The Invasion of Ukraine

[headshot]

Harrowing report from a town that was occupied by Russian soldiers.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/eu ... 803276e473

Contains arbitrary killing of civilians and torture.

That was harrowing, but largely as expected. A surprising amount of faeces, though - a very odd thing to do if you think you're liberating people from Nazis.

It’s reminiscent of what Frau HS has told me about Soviet army recruits in Dresden in the 80s.

In the area she is from (an early 20th century garden suburb) the Soviets set up their local army headquarters in what was an incredible arts and culture complex. The beautiful auditorium was used as a literal pigsty - to house pigs.

When it was reclaimed in the early 90s it was a wreck and full of pig sh.t and other detritus - it has now been renovated to its former glory.

[shpalman]

By the way, in

... https://theconversation.com/ukraine-are ... ore-180435

there's

In the second world war, Joseph Stalin tried to ensure troop obedience by implementing a zero-tolerance policy towards surrender. “Order number 227”, issued in July 1942, dictated that any soldier that retreated was to be immediately killed by special units. By some estimates, these units killed as many as 150,000 of their own troops. And yet, no other Allied army had as many defections, with over 1.4 million Soviet POWs choosing to fight alongside German soldiers.

So much for "liberating people from Nazis", hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers from when there were actual Nazis to be liberated from decided they hated the Nazis less than Stalin.

[Woodchopper]

I haven't seen mention here of this story: Vladimir Putin ‘running out’ of missiles – because parts are made in Ukraine

The engines for all Russian helicopters, ships and cruise missiles and a substantial portion of fighter jet engines and ground-to-air missile and tank components are made in Ukrainian factories, which no longer supply Mr Putin’s forces.

It was posted on 1st April, but might still be true if Russia expected to have won quickly enough to have seized the relevant factories - or that the strategists were incredibly stupid.

Maybe one of the reasons for the retreat is that the Russian leadership are getting concerned that, even if they are guaranteed a win in the long term, it would result in Russia being hoplessly weakened and left vulnerable to military action from opportunistic other countries.

I assume this is true, because it would be pretty c.ntish to post an April Fool about the war, but then I want to know when "which no longer supply Mr Putin’s forces" started. I would expect that to be the spring of 2014, but who knows — economic opportunity makes for strange bedfellows.

Yes, Ukraine stopped supplying Russia with components for military equipment in 2014.

[Woodchopper]

What we're seeing in Bucha is absolutely appalling, and we're seeing it because the Russians were driven out; they didn't have time to destroy the evidence. This isn't a rogue unit, this isn't a failure of discipline, this is the result of the Russian armed forces' policy of targetting civilians, of creating a deliberate humanitarian catastrophe they can then exploit, this is the consequence of dehumanising the nation they are invading, and falsely labelling them all as nazis, just as their Assadist proxies falsely labelled any and all opposition to them as Islamic extremists.

And this is what will continue to happen - the torture, the murders, the sexual violence - if the Russians are allowed to remain in any part of Ukraine.

Yes, what has happened in Ukraine is consistent with the massacres and arbitrary killings of civilians that Russian troops committed in Chechnya. They weren’t mistakes or actions of rogue units, it was part of a strategy.

[EACLucifer]

Foreign fighters In Ukraine -maybe not all it was cracked up to be.
I would not recommend going.

Desertion of foreign legion is very high. Many Ukrainian soldiers, commanders incompetent.
• Russian infantry horrible. 12 Westerners can beat 40 Russians.
• Chechens torture POWs. No mercy to foreign legion. Don’t get captured alive by Chechens.
• Lots of miscommunication with Ukrainians and lots of friendly fire incidents.
• Sometimes your passports will be confiscated.
• Ukrainians may rob you of your western gear and give you a broken rifle and send you to the front.

The messages kept coming. Sometimes they contradicted what he’d said before; I had no way of verifying his updates. “Ukrainians are using outdated tactics to fight Russians,” he wrote. “Their casualty count is much higher than reported. The foreign legion is being sent on suicide missions like attacking 200 Russians with 14 men.”

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/amon ... n-fighters

There's been a fucktonne of Russian propaganda targetting International Legion volunteers, both to try and scare people away from joining and to try and undermine Ukrainian trust in them - and it seems you've just found a chunk of it. Russia's making this propaganda effort because they are scared, and they should be scared for several reasons.
1) International Legion military veteran volunteers contribute skilled fighters to the Ukrainian cause
2) International Legion military veteran volunteers can train Ukrainian volunteers, either away from the frontline or on the job
3) International Legion volunteers are witnesses to Russian warcrimes, and, due to prejudices within western media, their voices may carry more weight when documenting actrocities than locals.

