Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 73

On March 31 2022 15:07 Simberto wrote:

Okay, stupid question, but why does Putin want to be paid in rubles? Isn't getting outside currency far more valuable to russia than getting rubles, which they can print themselves?

IIRC during the soviet era, the eastern block countries were always all about getting dollars and DM and stuff like that. Why does Putin now absolutely want to get rubles?

On March 31 2022 02:15 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
I thought voters had to decide NATO membership?

On March 31 2022 18:44 Silvanel wrote:
Regarding the previous discussion about Chernobyl and radiation: I just read an article (in Polish) that Russian soldiers have been digging trenches in Red Forest, and now they are being evacuated (7 buses of them) for anti-radiation treatment. If it is true, its both sad and extremely hilarious.

I seem to recall some news about trench digging In Chernobyl early in the war, so there might be something in it...

On March 31 2022 22:02 JimmiC wrote:


Here is a short list of how Russia has sustained the ruble. Does not sound very sustainable to me! 20% interest sounds great for saving, but horrible for spending, im assuming if this lasts home prices will plumet.

On March 31 2022 18:53 Acrofales wrote:

Pretty sure it's too late. The main reason why Chornobyl is relatively safe is because the radiation is trapped. Walking on radioactive ground is probably not too good for your feet, but there's enough distance between that and the parts of your body that *really* matter. Digging trenches kicks up radioactive dust and water particles that you then inhale, at which point you're quite thoroughly fucked.

I just... don't understand it. Capturing Chornobyl and using it as a shortcut to get to Kyiv makes sense. Digging defensive positions inside the disaster zone just boggles the mind. What commander thought it was a good idea? And how submissive do you have to be as a soldier to follow a command to dig into radioactive soil? I guess they were told it was safe, but still.

On March 31 2022 18:53 Acrofales wrote:

Pretty sure it's too late. The main reason why Chornobyl is relatively safe is because the radiation is trapped. Walking on radioactive ground is probably not too good for your feet, but there's enough distance between that and the parts of your body that *really* matter. Digging trenches kicks up radioactive dust and water particles that you then inhale, at which point you're quite thoroughly fucked.

I just... don't understand it. Capturing Chornobyl and using it as a shortcut to get to Kyiv makes sense. Digging defensive positions inside the disaster zone just boggles the mind. What commander thought it was a good idea? And how submissive do you have to be as a soldier to follow a command to dig into radioactive soil? I guess they were told it was safe, but still.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is calling up another 134,500 conscripts even as more and more of his own soldiers appear to be turning on him over humiliating losses in Ukraine.

According to a decree published on a Russian government portal Thursday, the troops will be called to begin service on April 1 until July 15. The Defense Ministry promised earlier this week that they “will not be sent to any hot spots,” and that all those called up in last spring’s draft will be sent home.

But those assurances seem likely to be overshadowed by a multitude of reports that say Russia’s senseless war against Ukraine has been marred by lies from the top down, with Russian troops claiming they were misled into the war and Putin’s own advisers said to be shielding him from the extent of the devastating losses.

Even as Putin signed the decree on Thursday, Ukraine’s Security Service released an intercepted call said to capture a Russian soldier railing against the incompetence of his own army.

“Our brigade has totally shit themselves. There are losses, many wounded,” he tells his wife.

Asked if the losses are a result of someone screwing up, he offers a blunt response: “The whole army with us is stupid morons.”

“It’s unclear why we are even here,” he says.

Another recording shared by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, captures a man identified as a Russian soldier named Maksim asking his mother what is being shown on Russian television, and if there are reports “they’re saying they will change anything.”

“Everything’s bad, almost no one among us is left. They said we will keep going until the very end, until everyone is killed,” he tells his mother.

Asked if his senior officer was still with the unit, he replies: “No, he dumped us yesterday. We’re all dead in the water if he left.”

The new recordings come just hours after Western officials said there was growing evidence of disarray and disillusionment among Russian troops, with Britain’s spy chief citing reports of troops “refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.”

Reporting by Meduza on Thursday largely aligned with Western assessments. Citing three sources close to the presidential administration, the news outlet reported that Russian military officials finally came to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be able to seize control of Kyiv by late March. (Just a month earlier, according to Meduza, they were all but certain that the “special operation” would be quick, and the biggest headache would be organizing work by the “new administrations” put in place by Russia).

