Ukraine

[Motor City]

A KINGLY PROPOSAL: LETTER FROM JULIAN ASSANGE TO KING CHARLES III

To His Majesty King Charles III,

On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.

You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”

Ah, but what would that bard know of mercy faced with the reckoning at the dawn of your historic reign? After all, one can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard.

Your Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is located at the prestigious address of One Western Way, London, just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. How delightful it must be to have such an esteemed establishment bear your name.


It is here that 687 of your loyal subjects are held, supporting the United Kingdom’s record as the nation with the largest prison population in Western Europe. As your noble government has recently declared, your kingdom is currently undergoing “the biggest expansion of prison places in over a century”, with its ambitious projections showing an increase of the prison population from 82,000 to 106,000 within the next four years. Quite the legacy, indeed.

As a political prisoner, held at Your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign, I am honoured to reside within the walls of this world class institution. Truly, your kingdom knows no ........

[Drak]

[Drak]

Horseshoe is alive and well on this very board.

[Libertas]

Horseshoe is alive and well on this very board.

? Horseshoe?

That tweet or message from the Russian official, almost makes you want to send bombers over there.I have never been a fan of war, but this one is necessary given it was started by trump's boss and trump's boss is the enemy.

[Motor City]

People in Ukraine and Russia are blowing each others limbs off daily while growing an ever larger crop of widows and orphans. People have become bored with the war and put it on a shelf and at the same time the war has become more and more entangled in everyones lives and economies and future. Soap opera narratives fill the headlines day after day with this cliff hanger and that outrage but only one thing is apparent, the war is growing and evolving instead of winding down or ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOk9wql0QTM

“The U.S. Should Be a Force for Peace”: Nat’l Security Experts Demand U.S. Push to End Ukraine War

More than a dozen former U.S. national security officials have released an open letter calling for a diplomatic end to the Russia-Ukraine war. The call for peace was published as a full-page ad Tuesday in The New York Times and organized by the Eisenhower Media Network.

They called the war an “unmitigated disaster” that the U.S. should work to end before it escalates into a nuclear confrontation. We speak with Dennis Fritz, director of the Eisenhower Media Network and a retired command chief master sergeant of the U.S. Air Force. “The majority of my life has been in and out of the Pentagon, and this is probably the most fearful I’ve ever been with a nuclear escalation,” says Fritz.

Vatican: Pope Francis tasks cardinal with mission aimed at paving 'paths to peace' in Ukraine

Pope Francis has tasked a leading Italian cardinal with a mission in hopes it can “ease tensions” in the Ukraine war and lead to a path of peace, the Vatican said Saturday.

In a brief written statement, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that Francis had entrusted the mission to Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who is close to the pontiff.....

Remains of Marine veteran killed in Ukraine flown home to US

The remains of a U.S. Marine veteran who was missing in Ukraine for more than a year returned to the United States on Friday and were headed to his hometown in eastern North Carolina.

A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Istanbul with the remains of retired Marine Capt. Grady Kurpasi landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in the early evening. They were loaded onto a private jet bound for Wilmington, North Carolina......

[Toonces]

I admire the Pope's optimism but Putin isn't likely to listen. Theoretically, it could be an out for him but, like Hitler, Putin believes in his own infallibility. Most authoritarians do.

[Motor City]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEsfB4iDQTI

Wind of Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFsZj1aHow

[ProfX]

Drone strikes on Moscow.

Drones strike Moscow in first attack on Russian capital’s residential areas since Ukraine war began
The strikes caused damage to some buildings and forced residents to evacuate homes, local officials said Tuesday, as Kyiv was hit by the latest deadly Russian bombardment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mosc ... -rcna86734

Kyiv denies directing these attacks. Don't know who authorized them - Russian dissidents, rogue Ukrainians - all I will say is, drone attacks on civilian targets are wrong -- don't care which side is doing them.

[Toonces]

Drone strikes on Moscow.

Drones strike Moscow in first attack on Russian capital’s residential areas since Ukraine war began
The strikes caused damage to some buildings and forced residents to evacuate homes, local officials said Tuesday, as Kyiv was hit by the latest deadly Russian bombardment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mosc ... -rcna86734

Kyiv denies directing these attacks. Don't know who authorized them - Russian dissidents, rogue Ukrainians - all I will say is, drone attacks on civilian targets are wrong -- don't care which side is doing them.

It is exactly something that Putin would order though. "Some of you are going to die. Martyrs of course to the freedom that I shall provide"

[ZoWie]

Could be terrorism, could be false flag. Ukraine was already doing a good job of weakening Russia's will to fight, why would they blow it with a stupid attack that would only piss people off? It doesn't pass the smell test.

[Number6]

Drone strikes on Moscow.

Drones strike Moscow in first attack on Russian capital’s residential areas since Ukraine war began
The strikes caused damage to some buildings and forced residents to evacuate homes, local officials said Tuesday, as Kyiv was hit by the latest deadly Russian bombardment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mosc ... -rcna86734

I don't know whether Ukraine did this or it's Putin's doing to cement support for an unneeded war.

Kyiv denies directing these attacks. Don't know who authorized them - Russian dissidents, rogue Ukrainians - all I will say is, drone attacks on civilian targets are wrong -- don't care which side is doing them.

It's been years since I read the Geneva Conventions but from what I remembered, there are limitations on what targets can be attacked and what retaliation those attacked can take. One of the principles of the Geneva Conventions is the concept of proportionality. Basically, the amount of force used in retaliation cannot be greater than the force used by the attackers. Unfortunately, no one is going to enforce and hold accountable those who violate this principle.

I agree with you, drone attacks on civilian targets are wrong.

[ZoWie]

Putin seems like the type to authorize false flag operations.

[bradman]

i'm torn. How long do you put up with attacks on your civilians before you want retaliation on theirs?

Seems to have started a week ago....

AP
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... d03dc2b5ce
Russia claims it repelled one of war’s most serious cross-border attacks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s military said Tuesday it quashed what appeared to be one of the most serious cross-border attacks from Ukraine since the war began, claiming to have killed more than 70 attackers in a battle that lasted around 24 hours.

Moscow blamed the raid that began Monday on Ukrainian military saboteurs. Kyiv portrayed it as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans. It was impossible to reconcile the two versions, to say with certainty who was behind the attack or to ascertain its aims.

Ascertain its aims.......The Russians have dug in. A Ukrainian offence has been in the works for awhile. i don't see the Ukrainians getting what they desire without bringing the fight to Russia. i'd just hope they wouldn't make the same mistake Putin has. If Ukraine is going to strike within Russian territory make them strictly military targets. That includes oil dumps.

[edit] dont make the same mistake Hitler did. If he and Goering had concentrated on air fields instead of London the story may have come out differently.

[bradman]

https://news.yahoo.com/everything-chang ... 53997.html
The New York Times
‘Everything Changed’: The War Arrives on Russians’ Doorstep

Fifteen months after Russian missiles first roared toward Kyiv, Ukraine, residents of the Russian border region of Belgorod are starting to understand the horror of having war on their doorstep.

Shebekino, a town of 40,000 just 6 miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders. The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades.

“The town became a ghost in 24 hours,” said Ruslan, 27, who evacuated Thursday after a sustained campaign of shelling.

Belgorod is part of the Russian M2 Crimea Federal Highway. Shebekino is the closest city to the Ukrainian border and just south east of Belgorod.

Logistics.

So my question would be, are supply routes military targets? My guess, Ukraine is trying to further isolate Crimea.

[Number6]

https://news.yahoo.com/everything-chang ... 53997.html
The New York Times
‘Everything Changed’: The War Arrives on Russians’ Doorstep


Belgorod is part of the Russian M2 Crimea Federal Highway. Shebekino is the closest city to the Ukrainian border and just south east of Belgorod.

Logistics.

So my question would be, are supply routes military targets? My guess, Ukraine is trying to further isolate Crimea.

To answer your question, yes, supply routes are military targets in a war. Prevent or disrupt an invading force it's ability to supply/resupply its troops and you effectively starve them of being able to conduct military strikes. Ukraine is saying it is near to conducting a summer offensive so if their aim is retaking Crimea cutting off or disrupting Russian military supply lines makes sense.