This doesn't mean it's something everyone should do. Even for former soldiers with combat experience, it's a situation they've not been in before, let alone those without, but Russia is absolutely putting out propaganda on this particular axis.

[EACLucifer]

It's worth pointing out that while the official Russian armed forces were committing atrocities in Ukraine, their unofficial ones look like they've been doing similar in Mali. Very hard to get any concrete information as government/Wagner group appear to be denying access, but reports are an entire village was destroyed and population massacred.

ETA: The village in question is reportedly Mourrah

[Woodchopper]

It's worth pointing out that while the official Russian armed forces were committing atrocities in Ukraine, their unofficial ones look like they've been doing similar in Mali. Very hard to get any concrete information as government/Wagner group appear to be denying access, but reports are an entire village was destroyed and population massacred.

ETA: The village in question is reportedly Mourrah

Yes, that could be happening. Though there have been very serious human rights violations in Mali for years.

[EACLucifer]

Amidst all the horror, there is something that also needs to be noted.

The battle of Kyiv's over. Russia lost. Ukraine won. Russia can be beaten. They deployed more forces to attack Kyiv than they did, to the best of my knowledge, to any other axis of attack, and they still got kicked shitless. They can be beaten, but to sustain offensives to drive the Russians out of all of Ukraine, the west needs to play its part properly with military and financial and humanitarian and reconstruction aid, and it must, because we've seen what happens when the Russian armed forces occupy settlements, we've seen it here, we've seen it Chechnya, and frankly, this is not really any different from their conduct in Afghanistan.

[EACLucifer]

It's worth pointing out that while the official Russian armed forces were committing atrocities in Ukraine, their unofficial ones look like they've been doing similar in Mali. Very hard to get any concrete information as government/Wagner group appear to be denying access, but reports are an entire village was destroyed and population massacred.

ETA: The village in question is reportedly Mourrah

Yes, that could be happening. Though there have been very serious human rights violations in Mali for years.

A nation that had no interest in committing very serious human right's violations wouldn't work with Wagner group or tolerate them upon their soil.

[jimbob]

It's worth pointing out that while the official Russian armed forces were committing atrocities in Ukraine, their unofficial ones look like they've been doing similar in Mali. Very hard to get any concrete information as government/Wagner group appear to be denying access, but reports are an entire village was destroyed and population massacred.

ETA: The village in question is reportedly Mourrah

Yes, that could be happening. Though there have been very serious human rights violations in Mali for years.

A nation that had no interest in committing very serious human right's violations wouldn't work with Wagner group or tolerate them upon their soil.

Let alone be close to a literal NAZI

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1509171559386255360

I can't verify the video in the tweet before but the photos in that are well-attested

[EACLucifer]

German foreign minister Baerbock has posted on twitter regarding the atrocities in Bucha, condemning them, of course, but also promising more military aid and stricter sanctions.

It should never have taken this to get a proper response from the west - right now, most Russian banks are still connected to SWIFT, and Europe is still buying Russian gas. We've got the photos now, but we already had testimony, already had footage of what they've done to Mariupol - and if it becomes possible to drive the invaders back from Mariupol, there will almost certainly be atrocities revealed there on a larger scale even than those in Bucha.

[Woodchopper]

It's worth pointing out that while the official Russian armed forces were committing atrocities in Ukraine, their unofficial ones look like they've been doing similar in Mali. Very hard to get any concrete information as government/Wagner group appear to be denying access, but reports are an entire village was destroyed and population massacred.

ETA: The village in question is reportedly Mourrah

Yes, that could be happening. Though there have been very serious human rights violations in Mali for years.

A nation that had no interest in committing very serious human right's violations wouldn't work with Wagner group or tolerate them upon their soil.

I agree.

[jimbob]

German foreign minister Baerbock has posted on twitter regarding the atrocities in Bucha, condemning them, of course, but also promising more military aid and stricter sanctions.

It should never have taken this to get a proper response from the west - right now, most Russian banks are still connected to SWIFT, and Europe is still buying Russian gas. We've got the photos now, but we already had testimony, already had footage of what they've done to Mariupol - and if it becomes possible to drive the invaders back from Mariupol, there will almost certainly be atrocities revealed there on a larger scale even than those in Bucha.

Indeed. We knew this from other wars of aggression by Putin.

Yes, that could be happening. Though there have been very serious human rights violations in Mali for years.

A nation that had no interest in committing very serious human right's violations wouldn't work with Wagner group or tolerate them upon their soil.

I agree.

They probably wouldn't murder political opponents both inside and outside their country either if they were serious about human rights

[Woodchopper]

Interesting thread on support for the war among the Russian population: https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1 ... YZ20VHS-HQ

[Stranger Mouse]

Apparently Rachel Johnson may have changed her mind on what she can live with

4FFF6EE1-4EFC-41F9-BFD8-E1D59BC0663D.png (459.11 KiB) Viewed 3476 times

[Woodchopper]

Thread in Russian military culture

https://twitter.com/kirlant/status/1510 ... YZ20VHS-HQ

[Stranger Mouse]

Horrifying but watch in full if you can

https://twitter.com/bowenbbc/status/151 ... -v1snh1e6Q

[EACLucifer]

Nathan Ruser's made some very worrying observations re: Kherson, specifically, more than eight hundred graves recently dug in the Russian occupied southern city, and some three hundred or so of them subsequently filled.

There's similar reports from Trostyanets in the east, too, where the Russians had a major military defeat inflicted on them.

It's not just Bucha - Bucha and Irpin are just the ones where we can see it.

[Grumble]

I’m not sure anyone was expecting anything other, sadly. They’ve established their m.o.

[EACLucifer]

I’m not sure anyone was expecting anything other, sadly. They’ve established their m.o.

It is, and the only thing we can do now is try to make up for what we should have done before - we should have accepted Ukraine in Nato nearly fifteen years ago. We should have armed them with more than just equipment to slow the Russians down. That opportunity's gone, but there's still the chance to make a difference. This war could go on for a long time, so western leaders need to stop thinking solely in terms of what aid can be sent and used immediately, but also in the longer term - how long would it take Ukrainian pilots to fly western fighters? Months, most likely, so start now. How long would it take to developed the logistical infrastructure to support western tanks and armoured carriers and artillery and SAMS? The answers depend on the details, but will also be sooner if started sooner. Particularly galling is Ukraine reportedly being short of small arms to equip their growing forces - they don't have long lead times, and the only logistical challenge is in trying to keep the number of cartridges in use to a minimum. America could easily supply substantial quantities of small arms.

[lpm]

No reason why we can't use salami tactics. No single slice of arms supply enough to make Putin have a tantrum.

Anti ship missiles today. The MiGs next week. Load of tanks the next.

The non-headline stuff like small arms and boots can flow anytime.

[Woodchopper]

Nathan Ruser's made some very worrying observations re: Kherson, specifically, more than eight hundred graves recently dug in the Russian occupied southern city, and some three hundred or so of them subsequently filled.

There's similar reports from Trostyanets in the east, too, where the Russians had a major military defeat inflicted on them.

It's not just Bucha - Bucha and Irpin are just the ones where we can see it.

Yes, and Mariupol will likely be very bad.

[jimbob]

Nathan Ruser's made some very worrying observations re: Kherson, specifically, more than eight hundred graves recently dug in the Russian occupied southern city, and some three hundred or so of them subsequently filled.

There's similar reports from Trostyanets in the east, too, where the Russians had a major military defeat inflicted on them.

It's not just Bucha - Bucha and Irpin are just the ones where we can see it.

Also this long thread

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/15 ... 2049757185

As more atrocity sites are discovered in following the ouster of occupation forces, we can anticipate that the “denial stage” of Russia’s campaign will follow a familiar pattern. Again, I think Serb nationalist negationism of the Bosnian Genocide is instructive.

and later

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/15 ... CEmQuyjxRw

It’s possible that in areas along the Belarus/Russia border, persons & bodies will actually have been transported across the border to be killed/buried there. The Milosevic regime did this both during the Bosnian Genocide and Kosovo in Serbia proper.

[EACLucifer]

A call for genocide in Russian state media.

[Woodchopper]

A call for genocide in Russian state media.

Disturbing.

The Russian leadership currently has a choice between using its available forces to try to obtain a limited objective in Ukraine (eg seizing more of the Donbas and they would hope to get sovereignty confirmed with a peace agreement) or national mobilization of the population for war and a redoubled effort to take over Kyiv and most of Ukraine.

That article points toward the latter option.