Russia's War Against Ukraine

[GDS_Starfury]

lets talk about EMP!   <:-)

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581482969306304512.html

[MengJiao]

And from the BBC, Russian warplane goes down, hits Russian apartment building:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63292320

  It's weird that they aren't blaming this on somebody far away from the event.  Which reminds me, in other news (all from the CNN series today) Russia just wants a friendly Ukraine that has nothing to
do with the West or NATO.  I guess that's not very likely once you've been attacking them for the last 8 years or so.  Russia also remarked that it was pointless to do anything diplomatic with the West.
And of course "The Anglo-Saxons" blew up the pipeline in the Baltic (but apparently not the Frisians the Jutes or the Hwicca?  I guess you get the tribes you hate most when it comes to imagining them
blowing up the stuff you can't admit that you blew up).  I'm still amazed at how pathetic the Russians have become -- shooting random stuff at power grids and cities, just wanting a friendly Ukraine.  I guess they can just go on sinking lower and lower for quite a while.

[GDS_Starfury]

kind of hard to blame it on someone else when the pilot stated the plane just failed, a statement he made right after ejecting and the crash site is hundreds of miles from the front.

[al_infierno]

You say that like "facts" and "logic" normally factor into Russian thinking.

[GDS_Starfury]

they absolutely dont but this video was one of the faster spreading ones and there was no way to get ahead of it.
imo

[JasonPratt]

No, I'm still surprised the Russians didn't appeal to "sabotage". Maybe they thought that would look worse for them...?

[GDS_Starfury]

they havent appealed to it yet.

[Gusington]

Iran has sent 'advisors' or 'trainers' to Crimea to teach Russian troops to use drones, from CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/18/politics/iran-trainers-crimea-drones/index.html

[GDS_Starfury]

and so, hopefully, the fracturing begins.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1582509984360804352

[SirAndrewD]

and so, hopefully, the fracturing begins.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1582509984360804352

There's no fracturing there. 

Nikolay Rybakov is the leader of the pro-reform Yabloko party.  Boris Nadezhdin is a former Duma member who opposed the invasion, he's currently under investigation and stands to possibly be arrested.  Both are key opponents to Putin, known to be so, and almost never get invited on platforms like this. 

The entire show was theater, they were there to be set up.  They showed a salacious video of Russians executing Ukrainian civilians.  They directly lied and said the video was Ukrainians executing Russians.   The platform was then to bait Rybakov and Nadezhdin to continuing to call for negotiations and peace, so the rest of the hosts could tear into them and make a public mockery of anyone that dares suggest anything but the complete destruction of Ukraine militarily and peace only achieved through capitulation. 

It also has the secondary benefit to try to put the two of them in position to be fully labeled as enemy agents and peddlers of disinformation for outside actors.  The two of them likely assured they're about to be arrested by not backing down in a public forum.   If they're lucky they'll just get house arrest, a ban from being allowed on any media, and the requirement to register as enemy media propagandists, which is kind of akin to becoming a sex offender.  They'll have to lead with that label anywhere they go and it'll prevent them from having any official legal jobs and roles even within their own parties.

Total hit job and how Russian propaganda is fighting back against any calls to negotiate.

[JasonPratt]

they havent appealed to it yet.

Yet is a very important Russian word indeed!

[GDS_Starfury]

Danke for the clarification Andrew.  :bd:

[JasonPratt]

"Hard decisions must be made," says the new general in charge of the Russian Special Operation:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-general-prepares-kherson-surrender-hard-decisions-must-be-made/ar-AA138mLC?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=7f2f9f08dbf94cd6be58ccdc05dd39ad

Such as:

1.) Do we outright surrender Kherson back to the Uks, or pretend we didn't surrender it while running away?

2.) Should we just go home and stop bothering other people for a while...? -- wait, that isn't a hard decision. ;)

3.) Are windows drafty this time of year, or should I be gardening in the second half of a Russian October?  >:D

[JasonPratt]

In a move that shocks absolutely no one in the history of ever, Putin has declared martial law in his four recently illegally annexed regions:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-live-briefing-putin-declares-martial-law-in-four-illegally-annexed-regions-of-ukraine/ar-AA137YhQ?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=08bc1d664d7440988245bcb132e1e9ac

No need to declare martial law in the Crimea, I suppose, since he has been controlling that directly already for a while.  :P

Technically this means that Russia will put those regions under military governorship, making them into special (i.e. frontline not interior) military districts -- I would guess Crimea has been that way for years now already.

[Pete Dero]

^ He has no choice.  The other leadership is running.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-puppet-leaders-in-kherson-flee-approaching-ukrainian-troops

Moscow-appointed officials occupying a key city in Ukraine are getting out of dodge and urging residents to evacuate ahead of a feared counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops to retake the southern city of Kherson.
Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the local Kremlin-controlled administration, used a video appeal to urge residents in the occupied city to evacuate as Russian forces have been pushed back between 13 and 20 miles in the area over the last few weeks.