Also, the Turkey/Russia relationship is "complicated". They're both simultaneously at each other's throats, but they also have a lot of overlapping interests. Turkey could just as easily use this as a way to score big points with Russia. Specifically, Turkey is wanting to exert their presence in the middle east and over the Kurds and would like it if Russia turned a blind eye to their activities in Northern Syria.
Turkey, which supplied a bunch of weapons to Ukraine before the war, hasn't (at least no publicly) provided any weapons since.
Then again, Turkey is continuing to close the Turkish Straits to Russia, so maybe I am wrong. Perhaps Turkey will back down, once they have their concession. The concession could be support in Northern Syria from the West. Turkey has been asking for that for a while now.
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Sadly, or rather mercifully, operations in Mariupol has ceased with what appears to be a final surrender.
They were losing heavy people last few days and were completely out of water. While their efforts were superhuman in spirit, they were still human in basic needs and were completely out of water.
Here's hoping they see some type of mercy and able to make it home at one point, but it's grim.
Also, the Turkey/Russia relationship is "complicated". They're both simultaneously at each other's throats, but they also have a lot of overlapping interests. Turkey could just as easily use this as a way to score big points with Russia. Specifically, Turkey is wanting to exert their presence in the middle east and over the Kurds and would like it if Russia turned a blind eye to their activities in Northern Syria.
Turkey, which supplied a bunch of weapons to Ukraine before the war, hasn't (at least no publicly) provided any weapons since.
Then again, Turkey is continuing to close the Turkish Straits to Russia, so maybe I am wrong. Perhaps Turkey will back down, once they have their concession. The concession could be support in Northern Syria from the West. Turkey has been asking for that for a while now.
There's reports that most likely they're still providing Ukraine qith new Bayraktars.
As for the PKK / Kurds, unfortunately the Turkish government sees them as not much more than terrorists, so their disgust at western nations "harboring PKK" is very likely genuine, and understandable. (If not something I agree on.)
It's not much different from the western stance towards other nations harboring Islamists, Turkey just has less political muscle to drive the point home.
I doubt they'll play hardball over the topic, but clearly they want to gripe about it publicly.
The EU, Britain, Canada, and the U.S. all officially recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization (so essentially, all of NATO). It's really complicated though partly because there are different branches or wings of the PKK, not all of them militant. It's hard to say that every PKK member is a terrorist because some are only involved in peaceful activities. The PKK also fought against ISIL as did NATO, and I am sure there would have been cooperation and communication between them at that time.
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MOD and map updates. Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian forces back to border NE of Kharkiv city, west of Vovchansk but appear to be holding their ground directly north of Kharkiv at Lyptsi. This is likely to prevent Ukrainian forces from entering artillery range of Belgorod and the supply depots supporting the Russian war effort.
In Donbas Oblast, Russian made minor gains over the past few days in Lyman and Popsana in the nearly stalled attempt to encircle Severodonetsk. Conditions in Severodonetsk are reportedly deteriorating with access to food, water and other supplies running low. Russians also made an attempt to advance near Sumy, but this failed and they are expected by the MOD to increase shelling in the coming days to try to reboot their advance. Expectation is this is not going to be very effective.
In Mariupol, apparently the decision has been made to withdraw Ukrainian forces from the area, Zelensky made a statement they've managed to rescue 266 military personnel from the area so far.
MOD estimates that Russians have now lost over 30% of their forces to date. With a lot of it's top of the line equipment having been destroyed, the Russians are now fielding even older cold-war era equipment in the field, including un-modernized T-72A tanks, further increasing attrition of Russian personnel. From equipment losses alone, military experts say Russia is not expected to be able to sustain military operations past the next 90 days.
Sadly, or rather mercifully, operations in Mariupol has ceased with what appears to be a final surrender.
They were losing heavy people last few days and were completely out of water. While their efforts were superhuman in spirit, they were still human in basic needs and were completely out of water.
Here's hoping they see some type of mercy and able to make it home at one point, but it's grim.
That's not entirely accurate from what I've read. Or perhaps I missed the complete surrender.
The servicemen evacuated yesterday were the severely wounded. They were to be taken to receive Russian medical treatment, and then there would be a subsequent prisoner swap.
As far as I could tell there still remains a sizeable number of UAF troops in the factory.
