Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Tamas]

So the opposition has no chance? Sad.

Hard to tell.

[OttoVonBismarck]

They have elections in Hungary in ~ a week.

And there are a farly large number of Hungarians in Ukraine who Orban gave the right to vote. Basically, from what I understand - and Tamas will correct this hopefully - he gave the right to vote to Hungarians overseas who live in formerly Hungarian territory and made it very easy while making it far more difficult for diaspora Hungarians (like the young and liberal working in the rest of Europe) to vote.

I think in past elections that near Hungarian diaspora vote has gone about 95% to Orban. It'd be interesting to see if there's a shift this time.

Yeah, across-the-border voters are important for Orban, both as legit supporters and easy way to cheat votes, I suspect.

But, the election next Sunday is I think more important in this because of the awkward situation Putin left him in. He cannot adopt the pro-Ukrainian rhetoric without exposing his foreign policy of the last decade as failed. And he can't take a more openly pro-Russian stance without causing himself a lot of trouble not just with Europe but internally as well.

Once Orban has his election victory, he can feel much freer to act on this war. Whether that means aligning more fully with EU and NATO or taking a more open pro-Russian stance, we will see.

So the opposition has no chance? Sad.

Not an expert in 3rd world politics, but I saw an article that basically said Orban had started shifting around to make it look like he's not in favor of Russia's invasion, and that polling suggested that would be more than enough to keep the votes with him. The Hungarians who support Orban are of the same mold as those who support Putin/Trump, they are mostly stupid and mostly care about bad things so they will easily believe the lies they want to hear.

[Admiral Yi]

Hungary has 70% Trump voters and the US only has 45%.

USA USA USA

[Zoupa]

Reports of heavy fighting in Kherson. The Russian military really is shit. Don't they have any intelligence assets?

[DGuller]

It sounds like the latest general was killed in the same place the previous general was killed in, and that's also the place where Ukrainians keep bombing shipments of Russian equipment.  I think Ukrainians found a spawn point to camp.

Heh.

Do you have a source on the freshly killed general?

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1507362085860261892

It turns out that this general was given less than rave reviews in the intercepted call of Russian soldiers a couple of days ago. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10644471/Its-s-tshow-Russian-soldier-describes-unit-torn-apart-Ukraines-forces.html#v-3138722163030704148

He said that General Lietenant Yakov Rezantsev, who was commanding his unit, told them that their invasion of Ukraine would be over quickly.     

'Do you know what he told us? "It's no secret to anyone that there are only a few hours until this special operation is over." And now those hours are still going,' the soldier said.

The unnamed soldier added that Russian troops have complained that their military armour are not fit for purpose, and their concerns have been ignored.   

'Comrade General, damn it, I have this situation,' the soldier claimed troops had told their leader. 'And he just says, "Son, be strong," and then he fucks off. It's such trash here... our own plane dropped a bomb on us,' he said.

Maybe they could've left that one alive? 

[The Larch]

Bit of a dubious story being circulated, but even if only partially true it'd be indicative of the shit morale and discipline of Russian units.

Mutinous Russian troops ran over their own commander, say western officials
Officials describe reported incident during fighting in Ukraine as sign of 'morale challenges' faced by invading forces

Western officials have said they believe a Russian commander was run over by mutinous forces during the fighting in Ukraine, in a sign of what they described as the "morale challenges" faced by the invading forces.

They highlighted – and repeated – reports from earlier this week from a Ukrainian journalist that a colonel of the 37th separate guards motor rifle brigade was run over by a tank. Some reports said he had died of his injuries.

One official said they believed that the brigade commander was "killed by his own troops" as "a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade" in the bitter fighting.

However, while there was some evidence to corroborate the claim that the commander had been run over, it was less clear whether, as the western officials claimed, the colonel had died. On Friday night, they partially retracted the claim in the light of conflicting evidence on social media. They said they were seeking to clarify whether he was alive or dead – and said that the key point was that he was a victim of a mutiny, not whether he had been killed or not.

The original report of the mutiny was made on Wednesday on Facebook by a Ukrainian journalist, Roman Tsymbaliuk, who said that it occurred after the unit, which had been fighting in Makariv, west of Kyiv, had lost "about 50% of their personnel".

"After choosing a convenient moment, during the fight, he ran over the commander standing next to him, injuring both his legs," the journalist wrote. The colonel was then moved to a hospital in Belarus.

