ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

The only reason it doesn't enrage me more is that it's pretty hard to be like, "ok THAT'S it, THAT'S the last straw" after the kind of rhetoric they've used from the outset

It's like with Trump, when every straw is the last straw, it's harder to recognise, process or even care about the massive fuckery. It's tiring by design.

But even so it's not helping them. Whatever the Great Big Push plans in the Donbass were seems to have burned out.

In any event, a sobering read

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/03/feeling-around-for-something-human

I'm glad they came out with the English translation for this - I kept waiting for it to happen, feels like it's been a couple weeks at least.

Meanwhile, just having a normal one:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/russian-state-tv-shows-clips-simulating-ireland-being-wiped-out-by-nuclear-weapons-1.4867631

Problems problems

This is really remarkable. Soldiers from South Ossetia openly stating that the complete chaos and incompetence of the Russian command in Ukraine led them to desert and return home. They say huge amounts of equipment simply do not work. https://t.co/yXYygYGLIl pic.twitter.com/7cZpUG7Ia1

— Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) May 4, 2022

Typical Big Huge Galeev thread but brings up a variety of points new to me:

May 9, the Victory Day is a crucial symbolic date. We should expect the Victory Parade and Putin's speech to the nation on that day. What is he gonna say? Many are pondering whether he will:

1. Declare war on Ukraine
2. Declare mass mobilisation in Russia

Let's discuss both🧵 pic.twitter.com/LUvqRyUsLu

— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) May 4, 2022

Of which I thought this was especially of interest:

In practical terms that means that the ability of Russia to regroup, withdrawing its forces from the North (Kyiv) in order to send everyone to the East (Donbass) was probably exaggerated. Many of those who already been to Ukraine and were returned to Russia simply won't go again. pic.twitter.com/LgFQFBuWcf

— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) May 4, 2022

Some good on the ground stuff here if you have WSJ access

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-retakes-villages-near-kharkiv-easing-pressure-on-battered-city-11651669856

That Meduza link is quite something, its been sitting with me for a while

Good article on a less-reported component of US military assistance to Ukraine, intelligence that has allowed them to target high-value Russian assets, such as senior commanders on the ground:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/politics/russia-generals-killed-ukraine.html

xpost -- yeah it's not surprising, sadly, but it is clarifying.

Extensive O'Brien thread on things (worth reading from the start) which then notes this new key point

Ukrainian commander in Chief Zaluzhnyi now saying far from the Russians being just stalled in the Donbas, that the Ukrainians are now counterattacking around Izyum. (We already new about Kharkiv) https://t.co/kUOCHMjOZD

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 5, 2022

To say it so publicly, the Ukrainians must feel really confident. And tbh, the Russian forces have been so tentative and halting in their advance, there is reason for the Ukrainians to be confident

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 5, 2022

Meantime, fog of war stuff but (if accurate) an interesting read. A little context: the author is supposed to be a volunteer from one of the two occupied breakaway regions in the Donbass pre-war, and PMC is 'private military company' aka Wagner group. Sounds like it's not exactly happy for them about now.

You may remember an account from an LPR volunteer in Rubizhne from a week or so ago.

There was another post from him about Wagner Group involvement in #Popasna offensive.

I've translated it here: pic.twitter.com/coEvn5bNrs

— Dmitri 🇺🇦 (@mdmitri91) May 5, 2022

Also, an interesting complement to the Meduza piece

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/05/a-heart-to-heart-with-russias-elites-a77587

Rumors circulating that Putin has assumed chief command of the 'special operation' and the Prime Minister Mishustin is overseeing domestic affairs

What could go wrong?

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a rare apology on Thursday to Israel over recent antisemitic comments from Russia’s foreign minister connecting Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to Judaism, according to the Israeli prime minister.

The reported apology came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of using Nazi propaganda and antisemitic tropes to justify the invasion as Russian leaders repeatedly compare Zelensky to Hitler.

During a phone conversation between Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the Russian president apologized for remarks made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who recently dismissed Zelensky’s Jewish faith by claiming that “Hitler also had Jewish blood” — a discredited antisemitic claim.

“The Prime Minister accepted President Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying the President’s attitude towards the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust,” according to a news release from Bennett’s office.

Putin: "it was a goof"

yeah, offhand antisemitic comments don't exactly bolster the denazifiaction claims

U.S. intel helped Ukraine sink Russian flagship Moskva, officials say
The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet sank on April 14 after being struck by two Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles, according to U.S. officials.

American officials have expressed concerns that reporting about U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine could anger Putin and provoke an unpredictable response.

I can't imagine it's a huge secret that Ukraine is benefiting from U.S. intelligence.. we're sending howitzers, after all

A counterargument to the 'that shouldn't have leaked, jeez' response is that that's so much bluster and in fact the US et al basically are telling Putin "This is how fucked your armed forces really are." Which, I could see it.

