Sanctions against Russia

[nomadpete]

Anonymous  sources should be viewed with suspicion.

[red750]

Ukraine rejoices: Russia withdraws

Z-LIVE NEWS AU

 

After the attack with ATACMS cluster munitions on air bases in the Russian-occupied areas of Berdyansk and Luhansk in mid-October, both Ukraine and British intelligence had speculated about significant damage to helicopters. It was suspected that this attack could lead Russia to withdraw troops from the front to protect them from further missile strikes.

 

According to a report by Defense Express, referencing satellite images analyzed by military analyst Brady Africk, by the end of October, all helicopters had disappeared from the base in Berdyansk. A month earlier, about two weeks before the ATACMS attack, there were still 20 helicopters stationed there, including models like the Ka-52 and Mi-8. 

 

Satellite images also suggest that 21 Russian helicopters were recently relocated to an air base in Taganrog, Russia, as reported by the German news platform n-tv.de. It is believed that these are the helicopters previously stationed in Berdyansk. However, it remains unclear whether they were damaged by the attack and whether they had to be moved to Taganrog overland.

 

 

[willedoo]

The Kerch shipyard in Crimea has come under missile attack. The Russian MOD has said a ship was damaged, but no indication of which ship. The Ukrainians and some Russian sources are naming a missile carrying corvette as being hit, but no confirmation yet.

[red750]

Is Putin lying about his past? Was he an elite spy or just a KGB errand boy?

 

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has often spoken about his past as an "elite spy" when he worked for the KGB, claiming he played an important role in the Soviet Union's intelligence apparatus.

 

Read slideshow here.

[onetrack]

The article is light on verifiable facts, and Putin and the KGB would have ensured his position and jobs are clouded in mystery. Putin got to where he is by the same tactics all ruthless dictators use - especially the ones used by Hitler, a man he claims to despise.

 

Those tactics are regular cunning elimination of powerful opponents - either by murder or manipulation.

 

Finding out who the powerful people are, and developing valuable friendships with them, and ensuring they end up owing you "favours".

 

Criminality and intimidation on a breathtaking scale, to ensure you get into a position of unassailable power, and the public limelight - and stay there.

 

Carefully manipulating the media to ensure you present as a benevolent saviour of the nation.

 

Suppress dissidents and opposition ruthlessly, jailing them on fabricated evidence and charges, if need be.

 

Distributing national assets and wealth to supporters, to ensure they stay supportive.

 

Indulge in war actions against "declared enemies of the nation", to entrench your position.

 

Eventually, of course, it all falls to pieces as supporters start to realise they really are dealing with a ruthless madman.

[nomadpete]

5 hours ago, onetrack said:

Finding out who the powerful people are, and developing valuable friendships with them, and ensuring they end up owing you "favours".

This is not unique to despotic dictators.

 

Many years back (alright, here comes a single old anecdote), my manager was taking an active interest in becoming the local mayor. He spent a disproportionate amount of time distracted from his real job, doing everything needed to drum up support - lots of meetings, phone calls, letters, etc.

Finally his superiors told him -

" Either quit and do your politicking full time, or quit your political persuits"

 

He chose to keep his job.

 

Why?

 

"Because by the time I get anywhere in politics, I will owe favours to too many people I don't  really like. And I won't be able to kill them, so how useful would I be as mayor when I get there?"

 

So it looks like the same rules apply at all levels of politics.

[nomadpete]

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but as far as I'm concerned,  most of what you said about  Israel vs Gaza DOES  apply to Ukraine vs Putin.

 

Specifically, the global arms industry is a powerful background political influence. It is making massive profit from conflicts everywhere.

Edited November 5, 2023 by nomadpete
oops! this post was intended to answer Jerry - in the 'war & retribution' thread

[onetrack]

And America is the primary source and biggest beneficiary of arms manufacturing.

[willedoo]

Somewhere in that article it said the truth about putler's KGB career is probably halfway between the claims of top spy and administrative errand boy. It was certainly a very ordinary career.  In his postings at St. Petersburg and later East Germany, his main work was keeping tabs on students and foreigners. He was possibly involved with programmes to recruit foreign students as that was all a part of it, but he was certainly no James Bond. That early photo of him in uniform shows him with the rank of Captain, but it's commonly said he retired as a Lt. Colonel.

 

When the Soviet Union collapsed, putin quit the KGB and went back to his home town of St. Petersburg to work for the Mayor, who is said to be his mentor in getting into politics. After that he made the move to Moscow where he would have found it easy to brown nose the drunken fool Yeltsin to climb the political ladder. Yeltsin appointed putler as head of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, for about a year. A lot of people mistakenly say putin was the head of the KGB, but he was just an ordinary middle ranking officer there. But he did run the Russian Federation FSB for a short time.

