Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 456 of 1104
Ukraine Theater Hit by Missile With Deaths, Dozens of Injured Reported
The missile struck the roof of the Taras Shevchenko Chernihiv Regional Academic Music and Drama Theatre as people were on their way to church to celebrate a religious holiday.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
https://www.newsweek.com/chernihiv-ukraine-theater-missile-strike-upda
te-1821072
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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20.08.2023 00:27
Ukraine has recorded 100,666 war crimes committed by Russian invaders since the full-scale invasion began.
Yurii Bielousov, the head of the Department for Combating Crimes in Armed Conflict of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said this during a discussion entitled "Genocide as a crime. How to punish the guilty?" according to an Ukrinform correspondent.
"Our task is to record as much as possible everything that is happening in our country - every shelling attack, murder, case of deportation of our children, sex crimes, so that we do not lose evidence. To date, we have already recorded 100,666 war crimes since the full-scale invasion began," Bielousov said.
Ukrainian MP Mustafa Dzhemilev added that the current Russian policy on the occupied Crimean peninsula, like 240 years ago, is aimed at displacing the indigenous people and settling the territory with Russians.
"According to our estimates, at least one million Russian citizens were settled there," he said.
More at https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3750253-ukraine-records-over-1000
00-war-crimes-committed-by-russian-invaders.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:SECOND is also a liar, with no moral code.
Originally posted by SIGNYM
SECOND is an idiot. QED.
SECOND: There is the little thing the Russians have about threatening to nuke the world if Russians don't get what they want in Ukraine.
QED.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Signym, history is so boring, but even Stalin threatened to nuke the world. Never has a Russian skipped the chance to remind the world of Russian nukes. What makes the threats believable is that Russians killed 4 million Ukrainians and 64 million Russians. Russians deny anybody died. "How dare you accuse us?" is a typical Russian reply when the murder rampage is mentioned.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:SECOND is also a liar, with no moral code.
Originally posted by SIGNYM
SECOND is an idiot. QED.
SECOND: There is the little thing the Russians have about threatening to nuke the world if Russians don't get what they want in Ukraine.
QED.
Medvedev says Russia could use nuclear weapon if Ukraine’s fightback succeeds in latest threat
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/31/europe/medvedev-russia-nuclear-weapons-
intl-hnk/index.html
Putin says Russia put nuclear bombs in Belarus as warning to West
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-russia-positions-nucle
ar-bombs-belarus-warning-west-2023-06-16/
A top Russian security official warned Thursday about the rising threat of a nuclear war and blasted a German minister for threatening Russian President Vladimir Putin with arrest, saying that such action would amount to a declaration of war and trigger a Russian strike on Germany.
https://apnews.com/article/medvedev-nuclear-putin-arrest-warrant-germa
ny-ukraine-6dcde92e06f41a7c5cb7386f7939df33
A Kremlin insider warned Thursday that Russia could start a nuclear war if it lost its conventional war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, made the threat in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
“The loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war,” Medvedev wrote in a post criticizing Western powers ahead of a Friday meeting in Germany to discuss further military support for Ukraine.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/19/russia-threatens-nuclear-war-if-it-loses
-in-ukraine/
Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that he won’t hesitate to use nuclear weapons to ward off Ukraine’s attempt to reclaim control of Moscow-occupied areas that the Kremlin is about to annex.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-real-are-putins-nuclear-threats
-to-ukraine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse
War in Ukraine has aggravated a crisis that long predates the conflict
A DEMOGRAPHIC TRAGEDY is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women now outnumber men by at least 10m.
War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.
The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with 149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. It was 145m in 2021 (that figure, from the UN, excludes the 2.4m people of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and incorporated into its national accounts). According to UN projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years, if current patterns persist. That would make Russia the 15th-most-populous country in the world, down from sixth in 1995. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer who used to work for the state statistics service, if you look just at peacetime years, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century. April was a particularly cruel month, but it was a revealing glimpse of a chronic problem.
