Russian Troop Movements Reported Near Ukraine

[kiwidoug]

Out of interest, has anybody mentioned the Russian submarine in the Mediterranean that tried to shoot down Israeli jets?

Russia 'sends a message' with first missile attack on Israeli jets

Russia has fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli forces, in what experts fear could lead to an escalation of the Syrian conflict, even as Russia is bogged down in Ukraine

inews.co.uk

What Submarine? AFaik, S-300s are not part of any sub's loadout. The missiles were allegedly launched from Soviet Russian controlled batteries in Syria.

 

[Stonker]

Well, the chat I had decades ago with a Soviet officer went along the lines of 'the Americans are brash, the French are stylish but we just don't know what you Brits are up to'. I took that as as a compliment.

I, on the other hand, over time, had a number of Bn COs of whom I would prob'ly have said the same . . . .

 

[76mill]

To many people are watching streaming services for that time work.

I’m amazed how much the joe public has lost interest in this now.

I suspect we’ll start seeing, and I’ve already seen some political commentators make them, that The price of victory for the Ukraine would be too high for Ukraine to pay. Loosely translated to form Guardian speak to English ‘if we sell the Ukrainians out, my holiday to the Maldives won’t be so expensive, so I’ll wrap my selfishness up into caring for the needs of Ukrainians and poor people in the U.K. being impacted.’

I actually thought we were starting to see parliament acting like a Parliament. But obviously Starmer and Labour are too busy trying to bring the Tory’s down about a fine for meeting up in a place of work, whilst at work during Covid, or trying to buy bytes by wrecking the economy, rather than seeing a big potential threat in the future being addressed now.

There's a huge audience for Eastenders/Corrie/mongs on ice.

5 minutes in, kick it off.

Ditto whatever is being broadcast live on the sports channels.

No play it, you lose your broadcasting licence.

Hard times, hard solutions.

 

[Stonker]

Just a personal view. The UN is now working to see if it can get Russia to release the grain stores and other essentials for the benefit of more impoverished nations given the price of food is rocketing. Any one else feel like it might presage Crimea 2.0 as a causus Beli.

In the last century, and I was doing my JOTES2 studies for promotion, competition for scarece resources was frequently discussed as potential cassus belli. Hydrocarbons (IIRC) were #1 on the list, followed by H2O.

Turns out it's gonna be wheat and vegetable oil.

Whether the bellum will be in Europe, to eliminate the root cause, or in Africa, as chunks of that continent go full-on Mad Max (again) remains to be seen.

 

[Banker]

This needs to be documented & the reports presented to ordinary Russians. See how proud of their boys they are.

They'll claim "infant provocations".

 

[Graculus]

Interesting viewpoint.

 

[Stonker]

If an army of toothless, screaming and wailing babushkas helped bring the Afghan war to an end that army should be four times greater now. At the moment the losses are mostly to the social dregs and the eastern scum (about whom the Kremlin gives not a single toss) but that will spread to the western cities.

Show me photos of this army?

You can't, because it didn't happen like that.

YES - the AFG engagement was unpopular, but - at the same time - the USSR had a leader (Gorbachev) who (however imperfectly) understood that the USSR couldn't afford the financial cost of the AFG commitment.

Likewise, he was aware (because it's Being The Tsar 101) that a deeply unhappy population is more threat than asset.

But Gorbachev did not decide the USSR should quit AFG because of popular dissent.

 

[undervalued]

I’m amazed how much the joe public has lost interest in this now.

Not surprising, as it's not often mentioned on the main channel's news programmes nowadays, or if it is, it's way down the running order. That's if the vast majority of Joe public had any interest in the first place.
Unless something drastic happens, it'll barely get mentioned at all in a couple of months time, whereas a month ago it was the top story on pretty well every bulletin.
I've hardly heard anyone mention it at work since day one.
Maybe people have got their own worries to think about with the cost of living crisis.
This thread isn't moving as fast as it did & the regular posters on here probably post out of professional interest.
Sad for the Ukrainians.