[willedoo]

The destruction of the Russian missile corvette 'Askold' is not positively confirmed yet but going by photos and video emerging, the damage is unlikely to buff out. The Russians are claiming they intercepted the missiles attacking the Kerch shipyard and only small fragments hit the ship. It looks like they've used the hull of the ship to intercept the missiles. The video footage showed three missiles with the last one appearing to score a direct hit. The Askold was only launched in 2021 and hadn't seen action yet.

[willedoo]

Ukraine is claiming they hit a couple of Black Sea Fleet landing craft with sea drones. Video circulating appears to back the claim. They are only a small craft so most likely sunk or completely destroyed. The fleet only had three small landing craft; one was destroyed by an aerial drone at Snake Island last year and now these two if confirmed. The Russians had been placing air defence launchers on them, but it was said they were carrying an armoured vehicle and troops when hit.

 

[willedoo]

With winter coming on and the summer offensive delivering very little net gain of territory, my guess is that a lot more attacks like these against Russia infrastructure and logistical hubs will happen as the missiles become available. About all Ukraine can do for the foreseeable future is to hold the line and continue to degrade Russian logistics and equipment. Neither side has the capability of a major offensive at the present time and maybe never will. General Zaluzhny had a good point recently when he basically said that if the equipment needed to win the war is not provided in time, Ukraine will eventually run out of enough troops to do the job.

 

That's one problem as Russia has an almost unlimited pool of cannon fodder to draw on. They can outlast Ukraine in manpower, and all they have to do is continue to sow seeds of doubt among the Western backers of Ukraine to slow down Ukraine's military capability. The slow drip feed of foreign aid and equipment is slowly bleeding Ukraine to death. Another problem is that the Russians are not completely stupid. They have done, and continue to do dumb things, but they are learning from the Ukrainians as they go and improving outcomes accordingly. A third problem is one for the future. The longer it drags on, the more time Russia has to fortify the line. No matter what happens, the Russian excavators keep digging, fortifications keep on being constructed and the mines keep getting laid.

 

While Western backers were umming and ahhing in the second half of last year about which equipment could be supplied without provoking putin, the Russians were gifted huge breathing space to build the Surovikin line of fortifications. The legacy of western dithering was the failure of the Ukrainians to break through that line in more than five months of hard fighting. By the time the fighting season starts next year, that line will most likely be even stronger.

 

I can understand the reasoning of the U.S. and it's allies playing a geopolitical game at Ukraine's expense, but the longer the war drags on, the more likely Biden is falling into putin's trap of a long war degrading the West's will and support. putler's only strategy now is to outlast the west. Basically ride it out and get whatever territory you can. His regime is now addicted to war and they know it's the only means of their survival. They need a win to survive, no matter how many years it takes. If the Kremlin accepts a defeat, they're gone. War also helps them consolidate power domestically. It's a good excuse to bring in even more Draconian laws without question, and most of the punters get filled with patriotism which is a big plus for the Kremlin. The government and media never let up with comparisons to the Soviet Union's 1941 to 1945 Great Patriotic War and the suckers fall for it. 

[willedoo]

It's strange how whenever putler is anywhere near the war zone, his chin recedes and his forehead flattens out. It's happened again when he visited Rostov on Don, the Russian logistical hub for the war machine. In the photo below, normal putin (normal for him anyway) is on the left. On the right is the Rostov pinhead. It's the same pinhead who visited Crimea and Mariupol last year for the usual photo ops.

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Although one must take this site with a lot of scepticism, Ukrainian intelligence thinks he is already binkered up: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408353/

 

Maybe this is why: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/03/20/7332985/

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[onetrack]

Jerry, those two articles you linked to, are quite old and seriously dated - June 2023 and March 2022. The June article still talks of Prighozin and Wagner as having a major command ability in the War - but both are now neutered, so today, we're on a different page.

 

Ukraine is still struggling to make any meaningful impact on Russia, and Russian sanctions are having little effect. New and improved Western weaponry delivered promptly to Ukraine, is required to make a difference to the War outcome.

 

As it stands, the War is just simply bleeding both countries on a serious level, but Russian has a lot more blood in reserve than Ukraine has. Ukraine needs some major shattering strikes at Russian military manufacturing facilities.

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

Ukraine is still struggling to make any meaningful impact on Russia, and Russian sanctions are having little effect. New and improved Western weaponry delivered promptly to Ukraine, is required to make a difference to the War outcome.

 

As it stands, the War is just simply bleeding both countries on a serious level, but Russian has a lot more blood in reserve than Ukraine has. Ukraine needs some major shattering strikes at Russian military manufacturing facilities.

