ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Maybe he meant they'll be brought to this chap, for, I dunno, rapping classes?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p74ToBQnIis/sddefault.jpg

No justice, no мир

lol Lukashenko statement already nixed

Prigozhin was rumoured to have been spotted at the Green City hotel in Minsk on Monday, according to the Russian news channel Brief. A receptionist at the hotel contacted by the Guardian said she “could not share any information” about guests.

Brillant investigation tactics

I’m going to call reception and asks them for a list of guests.

I have a friend in Minsk
who has a friend in Pinks

dammit PINSK

rochelle, rochelle

maybe he's back in the hotel's kitchen, starting all over again

gonna put him in a hot dog costume in a hot dog car

I was just hearing that Prigozhin was cheered in the streets, en route to Moscow as well as during his expulsion to Belarus

That has to be sort troubling for Putin

rochelle, rochelle

you don't have to putin the red light

https://i.imgur.com/UJOuqff.jpg

Just 5 guys and some portable gates , nbd

rochelle, rochelle
you don't have to putin the red light

― pomplamoose and circumstance (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 26 June 2023 22:19 (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nice

wagner fights for money
you don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right

less thinktank CYA from startled people making like it was obvious all along; more stories like this

Among the greatest quotes in @Reuters' long history:

'"Everyone shat themselves badly," said one source with knowledge of the thinking at the top levels of the Russian business and political elites..."Anyone with anything to lose was extremely tense"

https://t.co/SiNOTZcKfr https://t.co/eE5Gy6lgsw

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) June 28, 2023

guess it was a coup

Two sources tell the Moscow Times that Army General Surovikin was placed under arrest. https://t.co/VlZCBm4qVP

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 28, 2023

I heard he was a bit of a big-head

Johnny Too Bald

You’re gonna run to the Rostov for rescue, there will be no Rostov

Not sure if this has already been shared, but I didn't realise until yesterday it was outside the paywall. The maps are very helpful and it's updated regularly:

Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia in maps — latest updates

Also a minor point from way upthread on a question calz asked about troop recognition during Prigozhin's thunder run. Apparently the only thing that separated troop ID was that Wagner Group had put duck tape around their armband insignia's identifying them as Russian troops. It was very difficult to tell the difference in other words. One critical area of uncertainty was whether troops were letting WG troops through because sympathetic or because of confusion due to delay in command and control processes letting troops know the situation. That probably goes into a box marked 'retrospectively unknowable until historical analysis can be applied'.

Someone asked me why i was maintaining an interest in this (other than major area of global current affairs ofc). I think it's the fascination of what trench warfare in a digital age looks like, well captured in the wonderful New Yorker piece with images like the foxhole lit by LEDs, and this week's Economist special report on electronic warfare, with the overall observation that precision cannot substitute for mass, even while it changes the dynamics of the theatre.

It's that grafting of transformative technology onto the mud. Also something like the Prighozin saga, quite irrelevant in many respects, feels like it could have come out of a piece of history from any time since Homer. Seeing it play out in real time has fascination.

It's tragic and ugly and many many people are dying, injured and having their lives bent and twisted out of shape by the violence of the invasion, but there is the grotesque grafting of the future and the past taking place as well.

lmao

Russian security forces leak photos from the personal album of Yevgeny Prigozhin. pic.twitter.com/cM8oeBYJQD

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 5, 2023

Been spending most my life serving in an Amish mercenary group

interesting

No way: “Prigozhin’s continued presence in Russia was confirmed by a St. Petersburg businessman, who said the Wagner boss had returned home to reclaim money and weapons seized by the Russian security services.”https://t.co/4V3WjlMxrV

— Richard Seymour (@leninology) July 6, 2023

wagner apparently still recruiting in russia too

He missed the laywers.

“It’s not the end of Prigozhin,” the businessman said, speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They returned all his money to him. More than this, today they even gave back to him his honorary pistol, the Glock, and another weapon. He came to take it himself.

So weird, this whole thing.

Belarus dude's statement being picked up all over:

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been in Russia, says Alexander Lukashenko
President of Belarus claims Wagner’s leader has been moving freely in Russia despite deal to relocate with his fighters

his honorary pistol

…the Glock

So according to NYTImes, Biden Admin has claimed that Our cluster bombs have only a 2 percent rate of civilian casualties, while Russians routinely score 40---my question is: wtf clusters? Has it come to this already, I mean, in strictly necessary terms? Bidenites don't seem to be into shock and awe. Zelenskyy, now:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy collected five previously imprisoned Azov battalion commanders in a recent trip to Turkey, prompting confusion from Russia, which accused Ankara of walking back an agreement to keep them until the war's end.

In a Saturday video posted by Zelenskyy, commanding members of the battalion — a white nationalist paramilitary force within the Ukrainian National Guard — can be seen hugging the Ukrainian president before they board a plane. The commanders had been captured in the port city of Mariupol.

"We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home," a post on Zelenskyy's Twitter read.
...Russian forces captured hundreds of Ukrainian fighters during the three-month bloody battle in Mariupol before troops surrendered in May 2022. Many of these troops who held the line by hiding in bunkers and tunnels under the Azovstal steel plant were Azov battalion members.

A prisoner swap organized with the help of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in September allowed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers to return home. Zelenskyy announced part of the agreement included that five commanders of the Azov battalion who led the charge in Mariupol would remain in Turkey until the war concluded. Zelenskyy did not share what conditions changed that allowed him to take the commanders home.

It's about the importance of the armed resistance within the Azovstal steel complex to the morale of Ukrainians during the earlier months of the war. That throws a cloak of patriotism over them that covers up a lot of ugliness.

I thought they needed the clusters because we ran out of other stuff to send them

Bringing back the exchange prisoners from Turkey does seem strange to me, for two reasons

1) Will this make future prisoner exchanges less likely? That would worry me if I had someone still in Russian captivity, of which there must be many
2) Will this have a negative impact on the grain deal renegotiations?

As for cluster munitions, I think its a mixture of us running out of other stuff (which seems sort of weird?) and them being suited to clearing out minefields and/or entrenched positions. I presume doesn't plan to use them in urban environments but don't know if they've come with strings attached about where they can use them or not

About the dud ratio, I heard something along lines of they're supposed to disarm after a period of time if they don't go off, but heard very much in passing

Ukraine's MoD, fwiw:

We welcome the decision of the US to provide Ukraine with the new liberation weapons that will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.

Under Article 51 of the UN Charter Ukraine has a universal internationally recognised right to self-defence and thus we have been officially requesting these types of munitions for a long time.
I would like to stress that in exercising our inalienable right to self-defence we will continue to strictly comply with all the international humanitarian conventions signed and ratified by Ukraine.

It is important to note that the russian federation has been indiscriminately using cluster munitions from day 1 of the unprovoked large-scale aggression. In February-March 2022 Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city with over a million population, was relentlessly bombarded by russians cluster munitions.

Our position is simple - we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people. For this we need to inflict losses on the enemy - war criminals, rapists and looters - who are occupying our territories. The more losses we inflict on them the more lives of Ukrainian people we will be able to save.

It is in our interest to save the lives of our soldiers. This is why we will continue to do this using all lethal weapons available to us.

Regarding the cluster munitions, we have 5 key principles which we will abide by and which we have clearly communicated to all our partners, including the US. I have personally informed our US partners about these five principles in writing a long time ago.

1. Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognised territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of russia.

2. We will not be using cluster munitions in urban areas (cities) to avoid the risks for the civilian populations - these are our people, they are Ukrainians we have a duty to protect.
Cluster munitions will be used only in the fields where there is a concentration of russian military. They will be used to break through the enemy defence lines with minimum risk for the lives of our soldiers. Saving the lives of our troops, even during extremely difficult offensive operations, remains our top priority.