E2a, Oddly, we put together folders of hard copy forms in case Russia managed to bring down our intranet system.

 

[Stonker]

Shows how short of manpower Russia is:

Struggling in Ukraine, Russia paves way to sign up over-40s for army

In a sign of Russia's urgent need to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, parliament said on Friday it would consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to sign up for the military.

www.reuters.com

"The website of the State Duma, parliament's lower house, said the move would enable the military to utilise the skills of older professionals.

"For the use of high-precision weapons, the operation of weapons and military equipment, highly professional specialists are needed. Experience shows that they become such by the age of 40–45," it said.

Previously only Russians aged 18-40 and foreigners aged 18-30 could enter into a first contract with the military."

Dream on Duma!!

If that was the case, the football World Cup would always go to teams made up of middle-aged blokes who quit playing soccer before they were 25, then spent 15 years in a factory/ tele-sales/ insurance admin role . . . . , and then rallied to their youthful sport, having not broken a sweat kicking a ball in all that time.

Wuckfits.

 

[Just_plain_you]

Show me photos of this army?

You can't, because it didn't happen like that.

YES - the AFG engagement was unpopular, but - at the same time - the USSR had a leader (Gorbachev) who (however imperfectly) understood that the USSR couldn't afford the financial cost of the AFG commitment.

Likewise, he was aware (because it's Being The Tsar 101) that a deeply unhappy population is more threat than asset.

But Gorbachev did not decide the USSR should quit AFG because of popular dissent.

The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia (CSMR) - Right Livelihood

The soldiers' mothers understood that to defend their children they have to change the State and society. Their call for human rights in all the military power structures meant a call for democracy.

rightlivelihood.org

 

[glad rag]

Zelensky was asked in an interview what he saw as success. His response was to stop the needless loss of life. The second was to stop Russia. Not that he’s advocating caving in.

Hypothetically though, IF the ukraine were to push the Russians back, what would it achieve? Massive reconstruction with a significant element of hostile, pro Russian civilians in the area. IF, Ukraine offered a ceasfire on where the lines are currently held, pro Russian civilians can celebrate living in a barren, shell cratered sh*t hole full of UXO, burnt out Russian vehicles and Decomposing Russian troops littering the landscape. This should allow the west to make alternative arrangements to be less reliant on Russian imports.

However, unless Ukraine get into NATO, Russia will wait another 8 years and try again.

I worry however what happens in those 8 years if they don’t get into NATO. How will France and Germany undermine everything desperately trying to demonstrate the importance of the EU.

Putin/Russia doesn’t give a flying f*ck about their losses. And even if it takes them 8 years to carry on retaking they Ukraine they’ll carry on and be more emboldened to make a move on the Baltics.

Yes, there’s been a lot of support for the Ukraine, but there’s also been some pretty large economies who are NATO members who have shown a complete lack of moral fibre and have done little more than the bare minimum. These economies have been involved in some pretty horrific things over the years to maintain their economies. I see no reason why they’ll not carry on selling out in the future .

Whilst agreeing with most of your writing I think you'll find

"a significant element of hostile, pro Russian civilians in the area. "

to be somewhat inaccurate since the forced drafting of males, the fact that they were blocked from Russia at the border after "losing", and no one knows who is still left alive after their little jolly North ..

 

[Stonker]

The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia (CSMR) - Right Livelihood

The soldiers' mothers understood that to defend their children they have to change the State and society. Their call for human rights in all the military power structures meant a call for democracy.

rightlivelihood.org

My point (clumsily expressed, perhaps) was that it was possible for a minority activist campaign to gain traction in the (failing) USSR only "because Gorbachev", who - at that time, faced as he was with a dawning if imperfect understanding that USSR State bankruptcy loomed - was a soft touch.

That history ain't going to repeat itself while Putain's at the helm. He will (IMHO) repress sooner, longer and harder than Gorbie . . . . simply because "That's the True And Proper Russian Way"

 

[Banker]

Not everything is down to hidden German agendas...

