re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Interesting. Hard to really know the source and confirmed methodology, but one thing seems certain is that they’ve successfully muddied the waters enough from an intelligence perspective.

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At only 70-90 meters down, TBoy and Claude from Lafourche Parish or their equivalent from most any nation with offshore oil and gas could do it. Off the shelf explosive is required. Oilfield service companies sell that stuff

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The more I think about, the more I doubt my earlier guess, and that's because a Kazakhstan takeover would anger the Chinese, who have built good relationships with the Kazakh government.

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z

All natural gas is exported to China via pipeline.

Chinese have had influence there in business for 2 decades

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I really think it's Kazakhstan, and the Kazakhs know it, which is why they have done a complete 180 on Russia since last February.

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Maybe, would certainly gain them the most from a potential economic perspective and they have the whole Russian population excuse after running hundreds of thousands of Russians off to Kazakhstan after the invasion. Seems this would be the most difficult terrain for them to manage given their doctrine and history in Afghanistan if this is what they chose and needed military means. Though I’m sure Kazakhstan air defense is significantly less than Ukraines currently after western aid.

Moldova seems the easiest target for multiple factors, but as others have said Romania probably gets antsy.

Poland of course has been specially named by Russia however.

Personally, I think Kazakhstan and Poland are absurd for them to attempt after the last year, but don’t fault either for their actions and would find it crazy if they didn’t. I think Poland has done the best job responding by aiding Ukraine so much and simultaneously significantly increasing their own defense quickly.

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Pentagon Blocks Sharing Evidence of Possible Russian War Crimes With Hague Court

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The Pentagon is blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence with the International Criminal Court in The Hague gathered by American intelligence agencies about Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter. American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans. The rest of the administration, including intelligence agencies and the State and Justice Departments, favors giving the evidence to the court, the officials said. President Biden has yet to resolve the impasse, officials said.

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In December, Congress modified longstanding legal restrictions on American help to the court, allowing the United States to assist with its investigations and eventual prosecutions related to the war in Ukraine. But inside the Biden administration, a policy dispute over whether to do so continues to play out behind closed doors.

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I wonder if these complaints are just because they are starting to run short of Ammo and trying to figure out why they don't have enough ammo

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American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans.

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That’s immediately what I thought when I read the headline.

NY Times:

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Ukraine Claims Bakhmut Battle Is Wagner’s ‘Last Stand’


KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to use more of its professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace its depleted supply of enlisted prisoners, who are perishing by the thousands in the longest battle of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.

The claim suggested that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s nearly suicidal prisoner assaults, which Ukraine’s commanders regard as one of Russia’s most effective tactics.

“This is their last stand,” Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told Radio Liberty in an interview, referring to Wagner’s forces in Bakhmut, where Russia and Ukraine’s vicious, monthslong struggle has left thousands of soldiers dead and the city in rubble.

Ukrainian officials have claimed that nearly 30,000 of Wagner’s 50,000 troops have deserted or been killed or wounded, many around Bakhmut. That number could not be independently verified, and Ukraine has not disclosed its own losses in the region. Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, claimed on Tuesday that Ukraine had lost more than 11,000 troops in February.

As the fight for Bakhmut appears to be entering a decisive phase, both sides are trying to justify their staggering losses in a minor city of limited strategic value by presenting them as benefiting their cause. Each makes essentially the same claim: that the fighting there is worth the horrific cost because it is wearing down the enemy.

Wagner’s founder, Yegveny V. Prigozhin, has repeatedly said that his group’s triple-digit daily casualty rates are sucking experienced Ukrainian units into what he calls the “Bakhmut meat-grinder,” upsetting their offensive plans elsewhere.

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U.S. intelligence officials in December estimated that Wagner comprised about 10,000 professional soldiers, recruited mostly from veterans of Russia's security forces, and 40,000 former inmates.

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The devastated city of Bakhmut, in a screen shot from aerial drone video taken in January.

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As the fight for Bakhmut appears to be entering a decisive phase, both sides are trying to justify their staggering losses in a minor city of limited strategic value by presenting them as benefiting their cause. Each makes essentially the same claim: that the fighting there is worth the horrific cost because it is wearing down the enemy.

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This doesn’t seem like a good strategy for the Ukrainians as Russia has the capacity to sustain far heavier casualties than they do over the long term.

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This doesn’t seem like a good strategy for the Ukrainians as Russia has the capacity to sustain far heavier casualties than they do over the long term.

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Conventional wisdom would say you are right which makes me wonder, Why? Ukraine is fully aware of its limited resources, why would it squander them needlessly?

This leads to several possible explanations

1) They are making a mistake
2) They are actually conducting a pullback and are trying to obscure that fact through every channel available to them, including the media. To do so, they are hitting Russia on the edges to draw pressure off the middle while they pull back.
3) They know something that tells them it's worth the sacrifice, in effect, they have information we are not privy to. This would go along with the reports that Wager is almost expended that have started bubbling up.
4) They are trying to draw Russia into a trap, and we are watching a major psyop in motion.

My bet is on #4