Machor

Here's the video of the surrender - said to be Ukrainian marines. Everyone's understandably concerned about the treatment of Ukrainian civilians, but we should be keeping a very close watch on the fate of these soldiers as well:

Steve, time to get off the screen! Gevorg Mirzayan:

Remains of an unidentified Russian aircraft in the forests of the Kyiv region - the account is claiming this is a hitherto unknown Russian system:

The ones Oryx didn't get: Destroyed and damaged BMDs getting sent back to Russia through Belarus:

The Russian Liberation Army returns. This Russian captain volunteered to serve with the Legion "Liberty to Russia":

These soldiers serving in the unit from Khabarovsk that was occupying Bucha are (some were) from the Republic of Sakha, which has a 10-20K GDP as per the map. Note that most Far Eastern regions are higher GDP:

@LongLeftFlank "Russia will become much poorer but its rulers might even like that. Consider this paper by now Deputy PM Belousov. The growth of middle class is problematic: - they buy expensive imported goods - they increase cost of labor, demand more labor rights - they try to emigrate" This was quite literally what Erdoğan's pundits and lackeys were saying after the latest Turkish Lira crash. There's a Marxian analysis waiting here (and yes, there's tons of stupid Marx, but you can also have smart Marx, e.g. Moishe Postone) about the 'enemies of the middle class.' ... More footage from the Beeb. I was amused by the BTR that tried to drive over a BMD, but I have to remind myself that young people died here ... a lot of young people died here, and ultimately one person gave the order for this, even though I wish to avoid a 'reverse-personality cult' of Putin. Just from the wrecks, one can imagine how desperate those last moments were: "War in Ukraine: Evidence grows of civilian killings in Bucha" https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60968546

RE: Russian public support for the war RE: The Russian troops evacuated from Chernobyl

Adding to @Kraft's insight, some victims' hands were tied with white cloth. The Russians tie white cloth on their arms for identification. Remember the Russian prisoners Ukrainians took early in the war, and how they had their hands tied with yellow tape?

Since this was widely circulated online, here's the explanation:

The Beeb is on this: "Sixteen of the 20 bodies seen by AFP lay either on the pavement or by the verge. Three were sprawled in the middle of the road, and another lay on his side in the courtyard of a destroyed house. An open Ukrainian passport lay on the ground next to the person who had his hands tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Two other people had white cloth tied around their upper arms." "the town's mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told AFP by phone that all of the 20 dead had been shot in the back of the head." War in Ukraine: Street in Bucha found strewn with dead bodies https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60967463

War crimes & rock bottom discipline: "empty bottles of alcohol" 'nuff said. "Ukraine war: Gruesome evidence points to war crimes on road outside Kyiv" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60949791

"The poor dogs they all ran away (I'm pretty sure she's referring to the dogs running in the video). The first one fired away, then the second. There are many of them there. Here, the second one flies."

Julian Röpcke is reporting this was one of four helicopters in the evacuation and that it was carrying Azov leaders (though he later tweeted he believes Kalina's death is faked):

"Uganda Finds China’s Leverage Is in the Fine Print of Its Lending" "A clause in an agreement with the African nation has stirred a flap over whether the country signed away financial control of Entebbe International Airport" https://www.wsj.com/articles/uganda-finds-chinas-leverage-is-in-the-fine-print-of-its-lending-11640601003 Yoni Netanyahu didn't like this. All of Turkey's next generation drones are going to use Ukrainian engines. Even more importantly, after failing to secure licensing from Germany for MTU engines for the Altay MBT, Turkey struck a deal with Ukraine to develop an engine using Ukrainian technology. Fun fact: Erdoğan tried to use his 'personal relationship' with Shinzo Abe to get Mitsubishi engines, but the deal failed. Had it succeeded, the Altay would have been a Korean tank with a Japanese engine.

Edit: I was recommended to ignore Bret Stephens after posting this; leaving the post up for the sake of my replies to danfrodo and Fenris. I am not out to defend the article; my take from it is that the Kremlin may not be in such a bad place as we take them to be. The next stage of the war, and whether Ukraine will be able to liberate territories in the east and south (BBC live just writing Mariupol is about to fall) will be decisive. A clamp down like the one that exists now would've been unthinkable before the war - even ordinary people are now afraid to voice dissent, certainly in public. That wasn't the case before; 'they' came after people like Navalny and activists, not Sergei and Lena next door. Of course, the war itself could have been waged differently. I am reminded of Putin's public 'address' to Greta Thunberg: He's convinced the global South will never move away from fossil fuels, and China is now the top creditor of the global South. I can see how he could count on shifting to new markets.

No doubt the scenes on Russian TV were aimed at that. But the actual hiring of mercenaries is to address a military need, and apparently one that Russia didn't anticipate.