No, a good deal of it is down to German defence inefficiency.

 

[AfghanAndy]

Of course, blackmailing those who are supporting you is for winners.

Who’s supporting Zelesnky? NATO isn’t, as neither is the EU.

Several nations are actively supporting the UKraine. Poland in particularly.

 

[Mr_Fingerz]

Who’s supporting Zelesnky? NATO isn’t, as neither is the EU.

Several nations are actively supporting the UKraine. Poland in particularly.

That post makes as much sense as 1+1=5.

Mr Zelensky is the elected Head of State of Ukraine. Both he and his nation are being supported by both NATO and the EU.

BTW "The" before "Ukraine" is superfluous. It's a term that the Rus use to indicate that Ukraine belongs to them.

 

[Albertous]

Is it just me with an ex green slime head on having thought about what happened in February and subsequently thinks of a conversation at 23:55 Moscow time on 23rd Feb along the lines of:

Putin: So tell me will the West really reaction to our special operation?
FSB/GRU headsheds: No boss, agents ABC, sorry politicians ABC in Germany and XYZ in France will diplomatically object but they are on message and they have made the EU so dependent on our oil/gas that any objecting voices will be silenced and they have been briefed to stop any major NATO reaction so the West cannot properly react.

I wonder when the real records/files are revealed whether any "German mothers" will ever be exposed or, hopefully, brought to trail for their subversive acts which lead to this horrible situation and innocents deaths in the Ukrainian?

 

[Graculus]

Who’s supporting Zelesnky? NATO isn’t, as neither is the EU.

Several nations are actively supporting the UKraine. Poland in particularly.

You need to up your english language skills. This is support.

NATO's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

NATO condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia's brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine - which is an independent, peaceful and democratic country, and a close NATO partner. The Alliance calls on President Putin to stop this war immediately, withdraw all his forces from Ukraine and...

www.nato.int

So is this

EU set to approve new military aid for Ukraine

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell says bloc set to approve another 500 million euros ($527m) in military aid for Ukraine.

www.aljazeera.com

Please stop making stuff up

 

[CutLunchCommando]

Using dodgy washing machine chipsets in a rocket paid off then, looks like it started the spin cycle a tad early?

Oddly, the gear that sequenced the staging and so in earlier Soviet Rockets was not dissimilar to the old electromechanical dial of washing machines of yore.

 

[truck_trasher]

My dear old gran who played the piano to accompany silent films in the 1920s was a great fan of the cinema all her life.

Late in life, she stated that the film that had most affected her was the Pathe footage of the liberation of Belsen, she couldn't understand why most of the audience were crying and then realised she was too.

I suggest, and am happy to be shot down in flames, that in order to bring the Russian atrocities well and truly home, that all UK broadcasting is simultaneously interrupted by a 10 minute montage of Russian actions.

There doesn't even need to be a commentary, but perhaps a musical accompaniment...Warsaw Concerto perhaps?*


*Spike says no...

I recall the siege of Sarajevo and the effect that the daily news bulletin had. Was that on Channel 4 ? Was it really half an hour, after the news every night? Possibly an ITN production ? It was not so long ago but I can't remember the details of the TV schedules. We had a US visitor for a few weeks who was horrified at the footage from inside hospitals, every night, and would leave the room.

A regular "this is happening RIGHT NOW" news program would help overcome reluctance when things start to bite later in the year, even though we have now had thirty more years of propaganda from the usual suspects since then.

ETA: After a quick Google, am I misremembering that there was a regular "News from Sarajevo" slot? I can see that an editorial commitment like that would be extreme these days, and back then too I suppose. Does @bigeye perhaps have any insight in to news broadcasts thirty years ago ?

 

[Andy Farman]

What's this I hear, Italians trying to advise fighting men?

Drift on:
104 years since Italy won on the battlefield, that being said, their alpine war on the glacier was fought by true warriors in the direst conditions.
Drift off: