This might be a game changer if they are supplied, they would be able to take out the Crimea bridge, artillery and rail / road bridges supplying the front all from further back in Ukraine.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...2022-05-26/U.S.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...670407682.html

First? Video of the use of a Switchblade 300


Meanwhile Colonel No 46 departs this mortal life..

More losses for Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine as 46th colonel is killed (msn.com)


..

1933-46 = 2014-20??The rest of the worlds players not yet fully engaged
 

From the above, A report from RIA Novosit. Denazification is a set of measures aimed at the nazified mass of the population, which technically cannot be subjected to direct punishment as war criminals" "However, besides the elite, a significant part of the masses of the people, who are passive nazis, are accomplices to Nazism. They have supported the Nazi authorities and indulged them..."

"...The just punishment for this part of the population is possible only as the bearing of the inevitable hardships of a just war against the Nazi system"

"The name Ukraine can seemingly not be retained as the title of any fully denazified state formation on the territory liberated from the Nazi regime"

"Denazification is inevitably also deukrainisation – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic element of self-identification of the population of the territories of the historical Malorossiya and Novorossiya begun by the Soviet authorities"

"Unlike, let’s say, Georgia or the Baltics, Ukraine, as history has shown, is unviable as a national state, and attempts to 'build' one logically lead to Nazism"

"The Banderite elite must be liquidated, its reeducation is impossible. The social 'swamp' which actively and passively supports it must undergo the hardships of war and digest the experience as a historical lesson and atonement" END

This, to me, is obviously a direct argument for the total eradication of Ukraine and all of its peoples. In other words Genocide. Hopefully the world in general and the UK, US and Poland remember what happened in the Katyn Forest, and the concentration camps of Germany and Poland, which some seem to insist never happened Germany, Italy and France especially should remember the above and get off the fence. Hungary should remember what the then German population went through in and after WW2, thanks to the Liebensraun and Genocide policies of the then Chancellor, his government and his toadying judiciary. I think Comrade Putin is of a similar make, seeking the restoration of the USSR or even earlier to the times of the Czars. A personal reading of what is, and again, to me, a land grab complete with ethnic cleansing, seen many times since 1945.

More combat footage, this time with some familiar accents + language. Sounds like something big ricocheting at c.20 seconds - RPG maybe?
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I think Hungarians have a pretty good idea about the privations & horrors of war.

I disagree strongly with giving the Kiev leadership a blank check. The Ukraine civil war started with the revolt of the Russian speaking eastern segment of the country against the new post Maidan Kiev government's laws, which were perceived as damaging them. The Kiev government chose to send in the army rather than to address the grievances. The Russian intervention has just exacerbated that conflict.
With the current bloodshed, reconciliation between Kiev and the eastern parts of the country is pretty much off the table. Separation seems the least destructive outcome.

That is simply ahistorical. The Russian state was present in Eastern Ukraine from the start. Initially they tried to raise an effective proxy army from the local inhabitants, and when that failed, they sent in Russian troops. There has never been a civil war in Ukraine.

Is the eastern side of the country really so grateful for the bloodshed and destruction that their "liberators" are dishing out to them and do they wish for them to stay? Separation / ceding territory is just putting off the next stage of aggression for a few a years whilst the RF rearms and rebuilds. During the stagnation a guerilla type war will ensue which will be bloody and go on until phase 2 kicks off.

Kyiv should absolutely not capitulate, and the international community now needs to test the red line set out earlier by Lavrov regarding the supply of MLRS etc. This seems more imperative against the rumours that the Kremlin now believes it can take Kyiv by the end of the year (with what though??). The RF has been meddling and stirring it up in the east of Ukraine for years, something has to change and that means a Ukraine with pre 2014 borders.

That differs from my understanding. Afaik, the international observers showed no Russian troops in the eastern Ukraine. It was a local uprising. Obviously given that there had not been a rigorous border during Soviet days, there surely was lots of cross border traffic, which probably continued once the shooting started, but regular troop formations were not noted.

Meduza: Kremlin still discussing attacking Kyiv.

Independent Russian media outlet Meduza quoted undisclosed sources saying the Kremlin is discussing a possible assault on Kyiv and even hopes for a full-scale victory by fall.

According to Meduza’s sources, Russian leadership is hoping Europe will get tired of helping Ukraine and that bloc members will have to agree with Russia on gas and oil before the heating season.

I find it genuinely astonishing that anyone with even a passing familiarity with Ukraine would be unaware that regular Russian troops were involved in the fighting. The origins of the uprising itself are less clear, although in recent years there has been some evidence for the involvement of Sergey Glazyev in the coordination of pro-Russian protests. However, what has clearly been established is the gradual transition from pseudo-insurgency to conventional warfare involving regular Russian units by the summer of 2014. You are aware that MH17 was shot down by a Russian air defence unit aren't you?

I do wonder if all the latest rhetoric from Russia threatening WW3 and attacking supplies in Western countries is to do with the fact they have thrown everything but the kitchen sink into their latest assaults and the Ukrainians are holding though it is costing them.
Russia is throwing all their best toys into the mix, but are blissfully aware that they are both outclassed and inferior to the Western weapon’s already deployed and realise that if the West do start to deploy the long range rocket systems and more lethal aid to Ukraine that the advantage they have at the moment in terms of quantity will rapidly evaporate as bridges, supply routes and artillery are picked off leading to massive unsustainable losses and defeat, thus the threats of WW3 and attacks on Western countries has raised its heads again.

The Crimea bridge would thus become a major target cutting of a principle supply route as would the ports such as Sevastopol.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/26/p...lrs/index.html

Ukraine "civil war" started with Russian security services operatives fake uprising. If you simply check who were the leaders (like P. Gubarev, Girkin "Strelkov" and others) you would quickly understand it was Kremlin who orchestrated the whole thing. But as I understand this is not a narrative you are supposed to share...

...
I know you want to refute 'etudiant' - but quoting it makes us who have put it on ignore have to read it's cr*p...

In 2012 a law was introduced which allowed the use of regional languages in areas where more than 10% of the population consists of minorities. This allowed using the Russian language in the eastern and southern Ukraine in schools, courts, and other government institutions. The official language was still Ukrainian. After the Maidan revolution from early 2014, there were indeed attempts to repel this law, but that was vetoed by the acting president, so the law actually remained in effect until 2018, when it was declared unconstitutional.

However, Russia's "little green man" were reported in Ukraine in 2014 within a week after the Maidan Revolution. And Russia doesn't even deny anymore that Putin decided to send troops into Ukraine the night after Yanukovych was deposed. Yanukovych was deposed on February 22nd 2014. That night, by the morning of 23rd, Putin had already decided to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea. That's before any attempted changes of legislation:

https://news.yahoo.com/putin-describ...212858356.html



So, it's clear Putin's main motivation was to keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence, as a puppet state, and prevent it from getting closer to the EU, not to "protect Russian speakers".

As to the eastern Ukraine, while indeed initially there were no reports of "little green man", the separatist insurrection from April 2014 was led by the same Russian GRU operatives which worked a bit earlier on annexing Crimea. And, a few months later, Russian heavy equipment, like the Buk SAM that brought down MH17, was also present. Then Russian troops started to "accidentally" cross into Ukraine during "exercises":

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...0GQ1X520140826

It's hard to know exactly how many Russian troops have been sent to Donbas and when. But, since Putin had no problem sending Russian troops to Crimea, it's not beyond imagination that it would send some troops to Donbas as well. And, apart from actual Russian troops "getting lost", there were reports of 300 Wagner Group fighters being sent to Donbas after previously being active in Crimea.

etudiant, I have mentioned before my concerns with some of your softly presented apologia for the Russian position. I ask you to take a good hard look at your assumptions, and particularly consider Mike Snow's post in good faith.

It isn't just the Russians who do stuff like this.
As just one example: back in the mid 1990's, there were over 200 Iranian operatives in Bosnia supporting the Bosniak cause.
Hezbollah was begun as an Iranian supported local Sunni group in Lebanon in the early 80's. Little green men, and in that case, the green is the color of the Islamic revolution.
A variety of places on the globe have had over the years American, or French, or UK, or {pick a nation} enablers and assisters backing local resistance groups.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that the Russians would do a similar thing in a nation right next door upon whom they had designs and possibly nefarious intentions?
This is not rocket science. It's political science, 101.
Have you bought the Moscow line? If so, why?
I get Putin's (and Orban's) distaste for the EU. Hell, Brexit was a case of distaste for the EU. That concern, that aversion to Eurocrats, is hardly an excuse for an invasion of a neighbor.
Fair point. (And I chuckled)

NOT ONE SQUARE INCH of Ukraine to Russia, I don't care what language they speak!

You keep missing the word MINORITY, they were a minority right up until Russia moved in and forced parts of the population out, and as alluded to above IT IS NOT Russia, it is Ukraine and Russia has NO right being in there period..

So how wide is this undeclared DMZ that Russia is establishing across the south and east of Ukraine? (Turkey wanted one about 30 km deep across the north of Syria, as I recall.)