Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, aka "Putin's Special Operation"

[Yohan]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... 0-000.html

Ukraine's military capabilities have surprised many observers since the Russian president ordered his troops across the border on February 24, 2022.

Western intelligence has suggested that Kremlin expected its armies to seize Kyiv with a matter of days, overthrowing Volodymyr Zelensky and replacing his government with a pro-Russian administration.

This plan drastically failed. Instead, more than one year later, Russian forces find themselves fighting a brutal war of attrition in the east of Ukraine, having been pushed further and further back towards their own borders last year.

Analysts say the war - and Moscow's huge losses - have exposed the Russian army as outdated. Ukraine's figures suggest Russian casualties are many times higher than those suffered in its wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan. The UK's ministry of defence recently placed Russian casualties (killed and injured) at over 200,000.

It has also exposed Russia's reliance on antiquated Soviet-era tactics, employing slow moving, ageing armoured vehicles against a modernised Ukraine force that has used small, more mobile units with modern tech, such as drones, to stay agile.

[Yohan]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... chief.html

Putin is 'terribly scared' and 'knows he is in trouble' after a year-long conflict with Ukraine left him in 'such a psychological state he is clinging to any chance to win', says former FSB chief
Retired General Yevgeny Savostyanov gives a withering assessment of Putin
'With his own hands, he took and ruined everything,' the ex-FSB chief said

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.....leaked documents suggested that the FSB mislead Putin about his chances of victory, telling the despot that his forces would seize Kyiv in just three days, and that Ukrainians would welcome Russian soldiers with open arms.

365 days of Putin's bloodshed: A comprehensive look at how the war unfolded, how close we are to WW3 and all the key aspects of the conflict

However, today marks one year since Putin launched the invasion. Russian forces are pinned down in the east, and Volodymyr Zelensky remains president.

And while Russia has managed so far to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions, Savostyanov said thanks to Putin and his invasion of Ukraine - the Russian people 'will live very poorly no matter what - it's already inevitable'.

He predicts a move by Putin and his henchmen to pass on the presidency to an ally less toxic in the West yet a figure who will preserve 70-year-old Putin's circle, in the hope of preventing any kind of domestic revolution.

[Yohan]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... spies.html

How deluded Putin gobbled up false intelligence from his own spies: Despot believed he would seize Kyiv in just three days with thousands of Ukrainians rising up to back his invading army, leaked FSB documents reveal
Leak appears to confirm reports Putin thought his forces would take Kyiv in days
In reality, Ukraine has put up a fierce year-long defence and won key battles

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Vladimir Putin thought he could defeat Ukraine and overthrow its government in just three days, according to leaked FSB intelligence.

The Russian despot launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 - almost one year to the day - leading to tens of thousands of casualties on both sides.

The leak appears to confirm what has long been reported: Putin's spies told him his armed forces would quickly depose Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration, and that the people of Ukraine to welcome Russian soldiers with open arms.

In reality, Ukraine has since put up a fierce defence of its country. It's forces drove Russia's armies back from the capital in the first month, and have since pushed on in the north and south with lighting counteroffensives.

And one year on, Zelensky remains in power while Russian gains have been modest over the winter, which has seen a stalemate take hold in the east of Ukraine.

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In the first month of the war, the capital Kyiv saw Russian troops 19 miles from its doorstep and relentless attacks on energy infrastructure since.

Nevertheless, residents remained defiant, and the city's defenders kept the vast Russian forces at bay, who were forced to refocus their attention in the east.

There have been several explanations put forward as to why this was, including poor and slow-moving Soviet-era tactics, poor intel, ageing equipment, and the weather.

Since then, Russia has gone on to suffer as many as 200,000 casualties, as well as several humiliating single blows to the likes of its Black Sea flagship the Moskva and the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia to the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsular.

On a whole, the report suggests the Kremlin severely underestimated Ukraine.

[Yohan]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... soned.html

Putin ally Razman Kadyrov 'is seriously ill with kidney problems' as Chechen warlord fears that he has been poisoned
Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly attacked the running of the war in Ukraine
He has summoned UAE doctor because he 'does not trust' the Moscow doctor
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While Kadyrov, 46, is one of Putin's closest allies, the Chechen strongman - reportedly a father of 14 with three current wives - has strongly attacked the running of the war, especially by the Russian defence ministry and certain generals.

The claims suggest Kadyrov may have been poisoned, a fate which reportedly befell his close ally Major-General Apti Alaudinov, 50, last month in an 'attempted assassination'.

