Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Bakis]

At least 21 people, including one child, have died in overnight Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's southern Odesa region, Ukrainian officials say.

The state emergency service, DSNS, says 16 people were killed in a nine-storey building hit by one missile in the village of Serhiyivka.

Another five people, including the child, were killed in a separate strike on a holiday resort in the village.

Russia has fired dozens of missiles on Ukrainian cities in the past few days.

On Friday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied that Russia was hitting civilian targets.

"We heard three explosions and now there is nothing left of the recreation centre," local resident Yulia Bondar, 60, told the BBC.

God I hate those fucking facist scum in Kremlin.
Bolder part, the number of health/hospitals hit 1,5 month ago was up at 200 right?
Scum of the earth.

[Corvus]

No doubt they are trying to hit civilian infrastructure but accuracy isn't a thing Russia does. Their 'precision' missiles regularly miss their targets and hit nearby buildings and their artillery works on the principle that if they level everything in a 5 mile radius they may hit their intended target.

[PhaelixWW]

No doubt they are trying to hit civilian infrastructure but accuracy isn't a thing Russia does. Their 'precision' missiles regularly miss their targets and hit nearby buildings and their artillery works on the principle that if they level everything in a 5 mile radius they may hit their intended target.

"Accuracy through saturation". What a depressing strategy.

[Iphie]

No doubt they are trying to hit civilian infrastructure but accuracy isn't a thing Russia does. Their 'precision' missiles regularly miss their targets and hit nearby buildings and their artillery works on the principle that if they level everything in a 5 mile radius they may hit their intended target.

What was it again? 60% failure rate? And that was with "high-precision" missiles...

[Corvus]

What was it again? 60% failure rate? And that was with "high-precision" missiles...

That was back when they were using their modern missiles. Now they are using Soviet era antiship missiles to strike ground targets, which as the MoD pointed out in one of their updates, is causing a lot of civilian deaths from poor accuracy.

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The governor of Belgorod in Russia says an explosion there has partially destroyed 11 apartments and 39 houses, killing 3.

One Russia lawmaker blamed Ukraine and said they will respond militarily. So random bombing of more Ukrainian cities I guess.

Smells a bit false flag really, coming on the heels of Lukachenko claiming Ukraine fired missiles at Belarus (but they were all shot down. ) Ukraine doesn't really have anything to cause that much damage unless with a really large volley and Putin has form of blowing up Russian apartments to stage false flags.

[Mihalik]

Unfortunately it's starting to look like Ukraine won't be able to hold the Donbass.

It has always been a race between how fast western weapons can make it to the front lines v how fast the Russians can pulverize everything within reach of their artillery.

And the Russians seem to be winning.

It's not a done deal yet, and I wouldn't discount the Ukrainians pulling a fast one here as they have done several times before.

Honestly I kinda blame the NATO foot dragging in the past months.

[Azadina]

Unfortunately it's starting to look like Ukraine won't be able to hold the Donbass.

It has always been a race between how fast western weapons can make it to the front lines v how fast the Russians can pulverize everything within reach of their artillery.

And the Russians seem to be winning.

It's not a done deal yet, and I wouldn't discount the Ukrainians pulling a fast one here as they have done several times before.

Honestly I kinda blame the NATO foot dragging in the past months.

West should have helped with denazifying Ukraine several months back already. Still not too late, as there's plenty of RuZZlamists still terrorizing around. Hasn't it gone on long enough, for the time to end it?

[Iphie]

Unfortunately it's starting to look like Ukraine won't be able to hold the Donbass.

It has always been a race between how fast western weapons can make it to the front lines v how fast the Russians can pulverize everything within reach of their artillery.

And the Russians seem to be winning.

It's not a done deal yet, and I wouldn't discount the Ukrainians pulling a fast one here as they have done several times before.

Honestly I kinda blame the NATO foot dragging in the past months.

Well, Luhansk looks iffy I agree, but there's still Donetsk which is about 50% under control isn't it? Let's not forget that it took Russia nearly 4 months to conquer that.

[Mihalik]

Well, Luhansk looks iffy I agree, but there's still Donetsk which is about 50% under control isn't it? Let's not forget that it took Russia nearly 4 months to conquer that.

Yeah. Question is, will the Ukrainians get enough gear in time to hold on to that. Another question is whether they do or not, how much more of their own shit are the Russians willing to lose to grab the rest.

