in fairness to the Russians, the state punishes critiquing the "special operation" on grounds of illegitimacy likely more severely than on "poor equipment and pay". Painting w/a broad brush is how we get nationalistic prejudice.
Angry families say Russian conscripts thrown to front line unprepared By Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova November 20, 2022 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/20/russia-military-families-conscripts-ukraine/ Irina Sokolova’s husband, a Russian soldier mobilized to fight in Ukraine, called her from a forest there last month, sobbing, almost broken. “They are lying on television,” he wept, referring to the state television propagandists who play down Russian failures and portray a do-or-die war for Russia’s survival against the United States and its allies. Sokolova, 37, cried for him too, and for their nearly year-old baby son, she saidin a telephone interview from her home in Voronezh, in western Russia. Sokolova is among dozens of soldier’s spouses and other relatives who are voicing remarkably public — and risky — anger and fear over the terrible conditions that new conscripts have faced on the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The soldiers’ relatives, mostly people who would normally stay out of politics, are tempting the wrath of the Kremlin by posting videos online and in Russian independent media, and even speaking to foreign journalists. They say that mobilized soldiers were deployed into battle with little training, poor equipment and often no clear orders. Many are exhausted and confused, according to their families. Some wander lost in the woods for days. Others refuse to fight. “Of course he had no idea how terrible it would be there,” Sokolova told The Washington Post. “We watch our federal TV channels and they say that everything is perfect.” The relatives typically do not criticize President Vladimir Putin or even the war, but their videos have exposed the rock-bottom morale of many conscripts, as Russia tries to surmount its recent losses by throwing a claimed 318,000 reinforcements into battle. Yana, a transport worker from St. Petersburg, was a fervent pro-war patriot until her partner was mobilized. In a phone interview, Yana confirmed video accounts by other military spouses that the men had to buy their own warm uniforms and boots and had little training. In Ukraine, they were given no food or water. “They do not have any orders and they do not have any tasks,” she said. “I spoke to my husband yesterday and he said that they have no clue what to do. They were just abandoned and they have lost all trust, all faith in the authorities.” On the videos, wives recite lists of grievances in tremulous voices. Conscripts pose in body armor that barely covers their ribs or film themselves in Ukrainian forests, listing their dead and complaining their officers are nowhere to be seen. Details in the videos could not be independently verified but are consistent with accounts that family members provided in interviews with The Post, and with reports by independent Russian media, such as ASTRA, which exposed seven basement prisons for deserters in Luhansk. Sokolova’s husband was mobilized to fight in the 252nd Motorized Rifle Regiment on Sept. 22. He told her that he received no military training “and by Sept. 26, he was already in Ukraine,” she said. He phoned late last month, having barely survived a major battle in which his unit was surrounded and many were killed. He and two others escaped without their backpacks and warm gear but were lost and ended up wandering in a forest. “They were thrown in into the fire, so to speak, on the very first front line, but they’re not military men. They don’t know how to fight. They cannot do this,” Sokolova said, adding that her husband was in severe pain with pancreatitis. “I feel how awful it is for him there,” she said. “My heart is being torn apart.” Russian conscripts called up for military service at a gathering point before their departure for garrisons, in Omsk, Russia, on Nov. 10. (Alexey Malgavko/Reuters) Families of other men mobilized to fight in the regiment said their loved ones were sent to the front line near Svatove, a small city in the Luhansk region, on their first day in Ukraine and given one shovel between 30 men to dig trenches. Speaking in a joint video appeal first sent to independent Russian media Vyorstka, they said the commanders “ran away,” leaving the men to face three days of heavy shelling. Several dozen mobilized soldiers from the regiment walked some 100 miles to Milove, on the Russian border, and demanded to return to their base near Voronezh, according to their video account on Nov. 3. They were taken briefly to nearby Valuyki in Russia, but their request was ignored. “We wrote applications. We wrote reports. We did everything, but no one listens to us. Nobody wants to hear us,” a soldier, Konstantin Voropayev, said in the video, in which he also requested legal help. Sokolova’s husband called her in a panic the same day from Valuyki, saying he and others were being sent right back into battle. On Oct. 28, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that early problems equipping and training mobilized soldiers were resolved. Military analyst Konrad Muzyka, of Poland-based Rochan Consulting, wrote in a recent analysis that