[GerardButler]

Looks like the Ukrainians have lost Bakhmut. In terms of the number of forces committed, the battle for Bakhmut is the largest battle of this war. By the end of last year there were around 27 brigades in the wider Bakhmut area. That's was about 200k soldiers (total, from both sides combined) involved. The only way out of Bakhmut right now, is a corridor to Chasiv Yar, less than 10km wide, with two roads - both of which are in range of Wagner troops - and some fields between them. Most of Ukrainian army troops already left Bakhmut, now inside the city there's around 15k soldiers: border guards, national guard, territorial defence, Georgians, etc. The only regular army unit within the boundaries of Bakhmut is the 93rd mechanized brigade or rather whatever's left of it.

[Winston]

This video is not available.

It is available.....The weird Japanese have set their Internet filters to block it.

Nonsense comment!

It's maybe locally restricted, no idea.
Or the link is not correct ...

Japan does not censor the internet.
Most Japanese don't care anyway about Russia and such documentaries in English.

It could be one of these videos maybe...
https://www.youtube.com/@frontline

There are several videos with the same titel (Putin and the Presidents) but of different content.

That video from PBS works fine. Maybe the uploader restricted it to not be seen in Japan? It's not just Japan that can filter videos. The uploader on YouTube can too.

[Yohan]

That video from PBS works fine. Maybe the uploader restricted it to not be seen in Japan? It's not just Japan that can filter videos. The uploader on YouTube can too.

@Winston

Still the same message:

Video unavailable
This video is not available

https://www.youtube.com/@frontline

Videos from this uploader are available, no problem at all. Also various videos from this 'Putin and the Presidents:' production run.
No idea why this video is not working here in Japan.

This video is likely in English, and not in Japanese and nobody here cares about such stuff here in Japan anyway.

Japan is not China. Japan does not filter anything on the internet if it is connected directly to the customer - only some WiFi stations (often owned privately by companies etc) use filters, like time-out, or do block porn sites etc. -

This video is not even available when I am using a proxy server in Europe.
Got the same message, but in German.

Video nicht verfügbar
Dieses Video ist nicht verfügbar

Also got a summary what is inside this video, but the video is not available (Video nicht verfügbar)
This response is not from Japan, but from some Youtube in the German speaking area in Europe.

Anyway I don't care about this video, but it would be interesting to know why it is not playing.

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2:21
Putin and the Fall of the Soviet Union
4:40
President Clinton Meets Russia’s New President: Vladimir Putin
8:35
Putin Sees President Bush’s Agenda to Spread Democracy as a Threat
16:38
Putin’s ‘Red Line’ & the 2008 Russian Invasion of Georgia
20:59
President Obama’s Relationship with Putin
22:52
Vice President Biden and Putin: Shaped by the Cold War
28:11
Russia Seizes Crimea From Ukraine in 2014
33:00
Russia’s Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election
35:30
Putin and President Trump
41:25
Putin, President Biden and Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine
51:27
Credits

[galii]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJr53jX6guY
HOW RUSSIA FAILED TO CAPTURE VUHLEDAR (Analysis)

[galii]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Oa5gUTego
Wagner boss warns of Russian frontline collapse

[Yohan]

80 US And German Armored Vehicles Enter Ukrainian Border

[Voyager1]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for vladimir putin. This is for war crimes committed in Ukraine. The warrant includes his accomplice Maria Lvova-Belova for the alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. To date 16k+ children mainly from the south and east of Ukraine have been deported to Russia many of them being adopted by Russian foster parents or placed in re-education camps across the country.

[Shemp]

Back when ICC talked about prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc, USA (which like Russia does not recognize ICC) said it would use extreme military force if ICC laid a hand on any US citizen. ICC quickly backed down. ICC has neither credibility nor real power.

[Yohan]

Back when ICC talked about prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc, USA (which like Russia does not recognize ICC) said it would use extreme military force if ICC laid a hand on any US citizen. ICC quickly backed down. ICC has neither credibility nor real power.

The ICC has a budget of approx. 210 million USD and is supported financially by 123 countries.

In several cases the ICC was indeed able to convince various governments to arrest some politicians and to sent them to the ICC jail. Some of them died, some were transferred to other jails ...

Of course it is all about politics... but I would be careful and not claim the ICC is without real power....

A good example in Europe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević

Milosevic was the president of Serbia and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000 and a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia, the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until 2006.

