ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

You’re welcome, WmC.

Same here, Raymond!
Well this is weird in several ways---first of all, did not know that US News and World Report still existed:
Mykhailo Podoliak, a senior advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskeyy, on Sunday tweeted the names of six generals he says were killed, adding that these deaths show the Russian army “is fully unprepared & fights only with numbers & cruise missiles.”

Though the Pentagon cannot independently verify the claims, a senior defense official told reporters on Monday, “Even if you assume it’s true, I’m not sure that tells you anything in particular about Russian command and control.”
Oh?
Yeah, see, “It makes sense they would have senior leaders or even general officers in the field for an invasion of this size and scale, for them anyway,” the official said. “They haven’t done anything on this size and scale really ever.”

The official added that the composition of Russia’s army differs sharply from its Western counterparts, particularly American armed forces that delegate consequential decision-making authority to junior officers and rely heavily on the seasoned operational experience of senior enlisted non-commissioned officers.

“They don’t organize their military the way we do,” the official said, suggesting that Russia’s doctrine places its generals in hazardous situations more readily than for their American counterparts. Oh, that's all, carry on then Russians with placing decisionmakers in harm's way (although since Putin is said not to trust anybody, maybe it's okay because he's the Decider, as George W. would put it)
Mentions how few American generals have died in battle for quite a while etc.:
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2022-03-21/pentagon-downplays-reports-of-russian-generals-battlefield-killings?rec-type=sailthru

Claimed use of hypersonic missile "a bit of a headscratcher" sez US official:
“It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, to be honest with you, because it’s not exactly clear why — if it’s true — why would you need a hypersonic missile fired from not that far away to hit a building?” the official said.

Russia’s use of a hypersonic missile could serve as a sign that its forces are “running low on precision-guided munitions and feel like they need to tap into that resource,” the official said.

It is also possible that Russia is “trying to send a message” to Ukraine and the West by using the weapon and “trying to gain some leverage at the negotiating table,” the official added. “But … from a military perspective, if it was a hypersonic missile, there’s not a whole lot of practicality about it.”

More than three weeks into its invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are still “looking for a chance to break out” and achieve “some momentum” in the country, the official said. However, it is “very clear that the Ukrainians are showing no signs of stopping their resistance.”

As a result, Russian forces are engaged in a “near-desperate attempt” to make gains and “potentially get some leverage” when it comes time to negotiating an end to the fighting, the official said.
from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/21/dod-official-russia-hypersonic-missile-00018872

dow: Your posts are very hard to read. Format better, please, if you think there is anything there.

I try to keep comments brief, often introducing or following a pasted excerpt: pretty basic format. What's unclear?

If true, an example of how sanctions are clearly having an impact

“The only tank manufacturer in Russia has stopped working

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports that Uralvagonzavod has stopped its work due to a lack of foreign-made components.

It is the only Russian company that carries out assembly series of tanks.” https://t.co/rC7vxRJDfF

— OSINT UK (@jon96179496) March 21, 2022

dow it might help if you used the quote tag instead of italics.

There they are. European values.pic.twitter.com/xjvQevGCwI

— Kiran🕊☭ Look up “Operation Gladio” (@kiranopal_) March 21, 2022

Really good piece which has a lot of detail on the party banning and sets in fuller context of Ukraine Pol since Maidan.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties

The head of the Ukrainian Railways Alexander Kamyshin confirmed that there is no railway connection between #Ukraine and #Belarus "thanks to Belarusian railway workers". They've indeed launched what they called "a railway war" with many acts of sabotage to stop Russian equipment pic.twitter.com/Tji0gkkdNP

— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) March 21, 2022

And in Ukraine itself:

"Someone was whining that a "railway war" in Kherson Oblast was not possible. But these are our people."

pic.twitter.com/sm57gyl7uk

— Злий Конопляний Джмелик (@DimSel007) March 21, 2022

Seems to be more of a shift in the wind here:

U.S. has seen no tangible indications of Russia physically trying to resupply nearly 200,000 troops fighting in Ukraine, but 🇷🇺 considering adding more troops & supplies: senior U.S. defense official.

"Clearly they did not properly plan for it," the official said.

— Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) March 22, 2022

Interesting update from US DoD. Ukrainians ‘able and willing’ to start taking back territory. Fits in with above narrative, and so far the DoD briefings have been very cautious on this sort of thing. https://t.co/Z3Kj68TPXb

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 22, 2022

makes you think:

Naumova proclaimed: “Do you remember how in the second part of the Terminator your hero goes back in time to prevent the creation of Skynet, which would bring the death of all mankind? Russia's special military operation does not aim to destroy the Ukrainian people. It is aimed at the neo-Nazi Skynet, which over the years has completely subjugated Ukraine and was about to turn into an uncontrollable monster, dangerous for all of its neighbors, not only for us... Don’t side with Skynet, Terminator.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested earlier that peace terms of “historical” importance may be the subject of a referendum. “The people will have to respond to certain ... compromises,” he told reporters on Monday, adding that the details were still dependent on talks with Moscow.

https://www.rt.com/russia/552471-kremlin-responds-zelensky-referendum/

Russia has said that Kiev’s idea to put peace deal terms up for a referendum will only hurt the ongoing talks. Moscow launched a military campaign against Ukraine late last month.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

How do you hold a referendum when a quarter of the population has left the country?

Great question!

In all seriousness, though, it seems like any peace Zelensky and his team negotiate still needs the country's approval. He's only useful to them now insofar as he's an effective wartime leader and a vessel for their wishes re: the future of their country. There's no reason to respect him or take him seriously otherwise, let alone idolize him. Whether he demands too much and Ukrainians disagree, or settles for too little and Ukrainians disagree, the resulting peace probably won't last. Hopefully he realizes this.

Set up a dropbox at the border

As someone living in the UK I can attest that referendums usually go quite well.

(j/k, j/k, I know it's not comparable)

This was always the challenge prior to the invasion too. Even with a democratic mandate to seek a lasting peace, the risk of internal opposition and potential unrest made implementing the Minsk agreements virtually impossible. The minute a peace deal is agreed, the factions pushing for total victory become Zelenskiy’s problem rather than Russia’s.

There needs to be absolute clarity that Ukraine’s allies won’t recognise any undemocratic effort to remove him and a massive aid and reconstruction effort to sweeten any agreement.

While Russians try to present temporary suspension of several political parties in Ukraine as a "Stalinist purge", important members of said parties are cutting ties with those separatists who make open pleas for collaboration. pic.twitter.com/GoB31L8KDh

— Anatoly Voronin (@qorachius) March 20, 2022

He recently received a message from longtime Russian collaborator Oleg Tsarev, who had come out of hiding in Crimea and openly backs the "denazification operation:"

Our troops (sic) are under Kryvyi Rih. I await word from the mayor, Yuri Vilkul. Him and Oleksandr Vilkul were my fellow party members and have always taken a pro-Russian position. To collaborate with the Russian army - means to preserve your city and the lives of its citizens. I hope the mayor makes the right decision.

To which Oleksandr answered:

"Fuck you and your masters, traitor."

how do you hold a referendum...

as best you can. obviously a solid, moderately long term cease fire would have to be part of the deal. but it's not even worth attempting unless the deal is one with a high odds of getting widespread popular support. no chance of this unless the Russians are eagerly seeking a way to back out with a fig leaf to cover their retreat.

Ukraine took back a suburb of Kyiv, and some other things are decidedly not in Russia's favor---but this is not going to get better---from PBS NewsHour correspondent in Ukraine:

Ukraine refused again on Monday to surrender the industrial port city of Mariupol. The Russians have besieged the city and offered safe passage for hundreds of thousands of residents who have been trapped for weeks without food, water or power..Russia warns anyone still in the city will face — quote — "military tribunal"...Some evacuees paraded under Russian state TV before they were forced to give up their Ukrainian passports and they were taken into Russia, reportedly to be held in camps, or they were forced to a school in separatist-held territory, where Putin and separatist leaders have pride of place.

Senior adviser Oleksiy Arestovych admitted on Friday that Kyiv could not recapture Mariupol.

Oleksiy Arestovych, Senior Adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy (through translator): There is currently no military solution to Mariupol. You can blame me, the presidential office, the president personally and so on, but there is no solution.
Correspondent: And in this war's epicenter, residents still trapped or being forced to starve or submit.

not for us to say

No, but--what could be gained or held on to, really by not surrendering? Some sense of national pride? Surrender would be controversial at best, and should be, but seems like this is just prolonging the agony, although there's a chance the prison camps would be their own kind of agony.
Something that's going to be publicly discussed---

Though I suppose that even if Kyiv put out the word to Mariupol, the citizens who are fighting there might continue as long as they could.