despite the “abysmal morale” of conscripts the sheer volume of them could help Russia on the battlefield. As the videos proliferate, Russian authorities appear to be losing patience. One mobilized soldier, Alexander Leshkov, faces up to 15 years in prison after swearing at an officer in a video, pushing him, and griping about the unit’s low-grade flak jackets, said his lawyer, Henri Tsiskarishvili. “This is a profanation, an imitation of shooting, an imitation of exercises, an imitation of a formation,” Leshkov raged. Yana and her husband, who have a 4-year-old son, were married with 43 other couples right before the men were sent to war. The Post agreed not to use her full name to shield her from arrest and prosecution. In the couple’s apartment, the television was always on, pouring out the Kremlin’s line that Russia is fighting the United States, not Ukraine. “We don’t know anything else,” Yana said. “We are so used to believing in what we are told.” But after her husband was drafted, she gave the television away because it was making her “aggressive.” She said she fears for her husband’s life but said she does not blame Putin, “because he is a smart person.” “We are absolutely confused, at a loss, and we feel abandoned,” she said. “We’re crying from morning till night.” Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Kremlin’s propaganda is working — for now — with the video protests not directed at Putin, or even at the war. “Putin wants people to share responsibility for the war with him,” Kolesnikov said. “He wants their bodies and lives to be sacrificed on the altar of the struggle against NATO, the West, and global evil. This strategy of glorifying cannon fodder and heroizing death is risky, in a more-or-less modernized society which wasn’t ready to be involved physically in the trenches.” A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin lies on the ground near a local prison in Kherson city, Ukraine, on Wednesday after Russian forces surrendered the city, ending more than eight months of occupation. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) After repeated military setbacks and high casualties, support for the war is waning. Levada Center independent pollster reported on Nov. 1 that 57 percent of Russians want peace talks while 36 percent want to keep fighting. Sokolova said that the relatives of mobilized men “realize what is going on, but people whose relatives were not mobilized see the world through rose-colored glasses. They have no idea what’s going on, and they’re not interested.” Yana told her son that his father is a superhero, fighting evil. The fairy tale matches Russia’s imperialist propaganda, yet deep down, it does not ring true. At heart, Yana said she is terrified her husband will never phone again and her son will grow up with no father. “I am just an ordinary woman and I want to live in peace,” she said. “That’s all I want.”
Global security leaders, activists say it’s time to fight, not talk, in Ukraine As the war grinds on, there was no appetite at the gathering to ask Ukraine to make any concessions. Ukrainian soldiers fire an artillery at Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. | LIBKOS/AP Photo By Paul McLeary, Alexander Ward and Connor O’Brien 11/20/2022 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...halifax-international-security-forum-00069642 HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The way to protect global democracy right now is with weapons and support for Ukraine’s battle against Russia, not talks. That was the message from U.S. and Western diplomats, officials and military leaders at the Halifax International Security Forum, a major annual national security conference that brings together democracy advocates from around the world......
Ukraine Is Getting Nervous About Elon Musk Kyiv is looking for alternatives to Musk’s Starlink internet terminals and worrying about rising misinformation on Twitter. Patrick Tucker November 20, 2022 https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2022/11/ukraine-getting-nervous-about-elon-musk/379980/ HALIFAX, Canada—Starlink's satellite-based internet hotspots have been the "signal of life" for beleaguered Ukrainians, but the unpredictable behavior of CEO Elon Musk has the Ukrainian government looking for alternatives, a deputy prime minister said. As well, Musk's drastic changes at Twitter have Kyiv worried that the social-media platform will become a “major source” of media manipulation, Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration told reporters at the Halifax International Security Forum here. Stefanishyna said the Ukrainian government had begun procuring “some elements of equipment"—mostly European, but she also said she was working with American partners. These Starlink alternatives are “not as sophisticated" but are “something that would allow us to substitute and to make sure that at least at the level of the government communications and government connection, we preserve the sustainability.” Still, she said, “Starlink has been the signal of life for Ukraine.” Indeed, the service has been praised by Ukrainian battlefield commanders, U.S. service personnel who work with them from beyond Ukraine’s borders, and U.S. information technology contractors in Ukraine. And it has enabled Ukrainian citizens to remain in contact with the