Russia invades Ukraine

[you&me]

I can already hear the Russian claims of the dam having a smoking accident.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by you&me

I can already hear the Russian claims of the dam having a smoking accident.

Or fell out of a window.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Firebot

https://kyivindependent.com/national...-flood-kherson

Ukraine is well aware of Russia's plans, and those plans are catastrophic if they go ahead.

One of the main reasons for taking Kherson in the first place is to secure Crimea's water supply and control the dam which had water shut off after 2014's annexation. Blowing it up would flood / destroy Kherson as well as potentially kill hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian in the area (as well as any military).

For context the reservoir is as large as Lake Mead's current active volume (Hoover Dam) at 18km3. That's a lot of water

It would also flood the banks which Russia controls as well as permanently cut off Crimea's water supply. It's very much an insane scorched earth last resort should Russia go through with it, but unlike a nuke it would be unlikely for NATO to respond.

They have already proven that they will destroy dams just to cause mass civilian deaths, if Kherson is accepted lost and may lose control of the dam, they may pull the trigger.

while no one has gone broke betting on Russian stupidity in this conflict blowing the dam utterly dooms the Crimea, it leaves it with no water and makes Sevastopol and the other towns all but uninhabitable within a few years while doing nothing to prevent the fall of Maripol or the rest of the Oblast, I cant see it myself

[driveway]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

No, three consecutive failed wheat crops is what did the Soviets in. The spending in Afghanistan coupled with no wheat exports pretty much crippled the USSR and brought about the failure of the empire.

Archie Brown in The Rise and Fall of Communism attributes the greatest part of the collapse to influential Soviets receiving exposure to the West - either through educational opportunities or cultural exchanges - seeing the discrepancy between their lives and the lives of people in the West, and then attempting to make changes to the Soviet system to bring some of the prosperity and openness of life in the West into the USSR.

The communist system couldn't ultimately incorporate ideas like glastnost and perestroika into its functioning without undergoing such fundamental change that it ceased to be communism in any form.

[Huntingwhale]

The Ukrainian guests we are hosting have arrived! A very friendly couple who spent the past 5 months in Spain, but didn't like it so much (unemployment is very high and Spanish language is a requirement at almost every official position). Got their CUAET approvals and here they are!

They both speak English quite well and already have a plan for getting setup with SIN, bank accounts, etc. Both want to stay in Canada long term and get PR eventually. Couldn't be happier with just how great they are. They are both from Kherson city. Thankfully most of their family have escaped to Spain. But some of their older relatives are still in Kherson, older members who didn't want to leave. Looking forward to sitting down with them with some beer and vodka and learning about their lives.

[Firebot]

Apparently one of the main reasons for the very high number of Russian KIA in recent days is that Russia has launched a brand new offensive near Pavlivka, Donetsk oblast that has been quietly been happening but not spoken about.

The number of Ukraine casualties is unknown but they definitely did get overwhelmed in some places, we ended up with some very sombre videos where garrisons were completely surrounded and thought they were recording their last day.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588526894097797125

The offensive failed and was pushed back. It's being described as Putin's Battle of the Bulge in that it used up whatever strength it had left in a surprise offfensive, and while it initially had early positive results, it turned out to be a completer disaster. Here is the translated letter (and a few more Russian descriptions of events there in that thread)

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589300375583981569

We will likely see some more official words of the recent Russian offensive soon, but it was pretty significant.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Apparently one of the main reasons for the very high number of Russian KIA in recent days is that Russia has launched a brand new offensive near Pavlivka, Donetsk oblast that has been quietly been happening but not spoken about.

The number of Ukraine casualties is unknown but they definitely did get overwhelmed in some places, we ended up with some very sombre videos where garrisons were completely surrounded and thought they were recording their last day.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588526894097797125

The offensive failed and was pushed back. It's being described as Putin's Battle of the Bulge in that it used up whatever strength it had left in a surprise offfensive, and while it initially had early positive results, it turned out to be a completer disaster. Here is the translated letter (and a few more Russian descriptions of events there in that thread)

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589300375583981569

We will likely see some more official words of the recent Russian offensive soon, but it was pretty significant.