Population decline is not unique to Russia: most post-communist states have seen dips, though not like this. Their declines have been slow but also manageable. Russia’s population in recent decades has seen a precipitous slump, then a partial recovery (thanks to a period of high immigration from parts of the ex-Soviet Union and more generous child allowances after 2007), followed by a renewed fall.
According to the state statistics agency, in 2020 and 2021 combined the country’s population declined by 1.3m; deaths outstripped births by 1.7m. (The UN also shows a fall, but it is shallower.) The decline was largest among ethnic Russians, whose number, the census of 2021 said, fell by 5.4m in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%. So much for Mr Putin’s boast to be expanding the Russki mir (Russian world).
All this began before the war and reflects Russia’s appalling covid pandemic. The official death toll from the disease was 388,091, which would be relatively low; but The Economist estimates total excess deaths in 2020-23 at between 1.2m and 1.6m. That would be comparable to the number in China and the United States, which have much larger populations. Russia may have had the largest covid death toll in the world after India, and the highest mortality rate of all, with 850-1,100 deaths per 100,000 people.
If you add pandemic mortality to the casualties of war and the flight from mobilisation, Russia lost between 1.9m and 2.8m people in 2020-23 on top of its normal demographic deterioration. That would be even worse than during the disastrous early 2000s, when the population was falling by roughly half a million a year.
What might that mean for Russia’s future? Demography is not always destiny; and Russia did for a while begin to reverse its decline in the mid-2010s. The impact of population change is often complex, as Russia’s military mobilisation shows. The decline in the number of ethnic Russians of call-up age (which is being raised from 18-27 to 21-30) wil
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How two new munitions could affect the war in Ukraine
GLSDB and ATACMS have long strike ranges that Ukraine badly wants
FIRST IT WAS tanks. Then it was fighter jets. Then cluster bombs. Since Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukraine has secured a range of hardware that Western allies were at first reluctant to give. Two items that remain on its wish-list are a pair of weapons for long-range precision bombing: the clunkily named GLSDB (or Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb) and ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System, pronounced “attack-ems”). America has promised to send Ukraine the GLSDB, but they have yet to arrive. Ukraine has also asked for the ATACMS, but its request has not been granted. What are these weapons capable of, and how might they affect Ukraine’s flagging counter-offensive?
Start with the GLSDB. The system consists of a rocket from which a glider bomb with pop-out wings detaches at altitude. Its 113kg fragmentation warhead can “hit within the radius of a car tyre” as far as 150km away, according to Saab, the Swedish defence contractor that, along with Boeing, an American firm, produces the munition. The GLSDB is fired from mobile launchers such as HIMARS, an American system that Ukraine received last year. The rockets Ukraine is currently firing from these launchers have a maximum range of 84km, a little over half that of the GLSDB. In addition to greater reach, the new munition has a programmable fuse with options that include aerial blast (meaning that it would detonate in the air in order, for example, to kill more infantry) and delayed detonation (which would occur, say, after penetrating a concrete structure).
GLSDBs can manoeuvre in flight, so they can hit targets in different areas without repositioning the launcher. Saab claims that the munition can knock out targets on a hillside’s “reverse slope” that cannot be struck by direct fire. The GLSDB’s GPS guidance is backed up by onboard inertial navigation, which is immune to jamming. That is important now that Russian electronic warfare is causing problems with the guidance of some Ukrainian weapons.
The ATACMS also launches from a mobile rocket launcher. It is older than the GLSDB, having been first used by America’s army in the Gulf war of 1991. Despite also using GPS and inertial navigation, the ATACMS is not quite as accurate as the GLSDB. But its 227kg fragmentation warheads are twice as heavy, meaning that they can do more damage. And it can fly 300km, double the GLSDB’s range.
Of the two, the ATACMS would probably be of more help to Ukraine, which badly needs weapons that can carry out long-range strikes. Its few crewed warplanes are vulnerable to Russia’s air defences, making deep forays highly risky. Russian forces have moved many of their ammunition dumps farther back from the front, following early losses, to render them inaccessible to many weapons. The ATACMS would allow Ukraine to hammer targets across all of the territory Russia occupies, including Crimea, the peninsula seized in 2014. It could be used to hit Russian supply lines, including the rail-and-road Kerch Bridge that links Crimea to Russia and which has been struck twice by unknown means.
