Ukraine

[eny]

That's odd, I posted a reply 2 hours ago and it has vanished?


I wonder how the Boris's in Petersbourg are feeling about this:

[eny]

This got to me:

[eny]

Former rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) Anatoly Gerashchenko died in an accident, TASS reports citing the press service of the university. The scientist was 72 years old.

“Currently, a commission is being formed to investigate this fact, which will include representatives of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, the State Labor Inspectorate and the Moscow Aviation Institute,” the press service said.

According to the Izvestia newspaper, Gerashchenko fell from a great height within the walls of the university, "flying several flights of stairs."

Anatoly Gerashchenko has worked at MAI since 1977. From 2007 to 2015 he was the rector of the institute. Recently, Gerashchenko served as an adviser to the current rector, Mikhail Poghosyan.


https://meduza.io/news/2022/09/21/pogib ... eraschenko



In other news, the Wagner group was hacked by Ukrainian Intelligence, and names and details of all murderers, rapists and psychopaths were obtained...


https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/35 ... dorov.html

[eny]

Well, Putin got his mobilisation...border exits packed, one-way flights sold out, thousands protesting on the streets, hundreds of arrests, allegedly, some conscripted right away at the police stations.

[Solitaire]

Oh they will be snatching fellas off the streets, from the doctor's offices, wherever. I cannot predict at all where this is headed, and I fear it will spill into the world in ways that will make this become the most infamous of times

[Maturin]

There's talk of a million at least being drafted in all likelihood.

I'm guessing they want to just pile them all in and make it impossibly attritional for the Ukrainian army to keep the Donbas and maybe even Kherson. The bodies will counteract the better trained UA. I still don't personally see him using tactical nukes, I'm not sure if they're even that practical in this scenario anyway.

[Wrathbone]

I still don't personally see him using tactical nukes, I'm not sure if they're even that practical in this scenario anyway.

I saw a good explanation yesterday as to why it wouldn't make sense tactically or strategically for Putin to use nukes against Ukraine. Tactically, Ukraine's forces are intentionally dispersed and are able to quickly regroup when required for operations, so there isn't any great massing of troops or equipment that would cripple Ukraine's military if nuked. Strategically, it's expected that the use of nuclear weapons would turn China and possibly even the Kremlin against Putin - a scenario which is not likely to have a happy ending for him.

I'm not convinced the mobilisation will make that much of a difference, either. Manpower doesn't matter a huge amount in modern warfare if those troops don't have the proper means or will to fight. Russia's existing forces on the front line are poorly equipped, poorly trained, poorly motivated, poorly commanded and poorly looked after. Putin claims only experienced reservists will be included in the 300,000, and yet there's already evidence to contradict that, and there's little indication that they'll be sent with all the equipment and infastructure they need to be effective for very long.

[Solitaire]

All quite logical amounts of reasoning happening there, indeed. But unhinged dictators tend not to be strictly logical, especially when their power/manhood/whatever is being challenged. I don't need to prattle on about this obvious point. I just hope that some of these lessons learned won't be forgotten. Putin is getting older, he could very well be in cognitive decline, and he's being backed into a very tight corner...

What we can hopefully count on is the cooler heads that surround him and, more importantly, are in the chain of command re: unleashing nukes of any sort. wrt this ramping up of infantry, etc, I don't believe it will make much difference, for your reasons listed in para. 2, Mr. Wrathbone - there isn't enough to go around now, let alone adding hundreds of thousands more into the mix.

Thank the Fates that trump didn't actually win a second term. He'd be sending the Russians weapons, ffs

[Animalmother]

The fact that people from Moscow and St Petersburg are being drafted is pretty big. When rich city kids start dying its usually a sign you've fucked up badly.

[Mantis]

It seems that they're literally just grabbing entire villages of men from the streets in some places, no way are they all actual reservists. They will send so many barely trained and barely equipped troops into Ukraine during the peak of winter right into the sights of the more modern weapons. It'll be a meat grinder for the conscripts.

No doubt that Putin is on his way out now. Let's just hope that he isn't replaced some other other ultra nationalist fascist who may yet end up being worse. That's usually the par for when despotic tyrants are removed from power.

[Hatredsheart]

[Wrathbone]

Supposedly Ukrainian men in the Russian-occupied areas are being told to expect to be drafted, which conventional logic would suggest is a phenomenally dumb thing for Russia to do considering the potential for sabotage and disruption that it would cause. Even if the Ukrainian draftees are given menial, non-combative roles, I'd have thought Russia would need to commit a substantial amount of men and resources to ensuring compliance. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Alan]

Sorry, "Russian-occupied"? I think you'll find 98% of the good people of Ukraine voted to make those places Russia!

[Wrathbone]

Of course, how silly of me! No doubt they're all singing praises to their liberators and toasting their health.

[eny]