[Glennfs]

To answer your question, yes, supply routes are military targets in a war. Prevent or disrupt an invading force it's ability to supply/resupply its troops and you effectively starve them of being able to conduct military strikes. Ukraine is saying it is near to conducting a summer offensive so if their aim is retaking Crimea cutting off or disrupting Russian military supply lines makes sense.

I rarely comment on the Ukraine situation. Because I personally believe there are so many diplomatic things going on behind the scene that this is one of those times we need to trust our government to the right thing for our country.
One of those situations where Biden is much better equipped to deal with it. As I am sure he is turning to past presidents from both parties not named Trump for advice.

[bradman]

To answer your question, yes, supply routes are military targets in a war. Prevent or disrupt an invading force it's ability to supply/resupply its troops and you effectively starve them of being able to conduct military strikes. Ukraine is saying it is near to conducting a summer offensive so if their aim is retaking Crimea cutting off or disrupting Russian military supply lines makes sense.

https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-keeps-pr ... 58548.html
Associated Press
Ukraine keeps up pressure following Russian declaration of victory in Bakhmut

With Wagner fighters withdrawing, Russian forces are “going to be increasingly fixed to Bakhmut ... and will find it difficult to defend,” Kofman told “War on the Rocks" in an interview posted Tuesday.

“And so they may not hold on to Bakhmut, and the whole thing may have ended up being for nothing for them down the line,” he added.

A Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Russian airborne forces are heavily involved in replacing the departing Wagner troops — a step that is "likely to antagonize” the airborne leadership, who see the duty as a further erosion of their “previously elite status" in the military.

Ukrainian forces have clawed back slivers of territory on the flanks — a few hundred meters (yards) per day — to solidify defensive lines and seek opportunities to retake some urban parts of the city, said one Ukrainian analyst.

“The goal in Bakhmut is not Bakhmut itself, which has been turned into ruins,” military analyst Roman Svitan said by phone. The goal for the Ukrainians is to hold on to the western heights and maintain a defensive arc outside the city.

More broadly, Ukraine wants to weigh down Russian forces and capture the initiative ahead of the counteroffensive — part of what military analysts call “shaping operations” to set the terms of the battle environment and put an enemy in a defensive, reactive posture.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the east, said the strategic goal in the Bakhmut area was “to restrain the enemy and destroy as much personnel and equipment as possible” while preventing a Russian breakthrough or outflanking maneuver.

Analyst Mathieu Boulègue questioned whether Bakhmut would hold lessons or importance for the war ahead.

Military superiority matters, he said, but so does “information superiority” — the ability “to create subterfuge, to create obfuscation of your force, to be able to move in the shadows."

My guess is one of two options. Drive a wedge east of Zaporizhzhia (thus avoiding the nuke reactor) to the Black sea and cutting Crimea from Russia leaving only the bridge to Crimea for resupplying. Or, a push from Kherson which we haven't heard much about for the longest time. I find it hard to believe Ukraine could pull off both at once. Either way, to some degree, this is the year Russians will deal with what the Ukrainian population has dealt with since the start of the war. Supply lines have to be hit in order for the counter offensive to be successful.

[bradman]

The battles afoot...

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-claims-th ... 20491.html
Associated Press

Ukraine trying to end battlefield stalemate; Russia says it repelled some attacks
Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russia-backed administration of Ukraine's partly occupied Zaporizhzhia province, said fighting resumed on its border with the eastern Donetsk province on Monday after Russian defenses beat back a Ukrainian advance the previous day.

“The enemy threw an even bigger force into the attack than yesterday (Sunday),” and the new attempt to break through the front line was “more large-scale and organized,” Rogov said, adding: “A battle is underway.”

Rogov interpreted the Ukrainian military movements as part of an effort to reach the Sea of Azov coast and sever the land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Analysts have long viewed that strategy as likely because it would cut the Russian forces in two and severely strain supplies to Crimea, which has served as a key Russian military hub in the war that started Feb. 24, 2022.

