How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Aragorn2002]

58 minutes ago, sburke said:

This also isn't really going Putin's way.

China not emerging as lifeline for sanction-slammed Russian economy (msn.com)

Extremely interesting and  important.

[Haiduk]

Next small convoy near Davydiv Brod village, Kherson oblast, ambushed by territorial defense. First truck carried a food, the second looks like had Grad rockets. Locals are looting Russian goods

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[db_zero]

43 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Yes, with BOTH Russia and the USA signing an agreement to protect Ukraine from the aggression of a foreign invader. I assume that Russia feels since “Ukraine is historically and culturally part of Russia,” that they don’t qualify them as a “foreign invader.” Why the U.S. doesn’t “put boots on the ground” to satisfy it’s pledge is beyond me. I served the U.S. for more than thirty years in different capacities, and I must say that I’m disgusted that the U.S. Government has again shown that it cannot be trusted to keep it’s promises and commitments that it makes to defend others.

That should come as no surprise. The American public has a short attention span and never truly hold the government accountable in a truthful non-partisan way. There has been numerous articles about how both parties have enacted reckless economic policies that were promised to be self paying and of limited life, but the policies have not turned out to be self paying or of limited lifespan and nobody cares...

If Americans and their government can't keep promises to themselves, then how can one expect American to keep all the promises it makes to everyone else?

Ukraine is the hot topic for now. If and once it slows down and becomes a long drawn out insurgency you can bet the attention span will shrink and move on to the next hot topic.

Edited March 2, 2022 by db_zero

[kraze]

Budapest memorandum had zero security guarantees for Ukraine and zero requirements for some country to defend it. Read the text.

It was literally "we give away our nuclear arsenal and you all pinkie-promise you don't invade us".

And in case of invasion countries that signed it call on UN security council and...

That's it. Really, that's it.

Edited March 2, 2022 by kraze

[Cobetco]

also it would have been breached in 2014. so its been dead a while. 

[CHEqTRO]

More threats to Sweden and Finland.

Also, the Georgians are going to file for EU membership as well:

And the best for the end, there is a possibility that Russian authorities may enact martial law this friday:

Edit: The Russians have expelled the US ambassador:

I had also read this morning, althought I cannot find it right now, that Poland is planning to cut relations with Russia. Dont know how true is that.

Edited March 2, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, CHEqTRO said:

More threaths to Sweden and Finland.

Also, the Georgians are going to file for EU membership as well:

And the best for the end, there is a possibility that Russian authorities may enact martial law this friday:

 

Because that will convince everybody that things are going well...

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

More threaths to Sweden and Finland.

Also, the Georgians are going to file for EU membership as well:

And the best for the end, there is a possibility that Russian authorities are going to enact martial law this friday:

 

So in effect they are going to tell all Russians...it isn't going very well.

 

Ninja'd!

@dan/california

Edited March 2, 2022 by sburke

[Blazing 88's]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

2. Also, in clannish Chechnya, there was a huge amount of bribery to bring clans over to the Russian side, or at least to stand aside. Ukrainians won't be bought.

 

I hope you are right, however I saw this in a previous twitter posting and if true it makes you wonder a little about that for some of those folks:

 

[danfrodo]

Notable he's playing these games w Sweden & Finland, non-NATO states, and not w Baltic states, which could give NATO pretext for intervention.  Very telling. 

So the idiot is completely consumed w his Ukraine fiasco and thinks he's gonna scare Finland & Sweden w invasion or attacks right now?  WTF did he think would happen when he launched this invasion?  Of course Sweden and Finland want to join NATO now, all because of him. 

[CHEqTRO]

Seems like the Russian Aviation decided to comunicate on open channels. Here you can watch supposed Su-35S and their AWACS coordinating sorties into Ukraine from Belarus:

 

[akd]

Another Ka-52 down:

 

[CHEqTRO]

7 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Notable he's playing these games w Sweden & Finland, non-NATO states, and not w Baltic states, which could give NATO pretext for intervention.  Very telling. 

So the idiot is completely consumed w his Ukraine fiasco and thinks he's gonna scare Finland & Sweden w invasion or attacks right now?  WTF did he think would happen when he launched this invasion?  Of course Sweden and Finland want to join NATO now, all because of him. 

They are probably going to do the famous "escalate to de-escalate". The stratetigic situation has completely deteriorated for the Russians, probably to the point of unsustainability, and a long war against Ukraine with the full pressure of European/NATO lend lease and economic sanctions is not viable, not even in the short term.

They will probably will seek some form of re-balancement via concession or direct military action from the wst, so the strategic situation gets in their favour. How are they going to do it, I have no idea, but I would not be surprised if things get tense in the Georgian border and in the Baltic sea one of these days.

26 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Because that will convince everybody that things are going well...

Well, in some way they are going to have to try and control all those conscripts that were lied into war, and now, whatever is the result of it, are going to start trickling back to their homes. I am sure they have their strong opinions about Putin and this adventuro into Ukraine. Thats a long-fuse bomb for the regime right there.

Also, in reference to what I said above, its probably part of the whole escalation process. That is, of course, if they go ahead with the enacment of martial law. As of right now we dont have solid proof that they are going to do it. (Althought Martial law was the 4 trending search topic in Russian google today)

Edited March 2, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[CHEqTRO]

No Russian involvment on this case. It seems it crashed on land, so hardly it was caused by the Russians.

Edited March 2, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[Haiduk]

9 minutes ago, akd said:

Another Ka-52 down:

Interestng, that claimed this is result of dogfight between two Russians and one Ukrainian helicopter., but probably this is propaganda.

Our media speaks alot of the MiG-29 pilot "Ghost of the Kyiv", and even posted his photo in cocjpit - as if shot down already 20 Russian air targets and one time was shot down himself, but I think this is some sort of "Enemy at the gate" film story, though such ace can really exist, but with mucj lesser number of victories.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[danfrodo]

5 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

 Unconfirmed as of now, but more on the whole "escalate to de-escalate"

casus belli, if true

 

[womble]

2 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

 Unconfirmed as of now, but more on the whole "escalate to de-escalate"

It's possible, at least, that there's an understandable "innocent" (nearly) explanation for this: the weather isn't too good over the Black Sea at the moment, and I'm sure Romania are sortieing a few more jets than usual. If one of them got into trouble and then the SAR bird mucked up in the rescue, there's no need for hostile actors to have been directly involved. Of course, the reason for the extra hours on those old airframes is currently cursing the inconvenient gallantry of the Ukrainian defenders...

[LongLeftFlank]

Kofman: "My working thesis right now, in the absence of much to go on, is the VDV 'doing its thing' - trying to seize key infrastructure, even though these missions are risky and not well supported" 

 

[CHEqTRO]

1 minute ago, womble said:

It's possible, at least, that there's an understandable "innocent" (nearly) explanation for this: the weather isn't too good over the Black Sea at the moment, and I'm sure Romania are sortieing a few more jets than usual. If one of them got into trouble and then the SAR bird mucked up in the rescue, there's no need for hostile actors to have been directly involved. Of course, the reason for the extra hours on those old airframes is currently cursing the inconvenient gallantry of the Ukrainian defenders...

In fact, further reading seems to indicate that it crashed on the ground, rather than on the Black Sea, so it was most likely an accident:

Will edit the previous post accordingly

[Commanderski]

In regards to some of the talk about the Russians using a tactical nuke...based on the quality or lack of on the conventional forces their nuke personnel may not be much better. If an order was given to launch at a city just to give the Ukrainians an example of what's to come it's a good possibility that the order wouldn't be carried out. That's something we would never know about as it would take place far beyond the borders.

[Haiduk]

Probably new photos of destroyed/captured  Russian convoys in Bashtanka area, Mykolaiv oblast

Captured BTR, burning Grad, destroyed trucks with D-30 howitzers

Edited March 2, 2022 by Haiduk

[Baneman]

6 minutes ago, Commanderski said:

In regards to some of the talk about the Russians using a tactical nuke...based on the quality or lack of on the conventional forces their nuke personnel may not be much better. If an order was given to launch at a city just to give the Ukrainians an example of what's to come it's a good possibility that the order wouldn't be carried out. That's something we would never know about as it would take place far beyond the borders.

Not only that - how sure are they that the thing won't malfunction ? A lot of their other army equipment looks poorly maintained.

Obviously not very likely given the sensitivity of that sort of kit, but still a risk.
Worst case : a nuclear catastrophe in your own country AND the world now knows your nuclear arsenal is rubbish...

[Cobetco]

god, can you imagine the shock the world would be in if the Russians where so desperate that they have to use a nuke, and then it doesn't go off?

Edited March 2, 2022 by Cobetco

[sburke]

2 hours ago, Markus86 said:

Anonymous reported that an affiliated hacker group did achieve this. 

https://twitter.com/YourAnonTV/status/1498792639877074945?s=20&t=X8dwZ4cA1A9TxIIrUaAsZA

and then there is the low-level stuff.  pretty creative.

Russian EV Chargers Hacked, Screen Reads "Glory To Ukraine!" (msn.com)

[kraze]

43 minutes ago, Blazing 88's said:

I hope you are right, however I saw this in a previous twitter posting and if true it makes you wonder a little about that for some of those folks:

 

Today people shot dead a pro-russian mayor that had offered to surrender his town to russians when they were 15 km away.

Our government said nobody will be prosecuted for such actions and congratulated the deed.

Rules have changed after feb24.

Ukrainians aren't forgiving people anymore after six days of increasing war crimes and russians murdering over 2000 civilians.

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by kraze