re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

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Ukraine's foreign intelligence chief Oleg Ivashchenko reported growing Chinese influence over Russia, desovereignization of resource-rich regions, sale of critical assets, and military-industrial ties.

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"Desovereignization" -

Yup, it's official - the Ru cupboard is bare. As predicted.

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This is one of those stories that requires photographic evidence to believe.

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Ukraine’s SSU arrested a Russia-linked “shadow fleet” cargo ship in Odesa for illegally transporting Ukrainian goods from occupied Crimea and evading sanctions by changing its name and ownership.

The vessel, arriving under an African flag, had previously moved nearly 7,000 tons of grain and visited occupied Sevastopol multiple times. The captain and 16 Middle Eastern crew members were detained; documents on board confirmed illegal routes.

A criminal case was opened for financing subversive actions, state treason, transport violations, and illegal entry to occupied territory. The ship was seized for transfer to ARMA.

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War historian Antony Beevor explained in an interview with The Telegraph why Russia commits such atrocities in Ukraine: He argues that Russia has historically developed a belief that conspicuous cruelty is a necessary weapon of war.

According to the historian, while Europe went through the Enlightenment and attempted to "civilize" war by creating the Red Cross and similar attitudes. Russia, however, did not embrace this evolution.

Beevor links modern cruelty not only to army traditions, but also to deeply rooted violence within Russian society. Putin's soldiers, he emphasizes, often become victims of abuse themselves.

The historian recalls how, in the 1990s, while working in Russian archives, he learned that "there were up to 5,000 suicides a year" among conscripts in the Soviet Union, and Soviet generals found this funny. Now, Beevor notes, Russian conscripts are killing themselves because they are subjected not only to bullying but also to persecution and torture. The command often approves of this 'tradition' of treating recruits.

Beevor calls this phenomenon a "knock-on theory of oppression": having experienced violence themselves, soldiers then take it out on the defenseless. This is what happened in Germany in 1945, and it was repeated in all wars in which Soviet and then Russian troops participated. When asked whether cruelty is considered legitimate in Russia, the historian replied that Russians "don't give a damn about legitimacy, to be perfectly honest."

The war will end someday, and hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers will return home. What will happen when people accustomed to violence, looting, and murder find themselves among the civilian population? "We've already been hearing anecdotal evidence of appalling crimes being committed," Beevor said.

He highlighted the Russian command's inhumane treatment of its own troops: mobile crematoria at the front, the use of convicts in "punishment" units for demining and suicide attacks - all of which are a continuation of old practices.

"They've certainly been using the idea of punishment battalions that Stalin actually copied from the Germans," Beevor added.

The historian warned that if the Kremlin considers its campaign in Ukraine successful, the Baltic states could be the next target. He recalled the lessons of the past: after World War I, the British and French could not believe that anyone would want another war, and therefore underestimated Hitler.

"We've seen a similar thing in the 2000s <...> Nobody believed that anyone would want to have another ground war on the European landmass again. [Under Putin], the sheer brutality of the Russian way of war could well be reapplied on the European landmass," Beevor concluded.

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Interesting how no one had any rebuttals for this post.

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What is there to rebut? The OP is posting quite emotionally using nonsensical logic, like she usually does.

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Honestly, there's not a whole lot to it. It's just some name calling and angry spite.

Can't do much with that..

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Well you have said previously that you don't even actually care about Ukraine, you just see them as a tool to fight Russia. So yeah there's nothing in that post that you would have to reply to.

Many here are at least pretending to care deeply about Ukraine.

I like how he thinks, but I don't believe there will be that much left after the Chinese 'desovereignization'. Still can't pronounce that word correctly but I bet the Russians have an even harder time of it.

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Compared to our old standby. Like the song says, "Getting Closer Every Day".

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I get flustered because I try to act like an adult, but then you divert to playing kid games. You start trolling again just to start an argument.

It has gotten old.

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I hope you're able to satisfy Volsnatch's interroggation before Friday night gets here...

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Like what kind of adjustments? Be as specific as possible.

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Like on the ground? Ukraine has made mass formations and maneuvers essentially impossible. Thus the Russians have adopted small-scale intrusions, which are infantry-intensive, and thus, in order for Ukraine to make the most of this situation, they will have to make Russian earn every inch of land. It is difficult to employ the 'death by 1000 cuts' philosophy when the landmass itself is so large. The Ukrainians can bleed the Russians dry while still ceding ground, as they will likely have to withdraw from Povorosk but still retain control of 'the fortress belt.' Taking land back will be difficult without more forces, but again, all indicators point to several nations directly intervening should the Ukrainians collapse.

Well, Putin did say he wanted to go back to the old Soviet Union days...

Again, official Russian government figures.

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Workers in the Urals at one of the largest copper-iron-vanadium ore extraction sites complain that they haven’t been paid for the second month in a row. The situation is so critical that many of them can’t even afford the trip home.

According to Rosstat, as of October, the total amount of overdue wage arrears in the country reached 2.156 billion rubles, and over the past year this figure has increased 2.95 times. The number of complaints to Rostrud about wage delays and non-payments has jumped 1.6 times in a year: in 11 months, the agency received 26,000 appeals.

How was it they said? Growth — but a negative one.

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