Right now, the answer seems to be whatever it takes.

[zealo]

Unfortunately it's starting to look like Ukraine won't be able to hold the Donbass.

It has always been a race between how fast western weapons can make it to the front lines v how fast the Russians can pulverize everything within reach of their artillery.

And the Russians seem to be winning.

It's not a done deal yet, and I wouldn't discount the Ukrainians pulling a fast one here as they have done several times before.

Honestly I kinda blame the NATO foot dragging in the past months.

The battle in Donbas is far from over. They're losing control of the last chunk of Luhansk, but Russia still got some sizeable amounts of grounds to cover in the rest of the region

[Corvus]

They are a long, long way from taking the Donbas. They are making some progress there while losing ground elsewhere. And the Ukrainians are falling back towards two much larger cities which you can bet they have spent months fortifying.

Meanwhile, the Russians are nightly losing ammo dumps and barracks to long range and highly accurate HIMARS fire, like this one.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JimmySecU...29586986418176

That's reportedly the 23rd ammo dump taken out in less than 2 weeks.

And that is just with the first 4 HIMARS. More will be coming as more Ukrainians are trained on them.

[Blur4stuff]

So what will Russia do when they run outa ammo and gear...

[Mihalik]

So what will Russia do when they run outa ammo and gear...

Fortify what they took. Declare victory. Sue for peace. Something the Ukrainians will have a very very hard time saying no to.

[Elenos]

So what will Russia do when they run outa ammo and gear...

They won't, not anytime soon.

Russia my run out of high tech missiles and gear if this goes on for a year, and if their losses were as high as during the first month ( they aren't anymore ), but they have enough equipment overall for quite a few years.

Fortify what they took. Declare victory. Sue for peace. Something the Ukrainians will have a very very hard time saying no to.

Ukraine will say no to any peace offer. Their thinking is that if they agree to any peace some if not many of the sanctions on Russia will be removed, allowing Russia to recover all their losses, improve their military forces and come back for round 2 in a few years.

So from Ukraine's perspective it is better to fight now when Western leaders have no choice to support Ukraine, no matter how much they don't want to ( and you can be certain that leaders in European capitals aren't fond of the very high economic cost they are paying at the moment and that many of them do not want to increase defense spending, nor are they fond of spending billions to supply Ukraine ). Because if there's peace the economic and military aid will slow down to a trickle.

The problem is that the cost to Ukraine will astronomical: Almost a quarter of their population has already fled the country ( vast majority of those that have left are women and children ), another quarter internal refugees, if this war drags on for over a year expect the number of Ukrainians who leave to reach almost 50% of their population. Ukraine will have no future as it will take them decades to rebuild from this to the point where they were before the war, and they weren't in a great position to begin with.

[Mihalik]

The problem is that the cost to Ukraine will astronomical: Almost a quarter of their population has already fled the country ( vast majority of those that have left are women and children ), another quarter internal refugees, if this war drags on for over a year expect the number of Ukrainians who leave to reach almost 50% of their population. Ukraine will have no future as it will take them decades to rebuild from this to the point where they were before the war, and they weren't in a great position to begin with.

This is my point exactly.

I read somewhere in a news report that something like 1400 babies have been born in Kyiv since the war started.

That's an insanely low number, especially when one takes into account many of those births were probably by women who fled to the capital from other parts of the country.

These types of population crunches can wipe out the economies of nations for decades.

I honestly just do not see a realistic way for the Ukrainians to fully evict the Russians in any reasonable time frame.

Then there's also the issue that as long as the conflict is ongoing anything such as formally joining the EU or NATO remain on hold, which will delay the economic recovery.

At some point the Kyiv has to ask whether this is worth it or not.

Undoubtedly tho, if they make any territorial concessions to Russia it has to come with condition of Russia accepting Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, with NATO presence on its territory. This would be the guarantee that whatever peace agreement is reached there's no "Round 2" for Russia after a rest and rearmament period. EU membership would also allow Ukraine to shape EU policy towards Russia going forward, guaranteeing that the sanctions regime stays in place.

I truly believe there would be more than enough public support for inviting Ukraine into the EU and NATO in Western countries if this is sold to the public as the way to both end this war and guarantee we aren't coming back to this 4 years down the road.

[Elenos]

@Mihalik A few problems there

- Ukraine will never accept a peace deal that doesn't see a significant return of territory. Russia will never agree to returning Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, let alone Crimea.