I'm not sure Pavlivka is currently a "battle of the bulge" moment. Sounds like the KIA will number in the hundreds, not thousands. The bigger issue is they may not be able to get the troops still alive out without sending in fresh troops from somewhere else, which they don't really have. Russia has had lots of these types of minor catastrophes, but I really doubt this is the last offensive for Russia

[Itse]

Yeah I don't see anything here that suggests this is a particularly decisive or final battle.

Russia has never stopped making attacks, so a new push isn't some new development.

Estimates suggest they've drafted as much as 500k new men already, and while the first of them were thrown to the frontlines without training, Russia has not sent 500k men to the front. So they have reserves, and they also can just draft another 500k men if they want.

Losing 300 marines is bad, but it's not much in the total scale of this war. They can literally lose a thousand times that and not run out of men.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

The Ukrainian guests we are hosting have arrived! A very friendly couple who spent the past 5 months in Spain, but didn't like it so much (unemployment is very high and Spanish language is a requirement at almost every official position). Got their CUAET approvals and here they are!

They both speak English quite well and already have a plan for getting setup with SIN, bank accounts, etc. Both want to stay in Canada long term and get PR eventually. Couldn't be happier with just how great they are. They are both from Kherson city. Thankfully most of their family have escaped to Spain. But some of their older relatives are still in Kherson, older members who didn't want to leave. Looking forward to sitting down with them with some beer and vodka and learning about their lives.

I don't know if it's just me but at more and more places I go to, it seems like I am encountering what sounds like a Ukrainian working there - from the Calgary Parking Authority to the Tire Shop, etc. They could be dirty Russian spies but if they are Ukrainians, I'm happy they are finding work here!

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I don't know if it's just me but at more and more places I go to, it seems like I am encountering what sounds like a Ukrainian working there - from the Calgary Parking Authority to the Tire Shop, etc. They could be dirty Russian spies but if they are Ukrainians, I'm happy they are finding work here!

The number of Ukrainian nationals in Calgary right now blows my mind. Before the CUAET program, it was incredibly difficult for Ukrainians to get a visitor visa to even come visit. Pretty much the only path was either PR through sponsorship, or being well-off enough to afford the study route or invited to work. Personally I always thought it was unfair how high the rejection rate was, given how Canada likes to brag how many Canadians have Ukrainian ancestry. I honestly couldn't be more pleased (given the circumstances) that the government has really stepped up to make it easier for Ukrainians to come here. While there is an adjustment period obviously, they are integrating fairly well overall IMO

The visitors in my house have been here for 2 nights. During that time they already have an appointment to get their SIN tomorrow, have bank accounts set up, got stocked up on winter clothing, and today are testing out how transit works. I am helping them with their resumes and cover letters later and then all next week they are going out applying for jobs. They have been here only over the weekend are already super eager to get rolling.

Heck, yesterday we were chilling at home and I put on the Flames game as some background noise, thinking only I'd be paying attention. Instead, they both told me how much they loved hockey (!) and started asking questions about the team, arena and if "we are a good team".

Also interesting is just how many refugees are from Kherson city and region are in Calgary. They have a childhood friend who has been in Calgary for a few months and yesterday we met 9 other Ukrainians at a little gathering, all of them from Kherson. They estimate that they have met around 30 Ukrainians from Kherson. Doesn't seem like much, until you consider that most Calgarians likely had never heard of Kherson until now, and most Khersonians (?) had never heard of Calgary until now. Now we're all here together as one big happy family.

Crazy times.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

The number of Ukrainian nationals in Calgary right now blows my mind. Before the CUAET program, it was incredibly difficult for Ukrainians to get a visitor visa to even come visit. Pretty much the only path was either PR through sponsorship, or being well-off enough to afford the study route or invited to work. Personally I always thought it was unfair how high the rejection rate was, given how Canada likes to brag how many Canadians have Ukrainian ancestry. I honestly couldn't be more pleased (given the circumstances) that the government has really stepped up to make it easier for Ukrainians to come here. While there is an adjustment period obviously, they are integrating fairly well overall IMO

The visitors in my have been here for 2 night. During that time they already have an appointment to get their SIN tomorrow, have bank accounts set up, got stocked up on winter clothing, and today are testing out how transit works. I am helping them with their resumes and cover letters later and then all next week they are going out applying for jobs. They have been here only over the weekend are already super eager to get rolling.

