Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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The political leadership in Ukraine showing how stupid they are:
Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers
By Isabelle Khurshudyan and Anastacia Galouchka | February 8, 2024 at 3:17 p.m. EST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/ukraine-soldiers-short
age-infantry-russia/
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.
In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.
One battalion commander in a mechanized brigade fighting in eastern Ukraine said that his unit currently has fewer than 40 infantry troops — the soldiers deployed in front-line trenches who hold off Russian assaults. A fully equipped battalion would have more than 200, the commander said.
Another commander in an infantry battalion of a different brigade said his unit is similarly depleted.
The soldiers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and could face retribution for their comments.
The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday replaced his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny. While their relationship had long been tense, in recent weeks one chief disagreement has been over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize. Zelensky elevated Oleksandr Syrsky, the 58-year-old commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, to replace Zaluzhny.
The Ukrainian presidential office declined to comment, referring questions to the Defense Ministry, which in turn referred questions to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff. The General Staff did not respond to a request for comment.
Zaluzhny told Zelensky that Ukraine needs nearly 500,000 new troops, according to two people familiar with the matter, but the president has pushed back on that figure privately and publicly. Zelensky has said he wants more justification from Ukraine’s military leadership about why so many conscripts are needed and has also expressed concern about how Kyiv would pay them.
Financial assistance from Western partners cannot be used to pay soldier salaries, and Ukraine’s budget is already under strain, with a $60 billion aid package proposed by President Biden stalled in Congress. The European Union last week approved roughly $54 billion in aid after it was delayed for weeks by opposition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The debate in Kyiv about mobilization — and to what degree the country should ramp it up — has angered soldiers on the front line.
Oleksandr, a battalion commander, said the companies in his unit on average are staffed at about 35 percent of what they should be. A second battalion commander from an assault brigade said that is typical for units that carry out combat tasks.
Asked how many new soldiers he has received — not including those who have returned after injuries — Oleksandr said his battalion was sent five people over the past five months. He and other commanders said the new recruits tend to be poorly trained, creating a dilemma about whether to send someone immediately onto the battlefield because reinforcements are needed so badly, even though they are likely to get injured or killed because they lack the know-how.
“The basis of everything is the lack of people,” Oleksandr said.
“Where are we going? I don’t know,” he added. “There’s no positive outlook. Absolutely none. It’s going to end in a lot of death, a global failure. And most likely, I think, the front will collapse somewhere like it did for t
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Oh, I see the NEW narrative is "blame the Ukrainians".
This couldn't possibly have been a neocon miscalculation!
Son, Ukraine was never gonna win, no matter how good or bad their leadership. Their big mistake came right at the beginning: being America's "friend" (i.e. patsy).
-----------
"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:Those dumb Ukrainians still don't have a plan for how to knock down the bridge across the Crimean Straits. The political leadership didn't spend the money on buying or building what was needed to destroy the bridge. These are not people who think clearly and far ahead about something that should have happened the first week of this war. The Russians aren't any better at planning. In contrast, the USA had an early detailed plan to win WWII, including nuking civilians.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, I see the NEW narrative is "blame the Ukrainians".
This couldn't possibly have been a neocon miscalculation!
Son, Ukraine was never gonna win, no matter how good or bad their leadership. Their big mistake came right at the beginning: being America's "friend" (i.e. patsy).
Even today, the Russians keep claiming they could have won WWII alone. The world will allow the retarded Russians their self-delusions about Russian military competence but the world saw how that worked: Russians died by the tens of millions because average Russians could not plan ahead worth a damn. Final death toll: USA 418,500 / Russia doesn't know to nearest 10 million how many died. Russians still worry about being killed. They should be worried. They still can't plan worth a damn because millions of the smartest Russians, the ones with foresight, emigrated starting before WWI, leaving behind those with less-than-average intelligence. Stalin's killing of tens of millions of the most energetic/intelligent Russians damaged Russia's future into the 21st century.
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 puts Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, on wanted list
By Pjotr Sauer | Tue 13 Feb 2024 07.04 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/13/russia-puts-estonian-pri
me-minister-kaja-kallas-on-wanted-list
Moscow has put the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and other Baltic states officials on a wanted list, as Tallinn warns of an imminent Russian military buildup along its border.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the Estonian state secretary, Taimar Peterkop; the Lithuanian culture minister, Simonas Kairys, and Kallas were accused of “destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers”, a reference to the removal of Soviet-era second world war memorials
“This is only the start,” Zakharova wrote on her telegram channel. “Crimes against the memory of the world’s liberators from nazism and fascism must be prosecuted.” The exact charges against the three have not been revealed by Russian authorities.
Moscow has placed multiple senior Kyiv officials and generals on its wanted list since the start of the Ukraine war, but Kallas is the first known government head to be sought by Moscow.