- Russia will never agree to a peace deal that sees Ukraine join NATO. Western Nations likewise are not keen to accept Ukraine as part of NATO, I don't believe they are even serious about letting them join the EU regardless of public statements.

- The EU will never allow Ukraine to dictate it's sanctions policy towards Russia if there's a peace deal.

I honestly just do not see a realistic way for the Ukrainians to fully evict the Russians in any reasonable time frame.

There's no realistic way for Ukraine to evict Russia in any time frame, period.

[Ihavewaffles]

This is my point exactly.

I read somewhere in a news report that something like 1400 babies have been born in Kyiv since the war started.

That's an insanely low number, especially when one takes into account many of those births were probably by women who fled to the capital from other parts of the country.

These types of population crunches can wipe out the economies of nations for decades.

I honestly just do not see a realistic way for the Ukrainians to fully evict the Russians in any reasonable time frame.

Then there's also the issue that as long as the conflict is ongoing anything such as formally joining the EU or NATO remain on hold, which will delay the economic recovery.

At some point the Kyiv has to ask whether this is worth it or not.

Undoubtedly tho, if they make any territorial concessions to Russia it has to come with condition of Russia accepting Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, with NATO presence on its territory.

You just lost the Donbass, lost your best troops, and from here its open country to the great river, we are going to get iraq highway of death 2.0

Since when did the looser in a war get to dictate terms

I truly believe there would be more than enough public support for inviting Ukraine into the EU and NATO in Western countries if this is sold to the public as the way to both end this war and guarantee we aren't coming back to this 4 years down the road.

What is sold to the public has been inflation, and winter is coming, but fuck the public's economy, more important to 'stick it to Russia' n put Ukraine's interest before theirs? If they go down that road, won't be a happy time for them n Russia will do what it wants anyways...

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Fortify what they took. Declare victory. Sue for peace. Something the Ukrainians will have a very very hard time saying no to.

I doubt Putin dares, there would prob be a coup in Moscow if he stops before taking at least Odessa.

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They are a long, long way from taking the Donbas.

Lol? Ukraine just lost Lysychansk n Severodonetsk, the last important towns, that were heavily defended, now you have minor towns that are way easier to take, like Kramatorsk. It is over. You lost. Get off the copium (twitter)

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Even if that's the case it's still a HUGE symbolic victory for Ukraine. (Also it seems russians are very susceptible to tit-for-tat, yesterday it was made known that a compromise would be possible on Kaliningrad, so I would not be surprised if that was part of the deal.)

It's useless, it's a tiny little rock sticking out of the sea, not room enough to seat proper defensive installations. Battle of Odessa would never be launched from there lulz, that would take a thousand years. Only reason Russians bothered seems to pester Ukraine's access to the sea, but since ukr economy is imploding anyways...

[Fuiking]

You just lost the Donbass, lost your best troops, and from here its open country to the great river, we are going to get iraq highway of death 2.0

Since when did the looser in a war get to dictate terms



What is sold to the public has been inflation, and winter is coming, but fuck the public's economy, more important to 'stick it to Russia' n put Ukraine's interest before theirs? If they go down that road, won't be a happy time for them n Russia will do what it wants anyways...

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I doubt Putin dares, there would prob be a coup in Moscow if he stops before taking at least Odessa.

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Lol? Ukraine just lost Lysychansk n Severodonetsk, the last important towns, that were heavily defended, now you have minor towns that are way easier to take, like Kramatorsk. It is over. You lost. Get off the copium (twitter)

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It's useless, it's a tiny little rock sticking out of the sea, not room enough to seat proper defensive installations. Battle of Odessa would never be launched from there lulz, that would take a thousand years. Only reason Russians bothered seems to pester Ukraine's access to the sea, but since ukr economy is imploding anyways...

oh look the russian shill appeared. Also hows your economy doing? last time I heard it was shit.

[Zaydin]

[MENTION=587627]
There's no realistic way for Ukraine to evict Russia in any time frame, period.

Everyone expected Russia to steam roll Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. We are about four months and some change into the war.

[Elenos]

Everyone expected Russia to steam roll Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. We are about four months and some change into the war.

That doesn't mean Ukraine will be in a position to retake either the South or East. Ukraine has just lost Luhansk, if they lose Donetsk then you can expect wide swaths of the east of the Dnieper to fall under Russia's control.