Russia invades Ukraine

[Pointman]

Putin's spokesman says that the war may be over "soon, possibly within days". He also admitted "significant losses" in Russian troops.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by karl262

With the restrictions on information I'm wondering how you, as person living in Russia, knows that the war is going horribly? Is western media/internet readily available? Do most people there take everything Putin says with a giant grain of salt?

Internet and western media are available. Only social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are banned. It's not hard at all to use VPN though and read Reddit. Even without VPN, all media such as Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera are accessible just as easy, as before war. Every Russian who can read English and has enough interest has a pretty decent idea that the war is going horribly.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The UN voted to suspend Russia's membership in the Human Rights Council, being only the second country to have this done to them (the first being Libya under Qadafi).

The countries that voted "no" are pretty much a "who's who in the lunatic zoo".

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...rights-council

Russia just fired itself from the UN HRC before it can be removed officially lol

Translation: # Kuzmin: The "Russian Federation" has decided to terminate its powers as a member of the # UN Human Rights Council on April 7, 2022.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512109132349849607

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Putin's spokesman says that the war may be over "soon, possibly within days". He also admitted "significant losses" in Russian troops.

Is the next phase going to be where the war continues on but Putin tells Russians that it's over?

[Firebot]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512131457547915285

Putin's army...

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Russia just fired itself from the UN HRC before it can be removed officially lol

Translation: # Kuzmin: The "Russian Federation" has decided to terminate its powers as a member of the # UN Human Rights Council on April 7, 2022.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512109132349849607

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Internet and western media are available. Only social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are banned. It's not hard at all to use VPN though and read Reddit. Even without VPN, all media such as Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera are accessible just as easy, as before war. Every Russian who can read English and has enough interest has a pretty decent idea that the war is going horribly.

Any idea what English literacy rates are like in Russia? Pretty high?

I can't imagine being able to use VPN is that common. I have a hard enough time teaching my parents how to use their new smart TV remote.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Putin's spokesman says that the war may be over "soon, possibly within days". He also admitted "significant losses" in Russian troops.

The UN is stating 30-40k Russian troops KIA, MIA, or wounded. That's a massive number out of a total fighting force of about 200k.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Any idea what English literacy rates are like in Russia? Pretty high?

I can't imagine being able to use VPN is that common. I have enough time teaching my parents how to use their new smart TV remote.

Top VPN Software in Russia Grows From 16,000 Daily Average Downloads to 700K Downloads: Over 1000% Increase

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/2...-downloads.htm


And this is a month old.

[burn_this_city]

Maybe they're having issues getting the forces pulled back into Belarus to re-enter Ukraine, either logistically or mutinies. Also perhaps the strikes on Belgorod have crimped their fuel supplies and logistics for the eastern campaign. Trucks having to drive twice as far or more to a terminal with massive losses of logistics gear.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Any idea what English literacy rates are like in Russia? Pretty high?

I can't imagine being able to use VPN is that common. I have a hard enough time teaching my parents how to use their new smart TV remote.

I can only speak of the one person I know in Russia, but I was shocked she's still on Instagram. When I asked how, she said she has a VPN. Seems like it's going around..

[burn_this_city]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512157426459549696

[FlameOn]

More reports of Russian soldiers refusing orders. Apparently Moscow times is reporting about 60 soldiers from a paratrooper regiment are refusing to deploy to Ukraine. Paratroopers have suffered heavy casualties in Ukraine, with them being dropped unsupported on multiple occasions into heavily defended areas, most famously in Hostomel where they were mostly wiped out.

Approximately 60 paratroopers from Russia’s Pskov region have refused to be deployed to Ukraine, newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia has reported.

Paratroopers from the area were sent to Belarus days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the outlet wrote Wednesday. They reported that a large number of soldiers were returned to Pskov and fired after refusing to fight — with some also threatened with criminal prosecution for desertion.

Local activist Nikolay Kuzmin said that he had spoken with a driver who helped transport troops back to Pskov, and that he had corroborated the story.

Pskovskaya Gubernia later wrote that military sources expect the number of servicemen refusing to fight in Ukraine to rise significantly. “Our sources tell that commanders now won’t accept any resignation reports,” the paper said. “Many servicemen send them to the military prosecutor’s office instead.”

Pskovskaya Gubernia was the first media outlet to report on the involvement — and deaths — of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Riot police raided the newspaper’s offices on March 5 2022, before raiding the home of editor-in-chief Denis Kamalyagin two weeks later.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...reports-a77265

[CroFlames]

It's eerie how similar that looks like the Eastern Front in the 1940s

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

More reports of Russian soldiers refusing orders. Apparently Moscow times is reporting about 60 soldiers from a paratrooper regiment are refusing to deploy to Ukraine. Paratroopers have suffered heavy casualties in Ukraine, with them being dropped unsupported on multiple occasions into heavily defended areas, most famously in Hostomel where they were mostly wiped out.


https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...reports-a77265

The paratroopers sent into that Kyiv airport with all that destroyed equipment in the first days of the invasion. I'm not sure if they expected something different, but they were basically massacred there. I'd be questioning orders after that decision

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Putin's spokesman says that the war may be over "soon, possibly within days". He also admitted "significant losses" in Russian troops.

That will be some sell job they'll need. We gained basically nothing but lost a ton of men and equipment doing it.

[burn_this_city]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512142148208054276

[GordonBlue]

One thing I think is pretty amazing is that Zelenskyy is still alive especially as he often goes out and about.

You'd have to think that they'd be going hard to kill him, specifically with the Wagner group.

full credit to his security detail.

knock on wood.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512142148208054276

Moscow Times has a good summary of how intentionally bad accounting procedures allows Russia to hide the true number of KIA to the families and official stats of "dead". Basically for Russia to list a soldier as KIA it has to visually identified by someone or DNA tested. Only whole bodies collected by RuAF special brigades count as KIA, not body parts. If a whole body is missing the tags, special brigades don't collect the body, whole squad gets wiped out and no one left to identify them, or body is too mangled to figure out who it is, they are shipped back to Russia for some family member to visually identify them or await DNA testing. Whole system seems designed to hide the true amount of dead soldiers.

If there are incinerators following Russian units around as is rumored for potential cover ups, that number would be even lower since the soldiers bodies could just be burned and they'd just be "MIA" indefinitely or still "deployed". Last I heard Russians were also refusing to Ukraine's repatriation of bodies of dead Russian soldiers, has that changed?

A military lawyer who requested anonymity outlined the official procedure for handling the bodies of servicemen wounded or killed in action. "Special brigades collect the wounded, take away the deceased if possible, and record the dead,” he told The Moscow Times.

“Then the data is given to the commander, who writes a report and passes it up the command chain. But reports are very rough these days, and no one knows the number of casualties."

Bodies must be identified in order for soldiers to be declared as killed in action. “Witness statements or body parts are not sufficient,” said Anton Scherbak, a lawyer for human rights organization Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg. “If a body can’t be identified, they do DNA testing.”

But soldiers who have not yet been identified as deceased do not automatically fall into the category of missing. Bodies not returned to Russia, unidentifiable or buried in Ukraine are also not included in the list of those who were killed in action, lawyer Anastasia Burakova told The Moscow Times.

These men, she said, “have no legal status and are listed neither among the dead, nor among the living.”

After a year of no contact, soldiers’ relatives can apply to a court to have a serviceman declared missing in action.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...e-essay-a77223

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

One thing I think is pretty amazing is that Zelenskyy is still alive especially as he often goes out and about.

You'd have to think that they'd be going hard to kill him, specifically with the Wagner group.

full credit to his security detail.

knock on wood.

Is he really out there running around like Rambo though? Or is he slapping on a uniform and taking some shots walking around safe streets for social media and national morale?

Dude has a lot to do, I'm not even criticizing I just think people need to use critical thinking skills because 0% chance Zelenskyy is out there fighting given he has a country to run as well which during a wartime effort I would imagine is a 100% full time job considering humans have to sleep too. Plus he's obviously been meeting with all western leaders basically constantly and I assume being briefed on the war and other matters.

Are there any stories corroborating what he actually has done in terms of fighting or is it more like typical politician / Trudeau-esque / propaganda stuff.