In re current claims about the stalled convoy force, from a Kyiv Independent writer

Absolutely not ready to confirm if the Ukrainian military are really surrounding the Russian group in the Hostomel-Irpin-Bucha triangle.
But what is true is that there have been intense fighting several nights in a row, and Ukrainian units were very active cleaning out Irpin.

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) March 22, 2022

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tk3bfr/sbu_has_intercepted_a_russian_soldiers_phone_call/

Phone call from russian soldier to home. Subtitled in English.
Key points include 50% of troops have frost bite, they can't even bombed by own plane, "Worse than Chechnya", inadequate armored vest, "our commander told us the operation would be over in mere hours"

sorry for bad sentence construction there. should say "can't even transport their dead away, bombed by own plane"

About that xp Kyiv suburb:

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces fought off continuing Russian efforts to occupy Mariupol and claimed to have retaken a strategic suburb of Kyiv on Tuesday, mounting a defense so dogged that it is stoking fears Russia’s Vladimir Putin will escalate the war to new heights.
...Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from the Kyiv suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. The regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the northwest.
Still, the Defense Ministry said Russian forces partially took other northwest suburbs, Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, some of which have been under attack almost since Russia invaded nearly a month ago.

A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Ukrainian resistance has brought much of Russia’s advance to a halt but has not sent Moscow’s forces into retreat.

Western officials say Russian forces are facing serious shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, leaving some soldiers suffering from frostbite. Ukrainians have reported hungry soldiers looting stores and homes for food.
...Facing unexpectedly stiff resistance that has left the bulk of Moscow’s ground forces miles from the center of Kyiv, Putin’s troops are increasingly concentrating their air power and artillery on Ukraine’s cities and civilians.

Remarkable @BBCNews report: farmers in Vosnesensk ambushed 🇷🇺 forces as they approached the small community, halting their advance by blowing up the bridge, destroying all 🇷🇺 tanks vehicles w/ help from 🇬🇧 NLAW anti-tank weapons, inflicting heavy 🇷🇺 losses & full retreat#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/1Pu7HewKaG

— KT CounterIntelligence (@KremlinTrolls) March 22, 2022

That’s awesome (hopefully mostly accurate)

https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/in-kharkivs-rubble-hatred-for-russia-is-strong/

The irony, Galina says, is that “Kharkiv is — or at least was ― a pro-Russian city! Everyone here speaks Russian and has family over the border.” But now sympathies for Russia have evaporated, replaced with burning hatred. Perhaps unexpectedly, it is here in the Russian-speaking east that you hear the most passionate denunciations of Putin and the Russian attack on Ukraine.

As we walked past a university building in central Kharkiv that had been blown to pieces by a GRAD rocket barrage, a local woman stopped me and pointed to the mess saying, “This was all built by imperial Russia! It’s Russian bombing Russian.”

Animosity toward Russia has sharpened among people in the east for two main reasons. First, eastern Ukraine has borne the brunt of the indiscriminate destruction that Putin has unleashed. Kharkiv and Mariupol have suffered brutal and cruel bombardments. The second factor is proximity to Russia — and not just in geographical and cultural terms. For many, this feels like a deep family betrayal, as if it is their siblings and cousins firing the shots. In some cases, it is.

The other excuse they use is: “ ‘It was the neo-Nazis who did this. Russians are here to liberate you from them,’ ” Galina fumes. “Well, all they’ve done so far is liberate us from our apartments!”

Example of said liberation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czDSjqKOHZk

Looks like the guesses are true:

Local authorities do confirm that Ukrainian armed forces have Russians in Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel locked in a pocket.
It remains to be seen how tight is the encirclement. Hopefully, the recent operations made Russians kiss their supplies goodbye along the Warsaw Highway.

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) March 23, 2022

Probably doesn’t need to be said, but if true the Russians will have to move heaven and earth to break the encirclement and reestablish supply. Can’t see supplying such a large force by air. And who knows what they can fly in and out of Hostomel anyway.

