link to previous OP.
Today's developments:
In addition to the recent news about Ukraine blowing the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters, along with a claimed 34 officers, to the iciest reaches of Hell, the UN Human Rights Commission has weighed in to remind everyone that after 19 months of searching, the Russians still haven't found a war crime they would not commit.
The report gets worse from there.
In other news, ISW has taken a firm stand on the need to support Ukraine
Finally, Ukraine has announced the arrival of a long awaited aid package:
Link to previous OP.
Today's developments:
In addition to the recent news about Ukraine blowing the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters, along with a claimed 34 officers, to the iciest reaches of Hell, the UN Human Rights Commission has weighed in to remind everyone that after 19 months of searching, the Russians still haven't found a war crime they would not commit.
The Commission’s investigations in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia indicate the widespread and systematic use of torture by Russian armed forces against persons accused of being informants of the Ukrainian armed forces. In some cases, torture was inflicted with such brutality that it caused the death of the victim.
The report gets worse from there.
In other news, ISW has taken a firm stand on the need to support Ukraine
The West embracing Ukraine’s way of war is key to preserving the dominance of Western and Ukrainian decision-making. The Kremlin is trying to slow or impair Western and Ukrainian decision-making — one of the few ways in which Russian President Vladimir Putin can advance his objectives. Slowed Western decision-making resulting in lagging military aid deliveries can provide Russia with relief. Giving Russia such relief — be it at the operational (winter 2022–2023) or strategic level (the years between Russia’s first and second invasions of Ukraine) — proved catastrophic. Given the gift of time, Russia will regroup and attack again. However, Russia’s Achilles heel remains its inability to rapidly pivot when faced with relentless pressure or consecutive setbacks. Faced with constant pressure over time with no relief, the Russians will likely start to crack. This is the effect Ukraine’s current counteroffensive strategy is seeking to achieve, and it can only be realized if the West embraces Ukraine’s way of war for this phase of the counteroffensive and beyond.
Finally, Ukraine has announced the arrival of a long awaited aid package:
The first American-made Abrams tanks have been delivered to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, arriving months ahead of initial estimates and in time to be used in Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russian forces.
More M1 Abrams tanks will be sent in the coming months, according to two U.S. defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. They said that those shipped into Ukraine on Saturday were the first of 31 that the Biden administration has promised to provide.
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Yeah, turns out that the minorities being sent to die for the great Muscovite Empire may not have the biggest loyalty to it, specially if said Empire is doing everything to not pay the money to them or their families.
Euromaidan Press is a Ukrainian journalistic outlet. They HAVE been known to report some stuff breathlessly so they're not always the most reliable source for breaking news, but stuff like this I feel comfortable trusting them on.
I will also say I did call it on Abrams arriving early than the announcement. Granted, I'll concede they probably won't get to do too much, given that the situation doesn't allow for much in the way of armor fighting, but who knows maybe Ukraine gets the stage set for a major breakthrough and get to send all their Leo and Abram tanks out to pound the shit out of Russian forces before the end of the year.
Edit: Yeah, I was wondering when we'd see some attempts at underwater kamikaze drones
They're doing this anyways why the hell would we need to make it an ultimatum.
Dumb.
Yeah, it seems to be carefully crafted to be things they're already doing, with the shortest timeframe seeming to be things they've already done. The quarterly, "Great job on the excellent progress," letters are probably already written.
They should just be told to actually shut up.
We all know it's true, but it's good that they are continuing to collect evidence and make the case. Even if in absentia, justice must be found so that the historical record is clear.
Nonsense, there have never been any negative consequences for not paying your soldiers in all of recorded history. Always worked out fine. Every time.
https://www.dexerto.com/cyberpunk-2077/cyberpunk-2077-devs-apologize-for-anti-russian-voice-lines-in-ukrainian-version-of-the-game-2309481/
Just say you're too much of a bitch to stand up for what is right and you care more about placating genocidal maniacs for your bottom line, I'd at least give a tiny sliver of respect for the honesty.
Edit: and yeah I get that CDPR has suspended sales to Russia and Belarus and have come out in support of Ukraine in the past. That doesn't excuse this. If anything it makes it appear even more cowardly because they should fucking know better.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
We just don't do that. It's not okay.
Also, “Go f**ck yourself in the same direction as the ship did” better sound better in Ukrainian than in English, because that's a clunker of a line.
But seriously, the graffiti is cool.
And if it fails at everything else, the Russian army is exceptional at training officers in a culture of looking out for themselves first.
So, are you also cool with removing the Ukrainian coat of arms, the crimean tartar symbol, and the reference to the mosvka too? Or did you just laser focus on the thing that you think is an ethnic slur and ignore the rest of the article? "Russian" is not an ethnicity (or a religion), despite the Kremlin's attempts to paint it as one. I've never seen that word once referred to anyone other than people (including non-russians!) that participate in or support the war against Ukraine. So can we not differentiate Russians who support the war from those who don't? I thought the whole idea was to not lump everyone in the same boat just because they were born in Russia?