That's a pretty good summary of it. Social media is full of video and other evidence showing the Russians copping a flogging, but it's all feel good stuff selected out of context to the overall situation. The reality is that Ukraine is bleeding to death. At the moment it's manageable, but putin has more on his side for the long game. If the Nervous Nellies backing Ukraine don't pull their finger out, Ukraine's manpower shortage will hit a critical point where it's possible the Russians will roll right over them.

 

At the moment I can only see two future scenarios. The best one is Biden dithering = stalemate. The worst one is Biden dithering = putin wins. Voting him out and putting Trump back in would be a death sentence for Ukraine, so there's no better option than the status quo at the moment. Enough time has passed now that it's obvious the US will only supply Ukraine with enough weaponry to prevent Russia taking significantly more territory, and not enough to win the war and return to the internationally accepted post Soviet boundaries. The Ukrainians have been asking for the right equipment to finish the job for over a year now, so if the Americans haven't figured it out in that time, they possibly never will.

 

I wonder whether it's just the politicians holding back. It would be interesting to know the Pentagon's stance on it. The retired US generals who publicly comment have been calling the government out and urging it to get on with the job. I'd assume the serving brass in the pentagon would have a similar position in private, but are bound to serve their political bosses.

[willedoo]

It looks like the Ukrainians are back to the drawing board and preparing for a defensive winter fighting season. It's looking like a long war ahead. The big risk as General Zaluzhnyi said is the war dragging on to the point where Ukraine's troop numbers are depleted. At this stage, the U.S. and some allies are prolonging the war via a slow, often too late drip feed of needed weapons. The other big factor is that allied dithering on weapons deliveries last year gave Russia's General Surovikin much needed breathing space to construct the defensive so called Surovikin Line. Russia also has shown that they can and will continue to throw masses of their own people into the fight.

 

putin has a huge population of potential cannon fodder to draw on, whereas Ukraine is limited in that area. Russia is also ramping up war production and has issued a directive to the various governors to change to a war economy. This will most likely mean factories forcibly working overtime to produce war materiel. There's also talk of a new wave of mobilisation of new drafted recruits in the new year. What putler lacks in quality of troops, he's prepared to compensate by throwing numbers at the Ukrainians. The Russian authorities don't seem to place any value on the lives of their troops other than that of a tactical military value.

 

Ukraine on the other hand, does value their people and knows that their human resources are finite. They have said it's a priority to preserve the troops they have, so that looks like a mainly defensive role over the winter period. The only shot in their locker is to keep trying to degrade Russian logistics and equipment with long range strikes. I think they've realised the Western partners are not coming to the party to the needed degree, so they have to get their own domestic designs into mass production. They announced recently that they are going to start ramping up their missile and drone designs to full production.

 

The other issue Ukraine faces is the West growing weary of supporting the war. President Zelensky has been a big asset to gaining and maintaining that support. Elections are due soon and the government is wanting to delay them due to the war, but some people are pressuring them to hold elections. I doubt Zelensky would be voted out, but if he was, it could lead to a lot of allied supporters gradually losing interest in Ukraine. It's already happening to a degree. With the Gaza war dominating headlines and world discussion, Ukraine is struggling for oxygen in the media sphere. That certainly helped putin and not long after the Gaza war started an official Hamas delegation visited the Kremlin. They most likely got a big pat on the back. Since the Gaza fighting started, you have to scroll a long way down the Google News page to find anything about Ukraine.

 

Once putin's 'Kiev in three days' plan failed, his only plan B has been to wait out a long war and in doing so erode Western support. So far, he's on track with it. The US/Western mantra of supporting Ukraine for 'as long as it takes' is an admission they will continue to prolong the war through procrastination and not try actively to end it with a defeat of Russia. putin well knows this and is trying to play them like a fish. The icing on putler's cake would be the orange clown returning to the US presidency.

[willedoo]

putler's fight them on the beaches trench system on the Crimean shoreline has been washed away. The area has been having it's worst storm in 100 years with 30 m/s winds and 9 metre waves. Odessa on the Ukrainian mainland Black Sea coast is copping the same wind combined with a snow blizzard.

[facthunter]

None of these wars are any good for the climate situation, nor will Trump Be. Nev

[red750]

Massive blow: Ukraine “eliminates” over 1,100 of Putin’s men

 

The Kyiv Independent reports, citing the General Staff of Ukraine, that Ukraine has eliminated over 1,000 Russian soldiers.

 

Specifically, according to Ukraine’s information, Russia has lost 1,140 of its soldiers in the last 24 hours. This brings the total Russian losses since the escalation of the Russian war of aggression in February 2022 to 327,580. In addition, there are 10,312 armed vehicles, 10,348 vehicles and tankers, 5,538 tanks, 7,908 artillery systems, 5,944 drones, 910 multiple rocket launchers, 323 aircraft, 324 helicopters, 1,567 cruise missiles, 600 air defense systems, 1,121 pieces of military special equipment, 22 boats, and one submarine.

