Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Mihalik]

Russian deputies have been called back from holidays for a special session of the Duma on Friday - and you know how politicians hate their numerous holidays interrupted.

Lot of speculation as to what for. The gherkin is hoping it means a formally declaration of war and mass mobilisation though most don't think putler will go that far yet.

https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status...IDSyD6j2pAacnw

Other options are to do with the economic woes, a formal annexation of occupied lands or issuing Ukraine an ultimatum to surrender 'or else.'

Why won't they just fucking stop? What's the fucking point of this shit show?

[Santti]

Why won't they just fucking stop? What's the fucking point of this shit show?

I'm guessing Russia feels pressured to keep up, for domestic policy reasons. They expected a quick and dirty win, and got fucked for it. Russia absolutely couldn't handle a humiliating defeat, is what I think is the thought process.

Something something sunk cost fallacy, losing face...

[zealo]

Russian deputies have been called back from holidays for a special session of the Duma on Friday - and you know how politicians hate their numerous holidays interrupted.

Lot of speculation as to what for. The gherkin is hoping it means a formally declaration of war and mass mobilisation though most don't think putler will go that far yet.

https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status...IDSyD6j2pAacnw

Other options are to do with the economic woes, a formal annexation of occupied lands or issuing Ukraine an ultimatum to surrender 'or else.'

Would be odd to recall the Duma into session if all it's for is issuing yet another pointless ultimatum to Ukraine.

Russia threatens Ukraine with that it will consider it's continued resistance a "declaration of war" on a regular basis already, they don't need to recall the paper stamping institution that is the Russian Duma for that.

[Corvus]

They think they can still win by throwing enough bodies at the problem and by outlasting the west. After all they are convinced the west is soft and will come crawling to them in time seeking a compromise that sells Ukraine out.

[Nymrohd]

They think they can still win by throwing enough bodies at the problem and by outlasting the west. After all they are convinced the west is soft and will come crawling to them in time seeking a compromise that sells Ukraine out.

I mean the West IS soft. We have a high standard of living and we aren't really looking forward to sacrificing it while Russians are apparently OK with living without running water. We are just not THAT soft. I am more concerned about how this is affecting climate change policy and how the .01% will manage to get even richer by not just throwing all the cost on our side but also making windfall gains that don't get taxed properly.

[jonnysensible]

Would be odd to recall the Duma into session if all it's for is issuing yet another pointless ultimatum to Ukraine.

Russia threatens Ukraine with that it will consider it's continued resistance a "declaration of war" on a regular basis already, they don't need to recall the paper stamping institution that is the Russian Duma for that.

thought the duma was just coming back to change putins title from president to ruler or declare they want alaska back or something. Silly cunts

[Dontrike]

Why won't they just fucking stop? What's the fucking point of this shit show?

I wouldn't be surprised that Putin keeps this going as if it stops there might be a better chance he ends up dead. All of those soldiers would come back and talk about the "military operation" that they had no idea what to do and what they did to fellow officers to survive.

[Iphie]

russia, Turkey and Iran will meet to "discus" Syria.

Turkey is an enemy of Syria, russia and Iran are allies or at least friendly. Now why is my Spidey sense tingling...

[Cynep]

That would explain why our resident Donetskian has not posted in over a month.

Being conscripted became a realistic concern for me, yeah. I won't doxx myself explaining how I'm dodging it so far.

I wanted to rant about Russian propaganda for a while now. As a background, Donetsk "Republic" was, from the start until this May, a real pirate haven - any web sites reported as blocked in the West, Ukraine or Russia, all were accessible from here. But this May they enforced Russian rules, and all sites forbidden in Russia are inaccessible without a proxy or a VPN. So people who are not very tech-savvy can only see what Kremlin lets them. And in Russia it was like that for a while, we can only imagine level of brainwashing there. And they are experimenting with blocking VPN services too, so yeah, good news everyone.

A little personal anecdote, couple weeks ago I overheard a few seconds of women chatting; one of them just visited Mariupol and was saying to her friends "...you know, it's completely not like they show it on TV...". Make of it what you will.

In recent news, Ukrainians have destroyed, among others, an ammunition cache in Nova Kahovka. Russian media report it as "terrible explosion" and claim it was a depot of saltpeter or fertilizer, depending on the outlet. One of these "fertilizer" articles shows a short Telegram video where a distressed woman is saying "look what happened to our apartment, everything is broken, shells are exploding around". But it's still fertilizer. :|

[Belize]

I mean the West IS soft. We have a high standard of living and we aren't really looking forward to sacrificing it while Russians are apparently OK with living without running water. We are just not THAT soft. I am more concerned about how this is affecting climate change policy and how the .01% will manage to get even richer by not just throwing all the cost on our side but also making windfall gains that don't get taxed properly.

Excuse me, at least 70% of houses in Russia have working toilets.

[Iphie]

Being conscripted became a realistic concern for me, yeah. I won't doxx myself explaining how I'm dodging it so far.

I wanted to rant about Russian propaganda for a while now. As a background, Donetsk "Republic" was, from the start until this May, a real pirate haven - any web sites reported as blocked in the West, Ukraine or Russia, all were accessible from here. But this May they enforced Russian rules, and all sites forbidden in Russia are inaccessible without a proxy or a VPN. So people who are not very tech-savvy can only see what Kremlin lets them. And in Russia it was like that for a while, we can only imagine level of brainwashing there. And they are experimenting with blocking VPN services too, so yeah, good news everyone.

A little personal anecdote, couple weeks ago I overheard a few seconds of women chatting; one of them just visited Mariupol and was saying to her friends "...you know, it's completely not like they show it on TV...". Make of it what you will.

