Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[China]

7 hours ago, China said:

Sanctioned Russian oligarchs break down in tears over their inability to book private jets, reports say

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[FrFan]

 

[Larry]

6 hours ago, visionary said:

 

 

 

 

Im also thinking that troops who couldn't advance because they ran out of fuel, probably can't withdraw, and redeploy to a different front on the other side of the country, either. 
 

I also recall reading (no clue if it's true) that the most difficult military maneuver to execute, the one that requires the most discipline and order, is the retreat. 
 

(Although Russia might have an advantage, there. Since Ukraine probably doesn't have the ability to pursue or exploit, either). 

[China]

 

 

"We are still brother nations."  Not anymore. Ukranians will never forgive this.

 

 

It's not going to be just Ukraine that starves.  All the middle eastern countries that rely on Ukranian wheat are going to be in a world of hurt.

 

The starvation of a nation: Putin uses hunger as a weapon in Ukraine

 

Ninety years ago, Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime inflicted a devastating famine on Ukraine, killing 3.9 million people in what became known as the Holodomor, or genocide by hunger.

Now Vladimir Putin, whose invasion has stalled on the battlefield, is trying to starve Ukraine into submission again.

 

Russian troops have laid waste to farmland, destroying agricultural equipment and planting landmines in the rich soil where crops should grow. Ukraine’s traditional supply routes have been wrecked, its ports now under Russian control. In the besieged city of Mariupol — where 170,000 people are still struggling to survive — food had virtually run out by March 13. Aid convoys have not made it through. 

 

"The only interpretation is that [the Russians] want to create hunger and to use this method as a method of aggression," the EU's agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, said on March 23. "It is similar method that was used in 1930s by Soviet regime against Ukrainian people.”

 

The attempted destruction of the food and agriculture sector in Ukraine — a land famed for its fertile "black earth" — is an emergency that has prompted a desperate scramble by aid agencies to deliver supplies and save lives. It is also a longer-term threat to European markets and the wider world. Some of the poorest nations in Africa and the Middle East face their own potential hunger crises in the months and years ahead, if vital imports from Ukraine run out. 

 

April is typically when Ukraine's supremely productive farmers start sowing the maize and sunflowers they will harvest in the summer. But their chances of a successful spring sowing season are severely jeopardized by critical shortages of key agricultural materials from fuel and fertilizers to seeds. There is also a growing shortage of workers, since huge numbers of male farmers have joined the army. 

 

Ukraine is appealing to Europe for help. In letter dated March 24, Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s agriculture minister at the time, asked the EU “urgently” for billions of seeds — to grow cabbages, beetroot, carrots and tomatoes — as part of a package of humanitarian aid. The letter, seen by POLITICO, shows the scale of the shortages facing the Ukrainian people. It requests 210 million cucumber seeds, 400 million cabbage seeds and 50 billion onion seeds. 

 

Russia, Leshchenko wrote, is trying to weaponize mass hunger, like Stalin did in the 1930s. “Many countries and international companies have joined forces to provide Ukraine with food and to prevent famine in Ukraine, which for the second time Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine in our living memory,” he said. 

 

According to the Ukrainian government, the amount of land that will be planted this spring could be slashed by more than half, from 15 million hectares to around 6 million. The farming consultancy APK-Inform has estimated the total planted area could drop by 35 percent compared with 2021. Russian troops have cut off animal feed supplies, leading to the death of 3 million chickens in the Kherson Oblast. 

 

The damage Russia is doing to Ukraine’s farmland will have a long-lasting impact, too. Fields have been destroyed, or mined. Some are cluttered with abandoned Russian trucks and tanks.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Edited April 5, 2022 by China

[FrFan]

 

[mistertim]

1 hour ago, China said:

 

 

"We are still brother nations."  Not anymore. Ukranians will never forgive this.

It's not going to be just Ukraine that starves.  All the middle eastern countries that rely on Ukranian wheat are going to be in a world of hurt.

 

The starvation of a nation: Putin uses hunger as a weapon in Ukraine

 

Ninety years ago, Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime inflicted a devastating famine on Ukraine, killing 3.9 million people in what became known as the Holodomor, or genocide by hunger.

Now Vladimir Putin, whose invasion has stalled on the battlefield, is trying to starve Ukraine into submission again.