 

These claims have not yet been independently verified or confirmed. Therefore, they should be considered with caution. In war, it can be advantageous for conflicting parties to deliberately spread false information to strengthen their own position or weaken that of the enemy.

 

 

[willedoo]

A lot of news out of Ukraine lately paints a fairly dismal future for the country. A lot of their casualty figures are not regularly published and most media highlights Russian losses. Ukraine is also suffering heavy losses and they have the problem of depletion of the more experienced troops. The war looks like dragging on for a long time, which could very well equate to a putin win.

 

putin has more cards up his sleeve than Ukraine and it's allies. He has just signed an order for another 170,00 troops to bring the total of permanent troops to 1.32 million. Given the fact he doesn't care how many die to achieve victory, the numbers just don't stack up for Ukraine. The other advantage for putin is that Russia can and is outproducing Ukraine's Western allies in weapons manufacturing. Russian production of artillery shells, drones and other weapons has ramped up whereas the Western nations have not significantly increased production and are depleting old and finite stocks.

 

Adding to Ukraine's troubles is the current border blockade by Hungarian, Polish and Slovakian truck drivers. Much needed aid is held up at the border until the dispute is resolved. The three respective governments don't seem too interested in intervening to end the blockade. It's no surprise for putin ally Viktor Orban, PM of Hungary. He's already blocking EU financial aid to Ukraine and opposes Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO. He's by far putin's strongest EU ally. Added to that, putin has gained another ally in Slovakia after recent elections saw pro Russian elements gain power and promise to end aid to Ukraine. Poland is in a state of political limbo since recent elections, so time will tell how Polish support works out long term.

 

The biggest risk for Ukraine would be another Trump presidency. Biden has been weak on Ukraine, but he's all they have so they make the best of the staggered drip feed of support and are resigned to the fact that the U.S. doesn't want a defeat of Russia. The U.S. tactic is to hopefully provide enough support to prevent putin taking too much more of Ukraine, but not give them enough to kick the Russians out. It would be easy to believe that behind the scenes the Americans want to see a negotiated settlement and the ceding of certain territory to Russia.

 

It's like the appeasement of Hitler all over again. putin doesn't think like the Americans. Whatever you give him, he will see as weakness and eventually try for more. His tactic is to keep pushing and push as far as he can. It sounds like doom and gloom, but unfortunately there's not much good news coming out of Ukraine at the moment. Without the U.S. and the U.K., Ukraine would have fallen long ago. All the NATO aid and support has at it's core the U.S. as the driving force. If it was solely up to the Europeans alone, they would have turned their back on Ukraine so it's to Biden's credit that he's kept that rabble relatively united and on board. Biden could have done a lot better in Ukraine, but most others would have done a lot worse.

 

 

[rgmwa]

Unfortunately, you're right. To make matters worse, the conflict in Gaza has taken the world's media attention right off Ukraine.

 

[red750]

Heavy blow: Next Russian commander dead

 

The Deputy Commander of the 14th Russian Army Corps in Ukraine, Vladimir Zavadsky, is dead. This was confirmed by Alexander Gusev, Governor of the southwestern Voronezh region.

 

In a Telegram post, Gusev published a picture of the deceased Zavadsky and expressed condolences to his family. As reported by n-tv.de, Gusev did not provide further details on the exact circumstances of Zavadsky’s death. Previous unconfirmed media reports from late November suggest that Zavadsky was killed by a landmine. There has been no official confirmation from the Kremlin in Moscow regarding the death of the Deputy Commander of the 14th Russian Army Corps.

These reports have not been independently verified or confirmed. Therefore, they should be treated with caution. In times of war, it can be advantageous for conflicting parties to deliberately spread misinformation to strengthen their own position or weaken that of the opponent.

[red750]

Putin Sets His Sights on the Next Country: “Russia is Preparing for War”

 

 

Russia continues its internationally unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine. However, Russian President Putin is reportedly setting his sights on another country.

 

Jason Jay Smart, a correspondent for the Kyiv Post, citing the U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War on his X-channel, writes, “Russia is preparing for war in Moldova. At the beginning of 2023, Russia launched a campaign to destabilize Moldova. Russia could renew these efforts to divert international attention from the war in Ukraine.”

 

For months, there has been concern in Moldova that Russia aims to take control of the country. Moldova, located between Romania and Ukraine in Southeastern Europe, is one of the smallest countries on the continent with about 2.6 million inhabitants. It was part of the Soviet Union in 1940 and gained its independence in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR.

 

[rgmwa]

If Putin moves on to Moldova, it might motivate the West to take more action.