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Last edited by IliketoPuck; 05-17-2022 at 08:44 AM.
That's not entirely accurate from what I've read. Or perhaps I missed the complete surrender.
The servicemen evacuated yesterday were the severely wounded. They were to be taken to receive Russian medical treatment, and then there would be a subsequent prisoner swap.
As far as I could tell there still remains a sizeable number of UAF troops in the factory.
The Ukrainian operations in Mariupol had officially been declared over yesterday and The government requested for Azov to surrender.
We won't know the outcome of the remaining soldiers yet but this has in fact been a total surrender. They are being held in Russian occupied territory and Russia has already gone back on the deal and refusing to trade the prisoners now that they have surrendered. They will likely be paraded as nazis and tortured to death. They knew surrender would cause this outcome but they literally had no other choice, they had no water and nearly out of ammunition.
It was this and hope that maybe some of them may survive, or 100% of them die.
Last edited by Firebot; 05-17-2022 at 11:31 AM.
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They're going to be used as a way for Putin to claim he has successfully denazified Ukraine while Russian forces dig in in the east and on the land bridge to Crimea.
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The Ukrainian operations in Mariupol had officially been declared over yesterday and The government requested for Azov to surrender.
We won't know the outcome of the remaining soldiers yet but this has in fact been a total surrender. They are being held in Russian occupied territory and Russia has already gone back on the deal and refusing to trade the prisoners now that they have surrendered. They will likely be paraded as nazis and tortured to death. They knew surrender would cause this outcome but they literally had no other choice, they had no water and nearly out of ammunition.
It was this and hope that maybe some of them may survive, or 100% of them die.
I hadn't seen that it was a full surrender. Thanks for clarifying.
This article seems to indicate there might still be fighters there?
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Last edited by IliketoPuck; 05-17-2022 at 01:21 PM.
Such bull#### Russia is even there. Go the #### home and leave Ukraine and Ukrainians alone.
Why did Mariupol have to fall? It will be back in Ukrainian control when Russia loses the war anyway, and a bunch of people suffered and died for nothing.
I would murder Putin with my bare hands, given the chance.
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Lots going on with my in-laws situation up near the border north of Kharkiv.
Spoiler!
They have been trapped there since pretty much the war started, and the past few weeks have had some quiet days and some rough days. With the counter offensive attempting to push the RU soldiers back to the border, their village has experienced much more fighting recently. Russia definitely isn't giving up their village easy. One of the few good things is that since they are more on the outskirts, it hasn't physically been around them. But still makes it very stressful for them knowing that a street or 2 over this is all happening.
I won't give away too many details of things my wife has been made aware of from some of the locals on the Telegram channel, but the Russians are doing some ####ed up stuff. The Russians there have turned quite pissy and have threatened to murder anyone caught outside using their phones. This makes it very difficult to contact them and outright dangerous to even attempt. My wife hasn't talked to her Mother in over a week, but we do know her and her companions are still alive. Recently a sniper(s) set up camp in their village and was shooting at random civilians. Such a ####ing brave Russian soldier to be shooting at people in their own village, right? There was a bit on the news recently about ~11 snipers were caught in Kharkiv Oblast. We're not sure if the one sniper in their village was one of them, as we haven't heard of any incidents since.
My wife was made aware of a sad incident this morning. She had a friend who died a couple years ago and knew his family quite well. His family attempted to leave today in their car, only to supposedly drive over a mine. An innocent family of 5 was all killed. The entire roadway back to Kharkiv has been mined alongside the road, making it incredibly dangerous to even attempt to go towards Kharkiv. More brave acts by these brave Russian soldiers. I hope they choke on the medals they receive.
Basically in our situation, it comes down to this big offensive working out, the Russians getting pushed back, and our family being able to finally leave. We don't know how this will work out or when this will be possible. But this is finally the big breakthrough we have been banking on the past few months. My wife and I moved back to Canada a couple days ago, and it's hard enough for her to get used to moving to a new country across the world. Even harder knowing what her family is going through and the lack of communication with them. We just hope and pray this all works out.
Obligatory #### you Putin.
How are things HW? Havent heard from you lately? Are your inlaws ok?
Such bull#### Russia is even there. Go the #### home and leave Ukraine and Ukrainians alone.
Why did Mariupol have to fall? It will be back in Ukrainian control when Russia loses the war anyway, and a bunch of people suffered and died for nothing.
