Russia v Ukraine

[Strontium]

 

[TheHowieLama]

Google opened up all Earth satellite images in/around Ukraine the last few days.

[SasaS]

Russian media getting the maximum value from parading Aiden Aslin in front of camera. Imagine if they captured some of the main Azovs alive.

[SasaS]

Tom Copper from yesterday. Mostly bad news.

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-17-18-and-19-april-2022-66128efc1747

 

 

[cochyn]

Germany getting a lot of flak on twitter for their government's reluctance to arm the Ukrainians with their surplus kit:

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/noclador/status/1516545893805273091

[SasaS]

Interesting analysis (well, for nerds) this time by an Ukrainian analyst of the decisive role of reformed artillery systems in the war so far and why is Ukraine asking for more and more heavy weapons.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/04/20/javelins-are-good-but-it-is-artillery-strikes-that-coined-ukraines-military-success/?swcfpc=1

 

[Strontium]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/who-is-graham-phillips-the-youtuber-accused-of-war-crimes

 

Quote

Who is Graham Phillips, the YouTuber accused of ‘war crimes’?

How a former civil servant from Nottingham became pro-Kremlin voice in Ukraine

When Graham Phillips first moved from London to Ukraine, the Nottingham-born civil servant set up a personal blog that mixed reviews of brothels with observations about everyday life in Kyiv. A decade later, the pro-Kremlin YouTuber finds himself accused in parliament of potential war crimes after interviewing a fellow Briton captured by the Russian army.

Prime minister Boris Johnson told MPs he was concerned by Phillips’ “propaganda messages” featuring Aiden Aslin, a British national who has spent the last four years living in Ukraine and serving with the country’s armed forces.

Aslin’s local MP Robert Jenrick went further, saying Phillips’ video showed his constituent “handcuffed, physically injured and being interviewed under duress for propaganda purposes”. He said it was a breach of the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and that “the interviewer Graham Phillips is in danger of prosecution for war crimes”.

Aslin was captured by Russian forces while defending the besieged city of Mariupol, although it remains unclear how he ended up being interviewed by Phillips. The two men are both originally from Nottinghamshire: 28-year-old Aslin hails from the town of Newark-on-Trent, just a short drive outside Phillips’ home city. Yet it took a conflict on the other side of Europe to bring them together – albeit on different sides.

While Aslin moved to Ukraine, met a local woman and joined the country’s armed forces, Phillips took a very different route and has long been a favoured mouthpiece for pro-Russian breakaway governments in the Donbas region.

He has received medals from the Russian state for his reporting and toed the Russian line, suggesting in recent weeks that Ukraine is run by Nazis and the massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha was staged.

Phillips insists his work is self-funded and regularly solicits donations from his 264,000 YouTube subscribers, but he also earns money from YouTube adverts paid for by major western companies. On Wednesday morning people attempting to watch Phillips’ potentially Geneva conventions-infringing interview with Aslin were greeted with paid-for adverts featuring Piers Morgan talking about his show on the forthcoming TalkTV channel and promotions for Müller yoghurt.

YouTube has so far declined to take down Phillips’ videos, despite calls from politicians to remove the channel.

His rise from obscure Brit abroad to figure of national political interest was unlikely. According to a 2014 interview with BuzzFeed News, Phillips first went to Ukraine when travelling as an away fan to an England football match. Aged 30, he quit his job at the now defunct government Central Office of Information and moved full-time to the country where he reinvented himself as a journalist.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Phillips found himself drawn to the country’s pro-Moscow separatist groups in the east of the country. His prolific self-recorded clips on YouTube were a relative novelty at the time and delighted Russia, with the Kremlin-backed RT news channel briefly using him as a freelance journalist – although he never gained full-time employment with the outlet. His detention by the Ukrainian government on the outskirts of Mariupol gained him notoriety, but he soon slipped out of the public eye as western interest in the conflict receded.

His uploads became infrequent, often focusing on visits to Crimea, and he attracted only a few thousand views. One clip saw him boast about being the only western journalist to attend a tour of Russia’s “legendary Black Sea fleet” and taking a small boat to look at the power of the flagship Moskva. That flagship has since sunk, appearing to have been hit by Ukrainian missiles.

During the pandemic Phillips was in the UK, filming himself at anti-Black Lives Matter protests in central London. As recently as February, he uploaded a video in central London opposite the Houses of Parliament. The level of scaffolding on the Elizabeth Tower suggests it was recorded at the same time, meaning he was in Britain when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

He subsequently managed to return to Russian-held areas of Ukraine, despite few airlines flying to the region, becoming one of the few western individuals filming videos from the occupied territory alongside Russian forces. How he ended up in a room interviewing Aslin remains unclear – although it has given him the profile he has always seemed to crave.