He did not expect to end up in jail ....

Milošević was arrested by Yugoslav authorities on 1 April 2001, following a 36-hour armed standoff between police and Milošević's bodyguards at his Belgrade villa. Although no official charges were made, Milošević was suspected of abuse of power and corruption.[148]

Following his arrest, the United States pressured the Yugoslav government to extradite Milošević to the ICTY or lose financial aid from the IMF and World Bank.[148] President Koštunica opposed extradition of Milošević, arguing that it would violate the Yugoslav constitution. Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić called a governmental meeting to issue a decree for extradition.[149] Milošević's lawyers appealed the extradition process to the Yugoslav constitutional court. The court requested two weeks to deliberate the appeal. Ignoring objections from the president and the constitutional court, Đinđić ordered the extradition of Milošević to the ICTY. On 28 June, Milošević was flown by helicopter from Belgrade to a US airbase in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina and from where he was then flown to The Hague, Netherlands.
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On 11 March 2006, Milošević was found dead in his prison cell in the UN war crimes tribunal's detention centre, located in the Scheveningen section of The Hague, Netherlands.

[MarcosZeitola]

The ICC move is of course one of symbolism, but not strictly symbolism; Putin will now be heavily restricted in where he can and cannot travel. It's probably the least of his worries, however; he's losing some of his finest troops at Bakhmut and the Russian economy, while by no means collapsing, has begun to shrink. Regardless of what happens, I don't see Russia ever overcoming the effects of this war. They'll never live this down. Whatever "multipolar world" Putin and Xi dreamed of... Putin just killed it. If there is ever to be a multipolar world, Putin has ensured Russia will never be one of the 'poles' in it.

[Shemp]

he's losing some of his finest troops at Bakhmut and the Russian economy, while by no means collapsing, has begun to shrink.

You don't know that. Like Yohan, you are just repeating what you read in the mainstream media and thereby proving yourself to be stupid. Its is the responsibility of all governments during wartime to constantly mix lies and truth. Tjis is psrtly to confuse the enemy, partly to keep up spirits of stupid people like you, @Vogager1 and @Yohan, not to mention the soldiers actually fighting. The only intelligent position is to keep an open mind until the war is over, and meanwhile assume everything you read is possibly a lie.

There are many possible explanations of Bakmut. One is that Russian is cleaning out their human garbage. USA could easily be improved if 3 million of the human garbage males were fed into a meat grinder and left to fertilize the soil. Since Russia is smaller, they can afford at least 1 million dead pieces of human garbage. You have no evidence that they are losing large numbers of good soldiers versus garbage from prisons.

Nor do really know what Ukraine is losing. New York Times, which is the unofficial USA propaganda outlet, has changed its reporting lately to from saying everything is great in Ukraine to saying things are very grim. Maybe things really are grim and USA is preparing to throw Ukraine under the bus. Maybe its a lie designed to trick Russia into rushing forwards into an ambush. Maybe I l the changing narrative is part of some USA political maneuvering to get Zekensky replaced. We won't know the truth until war is over, and maybe even then lies will continue.

What is beyond question is that China, Russia, Iran has overwhelming geographic advantages, given current military technology, and that USA is doomed to lose if it tries to fight this bloc. And it is also beyond question that China knows it can't afford to lose Russia and thus will backstop Russia if Russia gets in trouble. So at best Ukraine can eek out a Korean type stalemate. Only thing USA can gain is showing Chiba, Russia, Iran that it is prepared to fight hard against that bloc and thus cause China to be careful about Taiwan, etc. And USA can show its allies (Europe, Japan, etc) that it is prepared to destroy them if they dare switch sides. Of course, that second strategy might backfire and cause the allies to switch sides precisely to avoid USA punishment. So yes, there will definitely be a multipolar world. And yes, Russia will play a major role as the key to China's dominance.

Also, you don't know that Russia economy is weakening. War is not based on GDP. It is based on metals, machinery, technology. It is quite possible that Russia is developing a powerful war economy, backed by China, and that all these GDP figures are simply frivolous aspects of the economy (restaurants, luxury goods, etc) being destroyed. Or maybe Russia is falling apart internally. Governments lie during wartime, to reiterate because you need to be told things over and over to understand, because you are too slow witted to understand the first time. Russia might have some reason to lie about economic collapse, just as NY Times might be lying about Ukraine military collapse in Bakhmut.

Until war is over, assume everything you read is possible lies and you just reveal yourself to be stupid by repeating things without questioning.