I would murder Putin with my bare hands, given the chance.
I'm sure the line is quite long.
Russians will not even occupy the city at all either. There is no value left in it since the city is completely leveled at this point aside from the remains of the steel plant and they are so bankrupt they likely don't have the billions needed to rebuild it. This whole war has been one giant question mark of "what's the point", and there isn't one except for Putin/KGB cabal ego.
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Such bull#### Russia is even there. Go the #### home and leave Ukraine and Ukrainians alone.
Why did Mariupol have to fall? It will be back in Ukrainian control when Russia loses the war anyway, and a bunch of people suffered and died for nothing.
I would murder Putin with my bare hands, given the chance.
How are things HW? Havent heard from you lately? Are your inlaws ok?
Still not much to update unfortunately, other than the fighting still goes on around them. If you look at the map on https://liveuamap.com/, they are at North of Kharkiv city by the border and their village is directly on the left flank of the red on that map, Kozacha Lopan. There's a red blotch there that needs to get pinched out. So close, but so far.... arghhhh.
It's frustrating (but also encouraging) seeing how much the map has been "cleaned" in recent weeks in that area north of Kharkiv city, but never seems to include the village of KL. You can also see the 2 main roads near them, T-21-17 and M-20. Both those roads are/were main supply routes from Belgorod towards Kharkiv, which then allowed Russians to shell Kharkiv and head further east towards Izium. The Russians have identified KL as an important holding ground, as losing that region pretty much shuts down that supply route and puts Belgorod within artillery range with the new Western weapons (theoretically). They probably think they can take it all back at some point, but really, the RU army has no sensible plan and they are pretty much hanging around KL in a last ditch effort. It's so dumb, useless and needless. But that's the reality of the situation.
My MIL told us recently that she actually feels some comfort when she hears artillery and fighting, as that means she knows the UA army is closing in. She actually starts to lose hope when it's quiet (there are days when nothing happens) as she begins to think nobody is coming to save them. Crazy to think that way. The emotional swings they are undergoing are insane, to say the least.
Honestly there is so much crazy stuff going on in KL we have learned about but never makes the news since it's not the "big" headlines everyone is following. What my in-laws are doing to survive is straight up crazy some days.
The good news is that with all the "cleaning" going on in that area north of Kharkiv, I really do feel it's only a matter of time before they are liberated. I'd feel less optimistic if there was nothing going on and all the focus was on Kharkiv city itself and the Donbas. The bad news is that there is no timeline, and the Russians aren't giving it up easy. I have to hold off until they are liberated (for obvious ongoing security reasons) before telling about some of the stuff that goes on there. We also know what those brave Russian soldiers do when they retreated from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts (ie. mining the area and pillaging everything). That is happening in most areas north of Kharkiv city and in Kozacha Lopan itself.
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I haven't been following the conflict for a while now other than reading this thread here and there and it's a bit surprising to come in and see that Russia has won in Mariupol. I was always assuming and under the impression that Russia was incapable of winning in any region with all of their wrong moves and bad tactics. I imagine this will be a pretty big deal for Russia.
I haven't been following the conflict for a while now other than reading this thread here and there and it's a bit surprising to come in and see that Russia has won in Mariupol. I was always assuming and under the impression that Russia was incapable of winning in any region with all of their wrong moves and bad tactics. I imagine this will be a pretty big deal for Russia.
It shouldn't be though, Mariupol is about 50 kms from the Russian border, 2 months after the war begun Russia has finally captured a small city a 30 minute drive from their border is hardly the fall of Berlin, in fact it is a damning indictment of just how bad Russian troops are, it is equivalent to the US taking 2 months to capture Surrey
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It shouldn't be though, Mariupol is about 50 kms from the Russian border, 2 months after the war begun Russia has finally captured a small city a 30 minute drive from their border is hardly the fall of Berlin, in fact it is a damning indictment of just how bad Russian troops are, it is equivalent to the US taking 2 months to capture Surrey
Mariupol is also 50% ethnically Russian and sandwhiched between two areas already under Russian control (the Crimea and the North Donbas). This was about as easy as it could get for Russia, and it was far from easy.
From what I've read the only reason for all this destruction was so that Russians could more easily move between the Crimea to the Donbas, and if they level Mariupol, it just makes it easier to build a path.
