Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 9

[Safe-Keeper]

Civilians face a humanitarian crisis in Oleshky in Kherson, and russian strikes have made it impossible to get supplies in, or evacuees out.

Excerpts:

"People are driven to despair and are simply walking along mined roads (to escape)," an Oleshky resident — whose identity is being withheld for security reasons — told the Kyiv Independent. (...) Of the city's prewar population of about 24,000, about 2,000 people remain. (...)

This spring, amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation, volunteers could still evacuate civilians from the city despite the risks, the Kyiv Independent reported. Now, several months later, volunteers say even those evacuation efforts are no longer possible, as Russia refuses to cooperate and leaves Ukrainian civilians trapped in the occupied city, facing starvation.

Life in Russian-occupied Oleshky was dire. Now it's 'hell'

Residents in Russian-occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast face an escalating humanitarian crisis, as constant Russian drone attacks and artillery shelling have made it impossible to deliver essential food and medicine supplies or evacuate civilians by road. "These people need to be saved," Dmytro...

kyivindependent.com

 

[Andy_Ross]

Slovakia’s prime minister Fico says he won’t go to war to defend NATO allies “because of some Article 5.”
Why are Slovak troops deployed to the Baltics then? For fresh air?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Also some updates about Russia.

The first is that their number of recruits is dropping fairly quickly, even after they upped the premium for enlisting, and now monthly enlistment is below the number of losses they take per month. Which makes sense. Nobody wants to be given a gun and be sent almost untrained to die in the first few minutes of combat.

The second is that Russia has basically reinvented press gangs to deal with it. Incidents filmed in several cities show people being arrested for stuff like drinking in public, which is normally just a fine if it's even enforced at all. (We're talking Russia's national sport after all.) And then being forced to sign up for the front line or be sent to the gulag on trumped up charges.

Third is that at least one governor went and said that the damage to a refinery might take half a year to fix, because they need western parts and they're under sanctions.

 

[steenkh]

I just saw a Danish military commentator saying that he thinks that the Russians are retooling their S-400 to become ballistic missiles in order to make the Ukrainians spend their limited supply of Patriots on them, paving the way for more powerful missiles. And if any get through, it's just a bonus.

 

[theprestige]

The Ukrainian president's official fundraising organization, United 24, has started publishing bodycam and FPV footage from the Vivaldi assault and drone recon teams.

It's been a while since I've seen this much "gun camera" footage from the war. Denys Davydov and RFU tend to self-censor the juicy stuff. I stopped frequenting the war video subreddits a couple years ago - once you've seen a hundred grenade drops and FPV strikes, you've seen them all.

Anyway, I'd forgotten how starkly brutal this footage can get. And the new clips have an added element, that a lot of the occupiers featured in them are clearly raw conscripts with no training, support, or hope. Lots of close-ups of really depressed faces, smiling wanly at the cameraman who's about to kill them.

I can only imagine the toll it takes on Ukrainian FPV operators, to have to kill even the poor saps who clearly have no idea what they're doing or what they're dealing with. And not even being able to do it indiscriminately with artillery, or even with machine gun fire, or even with a grenade in a spider hole. No, it's being done personally, one FPV delivery at a time, operator to target.

 

[plague311]

I just saw a Danish military commentator saying that he thinks that the Russians are retooling their S-400 to become ballistic missiles in order to make the Ukrainians spend their limited supply of Patriots on them, paving the way for more powerful missiles. And if any get through, it's just a bonus.

They better do it quick because Ukraine is going to have the ability to produce their own interceptor missiles relatively quickly. I wonder how many S-400s the Russians have left?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

They better do it quick because Ukraine is going to have the ability to produce their own interceptor missiles relatively quickly. I wonder how many S-400s the Russians have left?

The barbarians also have jet-powered drones now. New tactic: launch one at Kyiv every 15 minutes, so that the residents are under attack continuously, presumably 24/7.

 

[theprestige]

RFU News: 420 km² liberated so far in Operation Vivaldi.

Does anyone want to resume the argument that Moscow is still winning by inches?