3. Ukraine will keep a strict record of the use of these weapons and the local zones where they will be used.

4. Based on these records, after the de-occupation of our territories and our victory these territories will be prioritised for the purposes of de-mining. This will enable us to eradicate the risk from the unexploded elements of cluster munitions.
The Minister of Defence of Ukraine is by law acting as the Head of the national de-mining agency. In this capacity I will ensure the implementation of the relevant legal framework for the de-mining process after our victory.

5. We will report to our partners about the use of these munitions, and about their efficiency to ensure the appropriate standard of transparent reporting and control.

I don't know if this was shared earlier, but this is some crazy, graphic combat footage from last April... (probably NSFW):

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/12rreg7/full_video_of_the_combat_between_gonor_group_of/

As noted in the comments, the squad leader is pretty amazing

Interesting interview from last month with someone from Right Sector who has been fighting in Bakhmut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOM1N6FtWg

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

Russia launched a second straight day of attacks on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, targeting the port itself and critical grain export infrastructure, Ukrainian authorities said. The attacks follow Russia’s withdrawal from a U.N.-brokered grain deal under which Russian forces blockading Ukraine’s ports would allow ships to leave it for agricultural exports.
...In a pivot since it pulled out of the grain deal, Russia also said that all vessels sailing toward Ukrainian ports will be considered military cargo carriers.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Five European Union countries will extend their ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect their farmers’ interests, their agriculture ministers said Wednesday, but food can still move through their land to parts of the world in need after Russia pulled out of a deal safeguarding Black Sea shipments...

17
MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Updated Wed, July 19, 2023 at 10:34 AM CDT·4 min read
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Five European Union countries will extend their ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect their farmers’ interests, their agriculture ministers said Wednesday, but food can still move through their land to parts of the world in need after Russia pulled out of a deal safeguarding Black Sea shipments.

The ministers of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria signed a joint declaration ahead of EU discussions on the matter planned next week in Brussels. The declaration said they support continuing to allow Ukraine's grain to move through their borders by road, rail and river to destinations where it is needed but will keep the import ban to their countries through 2023.

“This coalition is not against anyone, not against Ukraine or the EU, it is in the interest of our farmers,” Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said after meeting with his counterparts in Warsaw, where they decided to push the ban beyond a Sept. 15 deadline.

Except for Bulgaria, all the countries border Ukraine, which faced a major blow Monday when Russia pulled out of a breakthrough accord brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to allow Ukrainian food to be shipped through the Black Sea to countries where millions are going hungry. Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat, barley, vegetable oil and corn.

The five agricultural ministers and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who met with them, said Ukrainian grain previously got stuck in their countries, leading to a glut that drove down prices for their farmers, and they don't want to see that happen again.

The ministers urged the EU to work out mechanisms that will get Ukrainian grain and other food to their destinations without hurting the agricultural industry in transit countries.

“Today the EU should build proper law and infrastructure tools to regulate transport of Ukraine grain in the long term,” Telus said.

“We want to help Ukraine in the transit," he said.

...The Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was brokered in a bid to end a global food crisis caused by Russia's war in Ukraine, has allowed an additional 32.9 million metric tons to get to the world, according to the U.N.

...Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that his government is working on solutions to keep exporting through the Black Sea despite Russia pulling its safety guarantees for ships.

Elon, Vlad, Starlink, Ukraine (not paywalled, though some ads)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
Maybe a coincidence: no more headline news will be allowed on X (also you can't block in your feed anymore, just in DMs)

Reports coming in that Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed near Tver. Not completely clear whether Russia or Ukraine took it down.

According to the Russian Aviation Authority, Prigozhin was among the passengers of the plane. https://t.co/w6uqNGJckh

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) August 23, 2023

Seems almost certain to have been Russia.

Poor plane fell out of a hospital window.

pilot was poisoned

shocking development

ah weird

seemed inevitable something like this would happen. hopefully not too many civilians onboard

seemed inevitable something like this would happen. hopefully not too many civilians onboard

https://tenor.com/bh7A9.gif