re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

So we’ve had enough fun with the politards the last few days. Any chance we can get back to this being a Ukraine/Russia war update thread?

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directly you are correct. indirectly, China has seen the resolve of the west. china has seen new commitments to ramp up defense GDP. China has been watching the west's reaction to Russia to weigh a potential response to china making o move on Taiwan. So indirectly the west standing firm on Russia is forcing china to rethink the risk/reward outcome of attacking Taiwan

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There’s zero evidence of this actually happening. It may or may not be happening but for the most part it’s just wishful thinking. More than likely China looks at Ukraine exactly as I do, an interesting little geopolitical event happening on the other side of the world. China is much more interested in how it can leverage Russian than it is in how the West responds. They certainly don’t give a shot what Europe is doing because it’s not like Europe will be doing anything in the event that China does invade Taiwan. It’ll be the US, South Korea and Japan fighting that one….mayyyyybe Australia will pitch in. If anything China is just getting a whole bunch of operational intel on our weapons systems, which if we’re being honest is the real reason Ukraine isn’t getting ATACMS. I’m surprised they’re getting our best Patriot air defense systems to be honest. But they certainly won’t be seeing any THAAD missiles.

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The Japanese would have had no need to invade the Dutch Indies if

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NARRATOR: In truth, the Japanese did not need to invade any of their neighbors.

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So you admit the Japanese were warlike and aggressive; yet if we and the other western nations would have left them alone they would not have attacked anyone but China?

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Who would argue Japan wasn’t aggressive in 1941? Their war was against China. Look where Japan’s resources were spent in WWII.

In my opinion, Japan’s expansion in the Pacific outside of China and Korea was based entirely on securing necessary resources to continue their conquest of China. Japan needed rubber and oil from the Dutch Indies and Phillipines, and the Dutch, English, and Americans weren’t trading. The American navy was the only real military force in the region that could stop them from taking the resources that they couldn’t trade for. Japan would not have wasted the manpower occupying those islands to get those resources if they were being traded to them. China was their main focus.

Assuming Japan could have eventually subdued China with access to those resources, I feel like Japan then would have turned on the allies and conquered those colonies.

War was inevitable, but it did not need happen in 1941. It happening in 1941 was the best thing ever to the U.S. and it saved Mao and future Communist China.

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Been quiet on news here for Belgorod.oblast from this morning. But I would imagine confirmable news will lag 24/48 hours behind actual events. I have see reports of 1 or 2 Russian hello’s shot down but until verified I would wait till visual confirmations.

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I saw what appeared to be confirmation of one Russian helicopter down. The Russians are saying that all of the "separatists" have been "liquidated," except for five that were captured, but there is no verification for any of those reports. They said that last time and the little green men all got away, so who knows.

This has certainly been an interesting day.

A little off topic but juicy post by the Kiev Independent:

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Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov's mistress owns a villa next to members of the Russian military elite in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and gave birth to her children in the U.S., Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's team reported on May 22.

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Once they defeated China

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The Japanese economy was on the verge of collapse without oil, and their war with China would have had to be abandoned for lack of military supplies.

We can say that Japan had no reason to already be at war with China.

In my opinion, Japan never would have defeated China. They would have kept slaughtering civilians, but continued to fail to hold the country side.

Meanwhile, in Krasnodar (Southern Russia) Lenin got some new TV makeup and a sign that says Killer of the Russian people.

Russia got less then 24 hours to savor their "Victory" in Bakhmut before Ukraine turned their celebration in Ukraine to an embarrassment at home

TigersnJeeps said:

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Could not have more modern munitions have been stored in the structures, particularly if some of the old contents have already been destroyed/de-militarized? I don't know if they have but to assume that no change in the external view also means the contents are unchanged seems a bit of a stretch.

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While not conclusive that there wasn't anything new stored in them it is reasonable to conclude from Chrome's image that it is extremely unlikely that $500,000,000 of munitions (primarily DU shells) was stored here, as was widely claimed via Pro-Russian sources (I also saw billions mentioned a few times).

Reasons pointing toward this:

Critically there are no signs of traffic on the roadways which appear to be dirt, especially given it has just been mud season. With the size of the initial explosions if it was new munitions there should be some signs of transit, such as truck turning points.

There are no signs of enhanced security or defence structures around the site - I realise that this could have been part of the "show" to hide it but I find it highly unlikely that such a significant store would be left unprotected by ground security to deter the locals or air defences to prevent what happened.

The lack of corroborative evidence showing said munitions being stored, moved there, or any large operation to obscure such transit. If Russia had confirmed intelligence of such they would definitely have put it out for consumption. The only evidence I have seen promulgated by Russian sources is of the explosions themselves and false claims about "dangerous" rises in background radiation in nearby areas meaning DU munitions were destroyed.

Lastly is something I haven't seen discussed much which is logistics. Khmelnytskyi only has one major road and one rail line (leading to Odessa) going through it which would make movement in and out of there both predictable and easy to interdict. While such tactical errors are not unknown in this war from either side I see it as highly unlikely that Ukraine would have come up with such a convoluted plan to hide a large stock of ammunition in an area that is well known to Russians and not the most accessible to the actual front.