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 23, 2022

Meanwhile over at Mariupol

Senior commanders speaking like this is not a good sign for the morale of the army. This is supposed to be a professional army. https://t.co/1YDJqhQDIc

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 23, 2022

Exact quote from my Sunday School teacher when I was five

Think I've seen this video make the rounds before but seems to be very on the nose

Alexander Nezorov with a hilarious and uncannily accurate prediction of how Russia's war in Ukraine would turn out. https://t.co/Wtoh6lAlOR

— Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@michaeldweiss) March 23, 2022

And a reply from Eliot Cohen, the guy who wrote the 'Ukraine's winning' piece unperson quoted above:

Darkly hysterical in a distinctively Russian way, and amazingly, filmed in 2021 by a former journalist/MP/equitation instructor. Absolutely prescient, too. Includes one of my favorite Russian words: svoloch. Hint about meaning: Putin is a svoloch. https://t.co/IcNNa8UIUW

— Eliot A Cohen (@EliotACohen) March 23, 2022

I think that was posted in this thread before, however it's amazing and highly worth watching

https://wtvbam.com/2022/03/23/top-russian-journalist-defiant-in-face-of-fake-news-investigation/

Same guy:

The Investigative Committee law enforcement agency said it had opened a case against Nevzorov for posting on Instagram and YouTube that Russia’s armed forces had deliberately shelled a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Nevzorov said the case against him was meant as a signal to journalists in Russia that “the regime is not going to spare anyone, and that any attempts to comprehend the criminal war will end in prison”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Nevzorov’s specific case, but said the tough new law was justified by what he called the most brutal information war being waged against Russia.

Critical support for the brutal information war being waged against Russia.

xpost

"Amazingly prescient" in that he assumed an invasion of Ukraine would follow the same basic plot as the Chechnya conflict, but worse. He makes a lot of interesting points and his delivery is great tho.

Let the fraggings begin...

In retaliation for death of 50% out of 1,500 servicemen of his 37th Russian infantry brigade at #Makariv near #Kyiv, a Russian tankist with his tank ran over his brigade commander Col. Yuri Medvedev. He survived but his legs were broken. Source: #Ukraine journo R. Tsimbaliuk. pic.twitter.com/nE9Wgad1vB

— Victor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) March 23, 2022

Meantime another leading officer just outright killed in Mariupol (also where that deputy commander of the Black Sea fleet died)

https://t.co/t2TE7fCogO

— RichardPhippsArt (@RichardP_Art) March 23, 2022

suicide by invasion

Is there anything to this stuff about a plot by the oligarchs to replace Putin with Alexander Bortnikov? I only see British articles about it.

In the Russian-speaking media, the source for this story seems to be Ukrainian intelligence. Bortnikov is the head of the FSB, which makes this somewhat unlikely, but then again this kind of thing has been forecast as a more "realistic" scenario as opposed to a mass movement/revolution. Replacing Putin with an equally repellent strongman, but one "we can do business with," would probably work for the Russian elites as well as the wider world.

Had better be a strongman prepared to suck up god knows how much in reparations before the West will do business with them.

anything to this stuff about a plot by the oligarchs to replace Putin with Alexander Bortnikov?

When stories like that emerge from an "intelligence" agency, they might be true, but consider the source. otoh, it is easy to understand that in circulating such stories they seek to plant seeds of mistrust among Putin and his closest personal allies and seeds of uncertainty among those a bit lower down who carry out the orders of the ruling elite.

I agree, Aimless.

xpost@Matt #2

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/dawes

They've done it before for WWI German war debts, creating a self-licking ice cream cone with American loans to Germany which paid reparations to the Allies, who promptly used them to pay off war debts to America. It's doable as long as America doesn't have another Great Depression.*

If something like that doesn't happen, and Russia (and possibly Ukraine) are left to rebuild their economy and infrastructure with little to no American/Western financial backing, I'll see you all back here in 10 years or so to discuss the Russian invasion of Azerbajan and Turkmenistan.

*a big if

Getting interesting here

The amazing Ukrainians.

40K out of 190 K Russian troops killed, wounded, taken prisoner or missing (deserted). More than 20%

If anyone has the military prowess NATO needs today, it's Ukraine. https://t.co/4jcVtb9QyL

— toomas hendrik ilves (@IlvesToomas) March 23, 2022

If this is right; the Russian Army in Ukraine is now on the point of institutional failure. Expect more soldiers to stop fighting. https://t.co/SWje31KtXR

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 23, 2022

One thing that stuck out in that intercepted phone cal from the Russian soldier was that their orders were to not target civilians and how that was making the fight a lot harder.

It also sounds like the military commanders are probably waiting for things to fall apart and hoping someone else gets the blame