Ukraine Situation | Page 63 | Vital Football

Ukraine Situation

valenciagill said:
The reported latest images certainly seem to show serious/substantial damage. Missile strike ?
No-one has admitted responsibility, but why would the Russians destroy their own infrastructure ?
Whether it is an undersea pipeline or a road/rail bridge , it’s not logical.
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Maskirovka! Just like when the army mines the Wagner line of march, and Wagner beat up their commander!!
 
valenciagill said:
The reported latest images certainly seem to show serious/substantial damage. Missile strike ?
No-one has admitted responsibility, but why would the Russians destroy their own infrastructure ?
Whether it is an undersea pipeline or a road/rail bridge , its not logical.
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Hamper any ukranian counter offensive downstream maybe or just scorched earth policy because they can.
 
markinkent said:
Hamper any ukranian counter offensive downstream maybe or just scorched earth policy because they can.
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Yep, mainly explanation One but, when unscrupulous Russian parties are heavily involved in the fighting, as well as the politics, explanation Two is probably a sound supplement.
 
I don't buy the 'hampering' of either one side or the other. Not from a military perspective.
Like a rough , muddy football pitch ... its the same for both sides.
 
Earlier in the war, the Russians crossed the river and talked of recovering new Russia and capturing Odessa further west. The Ukrainians made some attempt to get the peninsula on the other side at the mouth of the river later, but I don’t think a serious opposed crossing was ever seriously considered as a primary operation by them. Mud and flood hinder both sides true.

We have the choice between seeing it as a horrendous poke yourself in the eye false flag by Kiev to make the Russians look bad and generally distract attention, and a Russian attempt to signal anger and commitment, or a panicky Russian decision taken God knows where in their chain of command to secure a flank.

Woke up this morning to five-grouped heavy artillery booms at the base near the in laws’ cabin. Happens every year through the summer, but feels more significant this time.
 
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According to comments on the radio, on the top of the dam is a road and railway link. Maybe one side or the other did not think they could defend it and stop the other crossing. The question is who?
 
A peace agreement drafted by Russia a couple of months after THEY invaded foreign territory?

Would be an interesting document to read as I suspect it would similar to a list of their demands.

Maybe he thought one of the Ukrainian officials was called Uri Ferenc Ostansky and had added their initials rather than signing it.
 
Initialed by the negotiating team is not an agreement. If it were, the US would have been in the League of Nations. What is actually happening here is Putin rejecting the African initiative because it is premised on a return to internationally recognized borders, and he’s engaging in a great deal of whataboutary to the evident discomfort of his interlocutors. Russia has a case, especially on the Crimea, but it does not have the right to be judge, jury and executor in regard to the status of Russian nationals located outside its own territory, and to invade those locations in the name of saving them.
 
jokerman said:
Russia has a case, especially on the Crimea, but it does not have the right to be judge, jury and executor in regard to the status of Russian nationals located outside its own territory, and to invade those locations in the name of saving them.
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What's the difference between Crimea and Donetsk/Luhansk in terms of having a case ?
 
valenciagill said:
What's the difference between Crimea and Donetsk/Luhansk in terms of having a case ?
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Good question. I would answer that in the Crimea’s case, you have two arguments -neither cast iron and both refutable in ways which do not serve Russian interests. The first is that the Crimea has occupied a key place in specifically Moscow-Russia’s sense of itself ever since it pushed the Turks, Greeks and Tatars out and settled Russians there. The second is that the actual transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine as a birthday present in Khrushchev’s time was a farce. No one thought it mattered since the Communists ran the whole show from Moscow anyway. I think if Putin had stopped there, his place in the Russian pantheon of greats would have been assured. A sense of rough natural justice would have allowed the world to get used to it. Power politics may still dictate that Russia gets the Crimea, but on much less favorable and secure terms.

