The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[Andy_Ross]

BBC Rolling
Russia warns it will hit targets in Kyiv

The Russian defence ministry has issued a warning to Kyiv residents that it is preparing to hit targets in the Ukrainian capital.
In a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, Russian officials said their forces are preparing to launch "high-precision strikes" against "technological centres of the Ukrainian Security Service and the 72nd main PsyOps centre in Kyiv".
"We urge Ukrainian citizens who are being used by nationalists to carry out provocations against Russia, as well as Kyiv residents residing near relay stations to leave their home," the statement added.

Officials claimed the strikes are being carried out to "prevent information attacks against Russia".

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Aid and comfort to an enemy.

Again, Russia and the US are not at war. In a legal sense, Russia is not an "enemy".

As far as I can tell, it wouldn't be illegal for a US citizen to go overseas to volunteer for military service with Russia. I am unsure about the legal status of the militias in the "separatist" regions.

Much of the same could be same about volunteering to fight for Ukraine.

I don't know why fantasizing about extralegal prosecution is the preferred daydream here. The more obvious and realistic fantasy is that this moron gets ventilated by armed Ukrainian resistance. If this guy is actually embedded with Russian forces, there's a decent chance he'll meet an appropriately violent end.

 

[Wudang]

What have you done to check the authenticity before posting here?

Fair point.
I finally recovered my Instagram account. He claims to rely on a community of people who send him contacts, stories etc. It's unclear what steps he takes to verify the accounts and I'm unclear how good his reputation is.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Seriously, why is this forum mostly just a news digest / re-blog, with personal ad-hoc opinions?

Because we're a bunch of randos scattered across the world, what do you expect, hard hitting war correspondence? Rather than REEEing at Wudang for not personally traveling to Ukraine and tracking down the source of his quote before having the temerity to share it with the rest of us elite skeptic intellectuals, maybe do some critical thinking of your own? Does anything about the quote ring as untrue to you? Do you have any specific details you think might help confirm or deny the account?

At this point we're not exactly at Sagan's dragon-in-the-garage level of extraordinary claim here, people who are collating evidence have pointed out the use of civilian radios by Russian troops before, the impractical under-rationing of troops sent in, and the overall complete lack of planning and coordination in the opening days of the invasion, all of which jibe with the quote. What else do you expect to see?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Please put away the "One True Skeptic" card.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I swear to ******* God if WWII happened in 2022 half the internet would be like "Oh you see those people liberating the concentration camps? Well for some reason right now, in this exact moment, is it super important to me that I make sure you all see me reminding everyone that they aren't perfect either."

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Please put away the "One True Skeptic" card.

To be fair, there is tons of fake crap being passed off as photos or video footage from the current conflict. I've seen plenty of recycled stuff from the earlier fighting during the 2014-15 flare up being claimed as new, and even photos and footage not involving Russia or Ukraine being passed off as current. In one funny case, a photo of a young Palestinian girl shouting at an Israeli occupier was being passed off as a Ukrainian resistance photo. You know, in the famously arid Ukrainian deserts.

Earlier reports of Ukrainian border guards dying to the man on snake island turned out to be untrue, that most were in fact taken as POWs.

I don't think there's anything insidious at work here, rather just the fog of war type confusion plus a rush of uninformed outsiders taking to social media. There's probably a need for more skepticism and careful parsing of information to weed out the nonsense.

 

[Oystein]

Fair point.
I finally recovered my Instagram account. He claims to rely on a community of people who send him contacts, stories etc. It's unclear what steps he takes to verify the accounts and I'm unclear how good his reputation is.

Right.
He claims to be wanting to stay neutral and refrain from commentary. But by adorning the unsourced stories with unrelated piuctures of Ukrainian soldiers all looking heroic, of course he is creating a non-biased context, or subtext.

I understand it is difficult to get reliable information from the front of an ongoing war, and even more difficult to verify it.
I understand there is a great appeal to such stories, perhaps even a need.

But there is no possible way for us to know whether we are posting real stories or bunk. That is not the standard I think this forum and its members should hold themselves to.

These reports are heavily biased towards the UA side, and towards what's happening in and around Kyiv. In the meantime, Russian troops keep expanding their territory in the East and Southeast. Sure, they are not blazingly fast to take cities, but surely they are surrounding cities. The are advancing.
The are still operating in the West.
Slowly wearing down UA defenses. Everywhere.

Somehow, reading this forum, one would get the impression that the Ukrainians are winning more and more every day because the Russians are so super inept and ill-equipped and out of morale.

But there is a simple truth: Russia WILL win this phase of the war, Russia WILL take Kyiv. Russia WILL annex Luhansk and Donezk, and do some ethnic cleansing there.
Russia WILL succeed with their main goal: To **** Ukraine and reduce it to bits and pieces and, yes, de-militarized in terms of regular warfare.

