Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Skybird]

Frankfurter Rundschau has this nice good-night story:


Kherson - The moral condition of Russian servicemen and women seems to be deteriorating more and more as the Ukraine conflict drags on. An incident that allegedly took place near the port city of Kherson shows how low the discipline and camaraderie of President Vladimir Putin's troops has sunk. There, there had been hostilities among allied troops. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, one of the issues at stake was the distribution of war booty.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry reported Saturday (04/30/2022) a skirmish between two different units of Russia. Violent clashes reportedly occurred between about 50 Chechen and an equal number of servicemen and women from the Buryat ethnic group. The Ministry of Defense speaks of mutual "shelling." The number of injured and dead is unknown so far. The information cannot yet be independently verified.

Reasons for the skirmish are said to have been, in addition to the "unfair distribution of the spoils of war," the "unequal conditions of deployment" of the two troops. While the Buryats had to fight on the front lines, Chechen troops were apparently only deployed far behind enemy lines. Their task would be to encourage the attacking troops and "open fire on those trying to retreat," according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

After some Buryat fighters refused to take part in an assault operation, conflict allegedly broke out with the two Chechen forces. Some servicemen and women had complained of "deception" in agreeing and signing contracts to participate in Russian combat operations.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, many of the Russian troops continued to refuse to serve, even after being advised to do so by the Chechen unit. As a result, several military officers had been taken away in unknown directions.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Its not an army. Its an armed, marauding, murderous mob. Thugs with rifles.

[Onkel Neal]

All these people now making "surprise" visits to Ukraine...now it's down to Pelosi and all-time attention-seeker Angelina Jolie.

... it's all fun and games until Putin looses a nuke.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

All these people now making "surprise" visits to Ukraine...now it's down to Pelosi and all-time attention-seeker Angelina Jolie.

... it's all fun and games until Putin looses a nuke.

While others sees this as the war is a fake

Markus

[tmccarthy]

2014 - FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

[tmccarthy]

[Skybird]

Yanukovich got elected, promising a pro-EU course which was why the majority of all Ukrainians and practically all in the Western and centre part of it elected him. Once he was in office he suddenly let drop the mask and gave crap for his former claim to bring the Ukraine into the eU, and tried to shift the Ukraine towards an orbit around Russia, whcuih as the Russian plan when bringing him into play. Which people did not like and had not elected him for, and so they started unrest, and then came the Maidain and plenty of dubious staged events and violence and shootings there and the "opposition" was blamed, and the Russian orchestrated unrest in the Eastern provinces of Ukraine broke lose. It ended with Russian spec ops starting to shoot on the Maidan, blaming it on the pro-Western protesters and the demnocratic oppsition that insisted on Yanokoviuch sticking to the politicala course he had promised and was voted for, and Putin sending little Greeen men. Yanokovich refused to do that, and so was chased away, and since then the narration goes that the elected govenrment was brouzght down by a Wetsenr conspriacy. But the conspiracy was bred by a government that came to power by lies and deception!, and it was brought down by people, who defended the promises the vote was decided by!

No wonder that Washington was worried and planned for how to shift things more in favour of a pro-West oriented instead of Russia-orbiting Ukraine.

Personally, I do not really care for the ukraine, its a democracy in a pitiiful and deeply corrupted state and too many oligarchs there have their hands deep in politics and backroom deals. I have no perosnal relaitons to thta place, but I feel a cultural, social closeness to the peopk,e that I do not feel with refgiugees form the Middle east and Africa. That may speak against me or not, but I dondt care, that is how I feel, and I think its just human. What i am concerned about is that Putin will not stop with the Ukraine. And THAT is the elephant in the room, the killer argument why Russia must be stopped in the Ukraine. Else we get a conflagration along - AND IN!!! - all of NATO's Eastern member states. Putin has said this very clearly, since many years: the fall of the USSR was a capital major desaster in human history, and he wants to bring it back at all costs. He wants to puish back the calender.