The Estonian prime minister has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine, leading efforts to increase military assistance to Kyiv and tighten sanctions against Russia.
Moscow’s decision to add Kallas to its wanted list will further increase tension in the region at a time when many western capitals have sounded the alarm over a growing military threat from Russia.
When asked on Tuesday by reporters about Kallas, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said that the Estonian leader “took hostile acts against our country and historical memory”.
The removal of Soviet-era monuments has been a delicate issue in Estonia, a former Soviet republic from 1944 until 1991 where nearly a quarter of the population of 1.3 million people are ethnic Russians.
The process has accelerated since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, with Kallas pledging to remove all communist monuments in public spaces. “We have decided … Soviet monuments must be removed from public spaces and we will do it as quickly as possible,” Kallas said in the summer of 2022 when officials removed a Soviet tank memorial from Narva, a largely Russian-speaking city close to the Russian border.
Estonia has been anxious to avoid some of the unrest it faced in 2007 after it removed a statue in Tallinn known as the Bronze Soldier, which led to two nights of rioting and looting, followed by a major cyber-attack that Estonian officials pinned on Russia.
The country has also moved to counter pro-Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine by banning from cable television four Russian television channels, a major source of news for many older ethnic Russians.
Tensions remain high and on Tuesday, Estonia’s foreign intelligence service warned Russia intended to double the number of its troops stationed along its border with the Baltic states and Finland as part of preparations for a potential military conflict with Nato within the next 10 years.
Kaupo Rosin, the director general of the Estonian service, told reporters ahead of his agency publishing its annual report: “Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation … and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with Nato within the next decade or so.
“We will highly likely see an increase of manpower, about doubling perhaps. We will see an increase in armed personnel carriers, tanks, artillery systems over the coming years.”
Rosin said that a military attack by Russia was “highly unlikely” in the short term, partly because Russia had to keep troops in Ukraine, but Rosin called on Europe to get prepared by rearming.
“If we are not prepared, the likelihood [of a military Russian attack] would be much higher than without any preparation,” Rosin added.
In an interview with the conservative journalist Tucker Carlson last week, Putin dismissed western warnings, saying that his country has “no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywher
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NATO General Raises Prospect of New Nuclear Power
By Brendan Cole | Feb 12, 2024 at 10:32 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/poland-general-russia-nuclear-kraszewski-1869
036
NATO member Poland should eventually get nuclear weapons as a security measure, a top Polish general has said.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has been a key supporter of Kyiv and has warned of the danger posed by the Kremlin, which has made repeated nuclear threats.
Brigadier General Jaroslaw Kraszewski told Polish media outlet RMF FM that if Warsaw had nuclear weapons it would deter possible aggression because "those who possess nuclear capabilities have a very high level of security."
Kraszewski said that Poland's armed forces had been modernized significantly since the country joined NATO in 1999 and that Warsaw had always shown its support for the alliance's actions in acting against threats to its borders.
He was asked about an article in British magazine The Spectator headlined "It's time to give Poland nuclear weapons," by Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/its-time-to-give-poland-nuclear-we
apons/
Rohac argued that the prospect of Donald Trump winning the U.S. election could endanger NATO's deterrence given his rhetoric criticizing the alliance.
"Trump-proofing the security of Eastern Europe, few measures would be as effective as arming the largest country of the region — Poland — with nuclear weapons," the Op-Ed said.
Kraszewski described such a scenario "as very real," according to a translation.
"Those who possess nuclear capabilities have a very high level of security," he said. "Usually, such countries are not attacked and the possibility of any action aimed at provoking a local crisis is not even considered. That is why I see having such an arsenal as a challenge in the coming years. I hope it will come to that."
When asked about a time frame, he said there would be a resumption of negotiations on the arrangement of nuclear forces in the world after the war in Ukraine.
"Western Europe is fed up with being intimidated by Russia," he said, describing Moscow as an "unpredictable neighbor."
Newsweek has contacted the Polish foreign ministry for comment.
In September 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Warsaw had asked the U.S. for nuclear weapons to be stationed in Poland because of the perceived threat posed by Russia, which has deployed such arms to neighboring Belarus.
Warsaw has said that no progress has been made towards hosting nuclear weapons in Poland.
In reporting Kraszewski's comments, Russian state news agency TASS said Poland's National Security Bureau chief, Jacek Siewiera, had dodged the issue of nuclear weapons during an interview with newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
It said he had avoided answering a question about whether Warsaw would strike a deal with the U.S. to place such weapons in Poland under the NATO Nuclear Sharing program.
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:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, I see the NEW narrative is "blame the Ukrainians".
This couldn't possibly have been a neocon miscalculation!
