TheVulture

yeah, not to make light of what's happening but these UKR farmer memes are going to be floating around for a while I reckon.

Yup. As far as I can see, there's nothing in the list of 'pathogens' to indicate this is anything more sinister than testing disinfectant on common every-day pathogens that you'd find in the average kitchen. 
Suggesting that its a bio-weapons facility is ridiculous with the evidence provided so far.

Attached is an image the the Russians are using of this alleged emergency order to destroy pathogens.  Maybe some of our Ukrainian members can confirm what the text in the order actually says.
Helpfully it lists all the 'pathogens' in latin alphabet (see below)
And to quote from another informed source:
Candida albicans N300 Escherichia coli ATCC N25922 Serratia marcescens N259 Shigella sonnei N151 Shigella flexneri N170 Salmonella rp B Typhimurium N91 Proteus vulgaris N14 Enterobacter aerogenes N190 Staphylococcus aureus ATCC N25923 Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC N27853 Escherichia coli O 55 N43-4 Escherichia coli B N15 Proteus mirabilis N25 Klebsiella pneumonia N38 Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum N17 Corynebacterium xerosis NC 12078 Corynebacterium diphtheriae var gravis tox + Corynebacterium diphtheriae var mitis tox - Bacillus licheniformis BKM 1711 Bacillus stearothermophilus BKM 718

nah I just turn to my new favorite news channel Ukraine Today hosted by Haiduk.

My view is 100% the other way on Xi attacking Taiwan. This has been a brutal demonstration of what can happen to your plan for a "short, victorious war". And Taiwan is ten or a hundred times harder. A ~hundred miles of unfriendly ocean, and infinitely better defensive terrain when you get there. Helicopter born assaults have been demonstrated to just not be a thing anymore. Ponder transports going down with a thousand troops each on them, the bodies washing up on the Chinese coast. If you do win all you get is an expensive, and violently unhappy ruin. Xi is great many very bad things, but stupid isn't one of them. Xi also hasn't been at the center of the self licking ice cream cone of what he wants to hear for long enough to lose his marbles, yet.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

If the Russians want to sit around in defensive positions, then they still need to keep those positions supplied, which means controlling the supply routes securely enough. And in that scenario you have to wonder how long it will be before NATO starts handing significant quantities of artillery over to Ukraine, which they can mass in one place after another.. That gives a defending unit the option to try and attack to disrupt the artillery, which makes them vulnerable again, or sit tight and get shelled for a nice long time.
The information superiority the Ukrainians have plays in to that too. 
I don't see that just turtlng to try and hold the Crimea land bridge and just out-waiting the Ukrainians is going to be a viable plan. Even before you factor in the domestic and economic situation in Russia.

If the Russians want to sit around in defensive positions, then they still need to keep those positions supplied, which means controlling the supply routes securely enough. And in that scenario you have to wonder how long it will be before NATO starts handing significant quantities of artillery over to Ukraine, which they can mass in one place after another.. That gives a defending unit the option to try and attack to disrupt the artillery, which makes them vulnerable again, or sit tight and get shelled for a nice long time.
The information superiority the Ukrainians have plays in to that too. 
I don't see that just turtlng to try and hold the Crimea land bridge and just out-waiting the Ukrainians is going to be a viable plan. Even before you factor in the domestic and economic situation in Russia.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

The sound on backgroud is a Russian commanders talk about this shelled unit  (intercepted by SIGINT):
-  Nitro, I'm Udar (eng. "Strike")
- Allo
- Nitro, I'm Udar, I listen you
- Udar, I'm Nitro. I almost lost 6th regiment
- What?
- 6th regiment! I can't report for now! I'm rallying them. Too much of losses... We awaited... The head of column was ambushed. The commander of regiment get lost. For the rest - I'm still figuring it out...
- Now, when will rally of all, when understand situation, you have to report me. 
- There was artillery hit! Tanks! UAV! As I see Bayraktar is flying! I'm figuring out with a losses
PS. Location is almost the same place that Shiled of Kyiv campaign, but some SW %)

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

HOLY F-K Geoff-L!  you are right!  This totally justifies an unprovoked armed invasion of conquest and the shelling of civilian populations centers!  Thanks for setting us all to rights on this!  Wow, your keen legal eye is just what's needed so folks can see thru to the real culprit here!

