Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Anguille]

The problem is that Russia has made it impossible to negotiate. The ceremony and process to annex the 4 regions has been concluded and they won't accept less (has anyone see it?). If they do, Putin and his friends are done because he said these regions and people are now forever with Russia. Maybe we would have had a space for negociation before that but right now, i don't see any political solutions left and this is Putins fault. Either Russia loses the war and Ukraine accepts to keep the borders as they are now. (front line). I don't see the chance for anything like that to happen now unfortunately. It's all a terrible tragedy and so many lifes lost for nothing.

This is how they see it in Moscow:

[Crossroads]

the Finnish Prime Minister has this to say:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1578308226709590017

Not an official statement perhaps but a good reminder as why we are where we are. Putin could stop this war any day.

She visited Irpin and Bucha in the beginning of the war, so here's another picture of her. She's a mother to a young child so I can only guess what's going through her mind.

[GDS_Starfury]

woof woof woof

[Sir Slash]

Another case of careless smoking?  ::)

[Tripoli]

IRT the Kerch bridge: MG (ret) Mick Ryan ADF posted some thoughts on the dropping of the Kerch bridge on his Twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1578617196661833733   His main points:



1. The amount of explosives needed to drop the bridge are likely too much to be carried by a SOF team [Note: there is some speculation based on some security film that it might have been a kamikaze drone boat.  See https://twitter.com/EdwardWeinert  I'm not sure I buy that explanation, but it is something to consider]

2. "the Ukrainians so far have been excellent at operational design and shaping operations in advance of their advances. This could be part of their design for taking back Crimea in the short term - or part of a deception operation to distract from other areas."

3.  It doesn't stop resupply to Crimea (there are boats and the route through Melitopol), but it makes holding Melitopol even more important for the Russians.

4. "We may see Russian redeployments in the south, which will unveil other weaknesses & opportunities for #Ukraine."

5. The attack "is a massive influence operation win for Ukraine. ... it is a demonstration to Russians, and the rest of the world, that Russia's military cannot protect any of the provinces it recently annexed...., the rush to leave Crimea [by the Russian military will be [increase]. Lack of confidence in Putin and his military will grow."

[Tripoli]

Related to the dropping of the Kerch bridge span, and illustrating the genius of the Ukrainian public affairs team, they put out a video of the burning Kerch Bridge next to Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday, Mr President" [Putin's Birthday was October 7]  It is a bit of brilliant trolling. I would argue that the overall effect of the Ukrainian PR effort has been a significant strategic force multiplier in the war:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1578665161246011392

[steve58]

Wondering if they got lucky igniting the fuel cars and melting the railroad bridge or if both the roadway+railroad bridges were targeted...

[Tripoli]

Wondering if they got lucky igniting the fuel cars and melting the railroad bridge or if both the roadway+railroad bridges were targeted...

My guess is that hitting the one span when the train was on the other wasn't luck.  The only question I have is whether the second span was deliberately targeted, or if the train was ignited by debris.  I can't wrap my mind around the possibility that the Russians parked a loaded fuel train on a critical transportation bottleneck, so I'm assuming the train was moving when it  was hit.  Then again, maybe it is a known parking spot for trains, and the Ukrainians picked the spot to get a secondary effect.

FWIW, recent photos appear to show the train gone, so there may not be as much damage on the rail portion of the bridge.

Addendum: MG Mark Hertling, former commander of the 1AD in Iraq has some reflections on the dropping of this bridge based on his experiences when AQI dropped a span over the Tigris River.  It is worth reading.   See  https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1578745739416510466

[Pete Dero]

.

[GDS_Starfury]

FWIW, recent photos appear to show the train gone, so there may not be as much damage on the rail portion of the bridge.

the most recent photos Ive seen show the undamaged rail cars taken away but the roasted stuff still in place.  that fire was going for at least 4 hours, theres going to be some deep structural damage.

[JasonPratt]

An article from The Epoch Times this morning. Behind a paywall so I can't link to it, but I'll quote the text. (They don't mind people doing that for promotion sake, as long as attribution is given. Hyperlinks are not included.) I'll snip past portions that are well-known to us already.

{snip} The Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement that the incident killed at least three people, "presumably the passengers of a car that was driving by the truck that exploded on the bridge."

'The bodies of a woman and a man were recovered from the water, their identities are being established," the statement reads, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed about the explosion and he ordered the creation of a government panel to deal with the emergency.

While the bridge undergoes repair, a ferry service will be provided later on Saturday. Crimea's Head Sergey Aksyonov said on Telegram, per TASS: "A ferry service is ready to be launched, it will start operating later today. We will announce a timetable later."

{snip}

The explosion on the Crimean Bridge took place hours after multiple explosions early Saturday hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which triggered a series of secondary explosions. The city's mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said that the series of explosions were due to missile strikes aimed at the center of the city, which caused fires at one of Kharkiv's medical institutions, as well as a nonresidential building. No reports of casualties were noted.

While no one has yet to explicitly claim public responsibility for the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's aide, Mikhail Podoliak, posted on Twitter saying the explosion is "the beginning."

"Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled," he wrote in English.

Podoliak previously in August threatened the bridge, telling The Guardian that the bridge is "an illegal construction and the main gateway to supply the Russian army in Crimea" and that "such objects should be destroyed."

Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have also previously stated that Ukraine will use force to retake Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after a vast majority of people in Crimea had voted in a referendum in March 2014 to reunite with Russia and secede from Ukraine. The vote took place after anti-Russia, pro-E.U. factions overthrew then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government, which wasn't against Russia, in an armed coup in February 2014.

The referendum was condemned by the United States and the European Union, with the latter saying in a statement (pdf) that the poll was "illegal and illegitimate." Both the United States and the E.U. issued sanctions in response to the vote.

The Crimean Bridge, a $3.69 billion (230 billion rubles) project, was constructed following the annexation of Crimea. Russia opened the first part of the span to car traffic in May 2018. The parallel bridge for rail traffic opened the following year. Before the bridge's existence, the Crimean Peninsula could only be reached from Russia by sea or air.

It was Russia's only land link to the peninsula until Russian forces later seized more Ukrainian territory on the northern end of the Sea of Azov in heavy fighting, particularly around the city of Mariupol, earlier in 2022.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[JasonPratt]

On a more amusing note, the Russians have succeeded in re-creating the "panzer in the lake" joke meme, updated with yet another of their T-90s.

"Oh great T-90 of the lake, what is your wisdom?"


(Replies are invited.  O0 )

[AlanLuiz]

Russia is a terrorist state!

[Staggerwing]

"Oh great T-90 of the lake, what is your wisdom?"
(Replies are invited.  O0 )

Russia is a terrorist state!

You did ask...

[Jarhead0331]

^The guy is posting from Ukraine, so maybe he actually means it.