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On February 26 2022 19:42 zeo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2022 17:17 Warfie wrote:
I don't understand the sentiment I see both here and on other forums that this is going unsustainably poorly for Russia or that they might be willing to discuss a ceasefire which is not just for show.
Based on what we see of real news and US intelligence, Kyiv seems slated to fall within days - with US even warning it could fall during last night (which it did not)? Granted it may have come at a higher cost than Russia had expected, but to me it seems that in terms of conventional military battles, this is close to over?
A subsequent insurgency or guerilla warfare is another story. Just seems like a lot of wishful thinking to me. It's a coping mechanism. And its standard internal propaganda during a war when state institutions, law and order start collapsing. It's been two days, Ukraine is a huge country, it takes time to move heavy armor and secure positions even without resistance. It took the US coalition 20 days to reach Bagdad and that was with shock and awe carpet bombing and leveling civilian and military obstacles. Though its to be expected, saying that Putins war is going poorly might make you feel better about yourself but you obviously know nothing about ground logistics, just how many people live in Ukraine and how far everything is from each other. It's obviously not a full scale total war invasion and only something like a third of the strike troops that were at the Russia/Belarus have been deployed. As for moral: Obviously the bulk of Russian forces now deployed were participating in standard military drills and just told one day 'ok, you do these drills in Ukraine in a few hours time'. Not like each of them was going to get detailed psychological counseling and plans weeks ahead. Only a sociopath would be cheerful a day after going to war. --------- Anyway, some resent developments. Vasilkov airfield taken last night by airborn paratroopers with heavy armor pushing through to link up, fighting ongoing for the settlement proper. After that its 30-40km to the Dniper river and the full scale strategic encirclement of the west bank of Kiev. Brovari on the east bank apparently under fire control, very mixed news going around about Chernigov and how far the advance has been. Can they close the gaps by tonight? Doubtful. But American intelligence predictions yesterday about the city being surrounded in 96hours have some merit... Helicopters fighting on video near the town of Brodi (western Ukraine close to Lvov). Can only widely speculate about what that means.
Funny for someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality to talk about coping mechanisms. Your whole hatred for NATO is a coping mechanism. lol
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@Fildun
I saw tweets indicating that Russians are bringing siege artillery into Ukraine. If true, that might mean, they aren't concerned with civilian casualties. That shit isn't very precise...
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On February 26 2022 19:42 zeo wrote:
Anyway, some resent developments. Vasilkov airfield taken last night by airborn paratroopers with heavy armor pushing through to link up, fighting ongoing for the settlement proper. After that its 30-40km to the Dniper river and the full scale strategic encirclement of the west bank of Kiev. Brovari on the east bank apparently under fire control, very mixed news going around about Chernigov and how far the advance has been. Can they close the gaps by tonight? Doubtful. But American intelligence predictions yesterday about the city being surrounded in 96hours have some merit...
Helicopters fighting on video near the town of Brodi (western Ukraine close to Lvov). Can only widely speculate about what that means.
From my sources it looks like Chernigov got bypassed, plus western side of Kiev is indeed going very well for Russia.
East side wasn't going particularly great but more reinforcements have been brought in as of this morning, so full encirclement will probably be there within 48 hours.
Vasylkov airfield appears to be under Russian control but it's definitely not safe yet to land there with planes. My guess would be that by the time they have full control the airfield will be unusable for a while, just like Gostomel
Donbas front is in serious danger of being flanked and surrounded but that's kind of true for everything east of the Dniepr.
Assault on Cherson seems to have been unsuccessful though and has been bypassed for now. In general not too much progress has been made in the various cities.
@Silvanel
Russian goals were to have a quick victory with not many civilian casualties but if they get bogged down the objective will still just simply be to win. A civilian that opposed the invasion is still an enemy in the eyes of the Russian army.
2nd edit:
Holy moly reddit has been an absolute shithole these last couple days, yesterday a 50k upvote post with [this Russian unit has surrendered] and it's just a picture of a random Ukrainian unit. Then again, I suppose nobody really has a clue what they're looking at either.
Also so many people who just should not be tweeting 
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Estonia has now closed its airspace to Russian flights.
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Yeah even hardened trumpets I know are super blown away by that story about the sunflower seeds.
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WRT the heroic Ukrainian victory, unfortunately it is impossible. Russia outranges them and has much more good tech and control of the skies.
