Russian invasion of Ukraine thread.

@Baz that info is somewhat outdated. The latest is that the push in Kherson didn't got as planned. Ukraine lost a significant number of tanks and armoured vehicles in that exchange, and it was unsuccessful. RSM has footage of it. I also wouldn't underestimate the Chechen forces, they are very good troops and excellent at this type of warfare. It was the Chechens who lead the spearheads into Mariupol after all. They didn't go away, they just got cycled out for leave. Well the ones not dead, anyway.

I don't like to wish death and suffering on anybody but I will just put it out there that Ramzan probably deserves both of those things as much as anybody ever has. That said he'd never risk his progeny in any real conflict. He'll send other people's kids to die in the bad stuff.

I also think MSM is making a bit of a mountain out of the molehill that is Lyman. We're talking about an area of about 20 square kilometres with a population under 20000 people.To give that some perspective, Russia has currently annexed about 136000 square KM's of territory--that is goling by MSM reports, which are likely to be conservative. It's strategically significant because there's a railway junction there--though how much that matters now that the entire electrical grid, as well as railway lines have been destroyed and have to be rebuilt from the ground up is highly debatable. Russia didn't really put up much of a fight trying to hold it and were pretty thin on the ground there to begin with, which leads me to believe they didn't regard it as very significant for some reason. Ukraine taking it back is bad PR for Russia however, and Ramzan threw a ****fit about it.

Biggest news of concern for me is that Russia has supposedly mobilised a nuclear sub. I don't like the term 'tactical nuke' because it implies some degree of control over something that is still decidedly a weapon of pure indiscriminate carnage. There are no 'tactical' nuclear weapons. I don't think they'll start slinging them over Lyman but it's definitely a severe turn for the worse in the direction this conflict is going.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/03/putin-deploys-worlds-largest-submarine-nuclear-convoy/

* Edited at 10.03.2022, 5:09 PM ET *

There's really no difference between late-stage communism and late-stage fascism. It's all skinning cats.

I'd like to believe that Ukraine's capturing of Lyman could be viewed as some kind of turning point in this war, but I don't view it that way. The big push from the mobilisation hasn't yet begun. Those forces haven't even arrived. And now we're allegedly at the point of Nukes.

**** everything about this thing. And our species. Maybe it's time we handed this planet back to trees and birds.

* Edited at 10.03.2022, 5:48 PM ET *

It's wishful thinking on behalf of the West to think that Russia's arms cache consists of outdated and nonfunctional weaponry. It's not going to up there with NATO stuff, but it's still plenty effective enough to get the job done. 

It's a bit like the guy who has been doing earthworks at my place the last month or so. He carries around his pozitrack and 5 tonne excavator on a b-model truck from the 60's. I asked him about this and be said 'Ten cubic meters of old dirt and concrete or machinery doesn't know what it's being carried in'. I suppose the point is just because it isn't new doesn't mean it doesn't work. Russkis have captured plenty of top-shelf NATO tanks and armour since this thing began.

If Russia's weaponry was just papier mache' then the US would have assassinated Vlad and caused regime change years ago they way they do and have done in Africa, The Middle East and South America. They haven't. Which probably means Russia is carrying some serious force and doing that isn't easy.

The way I understand it whatever fissile material is in nukes has a very fast rate of decay. So if they were used we wouldn't be looking at levels of persistent radiation that were toxic to human and all life for generations like the Chernobyl meltdown, but the blast zone would still be very dangerous for about a year and would still not be somewhere you wanted to live for about 5. The immediate and flow-on effects would be catastrophic.

All Elon did was suggest that Ukraine and Russia should negotiate peace, and that should be based around Ukraine recognising pro-Russian areas as being legitimately absorbed into Russia. This has been going on for eight years. It's not an unreasonable suggestion.

...you're going to Ukraine?

@Gobaz have you heard anything about this?


https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no-tulips-amsterdam-gas-crisis-hits-dutch-greenhouses-2022-09-07/