Of course, even the shorter-range GLSDBs would be a welcome addition to Ukraine’s firepower. But it is not clear when its army will get them. America said in February that it would provide the munition, but on June 22nd a Pentagon official told Congress that the first delivery would not arrive before autumn. One worry is that supplies appear to be limited. America’s plans to supply GLSDBs to Ukraine will reportedly delay delivery of the weapon to Taiwan. ATACMS would be important in any war with North Korea. But even if supplies were plentiful, the White House is also concerned about escalation. Ukraine promises it would not fire American weapons into Russia. Joe Biden, America’s president, is not yet convinced. When asked on July 12th, he played down the issue: “They already have the equivalent of ATACMS now.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20230819233404/https://www.eco
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Putin’s War Is Unleashing a Crisis Back Home in Russia
Pulled out of the brutal prison system and thrown straight into frontline battles where ex-convicts are treated as little more than cannon fodder by Russian generals or Wagner commanders, huge numbers have died on the battlefield. Those who survive are horrifically traumatized.
Several of them have already been accused of gruesome crimes on their return to civilian life. Ivan Rossomakhin, 28, was reportedly accused of murder during an eight-day break back home in the Kirov region after joining the Wagner Group from prison where he had been sentenced to 14 years for murder.
Locals said he had been stumbling around the village, with a pitchfork and ax, making wild threats, “I’ll kill everyone! I’ll cut up a whole family!” No one was able to stop him before he allegedly killed a woman.
Another convicted killer who was released to go fight in Ukraine has been arrested in connection with the murder of six civilians after he served his stint in the war. Igor Sofonov, 37, was reportedly released from prison to join Storm Z, which is the defense ministry’s state-backed version of the Wagner ex-prisoner brigades.
His six alleged victims were found in two burning buildings in the village of Derevyannoye.
Much more at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-putin-s-war-is-unleashing-a-c
risis-back-home-in-russia/ar-AA1fuYiU
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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If you want to know what's happening in minute detail, updated twice a day, I once again recommend Military Summary Channel which you can find on YouTube by searching under that name.
Here is the latest update:
From what I gather from various sources, Ukraine has committed it's last reserve battalion, the 82nd, to advance in the Rabotino area. The 82nd is an elite rapid strike force, all-NATO armed and trained. Less heavy weaponry, mostly MRAPs and IFVs to close the distance to Russian defenses as fast as possible. Backed, at this point, by a couple of tank battalions. They have advanced into the northern end of Rabotino.
A sideways comment: Russia rarely acknowledges losses. They tend to provide videos of their destruction of Ukrainian weaponry. But if you find that they are actively striking areas that they had previously occupied, you can deduce that Ukraine has moved into that position. Meanwhile Russia is advancing in the north.
According to MSC, Ukraine dropped cluster munitions on Dontesk City and killed some civilians.
Also according to MSC, Russia struck a civilian building in which Russia claims a meeting/expo of drone manufacturers attended by Ukrainian and NATO officers, and many officers and tech people were killed. Ukraine claims it was just a civilian centers.
Starting Sept 1, posting videos from the frontline will be illegal in Russia. Dima:s interpretation is that it is to hide Russian prep for an offensive.
*****
So thinking ahead, "everyone" seems to think a Russian offensive is coming, the only questions are - when, where, and how big?
IMHO the offensive, assuming there is one, will be designed to collapse the Ukrainian army quickly, and force a surrender.
In order to do that, the Ukrainian army must be ground down as much as possible. This is where the General Staff has a huge advantage over us onlookers. I'll bet they have a pretty good idea of where Ukraine is going to reach a critical shortage first. Long-range missiles? Air defenses? Armored vehicles? Shells? Men? Fuel? Intel?
Not reported in Western press is that Russia has been striking all the way to Lvov, hitting NATO command centers (and commanders and advisors) and concentrations of volunteer forces. Russia has also been attriting ammo and fuel depots, western weapons, air defenses, and drone centers.