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
~
Another ChrisO translated article, there are several from the past few days but this one has some info we don't usually get to see
https://mastodon.social/@ChrisO_wiki/111104034977962361
8 more posts after that.
Yeah... of all the things to be mad at CDPR for this isn't one of them. If they've withdrawn their business from Russia then they've done their part to support Ukraine, they don't have to put pro-Ukraine slogans in their game that has nothing to do with the war. They certainly don't need to leave anything in there that they didn't ask to be put in and could be considered ethnic slurs. I think this is less about trying to appease Russia and more just normal corporate image control.
No, this is good shit. We should be using military aid as a way to get needed reforms accomplished. Even if the things we are asking for are already being worked on.
Although his chair looks quite like a bed and he doesn't move or say anything, so... could be anything from lightly wounded to Weekend at Bernie's?
I kinda want to specifically address the bolded and say, yes I'm 100% cool with it. The right to not express a political opinion is as fundamental to free speech as the right to express a political opinion. If CDPR put pro-Russian propaganda in their game I'd be happy to boycott them forever, I'm not happy to give them the same treatment for not putting pro-Ukrainian propaganda in.
The fun part about that is either (1) it's true in which case the Russian security apparatus is even more broken than usual, or (2) it's not true but Russia's military still probably needs to turn itself inside out to ascertain that, which is not the kind of internal audit you want to run when you're in the middle of losing a war.
I highly doubt that the Russian forces have the benefit of 2) leading to 1). donald_glover_good.gif
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So, from what I know (which admittedly isn't a lot) this kind of thing is pretty common for US aid, though normally seen for financial aid. Its one of the reasons China has made such huge headway in gaining soft power through money. The US often ties aid to things like removing corruption, increased democracy, opening trade, etc. While I agree with you that this is dumb bullshit to pull as an ultimatum, I can understand why its happening.
Yeah US and IMF aid routinely comes with strings. Sometimes its benal anti corruption measures and sometimes its "privatize your critical infrastructure". It always amounts to "make your country friendlier for our business".
Yeah, any competent military would already have those numbers or some approximations that they could use as a springboard for a more thorough accounting. If you aren't accurately tracking casualties then that's a first-order problem that undermines the health of the entire system.
Which means Russia probably has no idea except within two full standard deviations what its actual casualty figures are.
It’s not going to be so clearcut, really. Three factors are at play.
The first is that we’re already having an EU-based ‘if’ in 2024 as there will be European Parliament elections.
These are not predicted to create a major shift in the EP, instead somewhat reducing the current center, but not to the point that any winner takes all. Seats are likely to go to the right, but the current center will retain a tripartite majority. It’s going to be a careful coalition likely aiming to make the difference with the right wingers and Eurosceptics.
The current EP president is betting heavy on using pro-Ukrainian sentiment with part of the electorate to boost results for the centre, forcing the issue by going for accelerated accession and perhaps a special union.
Secondly, by the start of 2025 EU economies will have had nearly three years of disentangling themselves from Russia, and the ‘what have you done for me lately’ principle will play.
Russia’s economy will also have been thoroughly infiltrated by China at that point. EU car makers, still the most significant industry, are divided on how to approach China. Any balance between EUprotectionism, Chinese investments bringing much needed EV tech and exports to China (of luxury cars) will determine where our industries want to focus their lobby efforts. Probably not Russia.
Business as usual in Russia is unlikely and won’t weigh much on EU strategies.
Third, our defence industry is waking up and creating a lifeline for the political centre. Conservatives get more leeway when spending on defense and many free market rules go out the window. These reinvigorated industries will certainly bring a lot of weight to the table when lobbying and Russia is one of the EU’s main competitors. A negotiated settlement will not be advantageous to our defence industry, a return to the previous cosying up to Putin even less so.
In the end, it’s hard to imagine Russia hanging on to the current extent for another year. In the previous thread it was described how much warfare can change in a year. I think Ukraine has the advantage of innovation. As the EU starts cranking out new weapons systems I think the advantage to producers of field-testing them will put pressure on member states to also send some of the new gear.
Of course, this will really only end when Putin dies.
Also the example of whatsername in Italy indicates that right wing electoral victories in Europe do not automatically equate to unconditional support for Putin.
If they're theorizing the possibility that they do, how that effects policy towards Ukraine is probably way down the list of consequences they'd worry about
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Nah. Lots of times it's just straight anti-corruption stuff. Often shit-talked loudly by the countries in question because, for obvious reasons, when you are demanding anti-corruption reforms the people already in charge under that system are rarely going to be happy about it.
One way or another the EU defense industry is unlikely to be able to do combat trials of new systems in Ukraine unless they're already in production. Carbine Williams cranking out the M1 over a long weekend was already an exaggeration and definitely doesn't happen anymore.
I like how america was able to apparently ust do this under the noses of the russian vessels that were known to be in the area at the time.
Also, you'd think the American divers down there would encounter the Russian divers planting the bomb.