The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

Vivendi · Feb 18, 2022

Sandhi Yudha said:
And what Feanor alreqdy told, Ukrainian troops have used heavy artllery.

Ukrainian army bombards Lugansk Republic from large-caliber guns

The information on those wounded and damaged facilities is being specified

tass.com

Please don't quote TASS only. TASS is full of disinformation from Moscow.

Vivendi · Feb 18, 2022

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has denied reports in Russian-state media that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the areas held by Russian-backed rebels in the country's eastern Donbas region.

"We categorically refute Russian disinformation reports on Ukraine’s alleged offensive operations or acts of sabotage in chemical production facilities," Kuleba wrote in a Twitter post.

"Ukraine does not conduct or plan any such actions in the Donbas. We are fully committed to diplomatic conflict resolution only."

Putin promises money support to "refugees" from Donbas, and have order construction of refugee camps for the "refugees". BBC reports that there has been no signs of significant number of people leaving Donbas yet. Also, according to BBC, no evidence has so far been presented of shelling of Donbas.

Ukraine tensions: Russian troop build-up is biggest in Europe since WW2 says US - BBC News

Feanor · Feb 18, 2022

Vivendi said:
Saakashvili was probably mentally unstable. In any case, Ukrainian leadership has both the benefit of hindsight from the "Georgia incident" that you refer to, but have also been exposed to Russian aggression since 2014. The Russian troops are much more capable than in 2008. Also, the buildup of Russian troops around Ukraine is unprecedented, with more than 150,000 soldiers! What is the logic of attacking Donbass now? If Ukraine did so, they would lose everything. Russia would have a pretext to invade, and Ukraine would lose goodwill and sympathy in Europe, US and Canada. As I said, it would be suicidal. What Georgia did in 2008, even with the limited information available at that time, was stupid. For Ukraine to become aggressive now, given what we know about the Russian playbook in combination with the current situation, would be insane.

Russia has plenty of agents within Ukraine. Russia has also plenty of experience in planning and executing false flag operations.

Note that Russia is now claiming that OSCE is not to be trusted anymore. So after being a respected and unbiased observer of the conflict for so many years, they are suddenly, at this particular moment, becoming unreliable and biased? Very convenient for the rebels, and for Russia.

In my opinion neither side has anything to gain from an offensive. It would be suicidal for Ukraine but also catastrophic for Russia. Again, it remains to be seen. Shellings like this are somewhat above the norm, but so far nothing beyond what we have seen many times before when this conflict flared up. If Ukrainian infantry is assaulting the outskirts of Donetsk, and Ukrainian armor tries to break through rebel lines to encircle their positions, it will be obvious that we're dealing with a Ukrainian offensive. If there's some shelling, followed by one egregious incident (false flag or otherwise) of civilian deaths in rebel territory, and then Russia moves on Ukraine, we'll know it was a Russian offensive.

Vivendi said:
Please don't quote TASS only. TASS is full of disinformation from Moscow.

Not in this case though. There are in fact shells landing in Donetsk. I've linked multiple videos above.

denix56 · Feb 18, 2022

The Ukrainian Army was told to stop any fire, they answered only (according to the Ukrainian commanders and Radio Liberty reports) when there was a direct threat to the soldiers.

I would not believe TASS. Ukraine called for the urgent meeting of Ukraine, OSCE and LDNR, but LDNR refused. There was literally no proof of any actions performed by Ukraine.
The was an often practice of firing artillery from towns / villages to cause casualities when the Ukraine fired back. And in case the UA army didnt fire back - they fired themselves.

According to the local forums of Donetsk / Lugansk people are not very keen to leave - they are afraid that their houses will be robbed or that the buses will be destroyed to show it as the attack of UA army.

There is around 700k people live in that region. Russia states, that places for 10k people will be prepared near Rostov. I can see all of it only as a show, as there is no way to move all the people to Russia and they definitely do not want nearly 1M people there and pay everyone 10k RUB.

Steinmetz · Feb 18, 2022

Vivendi said:
Please don't quote TASS only. TASS is full of disinformation from Moscow.

That is true, but it's also true that the Ukrainian Army has up-ticked the usage of heavy artillery. The OSCE gave an update to the UN security council just yesterday, and noted that both sides have increasingly violated the Minsk agreements.

Picture of busses lined up, evacuating civilians.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1494684295566397444

The Russian media is amplifying the narrative regarding Donbass. Starting to feel more and more ominous by the hour. Internally, it seems a lot of Russian pundits are pushing for conflict, many whom are critical of Putin, claiming he's not doing enough, by not resolving the issue by force. That being said, I wonder if Putin might just be angling for a limited intervention and occupying the Donbass formally. We still can't be sure of any intentions and to what extent till something happens.

