re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Stidham was half right. He got this half right "The Eastern Front is collapsing" he got the other half wrong as it was Russia collapsing, not Ukraine.

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Good news out of Holland today

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They also weighed in on the 2014 invasion by Russia.

In its verdict, the court also qualified the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 as ‘international armed conflict’ and recognized that Russia had control over its proxies in Donetsk Oblast since mid-May 2014.

The Kyiv Independent

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looks bad geopolitically and is technically a war crime

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Not just technically. It is explicitly a war crime.

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Russia is targeting the electrical grid that serves the civilian population… many of the targets are hundreds of miles from the front lines. These are not reasonable military targets.

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Its war. All infrastructure that can potentially be used to aid the adversary is a reasonable military target.

Limited warfare ended more than a century ago, and it is never coming back.

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The bombing campaign conducted over Germany by the American 8th Air Force and British Bomber Command during WWII is proof of this. They targeted everything from factories, rail stations, power plants, dams, and anything that could remotely benefit the Third Reich war effort. British Bomber command even targeted residential areas of industrial centers using the justification of factory workers either made homeless or outright killed in bombing raids would hurt the output of German factories.

Not saying it’s right. But it is reality and has been for a long time.

(I can already smell the downvotes incoming. What I won’t see though is a coherent argument that I’m wrong.)

did the same in japan.

i havent really understood either side in this war

anything in ukraine=legit target
anything in russia(including the kremlin)=legit target

its war.

now cause yall been arguing over some stupid shite, i got to go read pages and pages to get my morning update.

Hey, if anyone is interested in learning more about actual Nazis in Ukraine, there's a story today about how Rusich is using hacking, crypto, extortion, and the dark web to raise money for its war efforts.

LINK

An excerpt:

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Rusich spends the crypto funds it raises on medical treatment for injured fighters as well as on the equipment it needs to keep fighting in the war: Motorola walkie-talkies, helmets, drone jammers, diesel generators, winter uniforms, sleeping bags, sights for anti-tank grenade launchers, stoves, and more.

But since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, in addition to using the blockchain for its own purposes, Rusich also started promoting crypto among other Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. In September 2022, the group proposed that other Russian formations use bitcoin to extort money from the relatives of Ukrainian POWs.

“Don’t just give up [...] the bodies of POWs [after you kill them],” the group urged on its Telegram channel. “Take a photo where the face is visible, and offer to let the relatives purchase information about their son or husband’s burial location for an amount between $2,000 and $5,000. The money can be sent to a Bitcoin wallet.”

That’s just a small excerpt of the group’s advice for interrogating Ukrainian soldiers; they also instructed Russian fighters to use torture when necessary to extract information from POWs that can later be used to target their families. “Chop off their fingers, cut off an ear, hit them in the groin or around their joints, [or] drive needs under their fingernails,” they wrote on social media. “Don’t be afraid to kill prisoners!”

Rusich fighters have advocated for the murder of civilians as well — for example, if they’ve witnessed Russian soldiers “screwing up.” The neo-Nazis have also called for ethnic cleansing on the occupied territories. “The entire non-white population [...] should be physically destroyed (some of them through scientific experiments),” representatives of the detachment wrote on Telegram. (The post was later deleted.)

Rusich's leaders have made no secret of the fact that they never planned to comply with international humanitarian law. “When you kill a piglet — everyone knows who I mean by ‘piglet’ — you enjoy the fact that his wife is becoming a widow,” Rusich member Yevgeny Rasskazov said in an interview in August. “You relish how they cry out for their whole family, how he’ll come home in a coffin. And you get an erection.”

“When you kill a person, you feel the excitement of the hunt. If you haven’t hunted, try it,” said Rusich leader Alexey Milchakov in an interview published in December 2020. One year and three months later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Here's a Rusich member in Syria a few years ago, from their own Instagram:

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I think you nailed it. That line of thinking cost them dearly.

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Knocking out power to and/or pumping and compressor stations themselves would hurt needed exports to Europe of crude oil and natural gas with major pipelines going through Ukraine. Pipelines need get pressure up every so many mile for it to flow in pipelines. It is not just one entry point then exit point(s). Stations along the way are needed to keep it moving, due friction generated against the pipe itself.

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Understood, by why knock off power now and not initially?

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My assumption is that they didn't think it was necessary at the outset. Russia expected the Ukrainians to fold quickly. This is just another attempt to get the broader European public to force Kiev to make concessions.

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Understood, by why knock off power now and not initially?

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Because winter is coming, and freezing Ukrainian citizens now causes a lot more suffering than depriving them of power in the summer.

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why knock off power now and not initially?

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Initially Russia thought they would win. They wanted infrastructure intact where feasible, for their own benefit. When they realize they are losing, they destroy things.