A separate film released by the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, showed the commander, Yuri Medvedev, being transported by medical troops, in which he is clearly alive.

In it, a Chechen fighter speaks to a soldier on a stretcher who clearly has leg injuries, saying: "Hold on ... How are you? OK? Talk to us ..." The stricken soldier replies: "I'm OK. Where are you from?"

Corroborating evidence for the claim made by western officials that the colonel had died was limited to the headline of a report on the MailOnline website, which said: "Russian commander who was deliberately run over with a tank driven by his own disgruntled soldiers in protest at the huge death toll in his unit has DIED."

Britain and other western countries believe that Russian forces are suffering from increasingly poor morale as they incur heavy losses in the fighting. The US has estimated that 7,000 Russians have been killed, out of an invasion force of about 150,000.

Western officials believe that about one-sixth or maybe one-fifth of Russia's original invasion force, which comprised an estimated 20 battalion tactical groups, is "no longer combat-effective" – a high degree of losses, reflecting the botched invasion and fierce Ukrainian fightback.

Seven Russian generals have been killed in the fighting, which has also led to several thousand Ukrainian military fatalities and civilian casualties. The latest official UN figure for civilian deaths is 1,081 but that is almost certainly an underestimate.

[Razgovory]

Reports of heavy fighting in Kherson. The Russian military really is shit. Don't they have any intelligence assets?

Reports of heavy fighting in Kherson. The Russian military really is shit. Don't they have any intelligence assets?

They lost most of their intelligence assets when Putin closed down Twitter.

[DGuller]

Russians have plenty of assets, it's just that those assets lack intelligence.

[PDH]

Russian assets are just small donkeys.

[Sheilbh]

Here's what I think Putin got from propping up Assad:

I agree with those - the other point was it was pretty low-cost. Russian forces were largely mercenaries I think (which he was also using to expand influence at limited cost in Africa at the expense of the French) and pilots. Plus it's a long-standing ally with very close economic relations and some military bases going back to the 70s

I also think there's a trolling the West angle: Russia undertaking strikes in the Middle East against "terrorists" etc. Another way of mirroring the discourse of Western foreign policy.

They should sing Bayraktar at Eurovision. They're going to win anyway 

Yes.

Not an expert in 3rd world politics, but I saw an article that basically said Orban had started shifting around to make it look like he's not in favor of Russia's invasion, and that polling suggested that would be more than enough to keep the votes with him. The Hungarians who support Orban are of the same mold as those who support Putin/Trump, they are mostly stupid and mostly care about bad things so they will easily believe the lies they want to hear.

I think Orban's line is "peace and neutrality", the opposition's is "Orban or Europe".

Reports of heavy fighting in Kherson. The Russian military really is shit. Don't they have any intelligence assets?

I believe that US intelligence has said that they assess Kherson is not under total Russian control - for the first time in a couple of weeks.

[The Minsky Moment]

Reports of heavy fighting in Kherson. The Russian military really is shit. Don't they have any intelligence assets?

Yes but they couldn't get Tucker Carlson to Kherson in time.

[Sheilbh]

Excellent report by a Sky News team on the last route in and out of Chernihiv:
https://twitter.com/k_loukerenko/status/1507476438504587270?s=21

[Legbiter]

I pray the Ukrainians can hold the Russians in place for a week. After that they'll be mostly combat ineffective. Too many beat-up BTGs, too little ammo, supplies and rock-bottom morale.

Is there any particular thing you expect to see after a week, or is it purely looking at the rates of loss and projecting forward?

This is what I was praying to see. Massively downward-revised war goal left to troops with shit morale, shit logistics and tactics.

Wasn't particularly optimistic but this is a good sign. At this point Ukraine will exist on a map, any concessions Ukraine signs about non-Western affiliations, demilitarization, etc can be subverted to the point of irrelevance. What are the Russians gonna do about it? Putin is searching for a territorial win at this point, whether anyone has told him or not. 

[viper37]

- Internet, water are working.

Grim.

I find that hard to believe. Over here, a nasty thunderstorm is all it takes to take down my Internet 

They have a satellite link provided by one of Elon Musk's company.

[Razgovory]

Excellent report by a Sky News team on the last route in and out of Chernihiv:
https://twitter.com/k_loukerenko/status/1507476438504587270?s=21

Damn.