Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[tshile]

It doesn’t make sense for either side. 
 

but in may supposedly the report was highest recorded water levels. This is after they were draining it. 
 

wonder if it’s structural failure. Looks less like a hole was shot into it and more like the a structural failure but wtf do I know about any of it 😂 

[China]

One other point I recall reading was that below the reservoir might be a place for the Ukranian troops to cross during a potential counteroffensive.  If there is suddenly a large flow of water it would make temporary bridges and bridging of the river downstream significantly more difficult.

Edited June 6, 2023 by China

[tshile]

We’ll bno and others are tweeting ukrain is saying Russian forces did it. And it was blown up. So never mind on what I said 

this person claiming this is footage 🤷‍♂️ 

[88Comrade2000]

Putin will use tactical nukes before this  is over. He’s that crazy and doesn’t give a **** about the world’s reaction. 
 

Now that there are drone attacks within mother Russia, getting close to a trigger point for Vlad.

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Do I have it wrong, or does it seem pretty clear that Russia did this in order to thwart the planned Ukrainian offensive?  Everyone has been expecting the offensive to come for months, but the assumption was it would start after the spring rainy season .... because tanks and other armor and heavy vehicles struggle to operate in mud.  Yesterday, it appeared that significant Ukrainian offensive operations had begun.  So Russia took that as the signal to blow the dam. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by PleaseBlitz

[tshile]

Certainly seems to make sense

 

I mean it doesn’t make sense because it trashed Russian occupied land

 

but neither does digging trenches around a nuclear plant that melted down and they did that too so 🤷‍♂️ 

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, tshile said:

I mean it doesn’t make sense because it trashed Russian occupied land

 

I mean, the point of a Ukrainian counteroffensive is to take back Russian occupied land.  So they'd need to take their armor and drive it into the Russian occupied land.  How does it not make sense for Russia to make it impossible for Ukraine to operate their armor in exactly the place where the Ukrainian armor needs to go?

[tshile]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I mean, the point of a Ukrainian counteroffensive is to take back Russian occupied land.  So they'd need to take their armor and drive it into the Russian occupied land.  How does it not make sense for Russia to make it impossible for Ukraine to operate their armor in exactly the place where the Ukrainian armor needs to go?

because now they can’t use it either. So now they’re fighting over worthless land

 

Although now that i think about it that was exactly how the Russians responded to the German invasion leading up to the battle of Stalingrad in ww2. 
 

they burned everything down and destroyed all the fields. 

[Gurgeh]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

because now they can’t use it either. So now they’re fighting over worthless land

 

Although now that i think about it that was exactly how the Russians responded to the German invasion leading up to the battle of Stalingrad in ww2. 
 

they burned everything down and destroyed all the fields. 

 

And they also blew up an earlier dam across the Dnipro to slow down the Germans in WW2:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/02/second-world-war-dnieper-dam-blown-up-by-russians-1941

 

As far as fighting over worthless land, the Russians have already levelled many towns and cities in the process of taking control of them. It's how they won in Chechnya and Syria, and how they've been fighting in Ukraine once their ham-fisted attempts at more modern tactics came unstuck in the early stages of the war,  Just destroy everything in the path of the army so there's literally nothing left to defend. Putin would happily erase every settlement in Ukraine if it meant he could conquer all of it.

 

Remember that any areas they control after this is over will be rebuilt, and given the level of corruption in Russia, Putin and his friends will make bank from all the "government" construction contracts. Just look at the construction bills for the Winter Olympics:

 

The New, 28-Mile Road in Sochi Could Have Been Paved with Caviar — And It Would Have Been Cheaper (esquire.com)

 

Vladimir Putin pledged to spend $12 billion on the Olympic games in Sochi. Over time, it was discovered somewhere around $6.8 billion of that proposed money was going to go to one road: the Adler–Krasnaya Polyana... Two no-bid contracts were awarded to companies that are run by alleged friends of the Putin administration.

[China]

Russia Blows Up Farm Equipment, Claims They’re Leopard Tanks

 

The Russian Ministry of Defense has released a video that it says shows Ukrainian armored vehicles, including at least one German-made Leopard tank, being destroyed. However, the footage, which appears to have been shot via the targeting system on a Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter, shows anti-tank guided missiles being fired on civilian farming equipment. This would not be the first time Russian officials have tried to pass off sloppy propaganda like this.

 

The footage, seen in the Tweet below, was released along with the official claims via Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti earlier today. The complete video contains two distinct clips. The first shows a number of vehicles in an open field, one of which is then targeted and destroyed by a missile. The second shows an indiscernible object also blown apart by a missile.

 

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[GhostofSparta]

20 minutes ago, China said:

Russia Blows Up Farm Equipment, Claims They’re Leopard Tanks

 

The Russian Ministry of Defense has released a video that it says shows Ukrainian armored vehicles, including at least one German-made Leopard tank, being destroyed. However, the footage, which appears to have been shot via the targeting system on a Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter, shows anti-tank guided missiles being fired on civilian farming equipment. This would not be the first time Russian officials have tried to pass off sloppy propaganda like this.