Meantime Kharkiv is apparently just about fully freed up (Trofimov is the WSJ's reporter on the ground there):

Ukrainians claiming they have liberated more settlements around Kharkiv. Russians are going to have to transfer more forces here or they might soon be out of artiller range of the city. https://t.co/rWDTzDgaBT

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 6, 2022

I think they could be out of artillery range in a matter of hours. The capture of Cherkasky Tyshky makes the Russian presence in Tsyrkuny untenable.

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) May 6, 2022

A notable thing about Trofimov's most recent feature, which I linked some posts up, was that in at least one village everyone who was pro-Russian ultimately fled when the tide turned. I have to wonder if they (and anyone else in similar situations) would come back willingly, and what that kind of internal refugee situation for Russia would ultimately mean.

Russian forces are stealing farm equipment and thousands of tons of grain from Ukrainian farmers in areas they have occupied, as well as targeting food storage sites with artillery, multiple sources have told CNN.

The phenomenon has accelerated in recent weeks as Russian units have tightened their grip on parts of the rich agricultural regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, the sources said. Sowing operations in many areas have since been disrupted or abandoned.
The actions of the Russian forces may threaten the harvest this year in one of the world's most important grain-producing countries. The volumes involved are said to be huge.
Oleg Nivievskyi, an agrarian specialist at the Kyiv School of Economics, told CNN that on the eve of the invasion 6 million tons of wheat and 15 million tons of corn were ready for export from Ukraine, much of it held in the south of the country.

...For Ukrainians, the seizure of grain recalls a dark period in their history, when Stalin forcibly removed food stocks from Ukrainian peasants in the 1930s, leading to the deaths of millions of people. Known as Holodomor (to kill by starvation) it is considered an act of genocide by many Ukrainians.
The head of the Luhansk Regional Administration, Serhiy Hayday, says the Russians' goal is another Holodomor.
The Russians now occupy about 90% of Luhansk's farmland and have taken about 100,000 tons of grain from the region, he estimates.
Much of what they've not stolen has been destroyed.

50 civilians evacuated from Mariupol steel plant
More civilians have been evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, that is under Russian siege.

Some 50 women, children and elderly people were brought out from the vast complex on Friday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

She accused Russia of constantly violating a ceasefire that was supposed to help ensure the safety of the evacuations.

"Therefore, the evacuation was extremely slow ... tomorrow morning we will continue the evacuation operation," she said in an online post.

Buses carrying the civilians were brought out from the plant to a camp in the Russian-controlled town of Bezimenne.

An estimated 200 civilians, along with Ukrainian resistance fighters, remained trapped in underground refuges at the huge industrial complex.

Crazy.

To put Russian tank losses in 72 days of fighting in Ukraine into perspective--if Ukrainian claims are at all close to being accurate, the Russians have lost as many tanks as the Germans lost on the ENTIRE Eastern Front during the summer campaign of 1943. Including Kursk, et al. pic.twitter.com/pqA7cJYzlf

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 7, 2022

http://inews.co.uk/news/putin-mariupol-survivors-remote-corners-russia-investigation-network-camps-1615516

a local newspaper reported in late April how 300 people, including 86 children, pregnant women and pensioners, arrived in Vladivostok after an exhausting seven-day journey...Russian media claimed they had “chosen” to live in the Far East, adding that “almost everyone notes the beauty of the sea”

More evacuations, bombing:

More than 300 civilians have been evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I am grateful to the teams of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Organization, who helped us organize the first phase of the evacuation missions from Azovstal,” Zelenskyy said in a video posted to Telegram.

Civilians and soldiers have been barricaded at the massive steel plant since mid-April.

Zelenskyy says preparations are underway for the second phase of the evacuation mission, which includes rescuing the wounded and the doctors.

— MacKenzie Sigalos

2 HOURS AGO
Russia drops bomb school in eastern Ukraine, says local governor
A Russian airstrike hit a school sheltering 90 people in the eastern village of Bilohorivka, according to Luhansk Regional Governor Serhiy Haidai.

Haidai wrote in a Telegram post that about 30 people have already been saved from the rubble, and the rescue operation remains underway.

The village has become a hot spot during the conflict, according to Haidai, who went on to note that “Russian forces are trying to make a breakthrough there,” and “there are constant battles” in the small town.

“They dropped a bomb on a school where almost the entire village was hiding,” continued Haidai. “Everyone who did not have time to evacuate.”

http://inews.co.uk/news/putin-mariupol-survivors-remote-corners-russia-investigation-network-camps-1615516🕸

_a local newspaper reported in late April how 300 people, including 86 children, pregnant women and pensioners, arrived in Vladivostok after an exhausting seven-day journey...Russian media claimed they had “chosen” to live in the Far East, adding that “almost everyone notes the beauty of the sea”_

Haven’t finished this but it’s been circulating in left circles. https://lefteast.org/frontiers-of-whiteness-expropriation-war-social-reproduction-in-ukraine/

Haven't these poor Ukranians suffered enough?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/u2-bono-the-edge-acoustic-set-kyiv-bomb-shelter-1350428/

Is it time to post that picture of the The Traveling KGBerries again?