Like Feanor pointed out:

Shellings like this are somewhat above the norm, but so far nothing beyond what we have seen many times before when this conflict flared up.

The shellings are nothing new, but the Russian media are certainly making it out to look like a dire situation. There latest moves tells me that we're moving to some sort of conflict stage now. The narrative is being formulated, all it'll take is a well crafted False Flag or incident to set into motion.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1494681937402900484

РИА Новости

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1494696096878276622

Feanor · Feb 18, 2022

denix56 said:
The Ukrainian Army was told to stop any fire, they answered only (according to the Ukrainian commanders and Radio Liberty reports) when there was a direct threat to the soldiers.

Radio Liberty is about as trustworthy as TASS. I'm also not surprised if orders are given publicly are one thing, and orders disseminated directly in front line units are another.

I would not believe TASS. Ukraine called for the urgent meeting of Ukraine, OSCE and LDNR, but LDNR refused. There was literally no proof of any actions performed by Ukraine.
The was an often practice of firing artillery from towns / villages to cause casualities when the Ukraine fired back. And in case the UA army didnt fire back - they fired themselves.

I have not seen any convincing evidence that the rebels fired on their own towns. I have seen many, often blatantly false, claims of this from Ukraine. If you have some, please share.

According to the local forums of Donetsk / Lugansk people are not very keen to leave - they are afraid that their houses will be robbed or that the buses will be destroyed to show it as the attack of UA army.

There is around 700k people live in that region. Russia states, that places for 10k people will be prepared near Rostov. I can see all of it only as a show, as there is no way to move all the people to Russia and they definitely do not want nearly 1M people there and pay everyone 10k RUB.

Not sure if you're referring to the city of Donetsk, but the overall population of the rebel held regions is considered to be around 3.5 million. When you consider that pre-war Donetsk and Lugansk alone made up ~1.5 million, this number isn't that far fetched. As far as the scale of evacuation, and reluctance of locals to leave, I fully believe the preparations will be wholly inadequate and the locals are right to worry about looters. Not only are the LDNR authorities not very good at preserving public order, but their own state agencies service members may get involved in the looting.

Steinmetz · Feb 18, 2022

Looks like cutting Russia off from SWIFT is off the sanctions list.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1494767843795247106

Steinmetz · Feb 18, 2022

Things seems to be getting more fluid by the hour. "Apparently" a gas pipeline has been blown up in Luhansk. Not sure how significant that is, or if it's actually been blown up, since it's coming from Russian sources. Something big looks to be burning though.

Сообщается о взрыве в Луганске. По информации.. | Военный Осведомитель | VK

РИА Новости

I also noticed U.K. and U.S. RC135s have pulled back their heavy continuous operations past two days, instead have been using RQ-4 Global Hawks.
One under the name FORTE10 and another under the name FORTE12. FORTE10 is currently tracking over Ukraine.

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

Sandhi Yudha · Feb 18, 2022

Russia has decided to invade Ukraina. In a couple of days or weeks they will start the offensive, we are saying this already for a couple of weeks, but its true!

Thats actually what Biden is saying.

Rusland heeft besloten tot invasie Oekraïne, maar praten is nog mogelijk, zegt Biden

Volgens de Amerikaanse president is het nog niet te laat om voor Rusland om de situatie te deëscaleren.

nos.nl

And also in this newsarticle they are talkung about the blown up gas pipe.

swerve · Feb 18, 2022

Feanor said:
...Not sure if you're referring to the city of Donetsk, but the overall population of the rebel held regions is considered to be around 3.5 million. When you consider that pre-war Donetsk and Lugansk alone made up ~1.5 million, this number isn't that far fetched. ...

The combined population of Donetsk & Luhansk oblasts before the war was about 6.6 million. Allowing for the parts of those oblasts which remained in Ukrainian hands & a decline in population to about 6.2 million, 3.5 million seems reasonable for the rebel held area.

Feanor · Feb 19, 2022

Update.

Russia.

Putin has ordered one time payments of 10 000 roubles to refugees from the rebel territories. The area is quite poor so it's possible that this alone will be an incentive for some people.

Путин поручил обеспечить выплаты по 10 тыс. руб. беженцам из Донбасса в Ростовской области

Губернатор Ростовской области Василий Голубев обратился к президенту с просьбой оказать экстренную помощь по линии федерального центра в связи с непредвиденным большим наплывом беженцев

tass.ru

Chechen soldiers near the Ukrainian border.

The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

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