[SasaS]

Tom Cooper's latest.

Pretty interesting, a lot of explanations and details.

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-19-20-april-2022-43dee2800321

[SasaS]

Hopefully this is what the last stand in the Azovstal looks like.

 

[cochyn]

Hey @SasaS, have you read any of this guy's tweets?

 

(10) Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) / Twitter

 

Claims to be translating letters from and FSB whistleblower. I was sceptical at first but back-reading his translations against the timeline of the war he seems pretty spot-on in explaining Russia's ineptitudes to date.

[SasaS]

56 minutes ago, cochyn said:

Hey @SasaS, have you read any of this guy's tweets?

 

(10) Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) / Twitter

 

Claims to be translating letters from and FSB whistleblower. I was sceptical at first but back-reading his translations against the timeline of the war he seems pretty spot-on in explaining Russia's ineptitudes to date.

Thanks, didn't follow him directly, remember his translation of the whistleblower back in March, yes, I was skeptical back then because it sounded too good to be true at the time, but many things came true, some didn't.

[Rico1304]

NATO’s fault

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

8 hours ago, SasaS said:

Hopefully this is what the last stand in the Azovstal looks like.

 

This is helpful as it describes the only way to clear the place out. 

[J-V]

7 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

NATO’s fault

 

 

Where’s a drone when you need one

[Anubis]

19 hours ago, SasaS said:

Hopefully this is what the last stand in the Azovstal looks like.

 

 

Wouldn't the Russians just seal the tunnel entrances off and pump gas into the tunnels, like the theatre siege?

[SasaS]

33 minutes ago, Anubis said:

 

Wouldn't the Russians just seal the tunnel entrances off and pump gas into the tunnels, like the theatre siege?

I think that is just an approximation. The existence of tunnels likely means that they can be used to shelter troops during heavy bombardment, move them about without exposing them and keep supplies relatively safely underground.

 

Russians would probably have to reach the tunnels first, and there is also a possibility they cannot be hit that easily with gas. They are saying it is an industrial complex spanning ten or so square kilometers with a lot of space in fortified underground.

[Anubis]

Fair points. I didn't realise it was that big.

[SasaS]

3 hours ago, Anubis said:

Fair points. I didn't realise it was that big.

It's all of this and more.

 

And they are apparently still "liberating" the workers' housing estate to the east of the industrial complex.
 

 

[Rico1304]

Shits got serious.  Porsche has had to shut down production as the factory making the electrical looms is in Ukraine. We need to send in the troops now! 

[TheHowieLama]

In a now deleted VK post, the pro-Kremlin media outlet Readovka claims that Russia’s Defense Ministry stated at a “closed briefing” that it’s lost 13,414 soldiers in Ukraine *plus* another 7,000 who are missing. 116 sailors killed aboard the Moskva, with 100+ still missing.

[SasaS]

Tom Cooper updated.

 

Nothing sensational, RUS still advancing, UKR improved air defence along the frontline. 

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-21-22-april-2022-9019d6c3bfba

[TheHowieLama]

The ruble may not be showing it, but Western economic sanctions imposed against Russia are working.

In revealing testimony before the Duma parliament, the head of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) told the country’s lawmakers she had to throw everything but the kitchen sink just to prevent a full-blown run on the banking system.

“The sanctions imposed against Russia affected the situation in the financial sector, spurred the demand for foreign currencies, and caused fire sales of financial assets, a cash outflow from banks, and surging demand for goods,” said Elvira Nabiullina.

[JagSquared]

More Russian generals killed apparently I imagine the guy who cleans the bogs will get promoted at this rate. 

On 22/04/2022 at 18:27, TheHowieLama said:

In a now deleted VK post, the pro-Kremlin media outlet Readovka claims that Russia’s Defense Ministry stated at a “closed briefing” that it’s lost 13,414 soldiers in Ukraine *plus* another 7,000 who are missing. 116 sailors killed aboard the Moskva, with 100+ still missing.

21k losses are insane do we know what the Ukrainian ones are in comparison?

[Section_31]

9 minutes ago, JagSquared said:

More Russian generals killed apparently I imagine the guy who cleans the bogs will get promoted at this rate. 

21k losses are insane do we know what the Ukrainian ones are in comparison?

 

The latest general to get capped was only 41, the fuck, did he start out as a drummer boy?

[Rico1304]

1 minute ago, Section_31 said:

 

The latest general to get capped was only 41, the fuck, did he start out as a drummer boy?

His parent are probably wealthy.