Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Eddie Teach]

What do they mean by science sources? What do those sources report on?

[Syt]

What do they mean by science sources? What do those sources report on?

I think they mean academics on Ukraine.

[Threviel]

Told you, the krauts are too exposed and weak and will make sure that no serious sanctions will come. It's all good and fun to threaten, but the politicians might lose votes if frau Müller freezes... Fucking Merkel to put Germany in this position, Schröder at least got paid for his treason, she was just plain incompetent.

The Ukrainians are fighting back far more effective than I would have thought, or the Russians are far worse that I thought. Too bad that only Lithuania, Latvia and Poland sent them some Stingers, would have been nice if they would have been sent thousands.

[Admiral Yi]

Too bad that only Lithuania, Latvia and Poland sent them some Stingers, would have been nice if they would have been sent thousands.

Can you tell me your source for this?

[Jacob]

Too bad that only Lithuania, Latvia and Poland sent them some Stingers, would have been nice if they would have been sent thousands.

Can you tell me your source for this?

I know that Latvia sent stingers, because it was reported in Danish news... because Latvia had bought them from Denmark when Denmark phased them out, and because Denmark has another 400 stored somewhere but didn't want to sell or give them to Ukraine because it was determined they were too old and may not work. Which kind of sucks, but is possibly defensible if they were stored and maintained differently than they were in Latvia (because they're the same batch).

Kind of disappointing, TBH.

[Threviel]

Too bad that only Lithuania, Latvia and Poland sent them some Stingers, would have been nice if they would have been sent thousands.

Can you tell me your source for this?

I went through Ukraine's army equipment Wikipedia yesterday, seemed to be very current and had a lot of info on what different countries sent, only those countries seemed to have sent Manpads.

Now that's a weak source, but probably as good as any other right now. Hopefully it's wrong and lots of light AA have been sent in the same numbers as AT.

[Threviel]

Apparently the Russians used captured Ukrainian vehicles and uniforms to spearhead a column into Kiev. Seeing comments on twitter about how this is underhanded and dirty. Well. Doh! It's war, all bets are off and it amazes me that serious commenters seem surprised that there are shenanigans afoot.

[Threviel]

Lots of commenters are talking about the Z on the Russian vehicles as if it's important. Anyone know what the Z stands for?

[The Larch]

Apparently Russia recently passed a law against sharing news of the invasion "not based on official accounts" with some pretty major fines for convicted offenders.

Going against Ukraine seems fairly unpopular with regular Russians as far as can be discerned in the situations. There's some reports of captured Russians saying they're very unenthused about fighting outside the Luhansk/Donezk separatist areas, but of course the veracity is unclear, or if it's a widespread sentiment among forces - or just wishful thinking.

I read yesterday about the protests taking place in Russia against the war that for the average Russian it's not the same bombing Grozny or some place in Syria to rubble than Ukraine, because the latter feels "like home", and is a place where many Russians will have family, friends or some kind of personal ties one way or the other, which is not the case for Checnya. That might also explain the somehow low morale in the average conscript soldier participating in the invasion.

[The Larch]

From "The Kyiv Independant":

Russia's plan to seize Kyiv, according to Ukrainska Pravda intelligence sources:

1) intensify attacks along the border, so troops leave Kyiv;
2) seize one of Kyiv's airports, as sabotage groups disconnect the city from electricity and communications to cause panic;
3) organize arson and looting to create more panic;
4) launch a cyber attack on government websites;
5) induce more panic to create "uncontrolled columns of refugees' from Kyiv to block highways and hinder movement of Ukrainian troops;
6) capture and hold government buildings.

Desired goal: Seize the leadership of the state (not specified who) and force them to sign a peace agreement on Russian terms, threatening large civilian deaths.

Result – Ukraine can be divided into two parts, like East and West Germany.

[The Larch]

Fighting being reported in the outskirts of Kiev, 10 km. away from the city center.

There are also reports about Russian units employing captured Ukranian army vehicles and soldiers dressed in Ukranian uniform to infiltrate Kiev

[Syt]

Der Standard had a bit of a breakdown of how Austrian businesses are affected by the war. Austrian companies have 200 branches in Ukraine, 650 in Russia. Some are involved in agricultural production in Ukraine and/or source materials for Austrian production from there. Kotányi, market leader for spices in Russia, said it was getting harder and harder to send his products to Russia (too bad, so sad). Metal products exporters are especially hard hit, with 800 million EUR worth of products going to Russia, 200+ million to Ukraine. But sanctions weren't their main concern so far; Russian clients were even before the crisis struggling to secure funding for their products.

Quasi-state oil corporation OMV is entangled in Russian oil and gas assets, and the Russians in exchange got storage capacity in Austria. And there's Raiffeisen Bank, whose subsidiary, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is one of the 13 "system relevant banks" in Russia, with over 130 branches and over 9000 employees. Half their revenue comes from Russia/Ukraine. And - OH NO! - Porsche Holding in Salzburg with subsidiaries in Ukraine had to go into emergency mode.

Austrian businesses have profited like few others from the EU Eastern expansions, but their lucrative business in Russia is now coming to bite them in the ass (not that they couldn't have expected something like this to happen at some point with Putin at the helm). A lot of it was probably also them thinking, "If we don't do it, someone else will!" (Probably rightfully so.) Goes to show the strong mentality of hoping a good thing will last and being unprepared when running into trouble. Really goes for many areas of humans activity. But ... yeah.

EDIT: Trade with Russia is only 2.8% of Austrian exports, but the entanglements above will hit those companies harder than that. Still, my compassion is quite limited.

[Threviel]

Apparently Ukraine asked the UK for AA missiles (not specified what kind) and the UK couldn't deliver due to not having any.

https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1497126095778373642

Seems credible, a large and powerful military like the British Army don't need many Manpads or AA missiles for their normal daily business, they are always fighting under air supremacy.

The UK (and the US) did deliver lots of man portable AT weapons, in the thousands. Presumably they would have delivered stingers if they had any.

[The Brain]

I looked it up, according to wiki the NLAWS is a more sophisicated fire and forget guided light AT missile, so a definite improvement on LAWS.

Groovy

The NLAWS is the one thing a Russian man fears.

[The Brain]

I've always been at least partially skeptical Ukrainians, in broad number, will really keep fighting once the government is beaten. I suspect their trouble making will be more akin to Maidan stuff, when the Russian puppet is installed they'll do big demonstrations etc, which will be put down harshly, and then repeated periodically in some sort of effort to undermine the regime. Maybe I am wrong, but it's not that common that I've seen for conquered Europeans to put up a big fight, look at Poland, Hungary, the Baltics, Germany after WWII etc etc. Europeans being ruled by other white Europeans I think you get a lot of tacit passivity. It's just a different formula from Muslims who live in mud huts being conquered by infidels, those people don't value their lives or the lives of their family--Afghans for example barely care about their families at all (they regularly sell their children.) There's a level of barbarism you need to engage in Muslim / tribal people style insurgent violence that even the Eastern Europeans are simply too civilized to do on a wide scale I think.

The Chechens did it for the obvious reason.

Western Ukrainians resisted the Soviets for a decade after the end of WWII, despite the obvious consequences for them.

Exactly. And partisan warfare in the Baltics continued into the 50s.