Despite the stories, Russian soldiers aren't going to abandon their posts en masse, and it looks like its going to be a horrible slow, painful grind, which sucks for everyone.
It seems pretty clear that Putin wanted this over quickly though, and there will be consequences to him for letting this drag on. China's support is probably fairly conditional for a start. I doubt Putin wants to do this with zero international support, and the more death there is and the more Ukraine start to look like oppressed freedom fighters, the harder it is to justify supporting Putin.
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A very good article by Michael Weiss yesterday. Apparently some of the fighting being done in Ukraine is by conscripts that didn't even know they were being sent to Ukraine to fight.
Perhaps even more significant are reports that Russian diplomats have begun messaging journalists to relay how distraught they are by having to mouth flagrant falsehoods. Others appear on television interviews looking uneasy and anxious and certainly acting as if they don’t believe a word of what they’re saying (or in some cases, reading). Might there be similar wobbliness within the Russian military and special services?
According to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, a Russian NGO, a good number of servicemen were deceived into fighting; some were beaten if they objected. “We’ve had a flurry of calls from scared mothers all over Russia,” the deputy chairman of the Committee told a Russian news outlet. “They are crying, they don’t know if their children are alive or healthy.” Ukrainians captured an entire platoon of the reconnaissance unit of Russia’s 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade in the city of Chernihiv. Their commander suggested his forces had been duped. “‘Nobody thought that we were going to kill,” he said. “We were not going to fight—we were collecting information.” On Telegram, another captured Russian is shown ringing his mother back home on an iPhone. She seems surprised to discover her son is in Ukraine—as does he. He tells her he was only following orders and when she asks why he got caught, he answers, “Mom, I don’t know the territory.”
Source
edit: Hungary comes out in support of banning Russia from SWIFT.
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On February 26 2022 21:11 Jockmcplop wrote:
WRT the heroic Ukrainian victory, unfortunately it is impossible. Russia outranges them and has much more good tech and control of the skies.
Despite the stories, Russian soldiers aren't going to abandon their posts en masse, and it looks like its going to be a horrible slow, painful grind, which sucks for everyone.
It seems pretty clear that Putin wanted this over quickly though, and there will be consequences to him for letting this drag on. China's support is probably fairly conditional for a start. I doubt Putin wants to do this with zero international support, and the more death there is and the more Ukraine start to look like oppressed freedom fighters, the harder it is to justify supporting Putin.
I recall Russians saying the same thing about Afghanistan. It will be a slow painful grind, and many russians soldiers will die in a needless war. By all accounts, ukrainians are ready to give it all while russians aren't.
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This is how a miscommunication can cause a colossal misstep and maybe even WW3.
Zelenskiy claims Turkey will ban Russian warships from Black Sea
Turkey will stop Russian warships from passing through the Black Sea, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In a tweet, Zelenskiy said the country had pledged military and humanitarian support for Ukraine.
Turkey will stop warships passing through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
On Thursday 13 Ukrainian soldiers were killed on the small, rocky Snake Island in the Black Sea when it was bombarded by ship and by air.
Source
Apparently it was either a translation error or something else.
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News seems to suggest that the resistance to disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has melted away. There were holdouts like Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus, but they've all decided to go with it.
Edit: Germany still reluctant, but they could change their mind. As frustrating as it sounds if you want SWIFT sanctions, remember that cutting Russia off from SWIFT carries major ramifications, including buying natural gas from the country. None of these are particularly easy decisions to make on a domestic-level.
There's also reporting that the U.S. is considering sanctioning the Russian central bank in conjunction with allies, which holds most of Russia's reserves they've been holding to prepare for being turned into an international pariah. It would also cause the ruble to plummet.
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Hey guys, it was one more scary night in Kharkiv (although - nothing near what happened in Kyiv), we've managed to sleep a bit better, somewhere early morning I woke up due to artillery shots, luckily it was our defense, if someone interested in what it was, here is a few videos before and after
before + Show Spoiler +
after + Show Spoiler +
Regional city defense is doing rather well, at the moment our biggest concern is saboteur groups. We've gathered with neighbours from two mid-dense civil buildings nearby in our area for protection purposes. Feels like with every minute we're more united
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On February 26 2022 23:34 PhoenixVoid wrote:News seems to suggest that the resistance to disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has melted away. There were holdouts like Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus, but they've all decided to go with it. There's also reporting that the U.S. is considering sanctioning the Russian central bank in conjunction with allies, which holds most of Russia's reserves they've been holding to prepare for being turned into an international pariah. It would also cause the ruble to plummet. https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1497574435280367622
How does sanctioning the Russian central bank work? Do they have a lot of business in dollars?
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Very normal reactions.
Russia’s communications regulator has ordered media outlets in the country to remove reports describing the continuing attack on Ukraine as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war” – or face being blocked and fined.
In a statement on Saturday, Roskomnadzor accused several independent media outlets of spreading “unreliable socially significant untrue information” about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.
Among those sent warning letters were Echo Moskvy, a popular radio station, and Novaya Gazeta, the country’s top independent newspaper whose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Citing a request from the Prosecutor-General’s Office, the regulator said media outlets, including independent television channel Dozhd, will be blocked unless they remove the “unreliable information”.
“Roskomnadzor also launched an administrative investigation into the dissemination of unreliable publicly significant information by the above-mentioned media,” the watchdog said, adding that the offence is punishable by a fine of up to five million rubles ($60,000).
Roskomnadzor also said that “reliable information” could be found in “official Russian information outlets”.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion in the early hours of Thursday, calling it a “special military operation” aimed at defending Russia-backed separatists in the east and demilitarising and “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. Russian troops on Saturday pressed towards Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after a night of explosions and street fighting that sent residents seeking shelter underground.
Source
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On February 26 2022 23:40 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2022 23:34 PhoenixVoid wrote:News seems to suggest that the resistance to disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has melted away. There were holdouts like Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus, but they've all decided to go with it. There's also reporting that the U.S. is considering sanctioning the Russian central bank in conjunction with allies, which holds most of Russia's reserves they've been holding to prepare for being turned into an international pariah. It would also cause the ruble to plummet. https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1497574435280367622 How does sanctioning the Russian central bank work? Do they have a lot of business in dollars?
The SWIFT business makes all transactions incredibly more expensive as they are not secured anymore. Sanctions carry legal weight if a company or an individual does business with said bank.
China even made restrictions on Russian banks to get ahead of any scams that would result from swift going through or business they have in the us being disrupted by us sanctions.
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This is shocking to me. I fully expected to hear the news about zelenskyy's death and the encirclement of most cities in Ukraine with Armored spearheads running into the interior unopposed when I woke up.
With all the advantages russia has in this conflict Ukraine shouldn't be able to put anything more than a few choppers into the air. Soviet doctrine was very clear about having "A" divisions making the initial breakthroughs and allowing "B" and "C" divisions to leak into the opponent's rear. The airports Ukraine is using can't be hidden after years of preparing for this invasion. The entire nation is literally next door to Russia and kyiv is the most exposed capitol in the world for this.
Zelenskyy seems pretty accepting that he will become a martyr and won't leave Ukraine. Russia needs to take him alive or get him to surrender or this will turn into a resistance that will make the Iraq civil war look like Florida.
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On February 27 2022 00:29 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2022 23:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 26 2022 23:34 PhoenixVoid wrote:News seems to suggest that the resistance to disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has melted away. There were holdouts like Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus, but they've all decided to go with it. There's also reporting that the U.S. is considering sanctioning the Russian central bank in conjunction with allies, which holds most of Russia's reserves they've been holding to prepare for being turned into an international pariah. It would also cause the ruble to plummet. https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1497574435280367622 How does sanctioning the Russian central bank work? Do they have a lot of business in dollars? The SWIFT business makes all transactions incredibly more expensive as they are not secured anymore. Sanctions carry legal weight if a company or an individual does business with said bank. China even made restrictions on Russian banks to get ahead of any scams that would result from swift going through or business they have in the us being disrupted by us sanctions.
Yeah, from what I understand, a SWIFT ban would make it incredibly difficult for any export/import business to operate. Even if workaround systems make it possible to send and receive foreign funds, would these businesses even be able to find enough credit until they're set up, given existing sanctions? I don't know for certain, but it sounds unworkable.
The Russian government can presumably prop up export industries for a time, either directly or with central bank credit. These companies will try to redirect their business, but how much product can, in practical terms, be competitively sold to China instead of Europe I also have no idea.
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I think it could a wonderful idea, please, spread the word
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EPT