outside world. But Stefanishyna said working with a billionaire who seems to reverse his decisions daily, even hourly, presents some challenges. “We're talking about the CEO or a private company. So it's not [government-to-government, or G-to-G] format or [government-to-business, or G-to-B]. It’s G-to-B but B is uncertain.” In October, Pentagon officials also said they would look for Starlink alternatives after Musk declared that he would no longer subsidize Ukrainians’ use of his service. (The “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year,” he tweeted.) Musk later reversed this and he would continue to fund Starlink service in Ukraine. Other entities are also kicking in money to keep the bits flowing. Adding to that feeling of uncertainty is Musk’s chaotic Twitter presence. “We are worrying that the Twitter will become a major source of manipulation because now we'll see that that it has been used by Elon Musk just to test the manipulation limit,” she said, a reference to an October 3 tweet in which Musk blithely suggested that Crimea be handed over to Russia and new elections take place in annexed regions, despite the illegal forcible transfer of millions of Ukrainians into Russia precisely to change the political reality on the ground in these regions and international recognition that Crimea is part of Ukraine. Observers on Twitter pointed out that Musk’s statement was wildly uninformed and repeated Kremlin talking points. Compare the Musk of Oct. 3 with the Musk of February, who surprised many around the world when he announced that he would send Starlink terminals to Ukraine. Even the form of announcement, a tweet in response to another tweet from Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital information Mykhailo Fedorov, looked spontaneous. But according to Stefanishyna, it was Ukrainian Starlink employees who first approached the government, encouraging them to make the request. “They promoted this idea. They reached us,” she said.
Once again we have misterkel pushing his "Nazi's in the Ukraine" nonsense. It's amazing how the anti-vax Covid-deniers are also the biggest Russian propagandists -- but the two are one and the same. The Reality - No nation on the face of the earth has more Neo-Nazis than Russia. It is absurd for Putin to be claiming that he is going to "de-nazify" Ukraine -- a country with a Jewish president. Let's take a look at the real Nazi problem -- Russia's Nazis. Putin’s fascists: the Russian state’s long history of cultivating homegrown neo-Nazis https://theconversation.com/putins-...ory-of-cultivating-homegrown-neo-nazis-178535 Neo-Nazi Russian nationalist exposes how Russia’s leaders sent them to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians https://khpg.org/en/1608809502 Confronting Russia’s Role in Transnational White Supremacist Extremism https://www.justsecurity.org/68420/...in-transnational-white-supremacist-extremism/ Russia has a fascism problem and it’s not Ukraine https://mg.co.za/top-six/2022-03-07-russia-has-a-fascism-problem-and-its-not-ukraine/ The rise of Russia’s neo-Nazi football hooligans https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/24/russia-neo-nazi-football-hooligans-world-cup
Things are getting tough in Ukraine though. General Armegeddon has also accepted the fact that the troops are worthless so he is going full-Aleppo as predicted and wants to flatten the entire country and is making good progress with that. The west is getting stuck on pointing out how stupid his troops are but his approach now does not even require troops. Needs to be some serious taking out of infrastructure in Russia and taking out the Black Sea Fleet and all of Sevastopol to keep them worried in Moscow. Whatever range limits have been placed on Ukrainian missiles should be lifted immediately or the whole country is going to be a parking lot like Mariupol. Russia is actively trying to create a disaster at the nuclear plant there and there is every reason to believe that they are on a course to be successful and of course blame it on Ukraine.
Ukraine’s not-so-secret prep to retake Crimea https://www.politico.com/newsletter...-not-so-secret-prep-to-retake-crimea-00069692 The only question at this point is if it will occur by the end of December.
Ukraine's plans for Crimea are mysterious in some ways and in other ways they are pretty straightforward: ie. they are going to plan to take Crimea if certain favorable conditions arise and there is a chance to do so. If not, then they will not. Favorable conditions would be 1) total taking down of the Kersh Bridge, 2) taking of Kherson which would place much of the entry points to Crimea from the northeast within the reach of HIMARS (now accomplished). 3) the taking of the very major rail hub/ammo depot in the area leading down into Crimea (now also within the range of HIMARS from Kherson). 4) a collapse or total deterioration of Russian troops in that area as a result of surrender, Ukrainian assault, deterioration of Russian troops from the winter, or supplies being cut off as happened in Kherson. 5) continued chickenshit behavior by the Black Sea Fleet being afraid to approach Sevastopol, again. Quite a few of those conditions could be met. And if so the Ukrainians are not going to turn that opportunity down if they are still up and running themselves. If not, then they will not.