None of the war-porn you read here - what super-hero acts posters would do with the convoys if only someone would give then a Warthog, say - will change those truths.

Sure, there will probably be a drawn-out insurgency and suffering on both sides after phase I, for a long time to come. Does Putin care? No.

 

[Delvo]

This is popping up on twitter. Purportedly a Russian soldiers account

What have you done to check the authenticity before posting here?

Seriously, why is this forum mostly just a news digest / re-blog, with personal ad-hoc opinions?
We all know how to get the latest sensations from all the ordinary outlets of traditional media and social media. And we all have opinions.

What I am missing here, hour after hour, is skeptical discourse - fact-checking and the like.

Are you all happy that Skepticism is not happening on ISF?

I have been waiting & watching without commenting precisely because I know that this is the time when we are most likely to be getting things wrong and I don't know which parts of what's being said now are right and which parts are wrong. But, if more people worked like that, there'd be no conversation about it at all because everybody'd be waiting til later to say anything.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Right.
He claims to be wanting to stay neutral and refrain from commentary. But by adorning the unsourced stories with unrelated piuctures of Ukrainian soldiers all looking heroic, of course he is creating a non-biased context, or subtext.

I understand it is difficult to get reliable information from the front of an ongoing war, and even more difficult to verify it.
I understand there is a great appeal to such stories, perhaps even a need.

But there is no possible way for us to know whether we are posting real stories or bunk. That is not the standard I think this forum and its members should hold themselves to.

These reports are heavily biased towards the UA side, and towards what's happening in and around Kyiv. In the meantime, Russian troops keep expanding their territory in the East and Southeast. Sure, they are not blazingly fast to take cities, but surely they are surrounding cities. The are advancing.
The are still operating in the West.
Slowly wearing down UA defenses. Everywhere.

Somehow, reading this forum, one would get the impression that the Ukrainians are winning more and more every day because the Russians are so super inept and ill-equipped and out of morale.

But there is a simple truth: Russia WILL win this phase of the war, Russia WILL take Kyiv. Russia WILL annex Luhansk and Donezk, and do some ethnic cleansing there.
Russia WILL succeed with their main goal: To **** Ukraine and reduce it to bits and pieces and, yes, de-militarized in terms of regular warfare.

None of the war-porn you read here - what super-hero acts posters would do with the convoys if only someone would give then a Warthog, say - will change those truths.

Sure, there will probably be a drawn-out insurgency and suffering on both sides after phase I, for a long time to come. Does Putin care? No.

"And the flag the Marines raised on Iwo Jima? It was actually really small, they actually found a bigger flag and redid the pose for the photo op..."

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"And the flag the Marines raised on Iwo Jima? It was actually really small, they actually found a bigger flag and redid the pose for the photo op..."

Pointing out that a propaganda photo is propaganda doesn't strike me as unreasonable.

 

[Ryokan]

But there is a simple truth: Russia WILL win this phase of the war, Russia WILL take Kyiv. Russia WILL annex Luhansk and Donezk, and do some ethnic cleansing there.
Russia WILL succeed with their main goal: To **** Ukraine and reduce it to bits and pieces and, yes, de-militarized in terms of regular warfare.

I don't think anyone thinks otherwise. I certainly haven't gotten that impression on this forum.

But the Ukrainians are stil doing far better than anyone expected.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Right.
He claims to be wanting to stay neutral and refrain from commentary. But by adorning the unsourced stories with unrelated piuctures of Ukrainian soldiers all looking heroic, of course he is creating a non-biased context, or subtext.

I understand it is difficult to get reliable information from the front of an ongoing war, and even more difficult to verify it.
I understand there is a great appeal to such stories, perhaps even a need.

But there is no possible way for us to know whether we are posting real stories or bunk. That is not the standard I think this forum and its members should hold themselves to.

These reports are heavily biased towards the UA side, and towards what's happening in and around Kyiv. In the meantime, Russian troops keep expanding their territory in the East and Southeast. Sure, they are not blazingly fast to take cities, but surely they are surrounding cities. The are advancing.
The are still operating in the West.
Slowly wearing down UA defenses. Everywhere.

Somehow, reading this forum, one would get the impression that the Ukrainians are winning more and more every day because the Russians are so super inept and ill-equipped and out of morale.

But there is a simple truth: Russia WILL win this phase of the war, Russia WILL take Kyiv. Russia WILL annex Luhansk and Donezk, and do some ethnic cleansing there.
Russia WILL succeed with their main goal: To **** Ukraine and reduce it to bits and pieces and, yes, de-militarized in terms of regular warfare.

None of the war-porn you read here - what super-hero acts posters would do with the convoys if only someone would give then a Warthog, say - will change those truths.

Sure, there will probably be a drawn-out insurgency and suffering on both sides after phase I, for a long time to come. Does Putin care? No.

