This is a stunning piece of journalism, an essential read about the period before Russian war of aggression, expansionism and irredentism. It details many things, such as the reluctance of Western European diplomats to engage with US intel and Russians flipping a bird to all attempts of preventing this war in the first place.
Here is an archived version: https://archive.ph/aau5d
Some relevant bits.
US intel did a stunning job on Russia and Ukraine. Anyone who stills bleats about the failures of 20 years past can go and fuck themselves.
They don't, that is the job of their respective government, in that regard outside sources have usually their own interest in mind. The US was right this time nice for them, doesn't make them immediately trustworthy.
This situation just embarrassed the intelligence agencies of most of europe.
Ukraine should be supplied with ATACMS. They will be phased out and replaced by PSM. Since we know US to some degree yays or nays certain strikes, with the promise that they will be used only against critical infrastructure such as bridges, oil refineries, railways and depots, I see no reason for the delay.
Last edited by Voidwielder; 2022-08-16 at 05:07 PM.
The flight from Crimea continues, with a record almost 39000 cars crossing the bridge in just 1 day.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Gerashche...viP5LcA-XJrMow
I don't recall exact specifics, but there has been strikes to Crimea, out of range for what weaponry Ukraine has, to our knowledge. So Ukraine might possess weaponry capable of making strikes all the way to Crimea's military targets and that causing a shock effect against the occupiers...
Which is probably enough for the invaders to think that Ukraine is getting even more effective weaponry and given the already overwhelming power via HIMARS, anything that can outrange those and still cause massive damage is the breaking point for the enemy.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08...ussia-news-war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a-beach-blast/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62560041
Looking at those, it seems to be implied that elite forces operating in Crimea are responsible. Which means even a better thing - boogiemen operating behind enemy lines to cause terror in occupying forces, capable of doing meaningful attacks to expel the russians. Wouldn't sleep nicely myself either if a special unit is after me and everyone else in the military forces in occupied land...
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To add further, this quote from one of the links...
Sounds like a good reason to set the bloodhounds on Crimean occupiers.Pavel Luzin, an independent Russian military analyst, said that Ukraine’s attacks were limiting Russia’s ability to “seize the initiative.”
“Crimea is the only way to support the grouping of troops in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions,” he said. “Otherwise, this grouping of troops does not exist.”
Last edited by Saradain; 2022-08-17 at 12:30 AM.
Its a mix of tourists and colonists, but there is definitely panic going on. It started after the spectacular airport explosion last week and has continued as more and more stuff keeps blowing up in Crimea.
Ukraine says they aim to take Crimea back - we'll have to see if it is possible.
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Looks like its been a bad day for Russian propagandists. First one who ran the Wagner telegram channel gets taken out in the HQ strike the other day, then another one working for RT steps on a Russian butterfly mine and dies of wounds. And in classic Trumpian fashion, RT denies she was working for them and was merely a 'volunteer'. ie, its a bad look if they loose one of their own so they disavow knowledge of her.
Jesus christ...I would not want to be an employee for Russian state-sponsored media. I mean there are a lot of other reasons why, but this in particular is a pretty good one. As I'm much more inclined to believe the opposite of whatever the Kremlin is saying, meaning she was likely an actual employee. Because we all know this 3-day special operation to denazify eastern Ukraine has been just that, a short operation to get rid of some Nazi's and nothing else.
A lot of the sentiment there is likely something along the lines of ”imagine what the Ukrainians will do to us, after what we’ve done to them”, and so russian civilian colonisers flee prematurely.
Ukraine actually taking the peninsula back is quite aways off still from the current military situation, but that it’s an actual war got real recently for them with explosions on military bases there.
Isn’t Ukraine reclaiming Crimea one of the worst things that can happen from a provocative standpoint? It’s invasion and annexation is one of Putin’s most bragged about feats. If he loses it, he might panic.
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.