News Forum - Ukraine’s Zelensky defies Russia’s ultimatum to lay down weapons

[Fester]

2 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

Craters are too small for 155's. That has been done with suicide drones.

So yeah maybe the new toys are working.

About 0:34 bunches of scattered big craters, to big for most mortars and too many misses for drones? 

[Rookiescot]

2 minutes ago, Fanta said:

They don’t have mobile phones and live in huts without electricity or mail in villages thousand of miles apart? Come into the 21st century and stop with the denial. Don’t you have some atonement to do? 

Oh please. How is Momma Olga going to know other mommas numbers.

Now if there was a free and independent media like we have in the west these women might stand a chance of finding out the truth but that is not the case is it.

And you know it.

So what you do now is dance on the head of a pin coming up with theoretical ways that people will find out the truth while failing to acknowledge reality. 

[Fanta]

1 minute ago, Rookiescot said:

Oh please. How is Momma Olga going to know other mommas numbers.

Now if there was a free and independent media like we have in the west these women might stand a chance of finding out the truth but that is not the case is it.

And you know it.

So what you do now is dance on the head of a pin coming up with theoretical ways that people will find out the truth while failing to acknowledge reality. 

The son goes to war and doesn’t come back and the best you can come up with is that a bear ate him in the forest. Enough said… 

[Rookiescot]

4 minutes ago, Fester said:

About 0:34 bunches of scattered big craters, to big for most mortars and too many misses for drones? 

Mortars need not be small in caliber. In the UK they range from 51mm to 81mm. One of those would definitely make a hole that size.

[Rookiescot]

Just now, Fanta said:

The son goes to war and doesn’t come back and the best you can come up with is that a bear ate him in the forest. Enough said… 

Ah now the guilt trip eh? So what do YOU think Czar Putin will tell this poor Momma? He was killed in an illegal war in the Ukraine along with thousands of his fellow soldiers because my ego demanded it?

[Fester]

7 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

Mortars need not be small in caliber. In the UK they range from 51mm to 81mm. One of those would definitely make a hole that size.

OK but if mortars looks like they need more practice. 

[Rookiescot]

6 minutes ago, Fester said:

OK but if mortars looks like they need more practice. 

Mortars, while inherently inaccurate, do give you an idea it would be better to be somewhere else than here.

[Fester]

29 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

Mortars, while inherently inaccurate, do give you an idea it would be better to be somewhere else than here.

BBC just reported it as a "massive artillery barrage". On the News at One just now.

[Fanta]

Interesting opinions on the future of the war  not spoonfed by MSM.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/author/daniel-l-davis/

[Grumpish]

3 hours ago, Alavan said:

Seems Russia doesn't want them back... How can they explain all those death soldiers to the people when the military action is going so well?

Got to be a hard sell on why the people they are liberating from fascists and neo-nazis keep sending their saviours back in body bags, as well..

[EdwardV]

10 hours ago, Fanta said:

My point is that these stories all feed the narrative that Russia is getting absolutely hammered and imply that they want to conquer Ukraine in it’s entirety. I don’t buy that story for many reasons. I think Russia will take Donbas, do a role call, visit cnn.com to check their popularity rating and then trundle off back home. Mission failed successfully. 

What reasons? 

Well if they are going to take Donbas, they are doing so the slow method. It appears the large encirclement out of Izyum has been given up. After taking the city, Russia can't seem to breakout:

 

Amid the ongoing brutal war between Russia and Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a United States-based think tank, claimed that the Russian military may give up plans to encircle Ukrainian forces on the Izyum axis. Instead, they might look to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk cities, the ISW said in a statement. It also warned that Russian forces are likely to launch a ground offensive on or around Severodonetsk in the coming days. According to the ISW, the relative effectiveness of Russian operations in this area, along with their failure to advance from Izyum indicate that they may be abandoning the Izyum axis. "It is unclear if Russian forces can encircle, let alone capture, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk even if they focus their efforts on that much-reduced objective. Russian offensives have bogged down every time they hit a built-up area throughout this war, and these areas are unlikely to be different," the ISW claimed. It further outlined that the Ukrainian counteroffensive in and around Kharkiv is also forcing the Russian command to make "difficult decisions." According to the ISW, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv is looking somewhat similar to the counteroffensive that ultimately forced Russian soldiers out of Kyiv as well as entire Western Ukraine. 

Russian troops may give up plans to encircle Ukrainian forces on Izyum axis: ISW (republicworld.com)

It's a smaller bite, maybe they will have better luck with this. 

 

[Poop]

Fanboy Putin is a Russian troll masquerading as a normal person but he is 100% behind the Putin disinformation campaign. He will post the odd post saying he is against Putin but then he dose the exact opposite and makes like he is bipolar...

But the FSB will routinely have trolls who monitor forums like this and try to change the narrative of what is going on. 

Lets examine that video he posted of apparently what is going on in Donbass. Who was the news feed. "PL News Today". Do a search... Does not exist..... Yup, another Russian disinformation campaign with actors posting as Western journalists. But then the News reporter who is posing as Western makes a stupid mistake. He starts talking in Russian to the old lady. Which is fine as many in the border region do speak Russian. However there are many different dialects of Russian and his is not from that area at all or Ukraine for that matter as I have never head it before but only in parts of Russia. And Russia as we know no longer has independent news media as they are in jail. So we know that this is a fabricated video made by Russians as part of their disinformation campaign. But they did such a poor job it is only the fools who would belief it but again that is what Russia wants. Their are a lot of fools out there and getting the fools to post this video is mission accomplished according to Russia.

So ya, utter nonsense, but again that is typical for Fanboy...

 

[EdwardV]

3 hours ago, Fanta said:

The son goes to war and doesn’t come back and the best you can come up with is that a bear ate him in the forest. Enough said… 

No doubt Russia can postpone that reckoning for several months if not a year. Plenty of time to win the war and hail all the dead as hero's.  

[Poop]

4 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Craters are too small for 155's. That has been done with suicide drones.

So yeah maybe the new toys are working.

The Ukrainians waited till they built the bridge and started crossing and then about 20 min later the artillery opened up. They also used aircraft as they wanted to send a message. It was a slaughter as many trapped on the other side of the river desperately tried to get back which is why you see several tanks piled in a bunch near the point of crossing. No ground forces were used. But ya it was horrific and an entire battalion was mostly destroyed. But hey Russian has 90 more to go so who cares about a few Russian soldiers if you are a Russian commander.... 

I can only imagine the survivors talking about this as they go back to their bases with their missing body parts full of shrapnel if they survived. I don't think they will will find any eager soldiers for the next river crossing and many will now be trying to find a way out of the army. 

I have heard reports that soldiers are starting to refuse service as they are no longer afraid of their commanders to try to scare them with jail. They realize that because Putin does not declare this as war that refusing service does not result in jail. They just get sent away by angry commanders. I suspect that because more and more soldiers are talking to each other that Putin may need to officially declare this as war or he will have no soldiers in the end. So sad for this senseless loss of life all started in the Donbass by Russia invading and their war criminal soldiers.

[EdwardV]

2 hours ago, Fanta said:

Interesting opinions on the future of the war  not spoonfed by MSM.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/author/daniel-l-davis/

In mid-April, Russia captured the critical transportation hub of Izyum near the northern shoulder of the Donbas lines. - And after a month of attacks out of Izyum, Russia has stalled. 

Russia appears to be using tactics that mimic what worked for them in Mariupol: surrounding a city with ground troops, cutting off Ukrainian forces’ ability to get reinforcements (or food, water, and fuel), then relentlessly pounding Ukrainian positions with artillery, rocket fire, and airstrikes, progressively shrinking the ring around the city.  - The same tactic that failed at Sumy and Chernihiv, and not quite worked in Mariupol yet. Never mind it was ruinous to the Russian military in losses. To be fair, this isn't some new tactic. Bypassing cities on an advance has always been the smart move in modern warfare. 

The pattern has proven effective and is presently being reprised in numerous Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbas. - That's not correct, Russia isn't using that tactic in Donbas. They are not bypassing, and surrounding. They are stopping the advance, reducing the city to dust and then moving in and through. Arguably better than the so called Mariupol tactic. 

Whether Putin has enough troops, ammunition, and time to complete the destruction of the UAF positions in the Donbas without mobilizing some portion of its reserve forces is an open question. - Oops, how did that get in there? 

There is always the possibility that Russia may run out of steam before completing the encirclement, that Ukraine is able to drag the battle out beyond two months, and that a stalemate could be won by Kyiv. - See above. 

 

[Poop]

I have heard from some of my sources that Putin has cancer. A blood type and he has gone for surgery. I also heard several inside people are trying to get rid of him but he has beefed up his security dramatically so is pretty hard to do. But there are many in power who want to get rid of him and the list has been growing as the dead soldiers returning is causing a lot in the military to blame him for everything. Not Fanboy though as according to him "everything is going according to plan". What a joke he is.....

So not sure how long Putin has yet but it is quite serious so his long term outlook is not good.

So change may be coming to Russia sooner than we think though it still could be several months unfortunately. It is one of the reasons why he purged the FSB. There are so many in the intelligence area giving up info as they are sick of his rule and they are even more upset that many of their friends have been put in jail as scapegoats. Apparently Putin is hiding from them as he wants them in the dark as he knows they are revealing all to Ukraine and other peeps who I know. 

Russia apparently is desperate for negotiations but Ukraine gets the feeling from listening to Russian soldier conversations that they are refusing to fight more and more as they see friends get maimed/dead for no reason. So Ukraine at this point feels that give them 2 or 3 months and they are going to do a lot of damage with the thousands of rounds of Western artillery to Russian positions and push Russia back significantly. So yeah, I would not want to be a Russian soldier in the East or your name will soon become past tense. 

Hopefully the surgery will go wrong and a new leader can start apologizing to the world for being war criminals and start paying for Russian crimes.

[Fanta]

5 hours ago, EdwardV said:

Oops, how did that get in there? 

You don’t like a bit of balance in an opinion ?

Why does everyone need to be either 100% Ukraine is winning or the opposite? 

[Fanta]

6 hours ago, EdwardV said:

Bypassing cities on an advance has always been the smart move in modern warfare. 

Not possible since Ukraine decided to fight the battles inside the cities. It’s a smart move to defend inside a urban environment where enemy tanks have limited visibility & movement.  And Ukraine gets to claim that civilians are being attacked. It’s a win win for Ukraine, except for the civilians - the cheapest cannon fodder.

[Fanta]

7 hours ago, EdwardV said:

Well if they are going to take Donbas, they are doing so the slow method.

People seem to believe that no-one knew an attack was coming in n the Donbas region. Seriously? Donbas has been in a state of war for 7+ years. The defenses there have been built slowly and surely for years with considerable input from the US. Minefields to force tanks into pre determined paths, artillery zeroed into those paths, dug in defenses, pre mapped killing zones - that place would be a nightmare to try to attack. And that is why it is mainly an artillery battle. Ukraine has the majority of their army there. Overrun in a few weeks? Impossible. Claiming the advance is slowed due to the Russians receiving repeated ass kickings denies the realities of the battleground.

[EdwardV]

24 minutes ago, Fanta said:

Not possible since Ukraine decided to fight the battles inside the cities. It’s a smart move to defend inside a urban environment where enemy tanks have limited visibility & movement.  And Ukraine gets to claim that civilians are being attacked. It’s a win win for Ukraine, except for the civilians - the cheapest cannon fodder.

All the more reason to by-pass them. Yes smart move for Ukraine, but that doesn't mean Russia has to enter and fight block to block. Many an army was doomed by going house to house.

Lets see if Russia enters Syeverodonetsk and fights house to house, or by-passes and reduces it from outside. Of course that will depend on whether they can get on the other side of the river and cut off the city instead. No doubt Russia would prefer to cross the river, that's why they tried three times already. 

[Fanta]

26 minutes ago, EdwardV said:

All the more reason to by-pass them. Yes smart move for Ukraine, but that doesn't mean Russia has to enter and fight block to block. Many an army was doomed by going house to house.

Bypassing a city to capture another objective might work in a blitzkrieg type attack which is what we are not seeing here. Leaving 1,000s of enemy soldiers behind you is a recipe for disaster and the Russians aren’t that stupid. You think they have nothing better to do than to slowly reduce a city to dust before moving on? Ukraine is turning cities into battlefields and few will admit that. The Russians have no choice but to take the cities. Do the Ukrainians have a choice where to fight their battles ? Yes. And they have clearly decided. Zelenskky’s wailing for the civilians is an own goal that MSM is often too sympathetic to mention. Quite frankly. they are all cut from the same cloth and I don’t give a toss if they wipe each other out. 

[EdwardV]

8 hours ago, Fanta said:

People seem to believe that no-one knew an attack was coming in n the Donbas region. Seriously?

That ignores the fact Russia had no intention of fighting in the Donbas in this head first grinding method. They intended to do a pincer, which you yourself pointed out in the past. Problem is the first two plans failed. If they can't cross the river and get behind Lysychansk (and Sievierodonetsk), it's going to get even slower. 

 

Battle of Donbas: Russian attempt to encircle Ukrainian troops, in maps | Euromaidan Press

[EdwardV]

7 minutes ago, Fanta said:

Ukraine is turning cities into battlefields and few will admit that.

Every defender does that, since the dawn of warfare. 

Russia bypassed Sumy and Chernhiv and neither of them bite them in the rear. Those advances failed because of opposition at the front, not from the rear. Still I'm sure Ukraine would love nothing better than Russia going house to house at every city in their path. 

[Fanta]

2 minutes ago, EdwardV said:

That ignores the fact Russia had no intention of fighting in the Donbas in this head first grinding method.

Nice Ukrainian supplied map and logic 

Of course encirclement is better than direct attack. Russia sure has moved move a lot of artillery into Donbas for an army that had no intention of fighting there. Used Fed Ex to get it there overnight did they?

[Fanta]

Zelenskky has finally had to admit the cavalry aren’t coming to Mariupol. He now wants a POW swap to free some of the Azostal soldiers, I cannot see how the talks are complex, even after Zelenskyy calls in his big brother. Zelenskky says “Pretty please?” Moscow says “nyet, Nyet, NYET.”  Seems pretty clear to me unless Russia are insisting on a one for one swap. 

May 13 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said talks with Russia on getting wounded defenders out of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol were very complex, adding Kyiv was using influential intermediaries.

“Ukraine, saying there is no military solution to the standoff, has proposed evacuating 38 of the most severely wounded defenders. If Moscow allows them out, Kyiv says it will release a number of Russian prisoners of war.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-talks-with-russia-getting-defenders-out-azovstal-very-difficult-2022-05-13/