Son, Ukraine was never gonna win, no matter how good or bad their leadership. Their big mistake came right at the beginning: being America's "friend" (i.e. patsy).
SECOND: Those dumb Ukrainians still don't have a plan for how to knock down the bridge across the Crimean Straits.
THAT is an great example of neocon miscalculation. THE CRIMEAN BRIDGE DOESNT MATTER. SURELY by now you've heard of the "land bridge" to Crimea? A robust series of rail and road lines across the newly acquired Mariupol region? THAT is what carries materiel to the front, not the Crimean bridge.
Yanno, ever since this whole thing started in 2014, your neocon sources have been grossly miscalculating. They didn't take into account the SIGNIFICANT minority (roughly 35 pct) of Rusian speaking Ukrainians who made up the bulk of anti-Kiev forces in the Donbas. They thought they could lie and cheat and break promises. Cross red lines without consequence. Because they truly believed that Russians were barely civilized orcs, that Russia was just "a gas station masquerading as a country", that the Russian army was fragmeneted and unmotivated, that Moscow fifth columnists would overthrow the hated Putin. Etc. Etc.
You, SECOND, have reposted every negative meme, every underestimation, every lie about Russia. And now that those lies are blowing up in your face I couldn't be happier. Bc I hate liars.
Meanwhile I was keeping an eye on Russia's preparation for being kicked off SWIFT, its developing relationships with China and Iran, its military rebuild and development of never-before seen weapons.
I believe that there were many tense months in the Kremlin. They TRULY did not want to wage a large scale war. That's why they bluffed Kiev and were ready to negotiate. Their army wasn't up to strength and, mostly, they were worried about SWIFT. Because the one thing Russians ARE sensitive to is a possible return to the economic crisis they experienced under USA tutelage 1990-2000.
But they had been preparing for decades, literally, for the time when the USA would attempt to destabilize them (again) and they prevailed.
All of that was invisible to you bc you live in a dark and twisted fantasy.
-----------
"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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Dozens of Russian Aircraft Have Mysteriously Disappeared/Reappearing in Ukraine
Published Feb 12, 2024 at 10:00 AM EST
The Ministry of Transport audited Rosaviatsiya's records of civil aircraft in July 2023, and inconsistencies led to the criminal investigations, Izvestia reported. Employees of the Federal Air Transport Agency "removed" aircraft from a register of civil assets "without complete sets of documents, provided contradictory and unreliable information about the location of aircraft outside Russia," according to the newspaper, citing a Ministry of Transport spokesperson.
Russia's domestic security service, the FSB, is looking into allegations that Moscow's Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, sent Russian civil aircraft and helicopters to nations including "unfriendly countries," state-backed Russian newspaper, Izvestia, reported on Monday.
"The Federal Security Service opened two criminal cases — negligence and abuse of power — against several employees of the Federal Air Transport Agency," according to Izvestia. The employees are "suspected of illegally removing 59 planes and helicopters from Russian jurisdiction" after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, the newspaper reported.
A number of the unaccounted-for aircraft were used by Ukraine in military operations against Russia, Izvestia reported, citing two anonymous Russian law enforcement sources and an unnamed source in Moscow's transport ministry.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-helicopters-aircraft-missing-fsb-inves
tigation-rosaviatsiya-1869107
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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Signym, you are writing fantasies, with no facts behind your stories.
Quote:Signym, one thing makes Russia unique: it is the millions of murders of Russians by Russians. This is a fact that Russians cannot understand about themselves. It drives them crazy. It makes them dangerous to all neighboring countries. 62 million murders caused the best Russians to emigrate or die, leaving mentally damaged Russians to run the country.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THAT is an great example of neocon miscalculation. THE CRIMEAN BRIDGE DOESNT MATTER. SURELY by now you've heard of the "land bridge" to Crimea? A robust series of rail and road lines across the newly acquired Mariupol region? THAT is what carries materiel to the front, not the Crimean bridge.
Yanno, ever since this whole thing started in 2014, your neocon sources have been grossly miscalculating. They didn't take into account the SIGNIFICANT minority (roughly 35 pct) of Rusian speaking Ukrainians who made up the bulk of anti-Kiev forces in the Donbas. They thought they could lie and cheat and break promises. Cross red lines without consequence. Because they truly believed that Russians were barely civilized orcs, that Russia was just "a gas station masquerading as a country", that the Russian army was fragmeneted and unmotivated, that Moscow fifth columnists would overthrow the hated Putin. Etc. Etc.
You, SECOND, have reposted every negative meme, every underestimation, every lie about Russia. And now that those lies are blowing up in your face I couldn't be happier. Bc I hate liars.
Meanwhile I was keeping an eye on Russia's preparation for being kicked off SWIFT, its developing relationships with China and Iran, its military rebuild and development of never-before seen weapons.