Rogov's comments came after Moscow also said that its forces thwarted large Ukrainian attacks in Donetsk province, near its border with the Zaporizhzhia province.

My mistake. East of Zaporizhzhia to the Sea of Azov, not the Black Sea.

[ProfX]

Collapse of critical Ukrainian dam sparks region-wide evacuations. Here’s what we know
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/europe/u ... index.html

A major dam and hydro-electric power plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine suffered a collapse early Tuesday, prompting mass evacuations and fears for large-scale devastation as Ukraine accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of “ecocide.”

Residents downstream from the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson were told to “do everything you can to save your life,” according to the head of Ukraine’s Kherson region military administration, as video showed a deluge of water gushing from a huge breach in the dam.

The critical Nova Kakhovka dam is the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume. It’s the last of the cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine. There are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

[snip][end]

Each side is, natch, saying the other is responsible for the damage to the dam that might cause it to collapse.

A full dam collapse could impact the nearby Zapo nuclear plant, though Ukraine claims, at the moment, they have the situation under control.

[Number6]

Collapse of critical Ukrainian dam sparks region-wide evacuations. Here’s what we know
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/europe/u ... index.html

A major dam and hydro-electric power plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine suffered a collapse early Tuesday, prompting mass evacuations and fears for large-scale devastation as Ukraine accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of “ecocide.”

Residents downstream from the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson were told to “do everything you can to save your life,” according to the head of Ukraine’s Kherson region military administration, as video showed a deluge of water gushing from a huge breach in the dam.

The critical Nova Kakhovka dam is the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume. It’s the last of the cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine. There are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

[snip][end]

Each side is, natch, saying the other is responsible for the damage to the dam that might cause it to collapse.

A full dam collapse could impact the nearby Zapo nuclear plant, though Ukraine claims, at the moment, they have the situation under control.

If the Russians are responsible for blowing up the dam then I'd think the Ukrainians might retaliate and do the same with a dam in Russia under the concept of proportionality.

[Motor City]

If the Russians are responsible for blowing up the dam then I'd think the Ukrainians might retaliate and do the same with a dam in Russia under the concept of proportionality.

A dam for a dam will leave the whole region damned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8_g6d-RK58
Catastrophic Flooding Feared as Critical Ukrainian Dam Is Destroyed; Zaporizhzhia Nuke Plant at Risk

Evacuation efforts are underway in southern Ukraine, where floodwaters are rising after a dam on the Dnipro River was breached overnight in the Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka. The breach has created an additional humanitarian disaster in an area that's seen heavy fighting since Russia's invasion.

Ukraine's government says floodwaters are threatening 80 towns and villages, as well as the city of Kherson, home to 300,000 people. The breach could also limit drinking water supplies across Kherson and Crimea.

Ukrainian officials accused Russia's military of deliberately sabotaging the dam, calling it an act of "ecocide," while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian artillery fire for the breach. The disaster has raised fears of a nuclear accident at Europe's largest nuclear power station, the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia plant, which is upstream of the dam breach and relies on a reservoir formed by the dam for critical cooling systems.

We go to Kyiv to speak with Olexi Pasyuk, deputy director of the Ukrainian NGO Ecoaction, to discuss the environmental implications.

[bradman]

i haven't been able to find one good reason for Ukraine to blow the dam. Seems quite the contrary actually. It hinders any kind of a Ukrainian counter offensive from Kherson into Crimea. Sounds more like a scorched earth policy on Putin's part. About the only thing that is confusing, why would Putin cut off the only water supply to an area he holds? [Crimea]

[ZoWie]

We're still trying to figure out who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Then there's the bridge to Crimea, though at least there it seems fairly doubtful that Russia would shoot itself in the foot.

One thing I learned early on about war is that shit happens. One more reason not to start them.

[bradman]

Considering the known eco disaster that was a given by blowing the dam, the danger given the nuke plant just spiked.

[ZoWie]

Russia may have forgotten that Chernobyl is in Ukraine, and the Russians were the worst losers from that little screw-up there. Prevailing winds have not changed.