Just put "memento mori" in your sig line, save some time.

 

[Oystein]

Because we're a bunch of randos scattered across the world, what do you expect, hard hitting war correspondence? ...

Some modesty, some restraint, some carefulness.
We are not (or should not be) "randos". We should be very much skewed towards the "rational skepticism" side.
There should be a general tenor that everybody understands their understanding is limited, their information coming in degrees of dubiousness.

For starters, just DON'T post stuff that cannot be vetted, or at the very least, present it as possible fiction. Very importantly: Resist the urge to post unvettable stuff because it supports your pre-existing opinion.

 

[Oystein]

I don't think anyone thinks otherwise. ...

Really?
I had a tough exchange of posts with another poster here the other day, who insisted that the Russians are not at all superior.
But if we all agree that they WILL win Phase I - how is that not agreeing they are superior?

 

[crescent]

Pakistan announces it will import 2 million tons of wheat and natural gas from Russia....(clipped)

India is coming off pretty strongly pro-Russia as well. Lots of Indians posting on twitter sympathizing with Russia. "What would we do if Nepal allowed Chinese military bases?", stuff like that. Lots and lots of talk about the Indian students stuck in Ukraine, accusations that they are not being allowed on trains heading to the border, or not being allowed to cross the border.

Most blame gets laid right on Ukraine or the U.S.. A little on Russia, very little on Modi who was naïve enough to believe Russian claims that there would be no war and therefore didn't order evacuation in time.

Over and over again a video gets shared of a black girl being denied entry onto a train, they push her away and then allow a white girl on.


Worldwide, the west is not winning the information war as much as we might think we are. Lots of posts from Asian and African nations sharply critical of Ukraine in all this, including many, many accusations of racism against Ukraine, claims that non-white people are not being allowed to evacaute.

One example, from Al-Jazeera:

"It seems like there's a hierarchy of Ukrainians first, Indians second, Africans last."

As people flee Ukraine, African nationals are taking to social media to share personal accounts of racial discrimination while trying to evacuate to safety

 

[Oystein]

"And the flag the Marines raised on Iwo Jima? It was actually really small, they actually found a bigger flag and redid the pose for the photo op..."

Yes. Very effective propaganda.
Your point?

 

[FatherLukeduke]

Hi - long time lurker, very rare poster here. I've been enjoying this thread so thought I'd add something (hopefully interesting).

My brother has lived in Odessa for 12 years until last week. He was determined to stay, but when when he woke to missile strikes he decided it might be the time to get out. Him, his wife and his six year old packed some bags and paid a driver to take them to the Moldovan border. They are safe now and in the Moldovan capital (yeah, I had to look it up too) waiting on the dreadful hypocrites that are the UK government to sort his wife's visa.

So, the language school my brother managed had to take a Ukrainian partner - it's the law, plus you really need someone local to navigate the corruption and gangsters in Odessa. The guy the UK owner got was ex-soviet military who'd made a packet running cigarettes after the union went down and it all went to ****. A classic path from soldier to gangster to "biznizzman". Let's call him K.

He was one of these guys who was simultaneously a ******* idiot and a really scary dude. He told my brother some hair raising stories over a few beers. He also did stuff like drive around on a mid-life crisis Harley and get into road rage fights. Or lose a load of money in a Kyiv land development scam.

Anyway. Crazily, he's still in touch with my brother on Viber and is off round the country fighting with the militias, using his in-demand skills and training the "youngsters" in how to shoot an AK. Yesterday he said how he saved a Russian tank crew from being curb-stomped to death by villagers after their tank was captured. He said they really didn't know what was going on and were really confused that the militia K was running with were a Russian speaking brigade. They'd been told they were there to protect Russian speakers from mad Ukrainian fascists. The fact that K hardly spoke any Ukrainian but was still (more than) willing to fight and die for his country really blew their minds.

Also, can anyone in the UK please sign this (and linkify it!).

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/609530

 

[Oystein]

... Lots of posts from Asian and African nations sharply critical of Ukraine in all this, including many, many accusations of racism against Ukraine, claims that non-white people are not being allowed to evacaute.

One example, from Al-Jazeera:

And of course there is tons of Truth to that:
Poland is blatantly racist in who they let in who they try to keep out. Their current government was voted in on a promise of shutting out immigration. Of course this meant "no brown or dark refugees" - and they have been very tough on that. But 300,000 fellow Slavs? No problem.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Really?
I had a tough exchange of posts with another poster here the other day, who insisted that the Russians are not at all superior.
But if we all agree that they WILL win Phase I - how is that not agreeing they are superior?

I think it depends on how you define phase I. If you just mean the capture of Kyiv, Kharkiv and a few other cities in the East then sure, I suspect Russia will (eventually) manage that.

If you mean the total conquest of Ukraine though? No. Not a chance.