Will Russia invade the Ukraine?

[Hoonercat]

Victory Day being celebrated in Russia today, perfect timing from some naughty hackers who changed the name of every programme in the Russian TV schedule to:

On your hands is the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and their hundreds of murdered children. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war

Hack.jpg (117.97 KiB) Viewed 411 times

[Hoonercat]

Drone footage of Mariupol which is said to be 80% destroyed. The mayor has claimed that 20,000 civilians have died in the city (unconfirmed)

I wonder if Russia, wanting Mariupol so badly, can afford to rebuild it.

I doubt they care about the infrastructure, other than the port facilities and the rail route linking the city to the Donetsk region and it's abundant supply of grain and energy resources. In the short term, assuming Russia continues to occupy the city, I would imagine they'd repair only the port facilities and rail lines if needed, and migrate Russian workers to temporary housing inside a military zone. The less they leave standing of the city proper, the less incentive for Ukraine to divert its overstretched military to recapture it.

[Horse]

BBC report:

Summary

Vladimir Putin tells a huge military parade in Moscow's Red Square that Russian troops in eastern Ukraine are "defending the motherland"

He says the invasion of Ukraine - what he called a "special military operation" - was necessary and had been provoked by the West

But he does not make any major announcement related to the war, including declaring victory or full-scale mobilisation

[Bwana]

Meanwhile, Siberia burns with no intervention from fire fighters (aka Russian military).

[Hoonercat]

Looks a sthough Finland will be applying to join NATO as early as next week, doubling Russia's land border with NATO countries. Oops...

[Yambo]

Unfortunately, it just gives him another opportunity to tell the Russian people that it's all NATO's fault. The Finns of course have a history of invading Russia, even getting as far as the border once.

But it also means he's going to have to move some of his forces around to counter the 'aggression'.and he hasn't got that many and he hasn't got many decent forces so talk is pretty much all he's got. Apart from nukes of course.

Think he would?

[Yorick]

Last night we had a couple come to see our apartment.
Him Italian her Russian, about 25.
Had been living in Moscow until the invasion then her and young mates fled the country.
They came here for a new life.
Her bank is frozen but his is OK in Italy.
She told me lots of stuff. Not all like I've seen here or on the news. Quite eye opening.

[Hoonercat]

A pity Finland didn't put off the decison until after Sweden. The geopgraphy means Sweden will now have a NATO country between itself and Russia, as well as NATO member Norway protecting its rear, which makes the possibilty of them joining more unlikely.

[JackyJoll]

lots of stuff.

Hey- we hardly need to go down to that level of detail!

[Yambo]

A pity Finland didn't put off the decison until after Sweden. The geopgraphy means Sweden will now have a NATO country between itself and Russia, as well as NATO member Norway protecting its rear, which makes the possibilty of them joining more unlikely.

I'd be very surprised if the Swedes took that attitude.

[Mr Moofo]

Last night we had a couple come to see our apartment.
Him Italian her Russian, about 25.
Had been living in Moscow until the invasion then her and young mates fled the country.
They came here for a new life.
Her bank is frozen but his is OK in Italy.
She told me lots of stuff. Not all like I've seen here or on the news. Quite eye opening.

Such as?

[Yambo]

Last night we had a couple come to see our apartment.
Him Italian her Russian, about 25.
Had been living in Moscow until the invasion then her and young mates fled the country.
They came here for a new life.
Her bank is frozen but his is OK in Italy.
She told me lots of stuff. Not all like I've seen here or on the news. Quite eye opening.

Such as?

Rusting T72s in Red Square.

[irie]

Emmanuel Macron has lost the plot!

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022 ... in-ukraine

Macron warns against humiliating Russia over war in Ukraine.

But Zelenskyy has said:

https://www.politico.eu/article/zelensk ... save-face/

Zelenskyy: Macron asked Ukraine to make concessions to help Putin save face

‘We won’t help Putin save face by paying with our territory,’ Ukrainian president says.

But there are increasing reports that Putin is dying, such as:

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/uk- ... s-23305021

Vladimir Putin 'has terminal illness and may be dying from cancer', ex-military source says

Vladimir Putin's health is currently being speculated and sources have alleged he has terminal cancer

So looking increasingly likely that a) Russia will lose this war and b) Putin won't be in power in 2023!

[Mussels]

Putin has had a thyroid cancer consultant travelling almost everywhere with him since 2016, it could have got worse but maybe not.
Macron has election issues, more elections next month for parliament so he's trying to win votes for his party.

Russia is going to cut off Finland's electric supply at the weekend, apparently they haven't paid their bill. Nothing to do with NATO then.

[irie]

Putin has had a thyroid cancer consultant travelling almost everywhere with him since 2016, it could have got worse but maybe not.
Macron has election issues, more elections next month for parliament so he's trying to win votes for his party.

Russia is going to cut off Finland's electric supply at the weekend, apparently they haven't paid their bill. Nothing to do with NATO then.

Macron is trying to avoid "cohabitation"*, but most likely in vain.

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohabit ... overnment)

[irie]

On Russian state television!

[Mussels]

I hadn't seen that, very blunt.
I read that Ukrainians supporting Russia in occupied places are also getting disillusioned, finding that reality isn't what they were promised.

[Yambo]

I hadn't seen it either and I'd like to watch the whole debate.

That's quite a gutsy response and I can't help feeling that Mikhail, for his honesty, is going to be labelled a traitor very quickly and will disappear for a while.

[Hoonercat]

I hadn't seen it either and I'd like to watch the whole debate.

That's quite a gutsy response and I can't help feeling that Mikhail, for his honesty, is going to be labelled a traitor very quickly and will disappear for a while.

Hard to tell with Russia, but it's quite possibly scripted to feed into the Russian siege mentality in preperation for full mobilization. Igor Girkin, the man who led the Donbas assault in 2014, has also been very critical of the Russian campaign over the past week, while making references to there not being enough Russian soldiers in Ukraine to achieve the goals.

[irie]

Putin/Russia's dilemma.

Reported that 1/3 of the Russian army in operation against Ukraine has "been lost". So of 180,000 that's 60,000, which going by previous ratios means about 40,000 dead and 20,000 injured.

The Ukrainian regular army is about 100-150,000. A further 900,000 men can be called up of which 300,000 have previously served in the Donbas.

So remaining Russian forces of perhaps 120,000 have a huge numerical disadvantage to a potential Ukrainian force of over 1 million which furthermore can be armed with highly effective Western weapons.

Russia, to try to avoid losing the war against Ukraine, would have to do a general call up and recruits would take many months to train. Such a call up would require war to be declared. But against who? Ukraine, a country with a population of 44m that hasn't set foot on Russian soil?

The economic damage would be huge as would the loss of face.

A dilemma indeed.