Another thing to consider is the west's delivery of NUCLEAR CAPABLE F-16s. Russians don't probably give a fig about Abrams tanks. They're likely to be much more sensitive about long range missiles and extremely sensitive about nuclear capable jets. IF the west is serious about giving Ukraine F-16 capability, they will have already realized that Ukraine will never be able to launch and fly, and the west will have to use NATO runways and NATO pilots, which would be a huge escalation.
OTOH, it's possible that the west is stalling delivery in the hopes that by then Zelenskiy will have lost the war and they won't have to make good on their promises. It's hard to know what the west will do bc every time they say they won't provide this or that weapon, that's exactly what they wind up doing.
So IMHO Russia isn't going to give the west a chance to follow thru. Advancing in the autumn mud night not be practical, but once the ground freezes over might be opportune.
So... Where? Needs more thought.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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BIG SERGE: Götterdämmerung in the East
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/gotterdammerung-in-the-east
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Why Russia's War in Ukraine Could Run for Years
Story by Marcus Walker
Russia’s war on Ukraine is in danger of becoming a protracted struggle that lasts several more years. The reason isn’t just that the front-line combat is a slow-moving slog, but also that none of the main actors have political goals that are both clear and attainable.
Ukraine’s central war aim—restoring its territorial integrity—is the clearest, but appears a distant prospect given the limits of Western support. The U.S. and key European allies such as Germany want to prevent Russia from winning, but fear the costs and risks of helping Ukraine to full victory. Some Western officials are sketching out grand bargains to end the war, but they fit neither Kyiv’s nor Moscow’s goals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declared aims are the most elastic, ranging from ambitious imperial schemes to more limited land grabs, and shifting with Russia’s military fortunes. His long-term objective of bringing Ukraine back under Moscow’s sway looks unrealistic now, but Ukrainians believe he would treat smaller gains as mere steppingstones, rendering treacherous any peace based on concessions.
President Biden has said the goal of U.S. aid is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for eventual peace negotiations, without saying under what conditions it should negotiate. Earlier this year, Washington, Berlin and others hoped a chance for talks would open up this fall, if Kyiv’s counteroffensive made significant progress against Russian occupation forces in Ukraine’s south and east.
But throughout the war, strengthening Ukraine with decisive firepower has clashed with another, overriding Western priority: to avoid uncontrolled escalation that leads to a direct war with Russia or to Putin using nuclear weapons.
The speed limit on aid for Ukraine has been evident in the West’s months-long debates over whether to supply tanks, planes and long-range missiles. Ukrainian troops’ limited weaponry, including air power and air defenses, has contributed to their heavy losses throughout the war, and to their painfully slow progress this summer against Russia’s fortified lines in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. U.S. intelligence assessments are now pessimistic about whether Ukrainian forces can break through Russian defenses and reach the coast, a key strategic aim for Kyiv.
A drawback of the U.S.’s incremental approach to military aid: Without a battlefield breakthrough, Kyiv doesn’t want to negotiate peace—and Moscow doesn’t have to.
“By structuring our approach around the goal of no escalation, around what we don’t want to happen, the U.S. has set itself up for a drawn-out conflict,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. “You end up in a strange middle ground where you’re not necessarily able to accomplish that second goal of putting Ukraine in a position of strength that makes negotiations possible.”
The muddle over Western aims was illustrated this past week when a senior official of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization spoke publicly about an idea that European diplomats have been debating: that Ukraine give up Russian-occupied territory in return for joining NATO to protect what’s left. The suggestion drew an angry dismissal from Ukraine, which says its borders aren’t for bartering. The NATO official apologized, reverting to the West’s public line that only Ukraine can define acceptable peace terms.
In private, many Western officials don’t think the U.S. and its allies can leave it to Kyiv alone to define the goal. Ukraine’s maximalist aims, they fear, guarantee an endless war. They would like to offer Ukraine carrots to accept the de facto loss of some territory, such as NATO or European Union membership or promises of long-term military and economic aid.
The thinking stems from an eagerness to contain a conflict whose shock waves have been felt across the global economy, uncertainty about how long Western voters will support the current levels of aid for Kyiv and d
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