But they decided to shift their focus to the Donbas in the country’s east after realizing the full scale of military setbacks—and the damage wrought on the economy by Western sanctions.

Putin was personally presented with the reality of the sanctions only at the end of March, when officials showed him “the country will not be able to live normally under such sanctions,” one source was quoted telling Meduza.

The Russian leader has still not made a final decision on what he’s going to do next, and plenty of those close to him are reportedly pressuring him to go full steam ahead with the onslaught against Ukraine.

But the presidential administration is said to be concerned about how “a possible truce with Ukraine will hit Putin’s [approval] ratings.”

“The citizens were riled up by propaganda. Suppose a decision is made to stop at the territory of the Donbas. What about the Nazis then? Are we no longer fighting them? This word has been hammered into people so much that I can’t imagine how one can stop in Donbas without losing approval ratings,” one source told Meduza.

Perhaps as part of a long game, the Kremlin has now reportedly begun implementing plans to send psychologists from the FSB into Kherson, a city in the south of Ukraine where residents continue to resist the Russian forces who took over after the Feb. 24 invasion.

“To implement a scenario for the creation of another pseudo-republic in the territory of the Kherson region, there is work underway by employees of the FSB, 652 groups of information and psychological operations and officers of the 12th Main Directorate of the [Russian] General Staff,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement Thursday.

Ukrainian officials said the FSB effort is an attempt to brainwash residents into supporting their new Russian authorities.

Russian law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and judges are also said to be on their way to occupied territories in Ukraine, with reports of Russian police officers being asked to take “business trips” to parts of the Donbas in Ukraine’s east.

On April 01 2022 04:57 deacon.frost wrote:
If this is correct, that Ukraine is transfering what appears to be unwounded soldiers through ambulances, let's wait for the outcry when Russia will start targeting them...

https://twitter.com/politblogme/status/1509466040765362178

“In the early days, we were losing the information war,” says a high-ranking source within a regional government. “The people had negative feelings [about the war]. There was a sharp 50/50 split in society. But then all the [state media] got together and started releasing decent content. And then, when they [in the West] began to say that all Russians are bad, to boycott artists and athletes, everything changed. Now about 75 percent support the military operation. That is, there’s a social consolidation happening. Calls against the war are not at all popular, it’s more of a marginal story now.”

[...]

"When I saw what they were doing to those poor Paralympians, that was it for me... I don't care about iPhones, I can use a Chinese phone. I have a German car — let me drive a Chinese or Russian one instead. Now I understand that the boss is right, that this whole thing had to happen one way or another. They would have imposed these sanctions anyway," says a high-ranking civil servant, who a month ago was saying that Russia’s imperial ambitions should be manifested in other ways, such as by growing a strong economy.

[...]

“All these personal sanctions cement the elites. Everyone who was thinking about a new life understands that, for the next 10-15 years at least, their lives are concentrated in Russia, their children will study in Russia, their families will live in Russia. These people feel offended. They will not overthrow anyone, but will build their lives here," says a high-ranking source in one of the sanctioned state companies.

[...]

Those who manage to talk to Putin complain that he himself speaks earnestly, but does not particularly listen to what he is told, says a person who has spoken to the President within the past month. They speculate that Putin needs the peace talks in order to stall, since he still believes in the military, which says he can tear the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the Azov Sea coast from Ukraine.

[...]

A person close to him says that Kudrin warned Putin about the consequences of the war: that the economy would slide back to the early 1990s, and that this could lead to social upheaval. But there was no reaction from the President. Another of Kudrin’s acquaintances says that the head of the Accounts Chamber looked stunned for days after his conversation with Putin, as he let him know that this war would last.

[...]

Neither Kudrin, nor Gref, nor anyone else will persuade Putin to stop the war now, they will not even be listened to, a senior Russian official is confident. “How can you imagine that? It is useless. There is a military operation going on and this is not the time to go with such advice,” he says. According to him, all talk is possible only when the hot phase of the conflict is over. To say anything to Putin against the war now would be a kind of suicide, Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, who has been sanctioned, told Bloomberg. My sources agree with him