Tragic. It also indicates how dangerous a time we are in. Putin’s Russia has proven to be a paper tiger, but they still have WMDs – and not just nukes. Desperate people do desperate things.
The first batch of Russian conscripts began shipping out for Ukraine today, as Putin tries to plug holes in his armies after they were mauled at Kyiv’s hands.
Men – many of whom appeared middle-aged – were filmed waving goodbye to their families in the far-eastern province of Yakutia as they were loaded on to buses for the long journey west, to the killing fields of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Military commissars marshaled them away less than 24 hours after Putin declared the start of Russia’s first mobilisation since the Second World War in a desperate attempt to stop his brutal invasion from collapsing.
There were even reports that some of the 1,400 activists arrested last night for protesting the move were being handed conscription papers inside police stations, despite Putin’s promise to only send those with combat experience.
Analysts and experts have given the new conscripts little chance of survival, saying they are likely to be given little or no training before being thrown on to the frontline as ‘cannon fodder’.
I just had a thought… Let’s speculate for a minute. If Ukraine does manage to regain all the territory that Russia has invaded, the Western world would be happy right? What would the sentiment be if they keep pushing and fight to take back Crimea? Or keep pushing into Russia territory?
What WILL happen is that the four provinces having a referendum WILL vote to be allied with Russia–who is NOT ‘losing’ this war, by the way–unless you believe every scintilla of propaganda put out by the British through the London Daily Mail and the US State Department.
When those provinces vote to ally with Russia–and they should, as most of the people therein are Russian or Russian-speakers–Ukraine will be in the embarrassing condition of attempting to invade and forcibly subdue peoples who want to get the Hell OUT of Ukraine. IOW, Ukraine will continue what they’ve been doing since 2014 or so.
Meantime, no matter what the Brits (and Vicky Nuland and the Clintonistas) spread around, Putin’s army is doing exactly what they want to do. Ukraine isn’t asking for NUCLEAR BOMBING of Russia just for shits and giggles, you know. Ukraine’s “counter-offensive”? Well…..now they have a line of troops with almost no logistical support deep into territory which is Russia-friendly, to say the least. So when Putin decides to go hard, he just cuts off their line at the westernmost end and——–voila!!———the Ukraine Army is lunchmeat.
Oh, Dad, why do you think that way.
Russia winning the war?
The war was supposed to be over in a week or 2, with Russia taking over the entire country . How many months has the war been going on? How is it going for Russia.
Oh, wait, they are calling up 300,000 untrained non-vilunteets.
You don’t doubt that Ukraine has not taken back some land list?
Umm, ok.
Evidence please.
And Ukraine is in a position now to harass Russian troops with hit and run missions.
Dad, I realize you hate Ukraine and have a love for Putin, but you are way out there in your views.
Apparently you are privy to Putin’s war plan, Mar? Otherwise, how would you KNOW Putin planned on a 2-week war and the plan was to “take over the entire country”? Curious minds want to know!
Read REAL news, not State Department/British propaganda.
Americans tend to not comprehend the depth and breadth of ethnic and religious hatreds that drive violence in that part of the world. Enforcing geographic and political boundaries has always been a challenge.
Western support is the only thing keeping Ukraine in the fight. We pay, they die. Left to their own devices they would have been reduced to throwing rocks two months into the war. Russia gained and maintained air superiority from the beginning, which NATO/EU has chosen not to challenge. Without controlling the skies Ukraine is at a severe military disadvantage leaving them few options other than guerrilla harassment tactics aimed at disrupting Russian resupply. The give and take of Russian advance and retreat is more a sign of their inability to maintain flow of supply to their front lines than it is Ukraine forcefully and decisively taking back ground by conquest.
Russian military doctrine has always been built around defense of the homeland rather than projection of military power abroad. A noble strategy until your mission becomes projection of power outside your own borders. Then you struggle with attrition and eventually seek a diplomatic solution. Doesn’t look like they’ve reached that point yet.
Merlin, as you may know, the Russians and Ukrainians were in talks to end the scuffle right around the time Putin withdrew from the area near Kiev. All Russia wanted was to protect its citizens and Russian-speakers on the eastern end of Ukraine, and a promise that Ukraine would NOT JOIN NATO.
Ukraine was ready to make that commitment until the US State Department sent Boris Johnson in to tell Zelenskiy “NO!! Do NOT give the Russkies anything!! Fight On!!!”
Pay attention to the ebb and flow and note that Russia has the regular Ukraine army in a “kettle” near the eastern quarter of Ukraine. Their doctrine is to create the kettle, then close in, killing all in the path. It’s still very much the plan, and it’s still very much active.
Yeah, this didn’t need to happen. Promises were made to Ukraine back in ’93 when the USSR dissolved and none of them have been kept. None. In the end, whether by force or diplomacy, Ukraine is going to be partitioned.
Is the Ukraine government corrupt? Sure, but so are the western governments that are using Ukraine as their proxy battlefield. All the blood being spent here belongs to Russians and Ukrainians. All the western nations are doing is supplying Ukraine the weapons to die with and the propaganda to make it all palatable to the viewers back home. If the coming winter is cold enough the Europeans will sell out Zelensky by Easter.
Gee, Dad, I may not a war expert, but when Russia’s military tried to take over Kiev and other cities and were beaten back, that tells me that tried to take over those areas
Unless, of course, you don’t believe Kiev and the other cities were actually bombed and that it is a conspiracy that those cities were bombed.
Umnnhhhh……. you most certainly are NOT an expert. The move toward Kiev was a feint, designed to pin Ukraine forces around that city while Russia prepared and executed its far-larger move on the eastern front within Ukraine, capturing Azov and fortifying its positions surrounding its Black Sea ports. Look up “maneuver warfare” and notice how good chess instincts meld very well with same.
Also–FYI–it is common to bomb critical/key locations where there are large armament caches.
Try reading this, from a US General who advised Trump: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/holding-ground-losing-war/
If the coming winter is cold enough the Europeans will sell out Zelensky by Easter.
My over/under is February 1, but Christmas is a real possibility.
Oh, Dad, you Putin lover.
You are in just denial, and I am sorry for that.
>Read REAL news
Other than the one source you already linked to, what other outlets do you suggest folks turn to for non-propagandized information?
You could look up any number of opening-essay remarks from Tucker Carlson. You could go to the (likely Russo-philiac) Saker: https://thesaker.is/. There are a number of essays on the question linked here: https://westernrifleshooters.us/
If you want the full-bore British/US State Department hogwash, read the London Daily Mail.
Don’t forget Jennifer Dyer. An absolute marvel of observation and ordering of data.
And just for you, Mar, I ran a post today quoting a guy who thinks Russia is in deep s**t and losing the war.
The Nord Stream pipeline sabotage certainly raises the stakes. Who had the means, motive, and opportunity here? That’s a very short list.
Seal Team Six. Their Brit counterparts. That’s the only two, unless Putin went bonkers and decided to lose a TON of money AND all the leverage he has over Europe.
Greenies? Maybe, but do they have the skills and the tools? There was a US-flagged ship in the area….
It makes Europe a disaster zone, and raises the price of natgas globally. That makes fertilizer a helluvalot more expensive, too. Whoever did it has committed a war crime of very serious proportions–against almost everyone on Earth.
>unless Putin went bonkers and decided to lose a TON of money AND all the leverage he has over Europe.
Sure seems unlikely. They control the spigot on their end. No need whatsoever to destroy the pipelines in order to exercise absolute control of the westward flow. This actually leaves them with one less gigantic bargaining chip.
Fascinating from both technical and motivation aspects. Significantly damaging 1.5″ steel coated in 4″ of reinforced marine concrete at a depth of 250′-360′ is no easy feat. In three places, no less. Doing it without getting caught redhanded takes it to a really impressive level of evil.
From another site:
An expeditionary detachment of US Navy ships led by the universal amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge days ago was in the Baltic Sea. It was 30 km from the site of the alleged sabotage on the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline and 50 km from the threads of Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.
On September 2, interesting maneuvers performed by an American helicopter with the call sign FFAB123. Then it was assumed that this board was from the USS Kearsarge air wing, and today more details were looked. According to the website http://ads-b.nl , this call sign was used by 6 boards that day, of which we managed to establish the side numbers of three. All of them are Sikorsky MH-60S.
By superimposing the FFAB123 route on the scheme of yesterday’s accident, we get a rather interesting result — the helicopter either flew along the Nord Stream-2 highway, or even between the points where the accident occurred.
And finally, we need to pay attention to the June article in Sea Power, where the Americans brag about experiments in the field of underwater drones, which they put on exercises BALTOPS 22 — just in the area of the island of Bronholm. And YES,there was US military training there…
See: https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1574758898086694912
The Kearsarge is an LHD. Think of it as a water taxi for an entire Marine Expeditionary Force. There’s nothing even remotely stealthy about it. There’s also nothing stealthy about Seahawks squawking transponder codes for ATC to track. Those get turned off when they don’t want to be seen. Kearsarge’s escort ships would have all had either Romeo or Sierra MH-60 versions aboard for ASW and ASUW work. If a P-8 overhead detects anything of interest the Seahawks are launched to investigate. Both versions if kitted for ASW are quite capable of identifying and skull-fucking subsurface contacts. Sierras can be outfitted specifically for surface and subsurface mine detection and destruction.
Their radar tracks can look rather bizarre when they’re 100’ off the water hunting a contact. Look up the recent track of FFAB123 on FlightAware off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico. Playing cat and mouse.
“>unless Putin went bonkers and decided to lose a TON of money AND all the leverage he has over Europe.”
Putin wants revenge on the West for helping Ukraine, he cares more about that than money.
Now, with the damaged pipeline, he doesn’t have to look like a bad guy by just turning off the gas. He can blame the US or others to make them look bad.
The leverage (now gone) is far more important than the money, Mar.
Yes–the MH-60’s ASW capabilities were mentioned specifically in the passage I quote above, for the obvious reasons.
I wonder if Biden and his party have any proof that there fraudulent election activity in Ukraine? Ah the irony.
Well, Jason, if anyone knows about Election Fraud, it IS the Democrats.
>Well, Jason, if anyone knows about Election Fraud, it IS the Democrats.
Just ask Former Rep. Michael Myers. 30 months of prison time for ballot stuffing and other fraudulent voting activities between 2014 and 2021. 30 months is a fucking joke and a slap on the wrist.
Can one of the “There’s no proof of wide spread / massive voting fraud” please read and respond to this https://patch.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/ballot-box-stuffing-ex-philly-congressman-heading-prison-feds
I know, I know, crickets… not a single response is actually expected.
But how can any adult, capable of tying their shoes, read that article and still think that questioning the 2020 election is a bad thing. Or that because the system is actually designed to not be able to prove voter fraud, that means there is none. Take this article with all the other little blubs of questionable activity, and tell us with a straight face that these are simple single issues and are not an indication of a massive flaw in our voting system… and that things like requiring Voter Identification, limiting mail in voting, limiting ballot drop boxes, banning ballot curing, banning third party monetary contracts which require embedding their own operatives into government offices are not needed, and are actually an infringement of voting rights. Puh-lease.
Jason: RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISSSS!