Russia-Ukraine War - News and Developments PART 2

[F-22Raptor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608303510117810177

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608303513200742400

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608303516166066177

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608303517990625280

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608303519756337152

 

[Dalit]

If we look at this war from our perspective, this war needs to continue for a longer period. The Western powers are now preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Even the China bashing has decreased dramatically. Every day Russia is upping the ante with missiles strikes.

On certain Western defence forums I had been reading for years that war with Russia was out of the question. The war in Ukraine is very troubling for the West from so many angles. How will Europe respond to Russian advances in Ukraine? It puts extreme pressure on Europe.

 

[jhungary]

Let him back up his claims before adressing them. He is constantly trying to derail from reality on the ground.

If anything then Nato light.

NATO combined military spending is $1.2 trillion. If adding Japan, SK, Australia, Singapore and many others then we see north of $2 trillion. In contrast Putin’s annual military budget is kindergarten. If he means serious with fighting against NATO then he must stop spending from healthcare to pension, stopping on everything accept military. Even that that’s still too little.

Next year will be funny. How will he finance the war with less money, economy crashing? Maybe he will lease out his palace to China.

He is the same guys back in October when I say Kherson is untenable and he laugh at my post and said there are no way Russia will lose Kherson and "Capture this and see who will have their last laugh" which I did (so does most people here on PDF) and apparently, I had the last laugh, so did many others.

And then before that he is the same dude who use a reference who stated specifically NATO had only send 18 billion military aid to Ukraine out of 68 billions of total aid and then to counter my point of NATO help is small and insignificant.

I wouldn't even bother answering his post anymore, just haha it and let nature take its course. I mean, if Russian is doing very good at the moment, there are no reason for Russian fanboy to be pissed. And he is REALLY pissed. That show you something.

 

[kingQamaR]

If we look at this war from our perspective, this war needs to continue for a longer period. The Western powers are now preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Even the China bashing has decreased dramatically. Every day Russia is upping the ante with missiles strikes.

On certain Western defence forums I had been reading for years that war with Russia was out of the question. The war in Ukraine is very troubling for the West from so many angles. How will Europe respond to Russian advances in Ukraine? It puts extreme pressure on Europe.

Russia has shown its true self to the world here. The biggest question now is; was Russia ever really a true superpower? Russian ineptitude and weakness is staggering, here for the whole world to see. The only thing they have is to threaten the world with their nukes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they also turned out to be much less than the sum of their parts.

 

[Dalit]

Russia has shown its true self to the world here. The biggest question now is; was Russia ever really a true superpower? Russian ineptitude and weakness is staggering, here for the whole world to see. The only thing they have is to threaten the world with their nukes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they also turned out to be much less than the sum of their parts.

Frankly, I don't give a hoot. Whatever Russia did was for it's own benefit. Russia couldn't afford a Western lackey i.e. Ukraine across the border. We can shed tears on the casualties etc. Unfortunately, every war has casualties.

Now, when I look at the war from our perspective I applaud it. The Western powers are overwhelmed by the Ukraine war. That is a good thing. You know exactly what Western powers do when they aren't busy. Meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations.

 

[kingQamaR]

Frankly, I don't give a hoot. Whatever Russia did was for it's own benefit. Russia couldn't afford a Western lackey i.e. Ukraine across the border. We can shed tears on the casualties etc. Unfortunately, every war has casualties.

Now, when I look at the war from our perspective I applaud it. The Western powers are overwhelmed by the Ukraine war. That is a good thing. You know exactly what Western powers do when they aren't busy. Meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations.

Russia (then USSR) played a decisive role in Indo-Pak War in 1971. Not only they thwarted an attempt by both English and US Navy but also they vetoed the resolution in the UN Security Council which called for a ceasefire between the two nations at war.

 

[jhungary]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608562430409601027

US may be sending Bradley’s now. That’d be a huge increase in their armored capability

There are a lot of stuff US don't need or use they can send to Ukraine to deal with Russia, all those comes with minimal training required.

Bradley (US have around 250 stored somewhere not used and not in strategic reserve)
M109A6 (US have at least 450 stored and not used)
M60 Patton (US have 1000+ serviceable M60 in storage, waiting to be converted to target (Which mean it's going to be destroyed anyway) and already retired.)
M270 (US have around 200 M270 Marine retired when they fielded HIMARS.)
M113 (US have 4000+ M113 of all variants in storage, retired and waiting to be scraped)
M1128 Stryker MGS (US have retired the entire M1128 MGS just this year, there are 140 of those)

If US send all these to Ukriane, that is enough for the Ukrainian to mount an offensive. And that's just retired stuff, not stuff that we still use and can be spared, and that just US. I don't understand why US and EU are holding on to those old stock to begin with. The rationale is that you may need that for a conventional war with a near peer enemy, which is Russia, which is basically what these article being store in reserve is for, for them to fight Russia, then why not send them to Ukraine so they can do what they were stored to do??

 

[Stranagor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608533166465187840

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608526809909305346

https://twitter.com/x/status/1608513263997706242

If Russia had basic freedoms and a free press, they would have serious civil backlash at home.

But, it usually chooses to implode from inside under its own weight - like the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons alone do not keep a country stable or functional.

Keep seeing russian propaganda quote Douglas McGregor. Supposedly “neutral take” on the conflict.

Its a russian propagandist who has been wrong again and again since februari.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1505003978299478019

Very much like in the case of another large country, the Russian state propaganda machine attempts to weaponize Western freedom of expression against the West/Ukraine. This is while it does not allow an iota of similar freedoms to its own people.

Otherwise, I would like to see the Russian antiwar opinion to be able express itself without any fear on NBC or the Sky News.

 

[vi-va]

how can a country/Russia, lose a war that's still active? if you meant to say something else then please word your phrase better.

• U.S. lost the Vietnam War in 1970, or even earlier, like 1967.
• U.S. lost the Afghanistan War in 2003 when the Bush regime invaded Iraq.
• U.S. lost the Iraq War in 2008, or even earlier, like 2005.

Political prediction can be made long before the war really ends. Russia can retreat, negotiate now. Otherwise, Russia will lose even more, but Putin just hasn't made up his mind.

1. The energy weapon of Russia failed.
2. The nuclear deterrence doesn't work in Ukraine, Russia can't drop nukes on NATO countries, nor can Russia nuke Ukraine.
3. The wheat weapon of Russia doesn't work.
4. Over 90 percent of countries in this world dare not to support Russia.
5. Central Asia countries don't support Ukraine Invasion.
6. The support from friendly countries is limited, they have their own concerns as well, such as sanctions.
7. India blackmail Russia for huge oil discount.
8. China can only provide economy support, but Russia need military support.
9. Most Russians don't support this war right now, they will against the war even more if Putin call for more mobilization.

The list can go on and on.

Most importantly, Ukrainians had beaten Russians really badly on battlefield. The Russians has lost momentum and strong fighting will, logistic is terrible. Tactic is kind of like WW1 and WW2, at most 1970s, trench, tanks, cannon, meat grinder, what else?

The Europeans would rather support Ukraine than themselves fight against Russia directly. Supporting Ukraine is the cheapest for Europeans relatively right now.

Those are facts.

 

[khansaheeb]

Ukraine was sea-change for openness – GCHQ head

Sir Jeremy Fleming interviews head of US intelligence agency as guest editor of Radio 4's Today programme.

www.bbc.com

Ukraine was sea-change for openness – GCHQ head​

• • Published
    12 hours ago

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• Russia-Ukraine war

IMAGE SOURCE,EPA
Image caption,
Intelligence has been at the forefront of the Ukraine war, says Sir Jeremy
By Gordon Corera & Sam Hancock
Security correspondent, BBC News

The Ukraine conflict marked a sea-change for the release of intelligence, the head of the spy agency GCHQ Sir Jeremy Fleming has said.
Washington and London took the unusual step of publicising their knowledge of Russia's plans ahead of its invasion.
The head of US intelligence, Avril Haines, said lessons had been learned including the limits of such moves to publicise intelligence.
Sir Jeremy interviewed her for Radio 4's Today programme.
The extraordinary exchange between the intelligence bosses - which they acknowledged would normally happen at a "top secret" level - saw them discuss how important it was for people to understand their jobs against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
As a 30-year veteran of the secret world, Sir Jeremy said Ukraine had seen a new type of conflict in which intelligence was at the forefront.

Ms Haines agreed, saying the war between Ukraine and Russia had made it clear that countries "cannot manage any threat [from] around the world without partners or allies".
Western allies, including the UK and US, have provided Ukraine with military aid since it was invaded in February.
As director of national intelligence, Ms Haines co-ordinates all America's spy agencies - and she played a pivotal role in pushing for sensitive intelligence to be declassified and published in the run-up to Russia's February invasion.
This unusual step was designed to deter Russia and counter its claims it was acting defensively.
"Keeping the population up-to-date on what we're seeing and involving them in the conversation in a more significant way is crucial," Ms Haines told Sir Jeremy, who was guest-editing the Today programme.
However, she added there were limitations. In Russia, efforts to share intelligence had "basically no impact" because of the control the Kremlin exerted over information flows inside the country.

This extended to other countries who began believing the false claims Russia was peddling about the West's involvement in the war, Ms Haines said.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
US intelligence chief Avril Haines says open intelligence is important in this age of easily-spread misinformation
"One of their main narratives is that the United States is provoking this conflict, and that Nato and Ukraine are setting the conditions and threatening Russia and that sort of forced them into this position," she told Sir Jeremy.
"Authoritarian states have this kind of asymmetric advantage where they're effectively controlling the information to their populations."
Sir Jeremy said he supported the sea-change of declassifying certain intelligence, and using it to "pre-bunk" a narrative, but much of the world had not completely bought into the argument.
The GCHQ head, who was appointed by then foreign secretary Boris Johnson in 2017, said conversations about open intelligence were important - and they have to include non-government and intelligence voices.
For this reason, he added, the private sector had played an important part in the conflict - whether it was satellite imagery from private providers, which could confirm the intelligence claims about troop build-ups, or the work of companies like Microsoft in providing cyber-defence for Ukraine.

"There are different alliances, which enable us to show and demonstrate that we are more trusted," Sir Jeremy said, before wishing Ms Haines a "happy and, I hope, peaceful 2023".
In another interview for the programme, Sir Jeremy rejected the idea that GCHQ had been dragged into the open by Edward Snowden's revelations, claiming the former US intelligence employee publishing details of secret programmes had cost the UK "blood and money".
Asked if his successor could be the first woman to lead GCHQ, Sir Jeremy said "let's hope so" noting the organisation had not been led by either a woman or someone from an ethnic minority background and that it was time to "show a difference at the top" of intelligence agencies.

 

[PakFactor]

Russia (then USSR) played a decisive role in Indo-Pak War in 1971. Not only they thwarted an attempt by both English and US Navy but also they vetoed the resolution in the UN Security Council which called for a ceasefire between the two nations at war.

They became better allies for India than the cucks US/UK for Pakistan.

But I, for one, agree with @Dalit that this conflict works to our benefit. Suppose we can add more fuel to the fire, the less pressure on the Islamic World overall. Sadly, casualties happened, but even Ukraine jumped on the Coalition of the Willing bandwagon and went to Iraq, so no love was lost here. There is a reason why 50 some nations are silent between Pakistan and Morocco; they had the chance to pull up their Huggies diapers.

 

[khansaheeb]

December 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday in what Kyiv has called one of Moscow's largest missile barrages since the war began.

www.cnn.com

2 hr 50 min ago

Ukrainians resolute to ring in new year despite power outages from latest Russian attacks​

From CNN's Olga Voitovych, Eliza Mackintosh, Daria Markina-Tarasova and Dima Olenchenko

People charge their mobile phones at the mobile police station during a blackout in Kyiv, on December 22. (Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)

The Russian strikes that killed three people on Thursday were aimed at Ukraine's electrical infrastructure, knocking out power in several regions and sending engineering crews racing to restore services as the New Year’s holiday approaches this weekend.
Authorities have been cautioning for days that Russia was preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas holiday on Jan. 7.

“Russian terrorists have been saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter Thursday. “They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in darkness and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people.”

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were particularly hard-hit, and the cities are experiencing emergency power outages – which is when the electricity is protectively turned off to diminish damage from the grid shorting out.
Forty percent of Kyiv residents were without power as of mid-morning local time, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, while in western Ukraine, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said 90% of the city was without power.
Residents in Kyiv told CNN that they are planning to celebrate the new year despite possible power outages or blackouts.
"We have already become perfectly oriented on how to survive in such conditions. Anyway, we will celebrate the New Year and hope for the best,” Kyiv resident Halyna Hladka said.
Read more here.

 

[Stranagor]

Now, when I look at the war from our perspective I applaud it. The Western powers are overwhelmed by the Ukraine war. That is a good thing. You know exactly what Western powers do when they aren't busy. Meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations.

For anything, the West has been energized by this war.

You really believe a war aid not amounting to 100 billion USD from the developed West will cause headache?

China probably spent three times more on useless lackdowns, mass testing and quarantines in the past one year or so.

In fact, Western political alliance has become robust, overcoming the cracks created by the second Gulf War and the Trump administration.

There are new frameworks with regional support, such as Free and Open Indo-Pacific, the QUAD, AUKUS, Build Back Better Initiative, etc.

Japan and South Korea are more firmly in the Western bloc. The Philippines has leaned closer to the US, unlike Duterte era. It opened up a US military naval base after 30 years. Vietnam has reduced its reliance on Russian weapons from 100pct to 60pct.

Russia has lost the public support even in friendly countries, such as China, if you go by Weibo posts.

Europe is decoupling from the Russian energy.

As for other developing countries benefitting from it. How so. The inflationary pressure from foodstuff to energy can be as much blamed on the Russian invasion as on the pandemic.

And these bottlenecks in global trade and inflation do hit poor and developing countries the most.

 

[vi-va]

There are a lot of stuff US don't need or use they can send to Ukraine to deal with Russia, all those comes with minimal training required.

Bradley (US have around 250 stored somewhere not used and not in strategic reserve)
M109A6 (US have at least 450 stored and not used)
M60 Patton (US have 1000+ serviceable M60 in storage, waiting to be converted to target (Which mean it's going to be destroyed anyway) and already retired.)
M270 (US have around 200 M270 Marine retired when they fielded HIMARS.)
M113 (US have 4000+ M113 of all variants in storage, retired and waiting to be scraped)
M1128 Stryker MGS (US have retired the entire M1128 MGS just this year, there are 140 of those)

If US send all these to Ukriane, that is enough for the Ukrainian to mount an offensive. And that's just retired stuff, not stuff that we still use and can be spared, and that just US. I don't understand why US and EU are holding on to those old stock to begin with. The rationale is that you may need that for a conventional war with a near peer enemy, which is Russia, which is basically what these article being store in reserve is for, for them to fight Russia, then why not send them to Ukraine so they can do what they were stored to do??

To make the damn war last longer. U.S. worried too much support would give Putin the excuse to retreat too early.

The U.S. benefit from the war a lot, economically, politically, militarily, and most importantly, geopolitically. The longer the war last, the better for U.S. The longer the war last, more likely Putin administration explode internally.

So, here we come, another 10 years Afghanistan War in East Europe.

 

[Stranagor]

"Authoritarian states have this kind of asymmetric advantage where they're effectively controlling the information to their populations."

Exactly so. Also, those states are adept at abusing freedoms in the target populations, especially the West (hope this won't become an excuse to limit those freedoms. The Cold War has shown that openness and freedom of expression eventually win).

Populations in places such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc. are mobilized but immobile. In a sense, they are guided by the state propaganda and kept mobile (think about large scale parades in which people are trained to move in perfect unison as we see in North Korea or China) but cannot step outside the discourse boundaries set up by their respective regimes, hence immobile.