Nothing justifies the violence and barbary the Russian fascists have unleashed against the Ukraine and have brougt over the Ukrainian people. Nothing. Whjat they do there and how they do it, has nothiugnt o do with detmeination or military logic, its rightout plain barbary and murderous primitivity and cynism and maximum disgust for human life and value. Its terror not serving a purpose, but terror for the sake of terror. No matter how corrupt the poiltical system in the Ukraine is, the Russian assault is unexcusbale and undefendable. The Russians behave as horrible as the Nazis did in the occupied territories during WW2. And nobody worth to be listened to would dare to justify Hitler's aggression and atrocities in the name of any imaginable claimed "German interest". There never was a justification for those crimes against humanity back then, and there are no excuses to defend and relativize the crimes against humanity committed by the Russians today.

Russia must be stopped in the Ukraine. This statement is true, no matter who says it inside or outside the Ukraine. Else the risk is uncontrollable that sooner or later the Russian fascists set all Europe ablaze.

They must be stopped in the ukraine, in this war, without compromise or foul deals done. This goal is uonconditonal and non-negotiable. And Biden and the White House seem to have understood this. The language of theirs has changed, indicating that this indeed is the goal now: make Russia bleed, and bleed more, and bleed on until it got so weakened by its little enterprise that it cannot afford to bully anyone anymore for many many years to come.

So lets make Russia bleed rivers of russian blood. Send weapons, weapons, weapons. This is the only way out of this. The alternative is a much bigger and much more unlocalised war.


Thanks to European and Germany stupidity, Europe is utmost illprepared for this crisis. Without massive American help we are once again - helpless. It serves us no compliments, but that is the grim truth, and we have nobody else than ourselves to blame. I could not think bad of America if it says it has the nose full of Europe, ands turns away, even more so sicn eit has its own business to worry about in the Pacific. I hope it does not. We have once again maneuvered ourselves into the poo, and without American help we will once again not get out of it.

[Skybird]

Deutsche Welle (DW):


Russia using troll farm to target Kremlin critics, says UK

New data has revealed how the Kremlin is using a so-called troll factory "to spread lies on social media" and flood the comment sections of popular websites, the British Foreign Ministry said.
The UK government-funded research found that the Kremlin is employing a "large-scale disinformation campaign" which is designed to "manipulate international public opinion" of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to the expert analysis, the troll farm is operating from within an old factory in St. Petersburg including a team of paid employees.
The troll farm has specifically targeted politicians and social media audiences in the UK, South Africa and India, the ministry said.
Among the other takeaways from the report found how the operations uses VPNs, specific commenting behaviors and amplification of "organic" content to boost the Russian government's position and avoid detection by social media platforms.
Currently. the operation has been detected on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
"The UK Government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely with allies and media platforms to undermine Russian information operations," said Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in a statement.

[mapuc]

As I wrote in a Stream on yt

Russia will use Angelina Juliet and Nancy the Speaker of the house in their propaganda.

Markus

[les green01]

As much I hate too agree with the wicked witch Nancy she is right about bullies growing up my old man told me if someone tries to bullie you kick their ah backsides and Putin is a bullie damn spell check on this phone

[Skybird]

"If we burn, you will burn with us!"


The NZZ has this:


For several weeks now, ammunition depots, fuel depots and factories in Russia have been going up in flames. Railroad lines are also being damaged. The reasons remain unclear.

April 22: Fire at the Institute for Rocket Research in Tver, the large Dmitrievsky chemical plant in Kineshma northeast of Moscow burns down, a locomotive in the Bryansk region derails. Three days later: two Russian oil depots in Bryansk go up in flames, smoke is sighted at an air base in Ussurisk near Vladivostok. April 27: three explosions on Russian territory near Ukraine.