Also interesting is just how many refugees are from Kherson city and region are in Calgary. They have a childhood friend who has been in Calgary for a few months and yesterday we met 9 other Ukrainians at a little gathering, all of them from Kherson. They estimate that they have met around 30 Ukrainians from Kherson. Doesn't seem like much, until you consider that most Calgarians likely had never heard of Kherson until now, and most Khersonians (?) had never heard of Calgary until now. Now we're all here together as one big happy family.

Crazy times.

The both dirty and stupid little secret of Canadian immigration is as a country Canada does it's best to exclude any and everyone who isn't rich all the while tut tutting about how racist the US is, we live in a huge empty country that we guard zealously even though frankly we would be far better off with a larger more varied population

[activeStick]

President Xi, during a visit from Scholz and around 10 German CEOs, came out over the weekend with a statement opposing the international community using nuclear weapons or the threat of nuclear weapons. I imagine in private, Putin has already heard this from Xi himself, but it's good to see this publicly too.

The international community, said Xi,#should “jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons,” according to a statement carried by Xinhua, China’s state news agency.#The world should also#“advocate that nuclear weapons cannot be used, a nuclear war cannot be waged, in order to prevent a nuclear crisis”#in Europe or Asia, Xi added.#

https://www.politico.eu/article/chin...y-peace-talks/

Olaf Scholz also wrote an opinion piece in Politico where he mentioned Germany does not wish to decouple from China, which won't go over well with Murica.

https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf...e-overreliant/

[cam_wmh]

nm misread

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Itse

Losing 300 marines is bad, but it's not much in the total scale of this war. They can literally lose a thousand times that and not run out of men.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...tunning-defeat

This article explains a little bit of the scale of the attack as we know it so far. This was not 'mobilized troops running at Bakmut' in waves that we are used to hearing and the constant attacks that have continued throughout.

The 300 Russian marines killed is an account from a single letter from that brigade, and does not count losses of the whole operation. Also of note is these were not mobilized troops or DPR puppets, but some of Russia's most elite soldiers remaining. Accounts so far are above 1K dead in this attack alone.

Speculation for this offensive is that Russia was looking to secure a railine to supply Kherson directly.

Issues with news that are so fresh, is that OSINT (basically news gathered from all sources) is all we can go by, as such the main analysis we have is the one letter and reports that Ukraine lost control of certain areas in a mass offensive that overran their positions initially but got them back.

We likely won't know for a while just how big this was until we get some type of official confirmation, could turn out be quite small in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely was big enough for several notable russian propagandists to get quite upset.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Itse

Yeah I don't see anything here that suggests this is a particularly decisive or final battle.

Russia has never stopped making attacks, so a new push isn't some new development.

Estimates suggest they've drafted as much as 500k new men already, and while the first of them were thrown to the frontlines without training, Russia has not sent 500k men to the front. So they have reserves, and they also can just draft another 500k men if they want.

Losing 300 marines is bad, but it's not much in the total scale of this war. They can literally lose a thousand times that and not run out of men.

I think the problem for Russia though is it is supposed to lose thousands but gain ground and win, it is losing thousands and not gaining ground that speaks to a couple of almost fatal problems for them, they have no competent leadership and they have run out of usable kit, you dont lose 300 marines if they are tooling around in AFV's and tanks, you lose at this scale if they are walking

[burn_this_city]

Russia is indeed abandoning Kherson, the anger on Z twitter/telegram is palpable. The deputy head of the Ru administration there also died in a "traffic" accident today. Apparently flew out of a car window or something.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Russia is indeed abandoning Kherson, the anger on Z twitter/telegram is palpable. The deputy head of the Ru administration there also died in a "traffic" accident today. Apparently flew out of a car window or something.

Well Props to the Russians for looking at new ways for officials to die and still involve a window.

[Cheese]

Th Russian traffic retreating from Kherson should be prime pickings for the Ukrainians. Body count should be high.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Russia is indeed abandoning Kherson, the anger on Z twitter/telegram is palpable. The deputy head of the Ru administration there also died in a "traffic" accident today. Apparently flew out of a car window or something.

Sounds like some Ukranians think it may be a cover. If he's a Russian cooperator, he and his family may be in trouble. If he's dead, they might not look for him and his family when they take Kherson back...

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Sounds like some Ukranians think it may be a cover. If he's a Russian cooperator, he and his family may be in trouble. If he's dead, they might not look for him and his family when they take Kherson back...

Saw that speculation, along with their overall concern that Kherson withdrawal might be a trap.