I believe that there were many tense months in the Kremlin. They TRULY did not want to wage a large scale war. That's why they bluffed Kiev and were ready to negotiate. Their army wasn't up to strength and, mostly, they were worried about SWIFT. Because the one thing Russians ARE sensitive to is a possible return to the economic crisis they experienced under USA tutelage 1990-2000.
But they had been preparing for decades, literally, for the time when the USA would attempt to destabilize them (again) and they prevailed.
All of that was invisible to you bc you live in a dark and twisted fantasy.
1 61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered, 1917-1987
2 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period, 1917-1922
3 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928
4 11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period, 1929-1935
5 4,345,000 Victims: The Great Terror Period 1936-1938
6 5,104,000 Victims: Pre-World War II Period 1939-June 1941
7 13,053,000 Victims: World War II Period, June 1941-1945
8 15,613,000 Victims: Postwar and Stalin’s Twilight Period. 1945-1953
9 6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period, 1954-1987
From the book Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from http://libgen.is/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel
https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder-ebook/dp
/B073RQ94KF/
Russia murdered 4 million Ukrainians in Holodomor, damaging the mental health of Ukrainians as much or more as the Russians murdering each other damaged their own mental health. The effect continues today, with Russians still murdering and torturing more Ukrainians.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Holodomor
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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The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank stated on February 12 that Russia is likely able to sustain its current rate of vehicle losses for at least two to three years by producing new vehicles and reactivating vehicles from storage.[64] IISS estimated that Russia has lost over 3,000 armored fighting vehicles in 2023 and close to 8,000 armored fighting vehicles since February 2022. IISS stated that Russia likely reactivated at least 1,180 main battle tanks and about 2,470 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers pulled from storage in 2023. IISS stated that Russia has 10 Central Tank Reserve Bases, at least 37 mixed equipment and armaments storage bases, and at least 12 artillery storage bases. Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko stated on February 11 that Russia’s reported tank production numbers in recent years largely reflect restored and modernized tanks drawn from storage rather than new production.[65]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-13-2024
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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The Kremlin appears to be asserting the right to enforce Russian Federation law on officials of governments in NATO member states over actions taken in the performance of their official duties within the territories of their own countries. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has put dozens of government officials from NATO countries on Russia’s wanted list because of alleged violations of Russian federal law committed outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Russian opposition outlet Mediazona stated on February 13 that it gained access to the MVD’s wanted list and that the Russian MVD put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop, Latvian Justice Minister Inese Libina-Egnere, Latvian Finance Minister Arvils Aseradens, Latvian Agricultural Minister Armands Krauze, and former Latvian Interior Minister Marija Golubeva on the wanted list for allegedly destroying Soviet monuments in Estonia and Latvia — which Kremlin newswire TASS confirmed.[23] Mediazona stated that 59 Lithuanian Seimas deputies, 15 Riga municipal deputies, Lithuanian Mayor of Klaipeda Arvydas Vaitkus, Vaitkus’s deputy, 13 members of the Klaipeda city council, six deputies of the Vilnius city council, Polish Mayor of Walbrzych Roman Szelemey, and Polish Deputy Minister of State Assets Karol Rabenda also appear on the Russian MVD’s wanted list in connection with the destruction of Soviet monuments in the Baltic states and Poland.[24] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov stated the Baltic officials are wanted for “hostile actions against historical memory and Russia.”[25] Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Kallas is “actively pursuing a policy of demolishing monuments and mocking the memory of Soviet soldiers” and that she must be held accountable for “blasphemy.”[26] Zakharova called on Russian law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations “within the framework of their powers and responsibilities in accordance with the legislation of Russia.” Zakharova claimed that the officials must “answer for their crimes” and that “this is just the beginning.”[27]
Article 243 of the Russian Criminal Code states that the destruction or damage of cultural heritage sites and monuments is punishable by up to six years in prison.[28] Russia, however, does not have the legal authority to prosecute foreign citizens for allegedly violating Russian laws in foreign states. Russia has notably used the issue of Soviet monuments to justify hybrid warfare tactics against NATO countries in the past when Russia launched large-scale cyberattacks against Estonia in 2007 after Estonia moved a Soviet World War II war memorial and the remains of Soviet soldiers from central Tallinn to the Tallinn Defense Cemetery.[29] Although it is unclear if the Russian government had planned to publicize its inclusion of the European officials on the list before Mediazona disclosed this information, this may be part of ongoing Russian effort to set informational conditions justifying possible Russian escalations against NATO states in the future, as ISW has extensively reported.[30] The Kremlin has also invoked narratives related to the historical memory of World War II to justify and sustain its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[31]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-13-2024
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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