In recent news, Ukrainians have destroyed, among others, an ammunition cache in Nova Kahovka. Russian media report it as "terrible explosion" and claim it was a depot of saltpeter or fertilizer, depending on the outlet. One of these "fertilizer" articles shows a short Telegram video where a distressed woman is saying "look what happened to our apartment, everything is broken, shells are exploding around". But it's still fertilizer. :|

Stay safe mate. On another note, I sometimes feel like russia is much more interested in Luhansk than in Donetsk. Mind you, I'm sure putin wants everything just that if he had to stop somewhere it would be in Donetsk. Does that sound strange to you?

[Logwyn]

russia, Turkey and Iran will meet to "discus" Syria.

Turkey is an enemy of Syria, russia and Iran are allies or at least friendly. Now why is my Spidey sense tingling...

Basically
Turkey wants the cease-fire with the Kurds to stay and in reality the Kurds to be nice and stop messing around.
China wants Syria as part of the "Belt and Road Initiative"
Russia wants a railway to link Syria to the Persian Gulf and to be able to capitalize on its oil exploration agreements.
Iran more thank like something to do with the railway link and something involving Israel.

[Corvus]

HIMARS o'clock may actually be having an effect. Data from FIRMS (NASA's fir detection system) has noticed a massive drop in Russian artillery fire in the last 3 days. And what fire there is seems to largely now behind Russian lines.

[Iphie]

Basically
Turkey wants the cease-fire with the Kurds to stay and in reality the Kurds to be nice and stop messing around.
China wants Syria as part of the "Belt and Road Initiative"
Russia wants a railway to link Syria to the Persian Gulf and to be able to capitalize on its oil exploration agreements.
Iran more thank like something to do with the railway link and something involving Israel.

China isn't in the talks though, nor is Syria, always fun when others decide your fate, no? China also wants Ukraine as part of that same plan so I can imagine them being a bit unamused by the length of the war. We'll see, won't we?

[zealo]

China isn't in the talks though, nor is Syria, always fun when others decide your fate, no? China also wants Ukraine as part of that same plan so I can imagine them being a bit unamused by the length of the war. We'll see, won't we?

Assad still holding onto power owes much to Russian military support against rebel factions, that's not exactly an arrangement where his regime is in a position to act independently from what the bigger boys in the rooms decide on.

[Iphie]

Assad still holding onto power owes much to Russian military support against rebel factions, that's not exactly an arrangement where his regime is in a position to act independently from what the bigger boys in the rooms decide on.

True, my statement was meant more to reflect that situation. Still, I'm not entirely sure if I would be sitting comfortably as Assad. I mean if russia withdraws support due to a deal with Turkey, or because they're having to deal with that shitshow in Ukraine then that could have not so fun consequences for him.

[Gorsameth]

Assad still holding onto power owes much to Russian military support against rebel factions, that's not exactly an arrangement where his regime is in a position to act independently from what the bigger boys in the rooms decide on.

And I imagine that Russian support is getting less and less reliable with all of their resources being tied up in Ukraine.

I'm going to make a bold prediction and say its about Russia asking Iran and Turkey to fill in for them and play nice.

[CostinR]

HIMARS o'clock may actually be having an effect. Data from FIRMS (NASA's fir detection system) has noticed a massive drop in Russian artillery fire in the last 3 days. And what fire there is seems to largely now behind Russian lines.

They are having to hide/reposition munition locations, so yeah it is having an impact as a brand new weapon with a lot of power behind it.

I don't believe the success can last, ammunition for Ukraine is a major concern.

Some years ago when he was still around @Skroe wrote a fairly lengthy post about the fact a lot countries, even the US, are severely lacking in ammunition. Mattis and successors worked to change that...but well there's not that many stories of Javelins being used as they were at the start...because Ukraine and the West have run out of them.

[Corvus]

Russia's problem is they can't hide or reposition these dumps. They are entirely dependent on railways to transport them and so the main dumps are always at railhead due to alack of trucks. What is more they don't use pallets and forklifts to load and unload - everything is done by hand, which really slows it down.

And you can't hide the flow of vehicles to and from the dump, especially not from satellites and an unfriendly population.

Even if they could solve that problem, they don't have the logistics to disperse it away from the railways and it goes against the doctrines of authoritarian states that are highly centralised.

[Pann]

Being conscripted became a realistic concern for me, yeah. I won't doxx myself explaining how I'm dodging it so far.

I wanted to rant about Russian propaganda for a while now. As a background, Donetsk "Republic" was, from the start until this May, a real pirate haven - any web sites reported as blocked in the West, Ukraine or Russia, all were accessible from here. But this May they enforced Russian rules, and all sites forbidden in Russia are inaccessible without a proxy or a VPN. So people who are not very tech-savvy can only see what Kremlin lets them. And in Russia it was like that for a while, we can only imagine level of brainwashing there. And they are experimenting with blocking VPN services too, so yeah, good news everyone.

A little personal anecdote, couple weeks ago I overheard a few seconds of women chatting; one of them just visited Mariupol and was saying to her friends "...you know, it's completely not like they show it on TV...". Make of it what you will.

In recent news, Ukrainians have destroyed, among others, an ammunition cache in Nova Kahovka. Russian media report it as "terrible explosion" and claim it was a depot of saltpeter or fertilizer, depending on the outlet. One of these "fertilizer" articles shows a short Telegram video where a distressed woman is saying "look what happened to our apartment, everything is broken, shells are exploding around". But it's still fertilizer. :|

I don't have much to add other than take care.