 

The footage, seen in the Tweet below, was released along with the official claims via Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti earlier today. The complete video contains two distinct clips. The first shows a number of vehicles in an open field, one of which is then targeted and destroyed by a missile. The second shows an indiscernible object also blown apart by a missile.

 

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

To be fair, those Ukrainian tractors have proven to be far more effective than the Russian tanks they were capturing early in the war. I can understand the mistake.

[China]

Russia's Wagner boss scoffs at Moscow claims it inflicted huge Ukraine losses

 

Moscow claimed on Tuesday it had thwarted another major offensive by Ukraine in Donetsk, destroying military equipment and inflicting huge personnel losses, a statement that the powerful head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group dismissed as "absurd science fiction."

 

Russia's defence ministry said that its forces had repelled Ukraine's second major offensive in two days, destroying, among other military equipment, eight main battle Leopard tanks supplied to Ukraine by its Western allies and 109 armoured vehicles.

 

It also said that total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1,500 troops.

 

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about Russia's assertions and Reuters was not able to verify the claims. Both sides have often made claims of inflicting heavy human losses on each other which could not be independently verified.

 

But Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner mercenaries spent months fighting in Bakhmut and who has frosty relations with Moscow, cast doubt on the defence ministry statement.

 

To kill that many people would require daily gains of 150 kilometres (93 miles), he said in remarks published on the Telegram channel of his press service.

 

"I therefore believe that this is simply wild and absurd science fiction," said Prigozhin.

 

Click on the link for the full story

[China]

Stephen Zhao: Tepid response to Kakhovka dam explosion paves way for nuclear disaster

 

On the morning of June 6 at around 2:50 a.m., an explosion erupts at the center of the Kakhovka dam, leading to its destruction and the flooding of much of Kherson Oblast. Having been mined by Russia over the course of last year and timed exactly to disrupt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, there is no doubt that the culprit is Russia.

 

The evidence that points to Russia is overwhelming. The dam was destroyed from the center, which some experts say rules out a dam failure as the damage would start from the edges of the dam in such a scenario. Destruction of the dam from explosives would require the use of hundreds of pounds of explosives and would best be done from inside, where the force of the explosion could be exerted against the entire structure.

 

Ukraine could only destroy it externally through constant shelling, whereas local residents reported hearing a single large explosion. The dam also lies under Russian control, in Russian-occupied territory, and we already knew that Russia had mined the dam back in October last year.

 

However, mainstream Western publications declined to attribute the destruction of the dam to Russia. Instead, reporting only stated that Russia and Ukraine blamed each other. Meanwhile, media sympathetic to Russia or with ties to the Kremlin flooded the information space with conspiracy theories directly accusing Ukraine of responsibility.

 

Western leaders themselves were quick to condemn Russia for creating conditions for the disaster through their illegal invasion of Ukraine, but few attributed the dam’s destruction to direct Russian action. Most prominently, the U.S. explicitly stated that it did not have enough details to say who was responsible.

 

Regardless, the only reaction from Ukraine’s Western partners over the ecological disaster of the scale of Chornobyl were words of concern and moral indignation.

 

This tepid reaction dramatically raises the risk of Russia destroying the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Decision makers in Moscow will see that no matter what action they take, Western media and key Western governments will not attribute blame or take action until the dust is settled and they have enough evidence to win a court case.

 

Click on the link for the rest

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Well immediately following the nord stream blast the west  blamed it on Russia when ultimately Ukrainian aligned parties were to blame. Perhaps the west wanted get the facts in order before making another mistake. And if the west is ready to place immediate blame (and take action) against Russia if the nuclear power plant is damaged/destroyed doesn’t that creative incentive for Ukraine to destroy the plant?

Edited June 7, 2023 by CousinsCowgirl84

[China]

Ukrainian dam destruction sends global prices of wheat, corn soaring

 

The destruction of a major dam in southern Ukraine has sent global prices of corn and wheat soaring, reversing this year’s fall in prices after a major spike caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

 

In early trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday, wheat prices gained 2.4% to $6.39 a bushel. The cost of corn rose more than 1%, or more than to $6 a bushel, and oats gained 0.73%, or $3.46 per unit.

 

The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, which sits on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow controls, raised anxiety about potential disruption to global supplies given Ukraine’s position as a major exporter of wheat and corn.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Gurgeh]

Chaos on frontlines as Ukraine war threatens to come home for Russia | Russia | The Guardian

 

If Vladimir Saldo was trying to project a sense of calm among the deluged frontline towns and villages of Russian-occupied Kherson region, he was failing miserably.

 

The Kremlin-installed “governor”, dressed in camouflage and helmet and sitting in front of the flooded remains of the town centre of Nova Kakhovka, claimed that the city was “alive”.

“People are calmly walking around the streets,” said Saldo, as the flood waters rose up the walls of the city hall behind him...

 

The Russian Volunteer Corps, an anti-Kremlin militia, claimed it had captured Novaya Tavolzhanka, one of the largest villages in the region. It had even taken prisoners, including a 23-year-old chef from the Pskov region who said he was a mobilised soldier. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, admitted on Monday that Russian troops “cannot reach the village”, effectively confirming that they had temporarily lost control over a Russian town. In many ways, the border area appears largely unprotected.

 

[Riggo-toni]

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Ukrainian military begins counteroffensive to oust Russian occupiers

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/08/ukraine-counteroffensive-russia-war-zaporizhzhia/

 

Quote

KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military has launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces, opening a crucial phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and preserving Western support in its fight against domination by Moscow.

 

 

Ukrainian troops, including specialized attack units armed with Western weapons and trained in NATO tactics, intensified their strikes on front-line positions in the country’s southeast Wednesday night, according to four people in the country’s armed forces, beginning a significant push into Russian-occupied territory.

 

The four military personnel, including officers, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the battlefield developments.

Russian military bloggers also reported heavy fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region, a part of the front line that has long been seen as a likely location of the new Ukrainian campaign.

 

[China]

Dam collapse a global problem as waters may poison Black Sea, Zelenskiy says

 

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the ecological disaster triggered by the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam has become a global problem as severely contaminated waters flow into the Black Sea.

 

The Ukrainian president said the flood waters raging through the lower Dnipro River valley brought with them sewage, oil, chemicals and possibly anthrax from animal burial sites.

“At least two anthrax burial places are in the temporarily occupied territories,” Zelenskiy said through an interpreter in an online discussion with environmental activists. “What is happening to those sites we do not know yet.”

 

Kyiv has accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam on Tuesday morning and thereby committing ecocide. As well as the 100,000 people affected downstream, Zelinskiy said 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of forests had been flooded, and 20,000 animals and 10,000 birds were “under threat of imminent death”.

 

“Altogether 2 million living beings are in danger,” Zelenskiy said, warning that as the contaminated water spreads, so would the environmental devastation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Not only that but all the farmland that feeds much of the world which is now unusable.  There will be famine.

[MrSilverMaC]

Newsweek:

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-himars-vladimir-putin-russia-counteroffensive-semyon-pegov-1805208

 

Quote

Ukraine's HIMARS are now being used on the front lines to hit Russian positions in the south of the country, according to a prominent Russian war blogger.

 

HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) are being deployed "without hesitation, to be used on the very front" in regions such as the eastern Donetsk and southern Zaporizhzhia regions, Kremlin propagandist Semyon Pegov, who runs the WarGonzo Telegram account, said on Thursday.

"They hit right on the advanced fortifications," he wrote, adding Kyiv's military could try to "cut through" Russian forces with the HIMARS.

 

"Kicking the HIMARS out of the trenches is much more difficult than tank attacks," Pegov continued.

 

[Gurgeh]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jun/09/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-hails-results-amid-heavy-fighting-in-donetsk-biden-and-sunak-reaffirm-commitment-to-ukraine#top-of-blog

 

Transcript of conversation Ukraine claims proves Russia blew up Nova Kakhovka dam

Ukraine’s domestic security service (SBU) said earlier on Friday it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian “sabotage group” blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam in southern Ukraine. A one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation featured two unidentified men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian.

 

Speaker one: Yeah. The main problem is that the hydropower plant cools their nuclear reactor.

Speaker two: That’s fine. They did it to themselves. It’ll blow up and that’s it.

Speaker one: So our guys did it. It’s not them, it’s ours.

Speaker two: Really, it was ours? They said that the Khokhols [derogatory term for Ukrainians] blew it up.

Speaker one: They didn’t blow it up. Our saboteur group is there. They wanted to cause fear with this dam. It did not go according to the plan. More than they planned.

Speaker two: Yeah, well, naturally. It’s gonna be like Chornobyl, right?

Speaker one: Built in the 1950s. It went down fast, it went down.

 

[China]

Putin Cops to ‘Significant Losses,’ Inferior Weapons in Stunning War Admission

 

n a rare admission, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Friday that Russia is sustaining “significant losses” in the war on Ukraine.

 

“In recent days, we have seen significant losses in Ukraine, they exceed the classical figure,” he said, according to the Kremlin.

 

The Russian president also confessed that Russian forces were dealing with artillery problems, adding in his remarks that “Yes, we still do not have enough of these modern weapons, but the defense industry, the country's military-industrial complex is developing rapidly.”

 

The dispirited comments about Moscow’s prospects in the war come just as Ukraine has launched a series of counteroffensives to push Russian forces out of the country.

 

The acknowledgment is a stark departure from typical messaging from Moscow. Putin and other Kremlin officials have long sought to paint the invasion as a success throughout the war, despite a stinging slew of losses and failed war plans. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

 

[EmirOfShmo]