This is a challenging read:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/10ee62f0-ce2d-11ec-8423-5db7bbe7a364?shareToken=a1398f3144a9e31bcd0c5992ee8eb3bf

("The village in Ukraine where Russians looted, murdered and raped")

knock on wood, but i was glad when i was not incinerated on this Victory Day morning

It’s the little things.

Whats the consensus or general reading on the somewhat muted victory day parade?

It feels unclear what the plan or direction is now, or whether we should even have been reading too much into the events of that day. I didn't really understand why he would use that day for mobilization if thats what he was going to do

There seems an inherent danger in mobilisation, but Z is already a step in that direction, moving from a passive population (do we lack a verb for this?) to a more energized or involved one

I read it as a flailing shrug.

One hopes for a realisation that it was more fun being an autocrat than a tyrant, but who really knows

Does Bono count as a war crime?

The U.S. intelligence community assesses Russia is preparing for a "prolonged conflict" in Ukraine that is likely to become "more unpredictable and escalatory" due to a "mismatch" between Vladimir Putin's ambitions and military capabilities, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified Tuesday.

Why it matters: Both Russia and Ukraine believe they can continue to make progress militarily, turning the conflict into a "war of attrition" with no "viable" prospects for peace negotiations in the near term, Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The big picture: While Russian forces have refocused on the eastern Donbas region after failing to capture Kyiv in the first few weeks of the war, the U.S. views this as "only a temporary shift."

"We assess President Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine, during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas," Haines said.
Zoom in ... Putin has at least four "near-term military objectives," according to the U.S. intelligence community:

Fully capture and establish a "buffer zone" in the Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists have declared "people's republics."
Encircle Ukraine's military west of the Donbas "in order to crush the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces fighting to hold the line in the east."
Consolidate control of the land bridge that Russia has established from the Donbas along the southern coast of Ukraine to Crimea, allowing Russian forces to occupy the Kherson region and control Crimea's water supplies.
The U.S. also sees "indications" that Russia wants to extend the land bridge further west to capture the historic port city of Odessa and connect with the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova, fully cutting Ukraine off from the sea.
Between the lines: The U.S. views it as "increasingly unlikely" that Russia will be able to establish full control over the Donbas or extend the land bridge to Transnistria, especially without a broader mobilization of Russia's reservists.

"But Putin most likely also judges that Russia has a greater ability and willingness to endure challenges than his adversaries and he is probably counting on U.S. and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy prices get worse," Haines warned.
The U.S. believes Russia will continue to use "nuclear rhetoric" to deter the West from providing further military assistance to Ukraine, but that Putin "would probably only authorize the use of nuclear weapons if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime."

All in all, I don't see general mobilization as technically feasible or likely, hence I suggested this would not be declared on May 9th. A combination of halfway measures won't dramatically change Russian fortunes either, but they could significantly extend the war. 23/

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) May 12, 2022

Interesting that the Ukranians are currently pursuing war crime prosecutions, during the actual war itself... is this a first?
Seems like it's rarely done during the heat of battle and only after the hostilities have ended

From Ukrainian Pravda, a remarkable document comprised of the phone videos in peace and war of a very young Russian officer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZIspwem2s

This may seem trivial but it's kind of a big deal... 850 stores with 62,000 staff:

McDonald's has said it will permanently leave Russia after more than 30 years and has started to sell its restaurants...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61463876

Russian TV reporting that Grimace is a Nazi

"unpredictable operating environment" is the nub if the matter, while "humanitarian crisis" is mostly just fronting. sounds to me like mcdonald's doesn't want to be forced to hold rubles it can't convert or repatriate, so it's taking its loss and opting for the tax write off as the best deal going forward.

Yeah, that's probably accurate - the article also mentions that the Kremlin just nationalized Renaults's assets there; maybe McD wants to get out before the same thing happens to them

An interview with the grandmother who was turned into a Russian propaganda symbol after greeting Ukrainian soldiers with a Soviet flag:

http://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/16/maybe-the-lord-himself-sent-me

Extremely good thread here delving into the Ukrainian government's current plan for the next three months.

Really interesting speech given by Ukrainian defense minister @oleksiireznikov yesterday to EU Defense ministers. A vision of how Ukraine thinks the war will go this summer. Russia will continue quiet mobilisation and Ukraine will try and waste them away. https://t.co/XKkG9hQpvD

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 18, 2022

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/23/a-ukrainian-city-under-a-violent-new-regime

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/bullets-and-blindfolds-in-a-ukrainian-city-under-siege

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ukraine-jewish-community-russia-invasion-resistance-1351070/

Moscow 1991 / Moscow 2022 pic.twitter.com/jKey9oURWj

— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) May 23, 2022

Currently, Russians aged 18-40 and foreigners aged 18-30 can enter into a first contract with the army. A draft bill on the agenda of the lower house State Duma for today would completely lift that upper age limit.

when you've run out of teenagers, get some Gen Xers in there instead