Russian Ukraine Invasion

[RainbowUnicorn]

Some extraordinary video of missile vs missile action in the sky over the large Ukrainian city of Dnipro. In this engagement, the Russians fired seven cruise missiles at targets in Dnipro. Ukrainian SAMs managed to hit six of them. The remaining missile destroyed a house.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1...9182783491

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/rIPtGHPR05k

[Zinjanthropos]

Flaming debris falling from sky must also cause damage and death I’d imagine. Guess it’s better than getting hit directly by missiles. I’ve often thought that the ME was the one place on Earth were a daily dose of the threat of death was enough to give an entire area PTSD. About to add Ukraine to that list plus a crapload of Russian conscripts. Spreads fast this disorder.

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Cl_UdXfcll4

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1YKCEkajKo4

[confused2]

An irrelevant chain of semi-logic lead me to the wikipedia summary of a book (Cancer Ward) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - the Nobel prize winning Russian dissident (we're going back some years here).

On the day of his release from hospital the narrator visits a zoo and in the animals he sees people he knew.

Our hero decides he would still not want to break into the cages and liberate them .. because, deprived of their home surroundings, they had lost the idea of rational freedom. It would only make things harder for them, suddenly to set them free.

[RainbowUnicorn]

Russian commentators said the fall of the last city in Luhansk had cleared the way for an advance towards towns to the west and south.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62061695

[Image: _125747025_ukraine_invasion_east_map_-nc.png]

i think it is more likely putin was counting on Belarus joining and advancing from the north
Russian commentators will be producing counterintelligence.
i would plan for both.
Orcs failed to encircle 3 or 4 times so i dont think they will try it again
they may bombard but i suspect with low conscript numbers they will only advance on 1 front by doing the same again.
smash & burn everything then move forward.
i am wondering if they will pause and start to try and get out as much grain as they can while they struggle to conscript more troops and mercenarys.

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Latvia plans to reintroduce national military service,
which it scrapped in 2007. For a transitional five years it will be voluntary, then compulsory - a system similar to Sweden's.
The move, announced by Defence Minister Artis Pabriks, will bring Latvia into line with its Baltic neighbours Estonia, Lithuania and Finland, which have military conscription.
Men aged 18-27 will be recruited and paid up to €400 (£342; $408) a month, for 11 months of duty. Their service will also turn them into military reservists. Service will remain voluntary for women.
Latvia, a member of both the EU and Nato, has just 7,500 active duty soldiers and National Guards, backed by 1,500 Nato troops. The goal is to train an extra 7,000 conscripts annually.

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9_bCcYHeonM

[Yazata]

Russian commentators said the fall of the last city in Luhansk had cleared the way for an advance towards towns to the west and south.

Yeah, pretty clearly the next big targets will be Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. I expect that with the forces they have available, the Russians can seize them.

My guess is that Moscow hopes that Ukraine will commit most of its army to defending these cities and that the Russians can use their advantages in numbers and artillery to chew up the Ukrainians. Which might make the rest of Ukraine more vulnerable if the best of the Ukrainian army has been decimated.

i think it is more likely putin was counting on Belarus joining and advancing from the north

Putin still might think that he can convince Belarus if he can chew up the main force of the Ukrainian army. Belarus might do it too, if they think they will only face minimal resistance from a weakened Ukraine.

But Ukraine is busily raising new forces. The whole country is under a national mobilization. Hopefully new weapons and equipment will continue to flow in from the West. So there are new Ukrainian units standing up all the time. The problem is that many of them aren't fully trained and don't have suitable equipment. But that's improving every day. The Ukrainians have done far better in these regards than anyone expected, least of all Moscow. So we can't count them out by any means.

Ukraine's already put a world of hurt on Russia. Russia entered this war in hopes of showing the world that it was back as a super-power. They committed the best of their army and tried to seize all of Ukraine in a lightning blitzkrieg attack on February 24 that they probably figured would be finished by March 1. But Ukraine resisted far more fiercely than anyone expected. The Russian army leadership and logistics were revealed to be abysmal. And the move to grab all of Ukraine was an abject failure.

As some wit put it, Russia wanted to show that they had the second strongest army in the world. But all they succeeded in doing was showing that they had the second strongest army in Ukraine.

Russian commentators will be producing counterintelligence.
i would plan for both.

I believe that Ukraine has been using many of those freshly mobilized but inexperienced troops to strengthen defenses in western Ukraine against a possible intervention from Belarus.

Orcs failed to encircle 3 or 4 times so i dont think they will try it again

Even after concentrating on taking the east rather than the whole country, the Russians haven't been very successful.

they may bombard but i suspect with low conscript numbers they will only advance on 1 front by doing the same again.
smash & burn everything then move forward.

Yeah, their new MO seems to be to pound with massed artillery while keeping their ground troops back. It's working to the west of Lysychansk towards Siversk and Bakhmut, but even Russia doesn't have enough artillery to do it along the whole long front.

i am wondering if they will pause and start to try and get out as much grain as they can while they struggle to conscript more troops and mercenarys.

I suspect they might annex the areas they already hold and make them part of Russia. They wave their nukes around if the Ukrainians try to retake the areas.

Latvia plans to reintroduce national military service

Good for Latvia. It's a NATO member but 100,000 or something trained reservists might make them harder for Russia to swallow. Able to hold out until NATO reinforcements arrive.

Russia's lack of success in Ukraine has given new hope to countries like Estonia and Latvia. While a few months ago they looked extremely vulnerable, now they know the Russians can be beaten. Especially while the best of the Russian army is getting its ass kicked down in Ukraine. Russia just doesn't have the forces to spare for another war.

[Image: _125747025_ukraine_invasion_east_map_-nc.png]

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/pT9VZxaYzHA

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https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9iVoH_wCx6U

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TGyonw_vN1I