Scrutable

shpalman wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 5:39 pm Ukraine says it wasn't them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe Ukraine is hoping that Russia will think it's someone else and launch a retaliatory strike, bringing another active combatant into the war against Russia.

Perhaps the Russians should have remembered that trying to break contact and withdraw under fire is approximately the most difficult thing to do in conventional warfare before they launched a poorly planned and poorly supported attack on a neighbouring country's capital?

The other thing the Russians need to be very wary of is the fact that it isn't just around Kyiv that their positions have collapsed or that Ukrainians have made advances. They collapsed at Trostyanets, south of Sumy, and they collapsed between Kharkiv and Chuguiv, too, meaning that as well as Chernihiv, they not longer effectively encircle Kharkiv and Sumy.

And it's not just in the north they need to worry, either. Ukrainians are advancing in the south, on both sides of the Dnieper, though not anywhere near the pace we've seen in the north. If the Russians are trying to move units east, they'd better do it fast, because Ukraine will be able to free up troops from around Kyiv, and potentially put Russian troops in the south under enormous pressure before the Russians can strengthen their hand in the east.

bjn wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 10:17 pm Germany is handing over 56 PbV-501 IFVs to Ukraine. There are Soviet BMP-1s that were uprated by BAE a while back. Quite a change for the Germans from handing over a few helmets a month ago.

IIRC these could have been handed over several years ago, but Germany didn't want to make Putin unhappy.

It's a good start - right near the top of the list for things Ukraine can already operate - though much more is needed.

There's rumours about Britain sending AS-90s, which may not be ideal. They are not cutting edge - they were, several decades ago, but the upgrade program was abandoned. They are outranged by some equipment in use on both sides in the war, not least because the Warsaw Pact maintained proper heavy artillery long after the west abandoned anything bigger than a 155. This is not to say they would be useless, they have the ability to come in and out of action very quickly and can fire a rapid burst of several rounds and move before they are counter-attacked. The other concern is that there are a lot of rumours about the condition of Britain's As-90s, things like not being able to train due to lack of spare parts for engines and replacement tracks. After a dozen years of the Tories treating the armed forces the way private equity asset strippers treat companies, we can't be that confident in the condition of our own kit.

shpalman wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 5:39 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:46 pm

shpalman wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:45 pm My point is that while we're watching videos from multiple angles of helicopters launching rockets at a Russian fuel/oil depot which then explodes and burns, the Guardian and the BBC are like wait we can't be sure that actually happened because nobody officially told us that it did.

Ah OK.

Ukraine says it wasn't them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you are thinking about Oleksiy Danilov's statement - ""It was not us. People of Belgorod People Republic starts to realize something. It could be anywhere in RF. We did not start this war" - then this isn't a denial, it's taking the piss out of Putin pretending his invading troops were Ukrainians back in 2014, and is one step short of saying those helicopters could have been picked up in any army surplus shop in Russia.

Fair enough, makes sense, British news media obviously couldn't figure that out either.

Now,
Conscripts receive a stipend of 2,000 rubles (US$30) compared to the basic 62,000 (US$900) salary of regular or contract soldiers. These young draftees, many the subject of political call-ups, receive 3,000% less pay that their Russian compatriots in the regular army who make almost 200% less than their American counterparts.

In what kind of maths does it make sense to say either 3,000% less or 200% less?

200% less than getting $1600 a month means you'd be paying $1600 a month, surely?

I was following a link from
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-are ... ore-180435

shpalman wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 5:33 am Fair enough, makes sense, British news media obviously couldn't figure that out either.

Not your fault. The media are f.cking terrible at getting local nuance in areas where they don't have correspondents - and it's their job to get it right, not yours. I'm also not certain that statement is what they were referring to anyway. Ukraine's had a policy of neither confirming nor denying a lot of operations, including Tochka-U strikes on Russian airfields, drone bombing of a fuel train, and even the apparent strike on the LST unloading in Berdyansk.

And that's before you get onto the "Russian helicopter shot down with British weapon supplied by Britain by Ukrainians using British techniques" stuff. It's patronising and offensive to give more credit to the west for suppling a small amount of the equipment the Ukrainians are using than to the Ukrainians for actually using it.

I paraphrased slightly, but not that much. Actual Times quote Spoiler:

small but mighty flying pollinators

black and yellow mini beasts

#secondmentions

More Russian convoys moving inside Belarus, this time equipment moving towards the border. Are they going to try and reverse the collapse northwest of Kyiv, or is this sticking to schedules made before the front started collapsing? If they do try going in via Belarus again, they'll find it harder going this time, I hope. It's also possible it's a demonstration, meant purely to tie down defenders.

Ukraine did not mobilise properly prior to the war, presumably either due to fears that mobilising would give the Russians an excuse to invade - as Germany did to the Russian Empire in 1914 - or that mobilising prematurely would be counterproductive - recall Ukraine's estimates were that the Russians weren't ready to invade*. Trying to repeat that initial drive against Kyiv against a properly mobilised Ukraine would be unwise, to say the least.

*which was true, in a way

shpalman wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:06 am small but mighty flying pollinators

black and yellow mini beasts

#secondmentions

At the moment your latter linked article mentions "a bike of black and yellow mini beasts", but I expect it will be changed to mention allude to a hive instead.
Shame, I'd be in favour of the use of Surrealist weapons rather than conventional ones.

basementer wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:52 am

shpalman wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:06 am small but mighty flying pollinators

black and yellow mini beasts

#secondmentions

At the moment your latter linked article mentions "a bike of black and yellow mini beasts", but I expect it will be changed to mention allude to a hive instead.
Shame, I'd be in favour of the use of Surrealist weapons rather than conventional ones.

'bike' is a Scots word applied to insect nests, although I've mostly heard it applied to wasp's nests rather than bee hives.

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.

I dont know if anyone has spotted further info on the 2 generals sacked by Zelensky recently. I'm hoping he's not pushing the "no retreat" thing over the objections of commanders.

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 3:46 pm 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.

Allo V Psycho wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:41 am

basementer wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:52 am

shpalman wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:06 am small but mighty flying pollinators

black and yellow mini beasts

#secondmentions

At the moment your latter linked article mentions "a bike of black and yellow mini beasts", but I expect it will be changed to mention allude to a hive instead.
Shame, I'd be in favour of the use of Surrealist weapons rather than conventional ones.

'bike' is a Scots word applied to insect nests, although I've mostly heard it applied to wasp's nests rather than bee hives.

Gosh! Thank you, I've never heard that before.

https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status ... 2026830849

Thomas van Linge
@ThomasVLinge
Normal
2%
Very concerning news. Marianna, the pregnant girl from #Mariupol, turns out to be one of the refugees that has been taken to #Russia in violation of the evacuation agreement.

There they put her in front of a camera and have her say there was no aerial attack on the hospital.

long thread.

in that

And for those wondering if she is telling the truth, she is not. Kremlin propaganda is brutal but very inconsistent. They have her touch on all conspiracy theories surrounding thr hospital at ones, making the entire story totally illogical.

-the hospital was used as a base by Ukrainian soldiers
-yet they probably bombed it themselves
-but it's okay, the attack wasn't big, therefore the AP pictures are dramatized propaganda.

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

shpalman wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 5:33 am In what kind of maths does it make sense to say either 3,000% less or 200% less?

200% less than getting $1600 a month means you'd be paying $1600 a month, surely?

In journalist maths, percentage increases are commutative. If I make 200% more than you then you make 200% less than me. Isn't that obvious?

Bird on a Fire wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 4:21 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 3:46 pm 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.

Reports coming in of mass executions of civilians by retreating Russian soldiers. Probably much worse to find out about.

lpm wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 1:02 pm Presumably these make good raw material for IEDs? If Russia has done the same around Mariupol then the mines could soon be coming back their way from the local insurgents.

I suspect that the Russians are going to be facing a sh.t ton of insurgents everywhere they go, once all these western weapons get distributed into the hands of the Ukrainian territorials. ISTM that one of the ironies of this situation is that the argument that the Second Amendment frootloops like to use ("We're going to defend ourselves against the gubmint with our AR-15s") might come close to true, albeit with slightly heavier weaponry. I can see Republicans running on an "ATGW in every home" ticket very soon.

WFJ wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 9:30 pm

sTeamTraen wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 9:03 pm

nezumi wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 4:59 pmI think Putin is too clever. All the IQ, but no trust and no boundaries. He has created (or maybe exacerbated) a system in which nobody can ever tell him the unvarnished truth, everyone all the way down is wholesale thieving and no thought has been spared at all to selfless motives - except to try and destroy them.

I think this is probably correct, although a thought that keeps occurring to me is that as ruthless dictators go, Putin is also a bit rubbish.

It's because he is a modern populist, rather than an old-school iron fist dictator. His popularity is important for him to remain in power, and a rule-by-fear model would not work for him in modern Russia. He needs to maintain the facade that he is the saviour of Russians against outside forces. Even with his power, information cannot be contained and negative media silenced like in the past. He is much closer to Trump. Or rather a left-leaning American's view of the furthest extent Trump would have gone had he not been constrained by US media reporting, the constitution and the last remaining dregs of Republican decency.

Another BBC story about a Russian animator who made a not-even-thinly disguised version of his cartoon series for kids featuring an evil dictator called Putin who sits at a long table and starts wars.

Soon after the episode was published, Russian authorities banned it and asked the cartoon’s creator, Oleg Kuvaev, to remove it from his website because it "discredits the Russian Federation's armed forces".

Now I'm sure that the request to take it down was probably phrased a bit more strongly than "look, old chap, this is a bit negative on the publicity front, would you mind awfully toning it down a bit", but they guy is still alive, still making cartoons, and felt able to give an interview to the BBC about it. In the Soviet Union he would have been on a train to Siberia by the same evening. I find this genuinely baffling.

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 7:44 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 4:21 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 3:46 pm 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.

Reports coming in of mass executions of civilians by retreating Russian soldiers. Probably much worse to find out about.

It is horrific.

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.

Millennie Al wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:55 pm 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.

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.