 

Russian troops have laid waste to farmland, destroying agricultural equipment and planting landmines in the rich soil where crops should grow. Ukraine’s traditional supply routes have been wrecked, its ports now under Russian control. In the besieged city of Mariupol — where 170,000 people are still struggling to survive — food had virtually run out by March 13. Aid convoys have not made it through. 

 

"The only interpretation is that [the Russians] want to create hunger and to use this method as a method of aggression," the EU's agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, said on March 23. "It is similar method that was used in 1930s by Soviet regime against Ukrainian people.”

 

The attempted destruction of the food and agriculture sector in Ukraine — a land famed for its fertile "black earth" — is an emergency that has prompted a desperate scramble by aid agencies to deliver supplies and save lives. It is also a longer-term threat to European markets and the wider world. Some of the poorest nations in Africa and the Middle East face their own potential hunger crises in the months and years ahead, if vital imports from Ukraine run out. 

 

April is typically when Ukraine's supremely productive farmers start sowing the maize and sunflowers they will harvest in the summer. But their chances of a successful spring sowing season are severely jeopardized by critical shortages of key agricultural materials from fuel and fertilizers to seeds. There is also a growing shortage of workers, since huge numbers of male farmers have joined the army. 

 

Ukraine is appealing to Europe for help. In letter dated March 24, Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s agriculture minister at the time, asked the EU “urgently” for billions of seeds — to grow cabbages, beetroot, carrots and tomatoes — as part of a package of humanitarian aid. The letter, seen by POLITICO, shows the scale of the shortages facing the Ukrainian people. It requests 210 million cucumber seeds, 400 million cabbage seeds and 50 billion onion seeds. 

 

Russia, Leshchenko wrote, is trying to weaponize mass hunger, like Stalin did in the 1930s. “Many countries and international companies have joined forces to provide Ukraine with food and to prevent famine in Ukraine, which for the second time Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine in our living memory,” he said. 

 

According to the Ukrainian government, the amount of land that will be planted this spring could be slashed by more than half, from 15 million hectares to around 6 million. The farming consultancy APK-Inform has estimated the total planted area could drop by 35 percent compared with 2021. Russian troops have cut off animal feed supplies, leading to the death of 3 million chickens in the Kherson Oblast. 

 

The damage Russia is doing to Ukraine’s farmland will have a long-lasting impact, too. Fields have been destroyed, or mined. Some are cluttered with abandoned Russian trucks and tanks.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

"These guys we're attacking are nazis!"

 

"But you're the ones literally saying you want to exterminate a whole group of people"

 

"...shut up"

[Wildbunny]

1 hour ago, China said:

"We are still brother nations."  Not anymore. Ukranians will never forgive this.

It's not going to be just Ukraine that starves.  All the middle eastern countries that rely on Ukranian wheat are going to be in a world of hurt.

Glad to see this thing is gaining a bit of track.

 

I really don't get international leaders here. Are they all on the same page that it's fine to let people starve? Everyone seems to be OK with letting this happen and is playing it egoistically, but this will look even worse when Africa will starve, middle east like Egypt. Those countries won't let it at that.

 

By trying to prevent WW3 we're going to go full throttle into it into something that will probably be even bigger. This should be the main focus of stopping Putin madness at all cost to prevent this.

[tshile]

16 minutes ago, Wildbunny said:

I really don't get international leaders here. Are they all on the same page that it's fine to let people starve?

We only concerned about red lines

 

after which are crossed, we’ll either do nothing or finally do something (even though the nuclear and ww3 threat hasn’t changed at all)

 

🙄

[Die Hard]

14 minutes ago, mistertim said:

 

"These guys we're attacking are nazis!"

 

"But you're the ones literally saying you want to exterminate a whole group of people"

 

"...shut up"

I think the discussion needs to start by defining the term ‘Nazi’.

 

Because my best Russian interpretation is that it implies anybody who doesn’t want to be Russian. They are Russophobes.

Just now, tshile said:

We only concerned about red lines

 

after which are crossed, we’ll either do nothing or finally do something (even though the nuclear and ww3 threat hasn’t changed at all)

 

🙄

Mass murder will be tolerated if it is necessary. More leeway will be given if it is performed slowly.

 

I guess it’s why I’ve never been a diplomat.

[DogofWar1]

You can get away with a heck of a lot if you're a nuclear power.  That's geopolitical reality.

[Wildbunny]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

We only concerned about red lines

 

after which are crossed, we’ll either do nothing or finally do something (even though the nuclear and ww3 threat hasn’t changed at all)

 

🙄

Still, the easiest and fastest way to end all of this would be to actually win the war.

[FootballZombie]

The US, UK and AUS will "commence new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information sharing and to deepen cooperation on defense innovation.”

 

 

This is something the US had already been working on and had ideal end - dates established

 

"The Pentagon’s 2023 budget request already includes $4.7 billion for research and development of hypersonic weapons. It includes planning that would have a hypersonic missile battery fielded by next year, a sea-based missile by 2025 and an air-based cruise missile by 2027."

 

Gotta imagine this speeds up our Hypersonic weapons development.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/australia-uk-us-alliance-develop-160520809.html

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by FootballZombie

[FrFan]

Edited April 5, 2022 by FrFan

[FrFan]

Edited April 5, 2022 by FrFan

[FuriousD]

2 hours ago, Die Hard said:

I think the discussion needs to start by defining the term ‘Nazi’.

 

Because my best Russian interpretation is that it implies anybody who doesn’t want to be Russian. They are Russophobes.

 

Solzhenitsyn was a proud Russian who loved his country and fought against real Nazi's, ironically.  But once he was scooped up by the KGB and sent to Gulag (for criticizing the war effort), he was immediately branded a Nazi himself and heard it everywhere he went.

 

If history teaches us anything, Russian solders returning from Ukraine to the motherland are in for a very rough time.  Huge numbers of those that fought the Third Reich back to Berlin were scooped up and sent to Gulag.  And they were the victorious ones!

[China]

Finnish Intelligence Officer Explains the Russian Mindset

 

Russia has always befuddled Western analysts, a fact best summed up by Winston Churchill who said the multicontinental colossus is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” More recently, “experts” wondered why Putin was pushing forces to Ukraine’s border, then why he launched such a massive attack, and now why on earth he’s reducing cities to rubble and pushing civilians into mass graves.

 

Studying Russian history and culture over the past few years has given me inklings into the “Russian mind” but I’ve only scratched the surface. Thankfully, Martti J. Kari has far more insight. Kari is a former Finnish intelligence colonel and currently teaches cybersecurity at the University of Jyväskylä. (Oh, how I love Finnish names.)

 

In today’s “I support the current thing” social-media hot-take factory, attempting to understand one’s adversaries is equated to sympathizing with them. They won’t learn much from Professor Kari because they’re unteachable. But if you know your military history, you can be assured that Finns are not sentimental about the Bear on their border. (Full disclosure: As a Finnish American, I share this skepticism.)

 

I ran across a lecture Kari gave in 2018 which is the best analysis I’ve found on Russia’s attitude toward geopolitics. Unfortunately, it is in Finnish, and the English version is performed by a text-to-talk robot, making it tough going. So I’ve gathered the best bits from his hour-long talk into a readable format. It is quite long but well worth the read.

 

As we wonder how best to end the nightmare in Ukraine and prevent Putin from moving further west, understanding his mindset is the first step. Please note that I have slightly edited the transcript for clarity and brevity. All content belongs to Kari and any translation errors belong to me and Google. (Visit his video links and give him several likes!) Take it away, Martti…

 

Russian strategic culture: Why Russia does things the way it does
By Martti J. Kari, former intelligence Colonel in the Finnish Defence Forces

 

Click on the link for the full analysis

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

 

[DogofWar1]

Very much a tacit admission that pre-2014 borders are not on the table for negotiations.

 

May be reading too far into it but may be signaling that UKR is going to give up Crimea and portions of the Donbas in any peace deal, and he's trying to prep his people for that.

[Larry]

4 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

Very much a tacit admission that pre-2014 borders are not on the table for negotiations.

 

May be reading too far into it but may be signaling that UKR is going to give up Crimea and portions of the Donbas in any peace deal, and he's trying to prep his people for that.

Yeah, I'm thinking that if they can restore their borders to pre-invasion, then that would be a fantastic victory for Ukraine. 
 

Granted, it's still one of those "moral" victories. Like Rocky going the distance, or a college team playing a pro team to a tie. 
 

But, I can certainly see why they might take that deal.