Over the past few days, reports like this have been coming out of Russia almost daily. Often military targets or transport routes are affected. The Russian research portal "IStories" also published a list of five attacks on Russian army recruiting offices since the beginning of March. Spring recruitment of new conscripts began in Russia on April 1.

Observers and the media quickly spoke of a pattern or even brought organized sabotage into play. There is no evidence of this. Nevertheless, an accumulation of such incidents on Russian territory since the beginning of the invasion is noteworthy. Especially since there are already examples of anti-Russian sabotage in the Ukraine war: At the beginning of the invasion, Belarusian railroad workers, hackers, and émigré security forces largely paralyzed the Belarusian railroad network. Belarus served as a staging area for Russian troops.

So far, there are no signs of a similarly coordinated action in Russia. Nor is it clear whether the fires, explosions, and damaged railroad tracks were accidents, Ukrainian attacks, or arson. At the very least, Russian authorities are pointing to alleged saboteurs: On Wednesday, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, arrested two "supporters of Ukrainian Nazism" for allegedly damaging rail lines in the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, according to BBC Russia.

In the April 25 fire at two fuel depots in Bryansk, U.S. military analyst Rob Lee hypothesizes a missile attack, possibly from Ukraine. A Totschka U ballistic missile of the type used by the Ukrainian military would have the range to reach the fuel depots if fired near the Ukrainian-Russian border. The thesis of a Ukrainian attack is strengthened by the fact that Ukraine said Thursday that it would attack military bases and camps on Russian territory.

An accident is almost impossible: It would be a very big coincidence if both depots went up in flames at the same time. The fire broke out in a civilian and a military fuel depot, which have a total capacity of 15,000 tons. A loss of these reserves could slow the Russian invasion.

Damage to railroad tracks in the Belgorod region could have a similar effect. On April 12, a railroad bridge near the Ukrainian border was damaged and could not be used for a week. The bridge is on a transport route to the eastern Ukrainian city of Isyum, which has been captured by Russia. The Russian army relies primarily on rail to transport war materiel.

However, the fires and damage are not limited to infrastructure directly important for troop deployment. Other war-important targets have also gone up in flames in recent days. This is illustrated by the fire on April 21 at the Institute of Rocket Research in Tver, 150 kilometers northwest of Moscow. Among other things, the Iskander missiles, which are also used against Ukraine, are to be developed here. Just one day later, a fire broke out in Korolyov, a city outside Moscow that is a center of Russian space exploration and an important site for the defense industry. On April 25, smoke was spotted at an air base near Vladivostok, in Russia's Far East.

These targets are outside the range of Ukrainian missiles. An official reason was given only for the fire at the Missile Research Institute in Tver: According to the Russian news agency Tass, a short circuit caused the fire. Such an accident cannot be ruled out. The infrastructure in Russia is dilapidated in many places, and safety precautions are often not observed. According to environmental activists, these were, for example, the reasons for the diesel oil disaster in Norilsk in northern Siberia in May 2020.

So far, there is no end in sight to the series of fires: on Wednesday night, an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region caught fire. In Kursk and Voronezh, authorities also reported explosions, with Russian air defense reportedly shooting down Ukrainian drones there. All of these regions border Ukraine.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[les green01]

I would lay money down on resistance or gorillas if you going invade another country you going take hits gorillas property ran can tie least 20 to one maybe 30

[Jimbuna]

An operation to evacuate civilians trapped in a steelworks in the southern city of Mariupol is under way, the UN says.

The Ukrainian president says a group of about 100 people have left and should arrive in the town of Zaporizhzhia tomorrow.

An evacuation plan for residents from other parts of Mariupol has been postponed until Monday morning.

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has led a Congressional delegation to Kyiv to meet President Zelensky.

She promises American support "until the fight is done" and says Congress will move quickly to approve $33bn in aid for Ukraine.

Russian troops controlling the city of Kherson say the rouble will be used there from Sunday.

[Jimbuna]

[ET2SN]

[Otto Harkaman]

Disaster Tourism at its political finest