Donetsk/Lugansk are much harder to justify. They, plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia -the other two Putin is now claiming- have a history with Kievan Rus as well as Moscow-Russia, from the time when there were at least three Russian states based on Kiev, Minsk and Moscow, with Kiev as the founding state. Until the war, Donetsk and Lugansk were populated by Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians, Russian speaking Ukrainians, and people who saw themselves as Russians. In their more relaxed moments, Russian nationalists suggest that there are no such thing as Ukrainians. The ones in the West are really Poles, Hungarians and Ruthenians. The ones in the East are really Russians, leaving a few romantic poets with fascist leanings in the middle who are shit-stirring trouble makers (note how the going for invaders of Russia only gets tough once they’re through Ukraine and into Russia proper). This argument might have had some legs until Putin took his swing and missed. The only thing better than a victorious war for building a sense of nationhood is an extended period of suffering regarded as unjust. Putin has provided that for Ukrainians and has ridden rough shod over Russia’s own international commitments in the process. I can see future history exam papers asking -to whom does modern Ukraine owe its existence -Zelenskyy or Putin? Putin will be the easier A.
 
Thanks for taking the time to answering my question in such a comprehensive manner JM.
Can we compare the situation of Gibralter ?
Or could we compare Transnistria with the Falklands ?
 
valenciagill said:
Thanks for taking the time to answering my question in such a comprehensive manner JM.
Can we compare the situation of Gibralter ?
Or could we compare Transnistria with the Falklands ?
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👍🏻 You gave me a chance to work out some thoughts for my job, so thank you! Transnistria and the Falklands is a good one. Closer to home, think about Scotland and people who think we’re all British really. It’s not as quite the same as a sense of Britishness has become much lower key than a sense of Russianness.
 
jokerman said:
👍🏻 You gave me a chance to work out some thoughts for my job, so thank you! Transnistria and the Falklands is a good one. Closer to home, think about Scotland and people who think we’re all British really. It’s not as quite the same as a sense of Britishness has become much lower key than a sense of Russianness.
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I respect your opinion and agree with your facts.
British is a collective term of an ethnic grouping of four nations , no matter how people want to define it.
 
Interesting news out of Russia overnight. At some point the Russian people and army will turn against this war maybe this might just be that spark or maybe the Wagner group will turn against their leader.

Potentially the beginning of a change in direction though.
 
markinkent said:
Interesting news out of Russia overnight. At some point the Russian people and army will turn against this war maybe this might just be that spark or maybe the Wagner group will turn against their leader.

Potentially the beginning of a change in direction though.
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The leader of the Wagner group, a former ally, refers to Putin as a Grandfather (as at the top of the family tree) Arsehole.

Putin claims to have been stabbed in the back. Aaah...Poison and propelling out of windows is more his thing.
 
GillsBluenose said:
The leader of the Wagner group, a former ally, refers to Putin as a Grandfather (as at the top of the family tree) Arsehole.

Putin claims to have been stabbed in the back. Aaah...Poison and propelling out of windows is more his thing.
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I think it's important, but not sure why, that he hasn't criticised Putin, just the defence ministry heads. I think the Ukranians should take this oppurtunity to push on. Not necessarily to attack troops but to destroy supply chains between Russia and it's troops in Ukraine.
 
The best hope for an end to Putin's aggressive land grab in Ukraine was always going to to come from Russian internal unrest. Prigozhins words will spread across the country and cause division, as many citizens questioned the 'Nazi' threat that Putin insisted was the reason for his 'Special Operation'. Already stretched military resources will be tied up in trying to prevent a potential Wagner group coup. And all this at a time when Ukrainian forces are winning back territory with their awaited counter offensive.
Putin appears vulnerable suddenly and that may inspire those closer to him to decide the time is right to get him out. However it may also place Putin in in a position where, with nothing to lose, he threatens nuclear strikes again. Pivotal moment for peace in Europe.
 
Vambogills said:
The best hope for an end to Putin's aggressive land grab in Ukraine was always going to to come from Russian internal unrest. Prigozhins words will spread across the country and cause division, as many citizens questioned the 'Nazi' threat that Putin insisted was the reason for his 'Special Operation'.
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I am not sure how he ever hoped to get away with the Nazi comparison, as his actions made Russia look more like them.

The German Nazis at the end of the 1930s grabbed the land of other countries, not the other way round.
 
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