Interviews with captured soldiers from the 98th VDV have been shown on TV in Ukraine.
According to reports elsewhere, they were captured 25km from the border, & the identifying marks on their vehicles had been painted out.
25km is a long way over a border to wander by accident.
Good question. However, I have another one. Why VDV infantry? There are iirc 6 SpN Brigades, plus an SpN regiment in the VDV, plus new the Special Operations Center (a structure created for the explicit purpose of fighting wars like this one, unofficially). But instead we have... regular VDV?
Could explain how 'rebels' have suddenly been able to advance in that area, eh?
Admit it, Feanor: Russia is fighting a war against Ukraine. It's using local proxies, but also its own men.
Apparently so. Stupid, and strange in my opinion. Given Putin's much more intelligent plays with the humanitarian convoy, and the Syrian situation, this honestly looks stupid. Especially given what kind of personnel are involved.
Latest 'rebel' maps show them controlling a strip along the southern border. It's hard to see how they could have captured this from the territory they previously held, but it's entirely consistent with the Ukrainian stories of troops crossing the border from Russia.
The Russian regular army soldiers shown on Ukrainian TV were in the northern part of that strip.
So . . . is there still anyone denying that in effect, Russia has now invaded Ukraine?
Do you have a link to the maps by chance?
I'm more interested in a report, though, on an ambush against a National Guard unit, near Mariupol', that has professional written all over it. Apparently the NG column was hit by high caliber sniper rifle fire, then one long burst from a medium machinegun, which wounded a large number of people, and routed the column.
The point is if Russia practiced what it is preaching this war would be over and Ukrainian's on all sides would stop being killed,It says the crisis can't be solved militarily but no one thinks the rebels would win so all Putin is doing is prolonging the misery for the people of eastern Ukraine by providing weapons
This would be an accurate assessment. Actually this crisis would be better off with any other course of action by Russia. An outright invasion, and rapid annexation, Crimea style, back in March or April, would have gone off without a hitch and been practically bloodless. A hands off approach, with a nice trade war shove down the road to economic collapse, would have avoided this violence all together. Instead we have a half-measure giving us the worst of both worlds.
Well, OTOH, Russia has not applied a full conventional might of its forces with an aim to overrun Ukrainian territory and replace Kiev government. Their goals seem to have been limited to creating chaos and a territory dispute for Ukraine so it can't join EU or NATO. Now if there is sufficient evidence that Ukraine is in an actual war with Russia, can the IMF continue giving loans to Ukraine? I could not find information on that. These loans are the only thing keeping Ukraine from quickly finishing its decay into a failed state.
It certainly
can, whether it should or will is another question entirely.
It may be a limited war but it is not being fought by russian proxies, it's being fought by russians. That's been shown over and over again.
No. The first real evidence has emerged now and only now. Before this we had messy reports, a couple of instances of open and obvious falsification, and some indirect evidence that Russian secret services are involved. Actually what's been shown over and over again that the majority of the rebels are god knows who, from all over the world, from Central Asia to the Balkans.