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

yeah regardless of what you might have been told, there is a moment where you fire your weapon, drop that bomb, fire that rocket where you KNOW you are hitting a non combatant.  At that moment if you haven't realized you have committed a war crime, someone needs to point it out to you.  Hopefully permanently.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

Air-dropped cluster tractors.

Perhaps I'm being a bit conspiracy theorist here, but I'm inclined to view all of this as a "boiling the frog" secenario - shifting the Overton window of what they can do without escalating too fast for Russia to accept (if you'll forgive the Overton window analogy).
e.g. NATO will keep saying no to the concept of a no-fly zone, but they will keep doing so if only to keep the phrase "no-fly zone" in continual use. Russia keeps hearing the words and is focused on making sure it isn't going to happen.
Maybe at some point, they start discussing conditions under which a no-fly zone might work, while insisting that they don't think it is viable. And mentioning that there is no scenario where they'd put ground troops in to protect humanitarian corridors between Kiev and the Polish border.
Slowly the limits of what they say they are not doing move further along. And at the other end of the window, the scale of what they can actually supply to Ukraine without Russia viewing it as a sudden escalation will slowly move along. Maybe some better air defence systems that can be deployed in western Ukraine to protect humanitarian aid from accidents in the near-ish future.
The aim is to keep increasing what can be sent to Ukraine, but to do so in a way that Russia will view each new step as a problem, but not an existential threat. So psychologically you need to keep having people calling for more drastic steps that Russia would react very strongly against (e.g. a no fly zone currently), and have the official position being "no way" whilst slowly trying to create the conditions where it becomes conceivable but remote, and eventually just a minor step above what is already being done.

Already rehearsing it mate - sneak preview image ...

 

Perhaps I'm being a bit conspiracy theorist here, but I'm inclined to view all of this as a "boiling the frog" secenario - shifting the Overton window of what they can do without escalating too fast for Russia to accept (if you'll forgive the Overton window analogy).
e.g. NATO will keep saying no to the concept of a no-fly zone, but they will keep doing so if only to keep the phrase "no-fly zone" in continual use. Russia keeps hearing the words and is focused on making sure it isn't going to happen.
Maybe at some point, they start discussing conditions under which a no-fly zone might work, while insisting that they don't think it is viable. And mentioning that there is no scenario where they'd put ground troops in to protect humanitarian corridors between Kiev and the Polish border.
Slowly the limits of what they say they are not doing move further along. And at the other end of the window, the scale of what they can actually supply to Ukraine without Russia viewing it as a sudden escalation will slowly move along. Maybe some better air defence systems that can be deployed in western Ukraine to protect humanitarian aid from accidents in the near-ish future.
The aim is to keep increasing what can be sent to Ukraine, but to do so in a way that Russia will view each new step as a problem, but not an existential threat. So psychologically you need to keep having people calling for more drastic steps that Russia would react very strongly against (e.g. a no fly zone currently), and have the official position being "no way" whilst slowly trying to create the conditions where it becomes conceivable but remote, and eventually just a minor step above what is already being done.

I think that's meant to be a roof rack to carry extra luggage due to the truck shortage, rather than any kind of defensive measure.

Nothing wrong with Ukrainian morale though
 

Well EU had to make itself dependent on someone, at least until we could get enough renewable energy up and running and gas was supposed to be at least not as bad as oil or coal. So, Russia and the US were candidates.
Now, you really have to understand just how much trust both George W. Bush and Donald Trump shattered over here. During G.W. Bush's presidency German chancellor Schröder laid the foundations for our even further commitment to Russian gas. And Mr. Trump openly tried to blackmail the EU. Several times. Up until now, while everyone knew that Putin is far from being the "Flawless Democrat" former Chancellor Schröder once called him, he never tried that (with the EU). Also worth mentioning (something that came up over here quite often), the Soviet Union and later Russia was always a reliable supplier. Did we trust Putin? Not really. Trump & Co showed us, however, that the USA also were far from being the reliable partner they supposedly used to be.
Personally, I still have trouble believing that the USA support Ukraine because they are a democracy defending western values and not because Ukraine is of geostrategic interest against one the (at least nuclear) superpowers undermining US dominance.
Last but not least. At least German foreign policies was based on Change through Trade. It worked rather well back in the 70s and 80s and so somehow we tricked ourselves into thinking that through trade we could slowly kind of change the autocratic countries around the world towards our values. And also make money while we are at it...