Contrarian take, FWIW. I do at least agree with the last paragraph I'm quoting below - all opposition in Russia has been crushed for good: "What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?" By Bret Stephens https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/opinion/ukraine-war-putin.html?referringSource=articleShare "The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated." "The conventional wisdom is entirely plausible. It has the benefit of vindicating the West’s strategy of supporting Ukraine defensively. And it tends toward the conclusion that the best outcome is one in which Putin finds some face-saving exit: additional Ukrainian territory, a Ukrainian pledge of neutrality, a lifting of some of the sanctions." "But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the West is only playing into Putin’s hands once again?" "When Western military analysts argue that Putin can’t win militarily in Ukraine, what they really mean is that he can’t win clean. Since when has Putin ever played clean?" "Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s)." "Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance." "“Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist,” said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg. As for what’s left of a mostly landlocked Ukraine, it will likely become a welfare case for the West, which will help pick up the tab for resettling Ukraine’s refugees to new homes outside of Russian control. In time, a Viktor Orban-like figure could take Ukraine’s presidency, imitating the strongman-style of politics that Putin prefers in his neighbors." "If this analysis is right, then Putin doesn’t seem like the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be." "It also makes sense of his strategy of targeting civilians. More than simply a way of compensating for the incompetence of Russian troops, the mass killing of civilians puts immense pressure on Zelensky to agree to the very things Putin has demanded all along: territorial concessions and Ukrainian neutrality. The West will also look for any opportunity to de-escalate, especially as we convince ourselves that a mentally unstable Putin is prepared to use nuclear weapons." "Within Russia, the war has already served Putin’s political purposes. Many in the professional middle class — the people most sympathetic to dissidents like Aleksei Navalny — have gone into self-imposed exile. The remnants of a free press have been shuttered, probably for good. To the extent that Russia’s military has embarrassed itself, it is more likely to lead to a well-aimed purge from above than a broad revolution from below. Russia’s new energy riches could eventually help it shake loose the grip of sanctions."

My emphasis is not the 16,000 figure, but the fact that they started bringing them in - at least one planeload of them - so early in the war. This in itself shows that something with the Russian planning went amiss right at the very beginning. Seeing they are being flown into Mozdok, I wouldn't be surprised if they're integrated with the Chechens, many of whom have already served in Syria as Russian military police.

Revelations from the BBC investigation into the Syrian mercenaries being brought to Ukraine: 1- They were already being flown in "days after the invasion." I remember posting in this thread about the Syrians when Russian TV broke the news, and folks here were saying it was propaganda. At that time, they were already on their way to, if not within, Ukraine. The Russians must have realized something was very wrong very early in the war, and scrambled to bring in cannon fodder. 2- The flights are avoiding Turkish airspace (even though it's open) as well as Georgia and Azerbaijan, resulting in a two-leg flight with a stop in Armenia, I assume for refueling: "Ukraine war: The Syrians signing up to fight for Russia" https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-60931180

Many pages back in this thread, I had speculated Ukraine could operate TB2s from the road network for survival. Here's evidence indicating that, indeed, is the practice: These are MAM-Ls for TB2 captured by Russians. Note how they were stashed like insurgent weapons, and the hay on the floor hardly fits in with an airbase. I'm guessing these missiles were stashed as part of a clandestine network of rearming & refueling points for the TB2s:

@Lethaface My apologies for the misunderstanding: When I wrote "drone vs. drone warfare," I was referring to the fact that the Ukrainians set out to target Russians with their drones, but ended up getting targeted by Russian drones. This was my first glimpse of what The_Capt has been describing as the naval-like ISR battle. Re-posting with a new pitch: 'The hunter becomes the hunted: Drone warfare'

RE: Drones This is the first footage of drone vs. drone warfare that I have seen, and may historically be the first released by a major news agency: "Ukraine war: The drone pilots monitoring Russian troops" https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60878703

I did some very quick research. I found no mention of alphabetical names in Russian sites, nor anything that would suggest that in pictures that I found. However, the names do get imaginative, so it could indeed be 'Calibres' (as I suggested, referring to the missiles) or 'Hummingbird'. Though most vehicles have slogans written on them, here's a selection with names: Bottom Right: 'Black Devil' 'The Russian' 'Avalanche' This tank has two 'names': 'Rita' and 'The Beaver'. Could also mean 'Rita the Beaver'

@db_zero @Panserjeger I think they intended to write 'КАЛИБРЫ' - 'calibers'. The mistake is not with the 'a' but the 'и'. 'Colibri' is a strange name for a tank, to say the least. What about 'calibers'? It would be in reference to the 'Kalibr - caliber' cruise missile, either because the first strikes of the war were carried out with these missiles, or in the sense that every shot of the main gun is as accurate and destructive as these missiles - it is my understanding that the strikes with these missiles were touted in the early days of the war.